A new look!

Hey, look what happened to my blog overnight! It got a whole new look. Isn't it completely amazing?! The only thing is that I'm back to square one when it comes to Disqus being integrated into blogger. That sucks but it has nothing to do with the redesign& everything to do with Disqus being incredibly frustrating when it isn't working correctly.

Now, if you remember my previous design (sort of wishing I had taken a screen shot of it for before/ after photos), you are well aware that I definitely didn't create this new look! You're right. I have zero ability when it comes to any of that. I did, however, take the photo that is appearing on the header. I love how it all works together! The face on the doll just cracks me up so much. So, if I didn't design the new look, who did? Kim from Kim in a Box! She is completely awesome. Seriously. I had no idea what I was doing or even what I wanted the end result to look like. She stepped in& did everything. She picked the photo for the header, designed everything& even installed it onto Blogger for me! I was super picky about how I wanted the header to look in the end& she exceeded my expectations! At first I was nervous to tell her I liked, but didn't love, the original design. Her response? Basically not to worry at all because she was going to work with me until it was my idea of perfect! She did a pretty amazing job, don't you think?! Thanks so much, Kim! You rock.

If anyone out there (blogger or wordpress) is looking for a new layout, I would 100% suggest Kim. She did fabulous work and she did it quickly. I cannot say enough positive things about this lady. If you're interested, click here to go to her design page! Her prices are completely reasonable, she is fabulous to work with& she is a great lady all around. Definitely keep her in mind if you are searching for a new or updated blog look!


So, now that you've read all that, I have some sad news. I've officially failed another photography challenge. I just can't get back into things after I've missed a few days and, once again, this is no exception. Don't worry, though! I've still been taking photos ..yes, mostly of my dog but sometimes of others things too. For example, today the pup& I went to the beach where he had a good run (I took photos) and then afterward, I snapped this photo of some random apples just hanging out in the grass-

Doesn't that just scream 'autumn'? No? Oh, well hey, at least it's not a photo of my dog, right?! I'm trying to branch out my photography from my main theme of my dog. With that being said, I also have a few cute photos of him. Seeing as he is an old senior citizen dog, I love when he's feeling good enough to have a real hard run around the beach. It is nice to know that he still has the get up& go of his younger days! The run obviously tired him out though because since getting back in the house, he has been simply laying flat out on the floor looking at me pathetically. I guess that is acceptable since he spent about forty minutes out the beach today running like this-

Look closely. All 4 of his feet are very high off the ground. Way to go little monster! You are still a speed machine when you are feeling good ..which was evidently today! I have a few other cute shots of Squirty, but I figure you guys are completely overloaded with the puppy as of late so I'll refrain from posting them! Thanks for enduring this much of him without complaining ;D

It was perfect for a trip to the beach. Overcast, a chill in the air& not a soul around except me& my pup. Not that great for swimming but perfect for walking along, my favorite beach activity! Oh, and taking photos while I'm there!We spent at least an hour there just enjoying some of the last few days it will be nice out before winter hits us hard!

Disqus

So I made the move ..I switched my comments over to Disqus. I don't know if it's just only sort of working or what but sometimes I get the disqus comment section& sometimes I get the blogger comment. I'm hoping that it will sort itself out with time. For now I'll sit here& wish the rain would stop while watching Say Yes to the Dress. This time the little sister is really mean and talks like she's on hard drugs. She looks about 14. I'd punch her ..but that's just me!

Aside from being completely unproductive I really have nothing to say. I am going through horse withdrawals& the lady who owns Shyann will not email me back. I got called into work this weekend at the store ..and yes, I did quit in April. Interesting how that works, isn't it? Not that I mind because I do love the store& it's super easy work. The boyfriend& I are heading to Halifax on Sunday so should end up being a good weekend. The kind of weekend where there probably won't be much blogging from me due to not having an internet connection/ being off the island! How are you guys spending your post-Labor-day-weekend weekend?

This was my last night attempt at a landscape shot. It's crooked and I did absolutely zero post-processing. I think that means I don't really like landscape shots! Kidding, kidding. It's just more that I am getting frustrated with not being able to make this work out. I will get there ..sheer determination will get me at least one fabulous shot- especially with the autumn colors arriving soon on Cape Breton island! What do you think ..is there any improvement?! Eventually I'll create some kind of slide show from my first crappy attempts at landscapes up to the day I finally get my stunning photo ;) I have a feeling that slide show is still a long way off! Although I am taking the advice you guys gave me. This photo was shot with the following settings;

1. ISO- 400
2. F-stop- 39
3. Exposure- 15s

Obviously, I lugged out the tripod for this. I also took some photos of the beach earlier in the day ..I think I mentioned that? Well they got uploaded last night& I spent some time trying to save them from their fate of ending up in the recycle bin. I couldn't manage to make them worth anything ..other than a cautionary tale of how easy it is to take horrible photos! I did, however, manage to get one shot of a piece of sand grass. Or sand wheat. Or something. Bonus points to the reader who can tell me what the heck it is called!
Enjoy your Thursday everyone :)

Self-timers

My camera, sadly, is too low on the totem pole to be able to use a shutter release. Just another reason to upgrade at some point when I have the money ..which is probably never. I wanted a nice photo of my boyfriend, my pup& myself. Yesterday was my attempt at this. We walked to the beach, took the camera& promptly I forgot the tripod. Meaning that I had no other option except to put the camera on a rock and try from there.

So I made due with what I could .. this is photo attempt #1 from the rock. It turned out okay ..mostly because I converted it to black& white, which is my favorite thing ever for portraits. Although my neck looks funny. So, do you folks ever do this? Or are you lucky enough to have a camera that has a shutter release? Hitting the self-timer in burst effect then running back to your spot, trying to look decent& smiling all in 10 seconds? Hard. Officially jealous of everyone who has a shutter release ..especially a wireless one.

I am, however, resourceful& determined once I get something in my mind. For a long time I have wanted nice photos of Garret, Squirt& I. I didn't get the exact photos I had in mind (forgetting of tripod hampered that) but we did get some cute photos of us on the beach so I can't complain too much! I suppose I can sucker him into taking another set of photos in another 4 years or so ..since that's how long it took to get these ones! You should all tell him the comments how great these photos are to make it easier to get my next set ;)

We even got to include some photos of my pup with us! I love my pup so much and we had exactly 0 photos of our happy little family together. It's so nice to have me, Squirt& his step-dad all together& looking happy! Kisses on the head for my old, ancient dog.

So, how are you guys spending today? Hopefully you aren't working it away and instead are enjoying some beautiful weather! It's gorgeous here on the Cape, so after I submit this post I'm going to go outside& read a book. I know ..I'm such a crazy party animal. Enjoy your Monday- they are always easier when they don't involve going to work ;D

Oh, and if anyone has a boyfriend like mine (hates taking photos with you) here's a good guide to getting some:
1. Ask a lot
2. Stop asking
3. A few years later, lay on the guilt
4. Wait a few more months, in the meantime getting good at photographing others
5. And then, eventually, he will cave because you complain about always have nice photos of others but none of you 2.
6. At the last minute, throw in your animal and get some of them too!
7. Good luck ..let me know if they work for you ;)

Entered in;

Simple things

Friday Snaps[5]

So this snap is a little late! Sorry about that. It's from a photo shoot I had today with one of my best girlfriends -Tiff. We spent a few hours shooting at a lighthouse and then moved to the beach. The beach was easily the best location of the two ..not to mention how crappy& bright the lighting was at the lighthouse. We had to go then though because it was the only time it would work.

Tiff is fabulous for several reasons. First off, she's a NICU nurse. Which means she spends her workdays saving babies -that basically gives you a pass to heaven, right?! She is also a fellow runner& P90X'er. Not to mention if I ever needed to get someone beat up, she's my girl ;) Okay, okay.. kidding about that last part! She just lost roughly 30lbs (GO TIFF) and had no recent photos of herself so I figured this was the PERFECT chance to get some more portrait experience. As usual, at first I wasn't sure what to do with my model but since she's a good friend, we managed to wing it! I got a lot of gorgeous shots. She's a gorgeous lady so it's not like it was really a tough job to make her look good. When we got to the beach, however, I was making her jump in the water& do yoga ..which was all really fun. I managed to get this stunning shot of her doing tree pose.

What do you think?

I absolutely adore it!
Entered here!

So now my Friday Snaps is over for this week ..I still have only 1 of the scavenger hunt photos taken and I'm officially alone for the weekend as of 3 hours ago! So far I have been completely wild.. I have spent all Friday evening editing photos of Tiff, drinking water& watching Say Yes to the Dress. Still can't believe how mean some of the people are who come with the brides!

The boyfriend is off the Wharf Rat Rally so my fingers are crossed that he has a good time and also sells the bike! I reminded him he shouldn't get a new girlfriend while he was gone away or have tooo much fun without me. Now the burning question remains though. How am I going to spend my remaining 2 days alone?! Tackling that scavenger hunt, I suppose!

Crispers!

Yup. I'm sitting on my couch eating Crispers& waiting to see the season premier of Hoarders. How can I justify so much sedentary living lately? Well that is an excellent question.

I'm sick and when I get sick like this all I can do is hope it ends quickly. Tomorrow is going to be gorgeous out so I will be spending my afternoon on the beach, assuming that I am feeling at least a tiny bit better! Before I can spend my day on the beach, however, I need to purchase a pair of sunglasses. Which I am going to do asap in the morning. I promise to return tomorrow evening with a full report of my day / perhaps even some photos! Although I have noticed a serious downward trend in my blog traffic lately ..good thing I enjoy it regardless of my traffic!

Me feeling sick is also why my blogging has stopped the last few days ..why does it make you tired when you're fighting an infection?! Ugh. Oh well. All I can do is eat crappy food (I appease myself with the fact that I'm drinking water ..not allll bad, right?!) and hope I feel better ASAP! To match my crappy blogging as of late, enjoy a crappy photo from my drive home the other evening!

Okay... off to enjoy Hoarders :) How did you spend your weekend?! I hope having a significantly more exciting time than me!

Spoiled!

Yes .. the island is spoiling us! It's 22°C& sunny. Seriously- I know it's hard to believe. It's GORGEOUS out. I woke up .. put the puppers out& sat on my driveway. Then I made some eggs and took a photo to show you!

This is how I spend my mornings.

Eating plains eggs in the sunshine❤

So after that we headed to the beach. My dog& I interrupted some random couple who were SUPER SERIOUS about fighting. Oh well .. I threw off my shoes, let the pup off the leash and embraced the day.

My shoes without my feet in them! 

Toes firmly planted in the sand.

So, I laid in the sand for a good while& let the pup have a run down and back over the beach. I got some cute shots. Since I love my dog more than most everything else? I'm going to share how sweet he is with all of you lucky readers :D

Scoping out the scene and coming back to hang out with his favorite person :)

More than anything I love my little doggy!

And look how cute his little face is :D

So then poor Squirt was dying from heat& thirst .. so we headed back to the house. When we got back, my brother was sitting outside with music, cell phone& a glass of pepsi. And moccasins on his feet. And plaid PJ pants. So very Matthew. I took some photos. Here they are.

My brother.

Chillaxing& relaxing all cool.

Annddd a photo of my brother including my dog.

I sort of really like this photo. They look like they like each other.

So, now that I've flooded you with photos from my beautiful day on the beach ..I've spent too much time indoors! I'm off to make myself some lunch and head out for an easy bike ride. Oddly, my legs aren't even the slightest bit sore from yesterday. I'm taking this as an excellent sign! Thumbs up for progress.

How you lovely folks spending today?! I hope it is as nice where you are as it is where I am! Enjoy today, regardless of the weather :)

Dear Woman,

You are great. Apparently, I'm the greatest though because my one post on breastfeeding has set us back hundreds of years! And people wonder why I think I'm so spectacular ..it's obvious. I have more power in my blog than any of you do ;)

So, discovering I hold lots of blogging power has led me to wonder what else I can change in the world. I wanted a great topic to follow to my boobie topic, but I was drawing blanks. Apparently being great doesn't mean you always have blog material. Also, writing about yourself is A LOT easier than writing about other things. Thinking up topics is slightly tiring, if I do say so myself. In an effort to try to help me out, I enlisted google& youtube. The result? Neither had anything of substance. So I resorted to going outside and enjoying the sunshine. Cold be damned. Here is my photo story :)

So, Mom points out that it is either smoky or foggy at all the beaches. I concur. We note this is strange. She leaves for groceries and I decide to give up on the blog& take the dog for a walk. Off we head to the Black Track. Here is the tree from my spooky shot from 365. It's less spooky in the foggy daylight.

PS all that foggy stuff is either fog or smoke. I'm still not sure which. So, we walked down& onto the Black Track. I felt like I was in a movie. There was little wisps of fog rolling across the ground. It was so neat to see. So of course, I took some photos. Here is one to show you how neat it was :)

See how cool that is? So then, the dog decided he wanted to go to the back beach. So off we went. Bye bye, black track. I love you& can't wait until you are filled with flowers for my photography! Until then, I will content myself with some berries that are trying to survive despite the crappy weather on the island. It was the lone berry on that plant actually looking like it might make it.

So, after stopping for a quick photo of the berry, we headed towards the beach. We crossed the pond and only got mildly wet. Why I love crossing through the pond, despite the gross marshy land, I will never know. My dog loves it too! So, here is a shot of the pond+ the beach. All the stuff that is fog/smoke should be water. So that will show you just how thick it was!

Mmmm marshy water. That my dog drank. And tripped into. Go Squirt. You really need to work on using those back legs better little man! So, we continued on our way, making it through the marshy land. My socks stayed dry& I stayed happy. When we got to the beach, it was such a neat sight to see all the fog/smoke rolling in! So, seeing as this was a photo op, I stopped& took another photo. I also unhooked the dog so he could roam. He's only allowed off leash at the beaches, so he was super excited.

Pretty, eh? I will admit that though I do HATE our weather 10 out of 12 months, my family has one of the most spectacular backyards ever. I really can't imagine wanting to give that up. Now, I mentioned that I let the dog go to explore. What did he find? An woman& man also taking in the sights of the fog/smoke. They were older and so sweet. They asked about my dog and said it was nice I had a hobby (photography). Then, we parted ways. Except I turned around and creepily took a photo of the woman. For your creeping pleasure, here is my piece titled 'Senior in the Fog':

Not my best work, but not bad for a quickly snapped creeper shot of a woman I had only spoken to for 2 minutes& she had no idea I took it. Ahh .. creeping. You complete me. So, the dog& I carried on ..we walked up the beach and onto the grassy path we spend a lot of time in. It's one of my most favorite spots in the world. It's so nice to lay in grass (or ..dry dirt at this time of year) and be surrounded by the ocean! We met a nice guy on a dirtbike .. he liked my dog. I didn't get a photo of them but Squirt crawled right up on him. I missed that photo op because I was getting a photo of a seagull.

Sweet seagull. So then we continued on our way to my favorite spot. Upon reaching our destination, I promptly sat my arse on the ground and stayed there. What did I do while on the ground? First, I soaked up some rays from sun. It wasn't warm, but the Vitamin D was nice either way. Then I saw the moon. I kid you not. It was just chillin' above the ocean& opposite the sun. PS I know this happens all the time, I was still really excited. So excited, in fact, that I took a photo!

Ahh.. le lune. C'est magnifique, non? Alors, apres ca ..jk. After the moon experience, my dog was running around burning off all his winter energy. He loves when it gets nice enough out that Momma will take him for walks. I know, that makes me a bad mom. I should always walk him, regardless of weather. Sorry puppy. I got some awesome shots of the pupster, I will not show them all to you. This post is already really long& most people have probably stopped reading& moved on to just looking at the photos. Which is okay too :)

My dog is the sweetest dog in all of Cape Breton. Also that photo is a gem .. something so cute about puppy tongues! So, by this point my fingers were going numb& Squirt was anxious to get back home. So, we started our trek back. I turned the camera off, only to have to turn it right back on one last time! I saw a crow. Wow ..seagulls& crows, I am amazing at capturing rare animals on film. He was flying away from the pond. Here's my end shot. I hope you enjoyed my photo story post!

On the agenda..

Lots& lots to talk about. What a busy day I had yesterday. I will break them down into their own little segments. There will not, however, be as many photos as my posts have had lately. Sorry about that!

Harlem Globetrotters
Yes. These awesome folks are coming to Centre 200. I am so freaking excited. I am purchasing tickets for the boyfriend& myself later today. I don't even care if he isn't excited. I'm taking my camera& getting some sweet shots. I loved them the last time I saw them and he has NEVER seen them before! This is a travesty that we have to correct immediately. My excitement over this is almost making me forget about just how very sucky our weather is. Almost. So, needless to say I'm so excited for this!

Karli
I played photographer again yesterday& snapped some shots of Karli being a graduate! She even brought roses. Laughing& good times were had by all. We had NO idea how to put on the grad gown ...I'm really hoping we figured it out in the end though! She was a trooper and we got some neat shots. We even managed shots at the beach, where it was super windy, bight and cold. I think she liked them, she made of them her facebook profile photo, which I always find a good sign! Thank you Photoshop, for making it look like I know what I'm doing with my camera :) And thank you Karli, fpr the roses. Mom& I plan on keeping them along as live as possible. Approximately 3 - 5 days :)

Ice cream
Mmm .. my favorite treat. Although I have been eating it so much lately, it's less of a treat& more of a dietary staple. Oops. I promise to cut back. It's just all of a sudden, Lick-A-Treat& Tasty Treat are open for business. And I'm one happy customer. I don't care that the prices are high, that I need to wear mittens to hold my ice cream or that I eat while the seat warmers are on. I'M EATING ICE CREAM. And I don't care WHAT the weather man says. It was delicious. We even got tea& coffee afterward to warm us back up. So good.. minus the part where I had to pee. so. bad. Then we watched American Idol& my boyfriend got frustrated with how much I talk during it. So I made him leave. Hahaha I'm kidding ..sort of. I really did make him leave before the Lakers game. They lost again. What a disappointing 3 games for them. Hopefully they pull it together& win the whole year.

Photo of the Day
I don't have it yet. Check back later / tomorrow. I promise to have it then .. maybe. I would also love to promise that it will be great, but it probably will be just average. Hey, at least I'm consistent. Consistency is the key to being awesome. Right? Oh well, I did one up on the photo of the day. Keep reading and you'll be laughing ..hopefully!

Squirt
So. My dog is the funniest / sweetest dog in the whole wide world. When we were leaving the beach, I yelled for him to come join us. We see him galloping towards us with something in his mouth. Uncertain, I take out my camera and snap a few shots. Brilliant. It's a Pepsi cup and he is SO proud of it. You could see the excitement on his face. I wish I had of had a video recorder. I did the next best thing. I put them in iMovie for the Mac and added a song and a comic book feel. Then I uploaded it to youtube. Between that and this blog, I've never been more certain in my life of my future. Here is what I'm envisioning:
1. Ellen invites myself& my dog on her show. We rock it.
2. Pepsi makes Squirt their new spokesperson. He rocks it.
3. I get a book deal from that& the blog. I rock it.

Yeah. So, for your viewing pleasure .. here is the first view of Pepsi's new commercial. I hope you love it as much as I do. Squirt is such a celebrity.