Day 230: Coins/Heather

At one point, James decided he was going to start collecting proof sets for every year we were together. Here's one of the sets of presidential coins from his collection.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 46mm

Day 229: Hearts/Heather

I bought a heart-shaped box of chocolate for the Anti-Valentine's Day party. Of course, I dumped all the chocolate in a bowl and hid the box as it didn't go with the party's theme!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 22mm

Day 228: Hands/Heather

I had a houseful of people over today for an Anti-Valentine's Day party. So this should have been an easy challenge given I had a lot of hands to choose from. But I forgot about it until after everyone left, so I had to get a shot of my own hand.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 227: Starts with "V"/Heather

It would make sense that being so close to Valentine's Day I would pick something along those lines for today's shot. But I didn't. I went with some old VHS tapes instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 44mm

Day 226: Seeing Red/Heather

I found quite a few red things laying around but none that I really thought were good for this theme. I finally settled on the wrapper of my Norfolk pine that doubles as a Christmas tree.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 225: Layers/Heather

This ended up being more of a challenge than I thought it would be. I tried to get a good shot of my mini-blinds but didn't get any I really liked. So I tried the siding on the back of the house and found those to be slightly better.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 27mm

Day 224: Earrings/Heather

There's really not a lot to say about this one. The antique-looking earrings belonged to my grandmother.

f5, Exp. 1/125, 70mm

Day 223: Table/Heather

"If I don't make eye contact, maybe the human won't notice I'm standing on the table." No, my dogs aren't supposed to be standing on the table. I do have some rules they clearly don't believe in following.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 29mm

Day 222: Basketball/Heather

I'm not really a basketball fan, but I am a fan of winning things so when I had the opportunity to enter a drawing for tickets to tonight's Blazer game against the Bulls, I went for it-and I won two tickets. It was a really good game-it was pretty close the entire time with Portland winning.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 221: Football/Heather

Today is Superbowl Sunday. It is also the third anniversary of James' passing so it is bittersweet that his team played today. Unfortunately, they didn't win.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 44mm

Day 220: Creativity/Heather

My plans for today included a glass blowing demonstration. Though I've seen this done before, it was really cool to not only watch the vase being made from the very start but also to have the technical aspects of the process explained as well.

f4.5, Exp. 1/25, 70mm

Day 219: Sequence/Heather

At game night tonight, one of the games being played was Sequence-a game I loved when I was younger but haven't played in years. Unfortunately, I didn't get to play tonight but I had a blast playing Taboo instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 218: Hot and Spicy/Heather

I admit I took some liberty with this in deciding that "spicy" was subjective. It just so happened that I have one packet of hot sauce in my collection.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 62mm

Day 217: Hangers/Heather

It turns out taking a good picture of hangers was not as easy as I thought it would be! This one's not too bad though.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 40mm

Day 216: Aces/Heather

I raided the Pinochle cards and pulled out all the aces for this shot. It's not the best but it is the best of the bunch I took today.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 215: Starts with "M"/Heather

All day long I thought about various things that start with the letter "M." I still hadn't thought of what I was going to do when I found myself stuck at a stoplight (as usual) on my way home from work and realized I was staring at a mural. I like the way this turned out as it looks like the retaining wall and bench are part of the picture but they aren't.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 24mm

Day 214: Moss/Heather

This morning I went on a very scenic hike in the Columbia Gorge with the dog lover's Meetup group. One of the things I noticed was the abundance of moss and since we didn't have a theme, I sent Selina a text to see if that would work for her. This is the first time in a long time I've actually had a hard time choosing a picture because there was more than one I liked!

f8, Exp. 1/250, 70mm

Day 213: Cars/Heather

My plan for today was to meet up with some friends for brunch and then head over to the International Car Show. I had visions of all kinds of awesome shots that would be hard to choose from. But I woke up with a headache that just wouldn't go away and ended up not going to the car show. As today wore on and I realized my headache was here to stay, I finally just took a shot of my cars.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 212: Short/Heather

Once again this did not go as well as I had hoped. I volunteered at a fundraiser tonight and was offered one of the centerpieces to take home with me. My intention with this shot was to show how short the container the flowers are sitting in is.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 211: Long/Heather

I really didn't know what to do for this one. I had a dinner at my house on Sunday and one of my guests brought me flowers. As I was looking for something to use for this shot, I decided to try to get a picture that showed the length of the stem on one of the flowers.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 46mm

Day 210: Frosting/Heather

This did not go the way I had envisioned it. I went to a bakery in Portland that specializes in cupcakes and they had doggie cupcakes so I bought a couple for the boys. I didn't get a shot I liked of it so I took a lazy shot of the frosting I had in the cupboard instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 209: Dry/Heather

I thought this was an interesting theme and one I had no clue as to how to pull off. I finally decided to try for a shot of Charlie being dried off. In hindsight, I probably should have used a towel that isn't almost the same color as the carpet!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 208: Veggies/Heather

I had a pizza party for my young widow and widowers Meetup group last night and as usual, I was concerned I would not have enough food, despite always having enough food to feed a small country. So I bought a few things to round it out, including a veggie tray. Of course, I had leftovers.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 46mm

Day 207: Black and White Tree/Heather

Since my camera doesn't shoot in black and white, these are always a fun challenge for me. For this shot, I decided to wait until dark and take a picture of my neighbor's white birch tree.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 65mm

Day 206: Yarn/Heather

I was on the go all day today and when I remembered to check and see what today's theme was, I saw we didn't have one. Looking around my desk, I saw a skein of yarn and called Selina to see if that would work for her for today.

This was supposed to be a potholder/trivet for my brother for Christmas. Maybe I'll get it done for his birthday in February instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 62mm