The eyes have it

It's that time again!  It's Wednesday, so it's time for a photography challenge submission.  Since I can only seem to remember the challenge on that day it's due, I have to scramble to get it accomplished.

This weeks Photo Challenge theme, given to us by Shutterboo, was "eyes."

I had already taken a photo of the eyes of the potatoes on my counter and the eyes of my dear sweet mocha kitty, but I wanted a few more ideas.  I wasn't pleased with the way those were taking shape.

So I went to Facebook, as I do so often and asked the question....

EYES - got any ideas??

Here's what I got!
Friend -Your eyes, but with select color affect, so only the color of the eyes is seen, the rest B&W.
Friend -your eyes and eyes from other photosFriend - needles
Friend -  aren't there hook and eye attachments on clothing? or how about the eye of a storm?Kristin Corlett -These are some great ideas. No storm around me, so I haven't been able to find the eye of a storm. Someone in the weekly challenge did the eye of a needle - it's really cool. Hook and eye - there are some of those on my bra! LOL

Friend -cross eyed!!!  eyebrow



Friend - tiger eyes - you know marbles.



I have to say that there were some really great ideas.  I either didn't have the item mentioned - tiger eye marbles, a storm, or I hadn't a clue how to photograph the item with the photography tools that I own.  I also had no idea how to manipulate a photo that the first friend mentioned. (I plan on learning that one, though)

My eyes always look tired, so I really didn't want to use my eyes for this photo and I missed the message on crossed eyes and eyebrows until I started writing this post.  

The ideas that were mentioned got me thinking and looking around my house. 

I looked to inanimate objects that had eyes.  This little guy caught my attention first. 

He's a little chipped and worn, but he has great eyes.

Then I went back to my kitty cat string holder.

I love photographing this fella. 

So, those are my two semi-finalists. 

I can't decide.  I love string kitty,  but I don't think he has the power in the eyes to really capture the theme.

I think I'm going to go with the puppy statue.

What do you think?  Good choice?

Have a great great day!
Kristin

It's a tank

It's a tank! 

Well, you see the weekly photo challenge topic for this week over at Shutterboo's place (Flickr Group here) is toilet.  Toilet.  Hmmm, what to do with that information.  I've seen some fantastic pictures of toilets, I really have!  My mother even has a photo of some toilets that is just fabulous. Well, I had a difficult time finding an interesting toilet situation.   So what I ended up with is a picture of my toilet tank.  Not pretty, but unusual.

The extra little round thing that is hanging from the back of the tank is from the Kaboom toilet bowl cleaner kit.  I don't use it anymore, but never took it out, until today.  After this photo I took it out.  

Go over to the the Flickr group and see what others did for this challenge.  I just love the creativity that comes out in people.  The Flickr group is for the entire year long photo challenge, so you will find some photos from previous weeks in between this weeks theme.

--by the way, I did end up cleaning the entire bathroom, even though none of it showed :)

Have a great day!
Kristin

Fire and a Rusty Pelican

This weeks theme in the Weekly Photo Challenge at Shutterboo's place was

Fire. 

I was hoping to find fire this past week.  I didn't want to have to make it or create it, but I wanted to literally just stumble upon it. 

While in Tampa this past weekend we went to this wonderful restaurant called the Rusty Pelican. Our waiter, Douglas, was so much fun.  Isn't it great when a server makes the dining experience even better than the fabulous food?!  He turned the fire on for us when we arrived and I  just laughed and thought - well, you certainly found fire! 

The restaurant wasn't very crowded, so we talked with Douglas quite a bit.  I even told him about my blog and asked if I could use his name.  He said No Way! and gave me his card.  Then I told him that I needed to take some photos of that fire he turned on for us.  I'm so glad I found that fire because I haven't seen any since.

I have to talk about this restaurant.  It was situated on Tampa Bay and I guess there is a beautiful view, but we were there at 9pm on New Years Day, so it was just dark dark water with some lights way off in the distance.  The menu was about half seafood and half steak, but they did have escargot and a table side Caesar salad on the menu, so I was definitely in love. 

I decided that since it was so late I was just going to get sides from the menu.  Tom and I shared escargot and we both had the Caesar salad.  (Douglas did a wonderful job making that for us...yum!) and then I knew I was going to be full by this point, but I still wanted to have something while Tom ate his dinner, so I got a side of asparagus and hollandaise sauce.  I've ordered this at other restaurants before and I typically receive 3 or 4 pieces of asparagus.  The Rusty Pelican does things very differently - they make their sides mean something!  I ate a dozen aspargus spears and still had a dozen left.  It was nice having a side last the entire time my husband was eating his dinner.  He ordered snapper with garlic mashed potatoes as I recall. 

So that's my Fire story for the Weekly Challenge.  If you'd like to more of the photos from the challenge you can go to the Flickr pool. I'm always amazed at the creativity.

Spirit of Charlie Brown

Spirit of Charlie Brown pt. 2
Originally uploaded by lemon shrapnel

I saw this photo on my Weekly Photography Challenge Flickr pool and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Can you just imagine someone with a little elfish grin coming to this little plant with their two ornaments and hanging them? You know they got the biggest kick out of doing it.

It's a combination of Random Acts of Kindness and Free Art.

What pleases me even more is that someone took a photo of it and now people around the world can get a little grin on our face knowing that this existed and that it was found and appreciated by at least two people. (the person who photographed it and me!)

Thank you lemon shrapnel for taking this photo. Thank you.

Love this!
Kristin

Gifts and such

I had a very nice Christmas. It's a little different when there aren't any kids around or any family events to attend, but it's they way I've spent my Christmas for the past 5 years. The nice thing about Christmas when you live far away from friends and family is that gifts arrive in the mail! I love going to the mail box in December. Christmas cards and gifts and good wishes.


One of the envelopes that arrived contained this little gem.  It was from my blogging friend Leigh (Tales from Bloggeritaville) - What a lovely ornament!  I just adore this Santa.  This is one of my favorites - he's one of the old time santas in that style that I love.  The back of the ornament looks like an old postcard.  I love it, Leigh.  Thanks so much.

Tom gave me something that I've been wanting for awhile now.  Granted, I sent him out on a mission to get it, but I was delighted with the quality.  He put a ton of thought into finding the perfect TRIPOD for me!  I got a tripod *dancing around the room* I got a tripod!  I took all three of the photos today of items in my Christmas tree because I could finally do it without having it blurry or needing to use the flash.  I love my tripod.  I'm so excited.  He also gave me a portable DVD player, some colored pencils, dishtowels and a calendar for my purse.  I think there were a few other small items, too.

My sister Alison is framing some business cards for me - I took the business cards to her in October and told her to pick the frame, the design, the everything and I know I'd love it.   I guess she decided since she had so much control over the whole thing she might as well gift it to me :) She's a smart kid!

My Mother sent me this Santa cup.   It's one that we received as kids and she sent it on to me this year.  When I opened up the box I burst into tears.  I seriously love it when that happens.  It's an honest emotional moment.  What a delight to receive a childhood memory in the mail.  About a second later my sister Hillary called.   She asked what I was doing and I said - crying! haha.  The Santa cup once had a red cap and handle, but nearly all of it has flaked off.  I find it interesting that the little blok markes on the cap are still intact.  They must have been painted first instead of painted over the red. 

The next item in the box from my mom was the "Three Legs of Man" or the Manx triskelion.  It is the symbol of the Isle of Man (IOM) and since we had taken our trip there in May and the Corlett side of my family came from the Isle of Man, it was an unexpected treat.  I'm so excited to have this in my ornament collection.  Thanks Mom!!

Tom's parents sent us gifts, too - I received several dishtowels (poinsettia designs - love them!) and the most gorgeous scarf/shawl with three large buttons.  I've already decided that I'm taking it to Rome with me.  I needed a giant scarf like that when we went to IOM in May - I can imagine that Feb in Rome I might like it as well.  Anyway, I loved the scarf. :)

On Christmas morning I got an email that I had just received a gift card to Amazon.com.  My sister Hillary thought I might like a few new titles downloaded onto my Kindle.   I was thrilled to pieces! 

My Dad sends food.  He's sent two prime rib roasts and a filet mignon roast.  Goodness, they are so good!    He sent one for Labor day I think, one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas.  We finally caught up and now only have the Christmas filet roast left in the freezer. 

This little brown glittery ornament is not a gift that I received this year.  Actually I bought it and a dozen more a few years back.  Today, however, I noticed that the ornament was brown.  Brown was the photo prompt for this week's photo challenge from Shutterboo and I was having a terrible time photographing brown things.  I found a lot of brown items, but I swear, not a single photo was worth the effort.  When I was editing the photos of the ornaments in the tree, I realized that I should probably with my own theme for the day and take a picture of the brown ornament in the tree. 

This is only my second week participating in the photo challenge.  It's been going on for 19 weeks so far, so there are still plenty of weeks to join in, if it's something that appeals to you.  Shutterboo's website has a black background, so it breaks all my rules...I can hardly stand to read a blog with a black background.  But the photo pool is on Flikr and I can read her blog in my reader, so I'm making an exception because I like the photo challenge idea and the prompts.  It's been fun so far.

I hope you have been having a lot of fun these few days after Christmas.  New Years is just a heart beat away!

Kristin