365: Days Two-Six (actually just Day Six)

I'm discovering with this 365 project that I am very bad at taking photos every day. I had no idea that this project would enable me to examine myself as I have! Today was only my second day of taking photos in 2011, but I took a bunch today, which makes up for missing the previous 4 days, doesn't it!?!

I went on a bike ride today (Santa gave me a beautiful bike for Christmas) and stopped along the way to take photos. Here's a really cool bridge on the same end of the island that my family lives on:


Here's another view of the bridge:


The marina and marsh near our house:


Some creatively grown trees at the marina:


Classic low-country. Oak tree with Spanish moss:


The good news is that I am about to go on a trip, where it will be easy for me to take at least a photo a day. So stay tuned for some amazing photos!

Christmas 2010

I had so much fun and was only a little stressed making presents for people for Christmas. Handmade presents are so special to me and half the fun in making a present is planning it! One of the presents I was most excited about was also the biggest hit. I followed Prudent Baby's tutorial. It's a tea-party to go! My little cousins absolutely loved it! It was pretty quick and easy to make, which good because I was running out of time to make it.


I made a couple other handmade gifts, one of which I've made before. It's a really cool pincushion with a cubby hole in the middle. I got the pattern from Anna Maria Horner's Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing. I made it for my aunt because at Christmas 2009, she mentioned that she would like to have one. So I felt pretty confident that she would love that present, yet I second-guessed myself the whole time. What if she doesn't like the colors that I picked? What if she changed her mind since last Christmas? I tend to second-guess myself a lot when it comes to giving handmade gifts. Time and time again people love the thought and the effort that goes into making the present and I just have to learn not to stress myself out over whether or not the receiver will like my gift. Chances are they will, or they'll at least say so to my face!


See . . . she loves it!

Okay . . . Christmas 2010 is over. Time to start planning for Christmas 2011!

365: Day One (actually Two)

So I decided this year to participate in the 365 project, where you take and post a photo each day for a year. I've heard that it will help you become a more proficient photographer, which I would love to be. So I decided the morning of January 1st to do that. However, January 1st was a very busy day for me because I babysat six little boys during a wedding reception that lasted 5 hours. I had the help of two wonderful high school girls and we actually had a blast. Now I know what works and what doesn't work for a handful of boys between the ages of 3.5 years and 6 months. All About Collection, Volume 1, the DVD, which features monster trucks and trains is a big winner with that demographic. As are stackable blocks. Food, surprisingly, does not attract them as much as you think it would. However, apple juice will bring kids to the table like nothing else. Also, when one is babysitting a bunch of little kids, who are strangers and cannot communicate that well, nametags (to stick on them and on their stuff) are very helpful. By the end of the evening, we had figured out who was who, but we forgot which diapers belonged to which kid. Still we had a fantastic time and armed with this newfound knowledge, I am ready to babysit a bunch of kids whenever I am needed.

As I was driving home, I realized that I had not taken my 365 photo yet, so I decided to take one of my car clock when I reached home. Technically it is from January 2nd, but let's just say it's from the 1st.