Breweries and Beautiful Views

It's been a while since I started a new post, but here are some of the wonderful times that we've been having as the wacky weather continues to totally confound us NYers.

Sam and I hit our 1 year mark near the beginning of February and took a little trip to celebrate the milestone. A weekend of Vermont style fun was in order. Breweries, Antiques, Beautiful views, and TEDDY BEARS! :)

We headed over to Vermont on a Thursday evening so that we could get there that night and have our entire long weekend away from home, and not have to get up on Friday and still drive out to the destination.

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A happy moon provides.

We headed out around 8 at night, so we were driving in the pitch dark of February, but the moon was exquisite that night, this picture doesn't do it justice, but it was the best that I could get (I'm definitely saving for a new camera to take better digital pictures)

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Reflections of a time gone by
This picture was crazy to me, because I was trying to get the old church from inside the car (it was cold, I wasn't rolling down the window) and the ambient light from the street light was enough to cause a refracted reflection that makes it look like there is a street right above the church, which really was on the other side fo the street. I didn't even realize how cool this photo had turned out until I got home and started editing the pictures on the computer, at first I wasn't even sure what I was looking at until I blew the picture up.

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The man in his element.
This was the first brewery that we toured over the weekend, Long Trail brewery in Vermont. It was a self guided tour on a walkway above the brewery floor. Though they weren't brewing at the time, Sam was in heaven just to see it.

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The babbling brook over beer.
So Sammy loves beer (I do too, but it's a no-no with a gluten allergy), I love brooks. I could play in a brook finding neat stones that are water polished and beautiful. I took some pictures out back of Long Trail of the wonderful brook that flows right out the back door of their facility. I think Sammy would have been happy if it was a river of beer more though.....

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Distorted bubbles.
Had to take some up close pictures of the way the water was rippling that was making the smooth stones under the surface seem to sparkle. Wish it had been a sunnier day for catching all the beauty, but at least thank goodness for photoshop helping out with that a little!

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The cover over.
So on the way from our lovely visit to Long Trail along the way to the next of many destinations, Sammy stopped the car on the side of the road for me so that I could take some photos of a wonderful covered bridge that caught my eye as we drove by, he knows me too well.

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He flies high to keep this thing in place.

I was enamored, I don't know if this was a new bridge, as we were in an area hard hit by hurricane Irene and the horrible floods that ensued, but at least the pilings for the bridge were. I hope this was at least in part the old bridge that they saved, but even if it wasn't, they did a wonderful job to make it beautiful and artful, I'm totally in love with it's country charm. 

Well it's late and tomorrow is another day, so to sleep I must go as the computer is almost out of juice and I don't have it plugged in to charge. Will try and upload the rest of the fun from our trip and all the other wonderful pictures tomorrow!

Love reflected in the window pane of my soul.

Raylei

A Day Without Sunshine

So when you work a minimum of 9 hours a day, 5 hours a day on the weekend, and are trying to get together the resources to start your own business, and want to do project 365, something falls to the wayside. Unfortunately it was the project 365 posts. I was able to sit down for 2 hours the other night and edit photos from a day at the zoo, so we had a wonderful assortment of pictures to use to get caught up on the photos, so even though I haven't taken a photo every day, when I go to the zoo and take 200+ photos and end up with 15 edited photos that satisfy me (though I'll admit, towards the end, I wasn't nearly as picky or artistic as I usually am when it comes to editing and experimentation with photos) So without further pomp and circumstance, hopefully I can get within a few days of totally caught up here.

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Big T and the big T. Around the Zoo in Syracuse in a couple places there are these little statues, this one wasn't dirty, it was just worn out from everyone doing the same thing that we did. Try and sit on it and take a picture. This one was too tall for us, but as you'll see below, the tallest of our group didn't have the same problem at the pachyderm pen. 

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Warm Rock reprieve. So upstate NY, mid-January at the Syracuse zoo. who would have thought that there wouldn't be any snow and it would be almost 50 degrees out. I don't know what I think about global warming, but I know this was crazy. And the tigers were enjoying every little bit of it that they could. This was one of the cubs that was born this year enjoying the mid-afternoon sunshine on the heated rock that the zoo has provided them to encourage them to come near enough to really get an up close and personal view of them, it was truly amazing, and his stripes had me drooling from a photographic standpoint.

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A Farm study. 
I totally just wanted to steal this baby pygmy goat dang it.

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Flamingos in January
I love that the flamingo's knees were so pink, had to make sure to get that. To see Flamingos, outside, in January, in upstate NY, didn't think it was something that I would ever see.

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Just hanging around.

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Happy Kitty. This is a rarity, she actually laid there and let me take a pic while snuggling and kinda posing. Too cute not to love.

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Check out this back bend.
Awesome penguins, totally love.

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The man and the city.
He shines, all the lights of the city pale in comparison. My love.

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The pachyderm duo.
 Fun and sun in the Syracusian sunshine

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The camera turns back.
On our trip to NYC Sammy took the camera from me at dinner to document the happy time that we were having from his perspective, he didn't do too bad of a job I'd say.

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I'm watching you watching me
I'd never seen a duck with these markings before they were such a pretty reddish brown that I had to take a little time with this guy and let him know he was handsome.

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Whoooooos hanging around?
The barn owls were wonderful, wish I'd had a better camera/angle to get a closer in picture not obscured by the wire fence.

 

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The very next day.

So we drove to 'Cuse for the day, had a wonderful time, celebrated Jay's day, enjoyed the loveliness of the zoo, had a wonderful dinner, came back home, and woke up to this. I hope that the animals at the zoo are all bundled in today!

I have more photos to upload, I started this post almost a month ago, so I'm waaaaaaaaaaaay behind on the uploads/editing/taking photos.....I'm such a slacker. 

Love looking out from the pane of my window.

-Raylei

Sunday Goodness

So I have to give my puppies a lot of credit for my creativity, in my down time while I wait for them to "do their business" I'm always looking for things to take pictures of. This morning it was another case of the pups waking me up at a perfect time. 6:55 this morning they asked to go out and relieve themselves, so I obliged. It's that or an accident in the house :( So I have gotten in the habit of putting the camera by the back door and grabbing it as I go out to keep an eye on them. And this morning we were blessed with a beautiful sunrise that they got me out the door for just in the nick of time. Another spoiled day of mild temperatures keep me creative and looking for outlets. So after a little editing to bring out the amazing colors that we were witness to this morning, I ended up with this picture.

8/365 Early Morning Views

But I've gotten used to wandering around the house in the evening looking for little things to inspire me, so I couldn't help tonight when this last scene of our wonderful Christmas had yet to be removed. I had gotten some awesome color changing LED candles in the shape of little pine trees as a gift that I've totally fallen in love with, so had to get a picture of them making the holiday scene perfect. So today is a double picture day!
Happy Sunday and I hope your weekend was wonderful and that it starts another wonderful week of 2012.

Inspiration in the Cold - or not so Cold

So January does not seem to have reared it's nasty, snowy, cold head yet, though I'm thinking as I type this that I've probably just jinxed all of northeastern upstate NY to a plethora of wintery days to come, just remember in the future, it's okay to blame me, I can take it. The days during the week are hard to get through right now, the 'after the holiday blahs' have set in, but I just keep reminding myself that we're over the hump, the shortest day is in the rear view mirror now, so in that regard we're on the downhill side. BUT there is the lovely northern weather that we have to get through to get there, somehow we'll muddle through.  I know, why is she talking about the weather? The fact that it was 47 today, and I was able to wonder around through doing my errands in a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers made my week. So onto the fun of Project 365, I've managed to make myself take a picture every day so far, follow through, not something I'm always good at, so managing to get through a full week, I give myself a 'tiny' pat on the back.
On to the Pictures!

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So Thursday night had me wondering where to start, it was night time, and rather overcast, so getting a good outside photo wasn't really an option. I started looking around and found it in the reflections of everything around me, photos of puppies reflected in mirrors, reflections in windows, anything I could find with a reflection. Of all the reflections I found, this one combined 2 things I absolutely love, I'm fascinated by the sea, and shells, and all the peace I associate with being by the ocean. And the holidays, even though they are over, I haven't brought myself to take down the tree, this is the last weekend, it's overdue, so seeing the Christmas tree so perfectly reflected in the images of the ocean just seemed so harmonized to me that I had to share. enjoy!

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Casanova is the first of the babies to make a 2nd appearance in the photos, and so soon, but I went to take pictures of our first Christmas tree together before we take it down on Sunday, and he decided that he wanted to show the Christmas tree that he loved it too. He was under there chewing on the branches and rubbing against them and I just had to get down there and catch him in the act. Too precious to miss him peaking out from the little haven behind the tree.

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I've titled this one "Winter Clouds." This was a 3AM shot last night. The puppies decided that they needed a middle of the night pee break, and when I went outside I looked up, and inspired by the moon peaking through the rolling clouds that looked like the under side of the waves. I ran back inside to grab the camera while the puppies meandered around the yard. The sky reminded me of waves rolling in to break when you dive underneath and look up at the bottom side of them and see how powerful they really are. When I took the photo it was rather dark, I did a lot of editing to this one bringing out the brightness of the moon/clouds against the dark landscape.


So there we are, back up to date on the blogging and getting the photos edited and uploaded! Happy 1st 7 days of 2012 being behind us! I'm just counting down the days 'til the 1st day of Spring now!

A Photo a Day

To say the first few days of 2012 have been as creatively satisfying as I would like would be an utter and total lie. Even if it's right before I go to bed and it's still pictures, crazy pictures or just plain odd pictures I'm going to stick to project 365. I think it's rather fateful I found it on 1/3/12, in searching for creative inspiration for my new years resolutions and still have 364 days for the year, though I've used up my mulligan and do one catch up picture.(I'm rather OCD and kind of a stickler for following things to the letter) :-) Thanks 2012 for starting off inspiring, even if I haven't had a chance to walk the hills and take full advantage of it. So below are my  photos from the 1st 2 days of actively making sure to take pictures each day (and one makeup picture, or one animal might get jealous that he wasn't included and a makeup pictures I edited from the NYC trip that my boyfriend and I took last month.
I started with easy targets, the cats (one too camera shy to get any good shots, the other a total ham) and the dogs, as we all know it's an uphill climb from there. It's hard to hit it out of the park right out of the starting gate, so some edits were called for on these photos, the little buggers like to move right at the moment where I think I'm going to get that perfect picture! Hope you enjoy them and happy inspiration hunting to you all!

 1/365   Little Italy Looking Uptown
My first time there, my boyfriend took me there and showed me all around. The lights in the city at Christmas are so captivating I know I ran into more than 1 angry New Yorker in my time acting like a total tourist, but got some good shots out of it, so worth a few "darn tourist" grumbles.

2/365 The Puppy
Our puppy Barkley is so curious about everything we do, but he wasn't keen on the Red Eye reduction light on the camera, hence the extremely hesitant look

3/365 The Master Poser
And then we have our dog that is 3, he's used to me shoving the camera in his face, and though he only tolerates it for a few flashes before he won't look at me anymore, sometimes I manage to get a good one of his regal face before he turns into a photographic snob.

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Today's subject? Mr. Casanova
Total crazy man will do anything for some loves, right down to biting fingers because I'm paying more attention to trying to get a picture instead of petting him, good thing he wasn't hungry too, I might have lost a hand!

Starting This Time

I'm an Accountant, an artist, a performer, and a little bit of crazy all rolled into one. Starting This Time is an idea of re-puposing things, including my time. To the things that matter in this life, and not the wasting of time I've been participating in. If you want, you can join me on my first challenge. Like we all do each year, I've made my resolutions, and here is one I came across today in my internet travels that I am joining!
Project 365:





So starting today, on the 3rd of January I'm going to take a picture of something/someone/whatever every day for the rest of the year, this will encourage me to expand my photographic eye and show how truly creative I can be, especially on those days that I really have to push to get my creative juices flowing. So here's to a year of health, hapiness and some outstanding pictures! Cheers to 2012!