Photo A Day Challenge Week 5

18. Something You Don't Like: I was working on my purse and the corduroy kept flaking into little bits and getting everywhere. All over my white sweater and the floor. Now there are bits in the sheets since I sew in my PJ's sometimes. Small price to pay I suppose.

19. I am... finishing a long lost project. It's sometimes kind of nice to find a project that is nearly done and be able to finish it so quickly. I really just needed the size 6 needles for a different project so I forced myself to finish this project.

20. Where you stood: I sometimes wait all day to take a picture thinking something big will happen or something super interesting. Then nothing big, interesting, or out of the ordinary happens and I just resort to taking a picture of Penny because she is so so cute. Her big brown eyes do me in every time. The other day Charlie and I did tons of online stalking trying to piece together more of her back story. We have some pretty good guesses, and some sad realizations. We are so happy to have her though, sad things aside. She makes me smile everyday and is the sweetest little pup. I hope someday soon we'll have a place to live where she can play outside more often and hopefully have a brother or sister pup to play with.

21: Full: My suitcase is full. We did tons of laundry and packed up 3 pairs of long johns, tons of socks, sweatpants, a bathing suit, ski boots, and of course my fan. I cannot sleep without a fan inches from my face. Charlie hates this but I insist I am not the only person ever who does this. Please, if you do this as well let me know. We are at Mount Tremblant skiing with my in-laws. Try not to be jealous. Big difference from last years trip.

22. Make You Smile: Well it was the beginning of vacation so I can't complain about that. We drove to my Dad and Step-Mom's house for the night. Penny will be staying with them and their two dogs, who I call "Aunt Shawnee" and "Uncle Duke", while we are on our trip. She hasn't had much interaction with dogs since her injury so she was very excited to see Shawnee and Duke and play. The four human went out to eat, and I took this when we got home because I always seem to forget about the photo a day until it's bed time. It looks like I already am asleep in this picture anyways.

23. A Word: Since it snowed in Southern NH yesterday and today we decided we should drive halfway to Canada on Saturday and then the rest of the way today. So we stopped in Burlington, VT for the night. Charlie's uncle Hammond lives in Burlington so he took the four of us out around the downtown. I've only been to Burlington twice, once in 2007 for a diving meet, and in 2003 on a college tour. Anyways, we went to a German restaurant and enjoyed the food and beer. (I love a good Hefferveisen). I liked that a lot of the signs were in German, including this "reserved" sign.

Now we're off to Canada! I'll try to post, but I make no guarantees. I might be having too much fun skiing!

Lauren

Photo Challenge February Week 3

11: Entrance: This is one of the trails I take Penny walking or running on. I've never seen the gates opened before though. People have been snowmobiling a lot down the trails so they must be open for that. The snowmobiles scare Penny and bit and then she wants to chase them, but they do pack down the snow and make running a little easier. (*edit: I wrote this BEFORE getting stuck!)

12: Where You Ate Lunch: In my office, while catching up on work between students. Butternut squash/carrot soup and an orange, a very monochromatic lunch.


13: Walking: In an effort to go somewhere else to take Penny walking I tried to go to a trail we sometimes walk and run on. It was not plowed out however so I decided to drive a little further up the road and take a road that cuts around to the main road. That road was not plowed either! So, I just parked in front of a huge snowbank, put on my snowshoes (which I now keep in the car) and set out for a walk down an unplowed road. The snow was quite deep, wet and heavy due to the recent temperatures in the high 30s to 40s. Penny trailed behind me stepping in my snowshoe prints. There were tons of deer tracks. This is where we were when we turned around. We'll definitely go back walking there again. (*edit: this was also written before getting stuck, so much unintended overshadowing.)

14: Love Is.... Helping your wife dig and push her car out of a parking lot of snow, eating dinner in your smelly running clothes and dancing in the kitchen when you do the dishes. Not exactly the Valentine's Day we had been hoping for but we made the best of it.

15: Inside Your Fridge: I forgot and took this one on Saturday morning. Realized there was not milk for my cereal, it was hard but I resisted the urge to eat milk duds for breakfast.

16: Perfect: Yesterday was the perfect ski day. There was no wind, the temperature was in the high 30's, the conditions were great, and there was no one at the mountain. Charlie and I hardly waited in any lines.

17: In Your Hand: Charlie bought me a new pair of smartwool ski socks. We're going to Canada for vacation next week for a ski vacation. It is negative 6 degrees there right now. Hopefully these will keep me warm.

Hope you've had a good week. Only 5 more days until February vacation!

Lauren 

Photo A Day: February Week 2 Recap

4. Hope: Charlie and I don't have channels on our TV so we have to watch everything the day after it airs. This includes Downton Abbey, my favorite show ever. While perusing the internet on Monday I found Downton Abbey Bingo. For the prompt I said I hope I would win. It was pretty fun. I cannot watch a TV show without doing some sort of activity (cross stitch, embroider, knit, hand sew, blog) so this kept me busy. I also paid way more attention than I usually do. I did end up winning. The board is pretty general, so I think we'll use it for the upcoming episode as well.

5. Something You Smelled: I accidentally spent $15 at the new dollar store on candy. More on that later. Let's just say smelling this candy and not eating it was torture.

6. Soft: Penny is the epitome of soft. Her ears especially. When I come home from work on days that she's not at Doggy Day Camp she is almost always sleeping on our bed. In the morning when I leave she's usually on the bed too. It makes leaving a soft dog and a soft bed very difficult.

7. Your Name: Using some stamps. I have a bunch of "L" stamps, this one is my favorite for using to label packages with my return address. Just need a "T" one now.

8. Something Orange: We had a snow day this day and the only color we saw for most of the day was white. I did make pumpkin muffins for breakfast, and Charlie had OJ, so I counted that, and then we went skiing and saw nothing by white all day.

9: Guilty Pleasure: I've mentioned it before, but my guilty pleasure is to watch Gossip Girl. On Saturday I watched the last 4 episodes of the series. Now I need to find another mindless show to watch while I sew or cross stitch.

10: 3 O'Clock: I ran errands and went for a long snowshoe walk today with Penny and tried my hardest to put off my 6 mile run. At 3:30 I finally just accepted that I needed to do it and I did. I am loving that it looks like winter out and that we had a snow day, but I am not loving that my average mile was 11 minutes due to all of the snow and ice on the roads. Oh well. Got it done, didn't die. That's all that really matters. Running home into the sunsetting over the white sparkly hills was not too bad either I suppose.

This week I did kind of a crappy job at the challenges. I promise to try harder to be more creative next week.

Lauren

Photo A Day: February

1. Fork: I convinced Charlie to come with me to UNH for a diving meet. My brother met us there and then we went out to eat with our friends Cait and Brian. We went to one of my most favorite restaurants   from when I was in grad school. La Festa. Delicious pizza. I could never be a food blogger because 1. I hate cooking and 2. I always eat my food before I remember to take a picture. Once everyone had finished their meal I remembered the prompt. Oops. In the picture if you look closely you can see that there is in fact a fork leaning on an empty beer glass in the middle of the table.

2. Pattern: I finally got the right color thread to finish my cross stitch. We went to a deliberative session meeting on Saturday. I knew it would be boring, just the name sounds boring, so I brought my cross stitch to work on. It turned out to be slightly boring, slightly funny, and slightly irritating. I was very glad I had something to keep my hands busy otherwise I would have gone crazy. I did stand up to say something, if I hadn't had this to work on who knows how many times I would have gone to the mic. Cross stitch patterns kind of make me want to gouge my eyes out. Once you're working on one it's not that bad, but I am sure most of you are thinking "How on earth does she make sense of that?!?!" Truth is, most of the time I just fudge it.

3. Something Beginning with "E": Express lift. Charlie and I went skiing Sunday. I took a few pictures for this prompt. One of the "Easy way" trail sign , and one of my favorite trail "Exhibition". I figured this one was best though because I am trying to work on taking more pictures of people. Charlie says I am a good skiing partner now because I am not slow anymore.

This was a short week for the photos. At the end of this week I am hoping to have an iphone. Hurray.

Lauren

Photo A Day Recap: Week 5

28: Through: It was very snowy this day and Penny and I were worried about Charlie making it home alright. He finally did come through the door. It took him about 45 minutes than usual but he was home safe. I always know when Charlie is coming home because Penny gets up and runs around the living room with glee waiting for him to come in the door. It's very cute.

29: Grow: This was a super lame cop out. I have killed every plant I've ever owned, so we have no growing things in our house. I used to worry that my undefeated record for killing plants would not bode well for having pets of babies. Then I figured out that if plants cried or whined when they were hungry or needed water I would remember to feed and water them. So my lame photo of the day was of a painting of plants that I made several years ago. It reminds me that I have too many hobbies, and not enough time, since I hardly ever paint anymore.

30: Down: Are you sick of me posting pictures of Penny? I hope not because the madness continues. When we come home and get ready to take Penny outside she gets really excited and runs downstairs and waits by the door. It's adorable. If you look close her tail is a blur because it's wagging.

31: Yourself: My new watch came in the mail today and I had to test it out. I got all sweaty, wet/muddy (I fell) and then remembered I was supposed to take a picture of myself today for the challenge. Oops. So here's me all gross, and my new pink watch.

I have about 12 hours to decide if I am going to do the February challenge. Here are the prompts if you're so inclined to join.

Have you gotten anything new lately?

Lauren

Photo A Day Recap: Week 4

Here is my week 4 of the photo a day challenge. I find that when I use my camera I have better quality pictures that I am proud of, but I don't typically get around to publishing them that day. Friday-Sunday were posted all at the same time this morning. Oops.

21:Something You Do: I had the day off so I went with "Something you do on a day off." I cut out a pattern for a dress. Fabric was from my stash. Hurray for using fabric from the stash.

22: Corner: Corners of Thank You cards and my address book. My Grandmother always said that if you liked a present and wanted another one you should write a thank you note. Since then I always have.

23: Electric: One of my most favorite electronic devices. A few people asked me what happened to my old sewing machine. I still have it. I use it quite a bit. I have been using the Bernina with the walking foot to sew tricky fabrics lately (wool and fake silky fabric to be exact). There comments actually prompted me to change the blog name. Funny how little things can bring on a change.

24: Stripes: I'm not sure this counted but oh well. I think plaid is kind of like stripes. My new warm jumper.

25: Landscape: After work on Friday I drove to Dartmouth University to see a diving meet. The drive was not all that pretty, lots of trailers and run down old shops. This picture is heavily cropped to hide the stop light I was waiting at, all of the cars, and the power lines. I guess it teaches me to look past the not so pretty stuff and see the beautiful mountains in the distance.

26: Together: My friend Liz had a baby in October and wanted to have a get together with her friends. We all met in Concord and ate at Margarita's. It was fun. I miss her living right around the corner.  

 27: Sun: When we took Penny for a walk this morning the sun was so bright reflecting off of the snow. I took this picture without even looking because it was so bright. It was a pleasant surprise that Penny was in the shot, although very small. Can you see her?

 Only half a week left. Can you believe January is almost over?

Lauren

Photo A Day Recap: Week 3

14: Something Yellow: This little sign hangs on the wall next to my desk. I moved the desk the previous week because it was too cold next to the window. On Monday I felt lonely without my little sign so I moved it too. My friend Lorelei has one too, I made both of them so they make me feel connected to her.

15: An Ordinary Moment: I took two. The first was in the morning before the madness of the day began. I like feeling prepared with everything in order (surprise) before the kids come in and everything gets messy.

The second one is of Penny. She always scopes (sniffs) out the air from the safety of the car before she gets out to go walking or running. Sled dogs hang out here sometimes she I think she's sniffing their smell, making sure they are not around before she feels 100% safe to get out. 

16: Two Things: The two things I ate for lunch. A clementine and some left overs. Yum.

17: Ready: I forgot to take a picture this day. Oops. Luckily my co-workers threw me a surprise party in the library. I was not ready for that. It was also "Patriots Day" at school. Charlie lent me his jersey and I had to Google 83 in case anyone asked me questions I would be ready to pretend I knew what I was talking about.

18: Shadow: Kind of a stretch here. Can you see the shadow from the clouds on the mountains in the distance? This was taken from the top of Jay Peak. It was freezing up there, but very beautiful.

19: Delicious: The hotel we stayed in had a Keurig and hot chocolate cups. Hot chocolate plus a Twix was the perfect after skiing snack.

20: Something You Saw: This is the view from the lift on Sunday. To the left you can see a cloud blowing in. About 3 minutes later the cloud brought tons of snow. Great conditions, except the wind that brought the snow resulted in 3 of the main lifts being closed for the day.

Sorry most of this week involved skiing. More diversity coming soon.

Lauren 

Photo A Day Recap: Week 2

7. Street: I was rushing to get to work on Monday and remembered this word on my walk. I turned around and saw the sun rising over the hills. Since then I have made sure to turn and look behind me on my way to work in the morning, it's so pretty, it's a shame to miss out on the sunrise colors.

8. Something Beginning With the Letter "T": Tags. I registered my car, and also Penny at the town office. Now she has new tags. I love the little engraved tag made from a penny from my brother and sister in law.

9. Paper: Test booklets and evaluations were scuffled around my desk all day it seemed.

10. One O' Clock: This one was a cheat. I forgot to take a picture, and was also in a meeting so I said I was thinking about giving my co-worker the baby shoes.

11. Water: Part of the river we run near was frozen here. Penny usually surprises me and goes swimming, but not this day.

12. Surprise: A present from my sister-in-law. New shoes and a pair of long johns.

13. Circle: My favorite pin cushion. My mum used to have a bigger one and my brother and I would poke pins in the little peoples eyes and noses. We were so mean. Now if I accidentally poke one of the people I feel bad.

Fun week. More posts coming soon!

Lauren 

Photo A Day: Weekly Recap

I am doing another Photo A Day Month. Last year I posted everyday on my blog, but I figured since I have Instagram to post, I would just repost the photos for a recap once a week. 

1. Today: We took down the Christmas tree.

2. Something New: My brother made me a shelf for Christmas. I love it so much I made a video about it. Watch It if you haven't. And if you have you should watch it again. I'm waiting for it to go viral so I'll be famous. 

3. Heart: This is a snowflake I made and is hung on the window at work. I used a pattern book. 

4. View From Here: Frozen waterfall on a walk with Penny.

5. Movement: Penny's tail wagging while she waits for us to get ready to go running.

6. Mine: Or used to be. I cleaned out a few drawers and am donating some clothes I no longer wear.

I'm going to try to take more pictures with a camera and not with the ipad, since the quality is not the best. Join in if you feel so inclined.

Lauren