Photo Challenge: Day 7

When I lived in Aberdeen my Mum was, at one time, searching for a giant fruit bowl. It took a long time to find exactly what she wanted and during that time whenever we'd spot a nice large bowl one of us would say to the other "that would make a good fruit bowl". It became a tradition and I still say it whenever I spot a nice large bowl.

When they visited last year we had a day trip to Stillwater where I spotted a bowl. We'd seen a lot of pottery that day and had exchanged many "that would make a good fruit bowl"s but although they were all beautiful and special, they were also way too expensive to live in a house with two rambunctious children. But this bowl was different. It was hand made and lovely, but also under $30! It was going to make a really good fruit bowl.

I bought it, and it came to live in our kitchen where it holds our fruit.

Today it's empty because I used all the old bananas that were in there yesterday to make banana bread. Banana bread is, without a doubt, my second favorite way to get my USDA recommended daily servings of fruit. My number one choice is, of course, wine.

Look, it's even got raisins in it. That's double fruit!

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 7: Fruit

Photo Challenge Day 6

Today we took a 40 mile walk. At least, it felt like 40 miles, but it was actually only 5.5 miles. Still, it took hours and we were all exhausted when we got home...

While we were lunching I took this picture for today. Luckily I squeezed it in because this was the last one before the battery in my camera died...

Photo Challenge Day 6: From a low angle.

Photo Challenge: Day 5

This is going to be short. I won't promise sweet, but it'll be short. It's late.

This is from my 3rd floor office window looking down at the steps of the Northrop Auditorium at the U. I would have loved to have a person peeking out from behind a column or sitting on the steps somewhere, but it seemed weird to ask someone to do that. But maybe by day 30 I'll be so committed I'll do just that...

Photo Challenge Day 5: From a high angle.

Photo Challenge Day 4

One of the results of this challenge is that I have been taking more pictures in general, and I have my camera with me more often and am able to take fun pictures of things that would normally be forgotten. For example, we met friends for breakfast at Ikea this morning (which was super cheap and pretty tasty and I would definitely recommend) and on our way out I spotted this:

(Click to enlarge. If you can't read what's circled in the bottom right, you'll miss the joke!)

The sign must have been at least 15 feet wide. Who knew Ikea had a sense of humor? I had to stop and take a picture even though Adele was really mad and Fiona took it as an opportunity to climb on a pile of ektorps.

Fiona and Adele have both been really interested in taking care of babies recently, which is adorable. Fiona likes to wrap hers up and tote them around and put them in bed and tell people to be quiet because they are sleeping...

She was asking for a baby carrier so I made her a moby of her own and she insisted on packing two babies in there.

Adele loves to feed her baby too, and also likes to take their clothes off. She is funny.

This afternoon we went to the Zoo, partly to get out of the house and partly to look for something green to take a picture of. I got a telephoto lens for my camera (thanks Dad!) but haven't had much opportunity to use it yet and I thought that there must be a bunch of fun green things at the Zoo to take close up pictures of... crocodiles, frogs, turtles... Well I took some really fun pictures but it turns out it's a lot harder to find green creatures that I expected. The crocodiles look more grey than green and the other things had greenish parts but were not really green.

The only really green thing was this big fat caterpillar waiting to turn into a beautiful butterfly... so here he is.

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 4: Something Green

Photo Challenge: Day 3

Today dawned bright and clear. Which was a surprise because the last few days have been nothing but thunderstorms. Today's challenge was clouds so I took my camera with me when I dropped the girls off at daycare thinking I could get some fun cloud pictures over the lake on my way home. Sadly it was not to be... I never thought I'd be disappointed with blue skies before.

Fortunately I took some cloud pictures yesterday, and although it feels like cheating, here's my submission for today...

Photo challenge day 3: Clouds

Photo Challenge: Day 2

When Fiona was about 9 months old my sweet friends sent me a really fun t-shirt for my birthday. It had a bunch of animals riding a roller coaster on it and I loved it. Unfortunately it was too tight and although I tried it on from time to time just to check, it never fitted well. It became my goal shirt. I WOULD fit into it one day, hopefully. Well Happy Day, today I wore that shirt! I'm not the same weight I used to be, and I think it would take a lot of effort to become that weight again, but the shirt fits, and that's enough for me!

So here I present to you Louise's diet plan...

1. Have a baby

2. Have another baby

3. Spend every meal time trying to eat while doing a combination of these things: picking up dropped forks, getting drinks, getting more blueberries, exchanging blueberries for watermelon, trying to spoon foods into the little one, picking up that fork again, mopping up spilled drinks, wiping hands and faces, taking toddlers to the bathroom.

4. Come back from that bathroom trip to find the dog with his head in your plate licking your dinner.

5. Give up.

6. Have a glass of wine instead.

There you have it! It's not healthy and no doctor recommends it but at least wine is good for you... right? Yes! It's full of antioxidants and resveratrol. Thanks science!

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 2: What you wore today.

30 Day Photo Challenge

A friend posted this on facebook yesterday and I thought it would be fun to do a 30 day photo challenge because I leaned after Adele was born that the 365 day photo challenge was much too challenging. A month is the absolute maximum length of time I can keep something like that up. The list was right there, and the new month started today, so both of those facts greatly increased my chances of at least achieving day 1. So here we go!

Day 1: Self portrait. Ack. I should have looked more closely and taken a shower today.

For a long time now, I have wanted to visit Lake Louise in Banff, Canada. According to Wikipedia "Summers consist of frosty mornings and crisp cool days", which makes it just about the ideal climate for me (in summer at least, in winter they get over 3 meters/almost 10 feet of snow!).

(Photo source)

Once there I plan to relax and sip Louise Champagne which sadly costs $225 and oddly I have only ever seen for sale in the airport in Schipol, Amsterdam.

(Photo source)

Why the random segue, I hear you asking? Well, tonight my dream came significantly closer to becoming a reality. On a wine run to Trader Joes I found THIS...

Ohhhhhh yeah. Louise sparkling wine, in both red and white varieties! AND it's less than $7 a bottle! Yes please!

Half of my dream will have kind of come true as soon as I chill those puppies. And in the meantime, I'll work on this other bottle instead... which leads me back to the challenge...

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 1: Self Portrait.