Words Can't Express

I had a interesting day yesterday.  It began in its usual way--no indication that it would be anything other than ordinary. However, it soon became extra-ordinary.  

I can't go into detail about everything that happened because it would be way too long and you would be totally bored.  Suffice it to say that some very discouraging things happened in between some amazing things.  Words can't express how fun those amazing things were, but I know they were from the Lord as a gift to me.  Actually, even the discouraging things were from the Lord to teach me something, I'm sure. 

But, without going into details, here are bullets of some of the blessings:

*My car didn't cost as much as I had anticipated when I took it to be serviced.

*It was finished sooner in the day than I expected

*I discovered that I DIDN'T have to file Hawaii State Income tax on last year's salary because I hadn't earned enough

*I was able to re-route my return flight to NY for a minimal fee (much, much less than I had anticipated)

*I won a few games of Boggle, and even the ones I lost were only lost by a small margin

*I had lunch with my friend at one of my favorite restaurants

I won't tell you about the discouragements.  Let's just say I learned something and now I'm moving on.

Today I spent the majority of the day at work.  We were photographing a soccer league. It was over 80 degrees and the sun was shining most of the day.  Hence, the umbrella.

One of the girls was busy taking her own photos.  I see a photography career in her future.  These kids crack me up, they are sooooo adorable.  It was a long day, and I was very glad when it was over. 

Jackpot

I found these 4 license plates practically next to each other in a parking lot tday.

Do you suppose the Lexus is his prescription?  His tranquillizer??  His happiness??

The plate below is on a van.  My interpretation is"

For da family (da=pidgen for "the" in Hawaiian).

So!! speaking of cars.  I filled my gas tank this afternoon.  Every time I fill the tank, I compute my gas mileage.  I did it again today.  Oh.    My.   Gosh!!!!  I got 6 miles/gallon LESS  this time.  Not only are they charging outrageous amounts of money for gas these days, but they're apparently diluting the gas somehow so we get less miles per gallon while charging us about twice as much.

Is anyone else out there upset by this???

Wondering...

On April 2 I posted an image of a bird's nest with 4 eggs in various stages of hatching.  One baby was out of the shell, another was half out, the third egg had a couple of holes pecked through and the fourth egg was intact.  I had intended to post frequently throughout the process.

But, sad to say, the process hasn't been much to record.  First, two babies were visible, with the other two eggs still pretty much intact.  Next, the babies were still there, but the other two eggs were gone.

Then the two babies looked pretty pathetic, but they were breathing.  This morning as I approaced the nest I didn't see the mother fly off as in other trips to the nest.  There are still two babies in there, but the one on the bottom doesn't look good.  I can't detect any breathing, while the one on top, that you see here in th photo, is breathing well, but looks pretty unappealing.

So I'm wondering, where is mom?? 

On a lighter note, I saw this license plate the other day.  Funny that while living in Hawaii, she's still declaring that she's a "California Gal".

7 on the 7th

So my resolve to post 5 photos on the 5th of the month seems to fall flat more often than not.  I never even gave it a thought on the 5th.  So here I am, posting 7 images that I actually did take on the 5th, but forgot to post.  (the mind is a terrible thing to lose, and sometimes I think I need a grown-up to take care of me). 

So this past Tuesday morning, Betty and I decided to take a drive to the North Shore to have breakfast at Ted's Bakery.  It was very good and even though it was cloudy, we had the fun privilege of eating outside (of course it was impossible to eat inside because there weren't any tables inside).  Truly and honestly, we had a real breakfast, even though I thought it would be fun to forgo the healthy food and get right to the dessert.

On our way home (actually it was on our way to Haleiwa to get Shave Ice), we stopped at a few beaches just to see what we could see.  The surf was pretty good.

No images of us eating Shave Ice.  I left my camera in the car and all Betty had was her phone.  I'm not a fan of phone images. 

Retirement

They're Hatching

A bird couple decided to make their nest in one of the hanging planters on the upstairs deck.  They began hatching yesterday.

Semper Fi

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would be photographing a military retirement ceremony.  Well, that ceremony took place last Saturday.  I finally pulled myself together tonight long enough to edit some of the images so I could post them on this blog.  I did, after all, commit to having an album available on my website by next Saturday, so I figured I'd better get myself in gear.  I keep thinking there were definite advantages to shooting film.  ie--take the pictures, take them to the lab.  Check.

Anyway, following are just a few of the images from last Saturday.  The Marine, a Master Gunnery Sgt., proudly served his country for 30 years.  His retirement was bittersweet.  It was a beautiful ceremony and a beautiful day.  (the only thing that would have made it better for me would have been blue skies--I've photographed this monument with a blue sky--it's amazing).

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.