This post of the electric poinsettia is inspired by Leanne Cole Photography Playing With Light post. Thanks Leanne. I had the students work with the same method and it was a lot of fun. Bringing the light to the front helped the foil reflect the penlight.
The weekly challenge: illumination by Cheri Lucas is a great one for this time of year.
2008 Cathedral of Learning Festival of Lights
Laura noticed a box of Junior Mints (mailed right in their original box) in a post she saw on Pinterest!
Now I have a Pinterest account but don’t really know what to do with it but she saw the mailing of the box of candy, the size you might have gotten at a movie theatre years ago.
Slap a label on it and head to the Post Office and they didn’t blink an eye. Just asked if the contents were hazardous, liquid, flammable or fragile? There is a whole listing at Pinterest of fun things to mail.
(It reminded me of when her brother Mark sent her a coconut from Hawaii when he was stationed in USMC. A coconut with stamps!)
By the way, Laura told me on the phone tonight that eating Malted Milk Balls gives her the chills, like fingernails on the blackboard, the texture of them makes her cringe.
But she remembers it was the candy of my choice when I was in high school. A good friend and I could’ve choked to death, loading our mouths with them, seeing how many we could fit in at once. Seriously.
I tasted a couple tonight and the coating tasted a bit like I imagine car wax to taste and the inside seemed a bit stale, dry and sandy and less enjoyable or flavorful as I remember loving malted milk balls. My taste buds must have changed.
But they were fun to receive and shake the box and think about her mailing them to me right in the box! Thanks for the fun in the mail, Laura. A terrific post holiday pick-me-up!
Hard to see them in the first photo.
My daughter -in- law was driving and I was the passenger. Shot from a moving van. They are walking above the Alum Creek Reservoir.
Oh there they are!
From the wedding archives- a little more than 3 years ago. Chair sash and flower girl.
The matching satin bows caught my eye.
I have posted photographs of the mill at night before, and in the winter the leaves are off the trees so I can get a nice shot from West Mifflin hill, near VistaView Street. I think there are four Christmas light decorations on it this time.
This photo is looking across the Monongahela River to Braddock.
Many family members of blog followers have worked in the mills of Pittsburgh. This is the last mill.
Click to see the earlier view from the blog in April 2010. I liked reading that post because my friend Dorothy H. wrote a comment on the blog post about a poem she wrote in response to another mill photo I took. The mill is endlessly fascinating to me, the smoke always different shapes. The cloud cover affecting the light at night. The snow. The darkness.
I remember a class in photography suggested to return to the same subject, a different season, a different time of day, but the same location. Close to it.
Guess I am doing that assignment again and again.
and this view is farther up the hill, with the naked trees on the right.
This week’s challenge is a good one for the new year. Have you ever kept a resolution? Hmmmm.
Resolved to-> Eat healthy, exercise more, just exercise some, get organized, read more books etc etc. etc. blah blah blah.
I thought I would choose something manageable. Concrete. Simple. Something i could actually accomplish.
I am not good with resolutions. Keeping them, that is.
The pile of accumulated mail? NAH! Clean out the freezer? the pantry, my closet? NAH Polish the silver? NAH
So I came up with a resolution I think is a good one –
I resolved to not buy any more yarn. Finish all the projects I’ve started. Use all the yarn in the stash.
Does anyone else have this bad habit of starting new projects and not finishing the old ones? I should go around and photograph people’s yarn stashes?
I decided to finish the second sock of the pair I started at least 7 seven years ago. And then Stef helped me out. She sent the guest blog of the retro soup cans on Saturday. And after Maura and Muprhy left to return to Columbus on Sunday I finished the second sock. 24 hours after my resolution.
Now on to the second mitten. The sweater I started that’s in a shopping bag in the bottom of the closet.
Dear La, I love the hand crafted ceramic bowl for the ball of yarn to knit from. Thanks for the great Christmas gift. It is so inspiring.
(Simply Tangled Ceramics) She bought it at the handcraft store Wholly Craft, on High Street, Columbus –a long block from her house.
If you want to see how other bloggers met the challenge, click here
(Above photo with Canon 5D Markii)
and then in 24 hours I finished the second sock see below ( iPhone camera)
The horizontal stripe is not slimming but you get the picture! I actually finished the second sock.
I received the nicest email from Stef in Minnesota. I follow her Smile, Kiddo and Three Daily Delight blogs and if you need inspiration for making a list of things to accomplish in the new year be sure to click on the Smile Kiddo Link.
Here is the note and photo I received from Stef today-
While getting groceries this morning, I saw a big display of Andy Warhol tomato soup cans on clearance – and I thought I remembered you blogging about them this past summer, saying that they were scarce in your area. So I thought you might find it interesting that we had a surplus of them here.
(Blog follower and Floridian friend Kristin, my guest blogger the other day with with gators on Christmas, is going to enjoy this photograph)
Michael is the only grandchild born in Florida and he’s proud of it.
I was fortunate he was an August baby and I hadn’t started back to school yet so I was on the scene to take care of big sister Anna when Mom and Dad went to the hospital.
The family has a Pittsburgher, two Buckeyes and a Floridian.
This Christmas Santa helped Michael get the proper gear to represent The University Florida Gators.
No one else in Columbus Ohio is sporting these colors around town. They’re all in scarlet and gray, right Rob?
What is your team?
The only problem is that they are resting in my DIL’s fridge in Ohio and I am back in Pittsburgh. The temperature going down to nine and I am thinking SOUP!
I just got a kick out of the label from their market. Soup BONES?
I had never heard the rinds called soup bones and it struck me funny. I use a rind in my minestrone and it really adds to the body of the soup flavor. Any be any soup will do.
and a prettier shot with the lid off
