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Wil you please get your little brother out of the middle of my Shrimp Salad...
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These are shots from a local cemetary here in Columbia, TN.  The gravestones are dated in the 1800's, making them over one hundred years old, which is obvious by the condition of the headstones. still standing resting in peace This one I tried in Black and White, it's a little blurry tho.blackandwhite and yet . . . I found some vivid beauty amongst these ruins. beauty

We have an annual Christmas party in January and I organize it for my husband. Anyway dummy me planned it on our 12th wedding anniversary. (I forgot) When my husband got up to do his thank you to everyone,he proceeded to ask me to  remarry him. He had invited my sisters and other family and hid them until the appropriate time. He had lost his wedding ring years before & had the ministerbless his new one with this union. Our 1st wedding consisted of 30 people, 10 of which were our newly combinedkids.This time there were 250. The emotions that night for me ran from Love, to surprise,to elation. I am a very lucky lady! P.S. We are down to only 3 kids left at home!!

It's been 6 months since Mrs.SG and I lost our home to a fire...  well we begin moving back in .. in the morning so ... if you don't mind, I am going to post tomorrows challange entry a bit early...  and will be busy for the next few days...  

Every once in a while you capture that extra special shot... sometimes because you tried to get it.. and sometimes because you screwed up the shot so badly ... it's perfect in your eyes...  This is the way I feel about this shot...   I call it "E"motion...
"E"Motion..Mother and Child...

ThumbNail...

Future Leaders Hippies Sign Floyds Repair Neon Jester C R A Z Y Neon Bates Motel

We are Closed for this season.
But I can still get some nice shots.
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~|Enjoy|~

I finally got my act together to post for a bi-weekly challange.  

Tree & hoop on hood

sun relection on wheel to the house

My house on the hood

Bushes on the canal

Enjoy :o)

We have a building in our town that has served several uses over the many years it has stood. It was the courthouse and jail in its early years. It's been a fine restaurant a few times and a loud tavern too many times. It is now going through another phase of its history. It is in the process of becoming a fine restaurant with live jazz and blues music. It's a throw back to when Grafton was the home of Paramount Records, where many of the greatest blues performers recorded. (Gene Autry, too!)

You never know what you'll find until you remove the stuccowork from a building.

Drink Braumeister Lager Beer

Thanks for looking. I hope you enjoy!

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My Great Aunt never had any children of her own so she adopted us as her grandchildren.  Our Grandmother (her sister) died before any of us was born.  When Aunt Kay passed away I inherited a few things from her.  One of these was a very tiny spoon.  It is shaped like a ladle and is about two inches long.  The tiny spoon was from Washington State (Mount Rainier) and according to my mother had always been in the family, but she didn't know what it was used for.  I took the little spoon to an antique dealer to see if I could find out how it was used.  He sold me the little bowl it is in which is a salt cellar - this is also very small.  They used to put these on the table by each place setting so that people could salt their food - used instead of a shaker.   Now the little silver spoon has a special place in my hutch.

I have a lot of memories, but when I tried to find something to show it was tough.  The first thing I thought of was my silver baby cup, and when I found that I also found the bracelet that I wore as a baby and my baby book.  Boy, this really goes back.  I had a little sister that came along when I was 14, and I think that a lot of my stuff got passed on to her.  I was the oldest of five, so I had the best baby mementos, but a lot of stuff got shared with the others.
This exercise gave me a chance to practice my macro skills.First with the baby book open Baby 1 and then I photoshopped it Baby 2. Then I tried it with the book closed and set it on the carpet Baby 3.  Then I got Wim's light box out and tried some : cup 1,  Cup 2,  Cup 3 , Cup and picture.

Although I had not posted this in 2005 it was taken while we were out in the fields getting our Christmas tree. I also liked my squirrel in the thumbnail but Disco is family so I am entering him in the contest.
Disco

I've been nervous about posting self portraits.  They just seem so revealing.  I think it's like hearing my voice on a recording...I never like what I hear.  I'm going to take a chance today.  These are the first two before versions:

Portrait 1 Before
Portrait 2 Before

On these next two I've adjusted levels and saturation slightly.  I've also blurred the background just a touch.

Portrait 1 After
Portrait 2 After

Finally, here is a black and white version of the first portrait. and a cropped version of the second portrait.

Some friends of ours decorate their fireplace mantle each year for the Christmas season. They have a daughter that lives with her family in Tacoma, Washington, and they asked if I would take some pictures that could be shared with their daughter. I agreed and went through the following steps in order to give them some reasonably decent images.

Due to the size of the fireplace and the room, it was necessary to shoot two separate images.
Left side of fireplace
Right side of fireplace

I then stitched the two images using Photoshop Elements 3 and arrived at this step.  Left and Right joined
Not wanting the decorations to slide off the end of the mantle, I tweeked the horizon a little and got this.
The next step was to crop the image in order to get  this image.
I wasn't wild about the electric cord on the left, so I removed it, repaired the garland on the fence and applied a little unsharp mask as the final steps.Image complete.

I also shot a picture of the little choir that is on the mantle. I turned choir before in to this choir after.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope you all have a great weekend!