The Orchid Show

This morning I joined a couple of friends at the Annual Orchid show.  These images are not the best technically.  I had to use a high iso in order to avoid using flash, and even then the shutter speed wasn't all that fast, so they may not be totally sharp.  I hope, though, that you can see how beautiful the flowers are.  I even succumbed and bought a house plant.  I'll enjoy it till I leave for NY, then my hostess will inherit it.

The Rainbow

It was raining a little this morning.  From my window I saw a piece of this rainbow and when I stepped outside to take a photo, this is what I saw.  Wide angel lenses rock!  So do rainbows.

Walking Around

Walking around a parking lot this afternoon, these were the only two funky plates I could find.  I guess all the rest of them were on the road going 60 miles/hour so I wouldn't be able to photograph them.  At least that's what it seems like when I'm driving. 

My friend guessed that this one means "wind shear" which is a meteorological term.  My "gut" reaction, when I first saw it was "windward shore".  Guess I'll never know, but it's fun trying to figure out what the abbreviations mean.

Just outside the front door of my house is a container of water that holds some goldfish and water lilies.  This flower was blooming. 

6 on the 6th

Late this afternoon I remembered that I was supposed to do 5 on the 5th yesterday. Obviously I missed it.  So rather than wait until tomorrow and have to do 7 on the 7th, I decided to do it today.  These are just random images from around the house.

Although this rainbow was a little anemic, it was still pretty.

 Sunrise

The other morning, this was the sight that greeted us. I'm usually on my way to work during sunrise, so it was a real treat to be able to see this.

Have I Got News For You...

But first...When I got home from work today early, for a change, Betty was in the throes of anguish.  Her house is in the process of a remodel, and there was jackhammer activity (inside the house don'tcha know), along with other forms of banging and hammering today.  She was thrilled when I suggested getting away.  So she took me to a Filipino indoor farmer's market.  It was really interesting and there were a great many photo ops throughout the venue.  The most interesting ones were the fish.  So I took several photos of different kinds of fish, and in order not to bore Betty, I ignored the produce and signage (except for one which you'll see farther down in this post).

Now here's the interesting sign.  "Lemon, 50 cents each or 2 for $1.00"  That's quite the deal, wouldn't you say?

Now here's my fantastic news.  A few months ago I came across a blog that I subsequently began following and put in the list of "blogs I follow".  One day, last month, the author posted the information that she had discovered a website that will convert your blog into book form.  Well....I've been hoping for and looking for such a site for a long time, so I hurried to the address and was so impressed that I ordered my first book from them.  It's practically a no-brainer, and takes almost no time to do it.  You can choose which blog posts you want to include in the book, what cover design you want to use, hard cover/soft cover, which photos you want on the front and back covers, etc.  In other words, it's very, very user friendly.

 

I have a lot of blog posts, and for a few minutes I couldn't decide how to choose the ones I wanted in the book.  Then it came to me...why not make a book for each year of my blog's existence?  That way each book wouldn't be too big, and it would give me a chance to see the quality on a small selection.  So I chose the year 2010.  There are somewhere around 100 posts, 173 pages and the cost was approxitmately $70 which included shipping.  It took about 2 1/2 weeks from the time I ordered the book till the time it arrived.  I give you all these details just so you can have a frame of reference in case you want to make a book of your blog posts.  Of course, books will vary according to the number of photos and the amount of text in your posts. 

My book arrived today, and I am so excited.  Great quality paper, photo reproduction, binding.  Two small disappointments:  the images are smaller than I had hoped they'd be (but if they were larger there would have been more pages and therefore greater cost), and the text doesn't flow as smoothly as I would have liked (ie. when there is just one sentence between photos on the blog site, in the book that one sentence doesn't always line up with the appropriate photo).  In spite of the "issues", I'm thrilled and will soon be ordering a book for the year 2009.

Oooops, almost forgot.  The address is  blog2print.com  Check it out.  BTW--I just received an email from them.  There's a 15% off sale going on right now through March 9.  Use the code   readysetb2p  for the discount.