One Thousand: Flowers, Swings, Make believe, Yoga

First off, a disclaimer: Sorry about the placement of some of my watermarks! I'm learning out to use Lightroom 4 and for some reason it put them all in weird places. Guess I better fix that. 

Gift #91: Flowers in vases

I've been experimenting with black and white and cream tones lately. I normally never use them because I'm such a huge fan of color but sometimes photos just call for it. This picture originally had so many distractions in it because of color that I was forced to take all the color out. I love it in creams though! 

Gift #92: Pushing children on swings

This past week I have been babysitting for my next door neighbors. Little Julian wanted to go swing and wanted me to push him. Needless to say, I got a good little arm workout. Managed to capture this picture right in the middle of one of his outbound swings.

Gift #93: Playing make believe

You forget how to play when you don't have a child around. 

 My ailments were loss of voice and inability to walk.

Gift #94: Flowers from little girls

Again I was babysitting the neighbors' children (I see to always be babysitting, but you would too if you knew these kids!) and Olivia gifted me the best flowers from a bush in front of our houses. 

Gift #95: Being able to stretch

This gift is a bit random. I was lying on the floor today doing some crunches and it suddenly hit me how thankful I am for stretching. I have frequent back pain and stretching really helps me work it out.

I am not a yogi, although I wish I was, I just thought that yoga would be the best way of representing stretching. I've dabbled in and out of learning yoga but would love to devote some serious time to it.

One Thousand: Hot air balloons

Sunday morning was a beautiful morning. I had to be up at 5:30 am to be at church for 7:00 and I live half an hour away. On the way to church, I was struck by how beautiful everything is at that time of the morning. I'm never up at that time and so rarely see it. I was thinking about how beautiful the lighting is and that a photo shoot at that time (not that anyone would want to meet at 6:30am) would be so beautiful. Then as I rounded the bend in the road I saw a hot air balloon. I've heard that there are constantly hot air balloons around but I still had never seen one in the Napa Valley. I had to stop to take a photo. I almost didn't as I was running late to church but I knew I would regret it if I didn't. It kind of made my morning. I saw quite a few more on my drive but didn't have time to stop. 

Gift #90: Hot air balloons in the morning

Homemade soft pretzels

Today was a roasting day. Apparently we are having record highs for this time of year. Yuck. I wish it could just be spring and not summer. 

So on this hot day I decided to make homemade pretzels. Not only did it make me even hotter but it made me feel really greasy from all the buttery goodness! But I must say, they are fantastic. I made some honey mustard sauce to go along with them. Yummy yummy. I'm sure we will all enjoy them tomorrow at my dear friend's bridal shower. Photos of that to come soon too! 

If you would like the recipe to these pretzels bites, you can find it here. 

One Thousand: Pretty computer backgrounds

I love having something pretty to look at while I edit. 

Gift #88: Pretty computer backgrounds

One Thousand: Books, Breeze, Sun, Curls, Droplets

I had such a relaxing day today. Sometimes I hate being unemployed but then I think about moments like today when I get to relax and I cherish the moments. A day will come when I don't get to relax as much so I am accepting this gift with open arms while I can. 

Gift #83: Reading a book outside

Gift #84: A light breeze

Gift #85: Sunshine on shoulders

Gift #86: Curls on little girls

Gift #87: Droplets on flowers

One Thousand: Cool Water

Gift #83: Cool water

Today was such a nice warm day! I spent my afternoon with my 5 year old neighbor and it was so fun! When we got really hot we "watered" our feet with cold water. Definitely cooled us off!

An afternoon with Olivia

I had the pleasure of spending this beautiful day with my 5 year old neighbor! We played in the water and consequently played in the mud too! We watered my plants and then watered our feet too. So refreshing. And then after all of this, I taught little Olivia how to take pictures! I wanted to share a few of her photos which I love!

I thought this one looked pretty spectacular in black and white!

I'm in love with this photo.

One Thousand: Tomato soup, Onions, Hearts on Blackboards

Gift #80: Homemade tomato soup

I don't know about you butI love pretty much any homemade soup. Especially ones that are hearty like this tomato soup. I love knowing what goes into my soups.

Gift #81: The smell of onions cooking

Along with loving fresh tomato soup, I love smelling all of the individual ingredients cooking along with it. Especially onions.

Gift #82: Hearts on chalkboards

I made a chalkboard today! It's actually for a church-wide photo booth but I fully plan on using it somewhere in my home afterwards. I look forward to seeing how people use this tomorrow!

One Thousand: The Cross

I had originally wanted to take this photo yesterday as it was Good Friday but I didn't get a chance. But I certainly wanted to get it in before Easter tomorrow! 

My beautiful grandma gave me this necklace for my high school graduation. I love the delicate nature of the cross with the diamonds in the middle. However, I haven't worn it in quite a few months. It used to never leave my neck. It became a way of showing people that I am a Christian. 

Last night at our Good Friday service, the message confirmed something that I have long sense felt, that the cross shouldn't be taken as lightly as we do by turning it into jewelry and household decorations. It was an object of torture but I do agree that the symbolism of it is about so much more than death: it's about our life. I will most certainly wear my cross again because I love this necklace but I hope that when I do it serves as a real reminder of what Christ sacrificed on the cross when he CHOSE to die for us. 

Gift #78: The Cross

One Thousand: Strawberries, Salt, and Websites....but not all together.

Hello lovely people! I hope you are having a fabulous Easter weekend!

I have a few gifts that I would like to post for you.

Gift #75: 2 lbs of strawberries for $3.99

One of the most exciting finds this week was being able to buy 2 pounds of strawberries for only $3.99! And they are delicious too. You could feed me any type of berry all day and I'd be a happy girl.

Gift #76: Course salt

This past week we have been out of salt and I never realized how much I relied on it before. I put it on my salads; I put it on my other food; I put it in my soup. Pretty much everything gets a bit of salt. To be out of it was a crime. But now we have it back. 

Gift #77: Early birthday presents!

My mom is sooooo wonderful. She knew I was in need of a real website and so she gave me my birthday present early! I am the owner of the domain www.simplygreenphotos.com. You can actually visit it right now but it won't look very pretty. It's very much still in the works. But here's a glimpse of the home page! This may also become my new blog. I haven't decided yet. What are your thoughts? Should I keep this blog or should I put everything on my new website? Hmmmm.....decisions. 

One Thousand: Hail

A few days ago we had some beautiful 60F weather with a little bit of hail mixed in. We had been raining off an on all day and what I thought were just very plump rain drops were actually little balls of hail. I love the sound of hail, I love how it covers the ground and I love how it bounces off of every object it hits. 

Gift #73: Hail

100th Post!

Woohoo! Finally am posting my 100th post! It's taken awhile to get it done. I decided that I would make a little card saying "100" that I would photograph in 100 different places. This was surprisingly difficult. But here are the results!