Portrait Finale! (or, "End of Photo Project")

Ta da!  End of the month = end of the photo project.  Here's what happened this past week:

• a fave photo of you -- this is probably the coolest spontaneous shot that our wedding photog took nearly 3 years ago.  It's up on our dining room wall, one of the prominently displayed wedding shots in our house.  Soooo much more "us" than all the posed line-up pics that were taken outside the church!
• where you work -- "the largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States."  This is my extremely battered membership card.  Represent!!
• your shoes -- I actually wore heels to work that day, but since I walk over a mile between the train station and the office I brought my new Tieks (pictured) along.  Hubs's company gave out gift certificates for these shoes as gifts at the corporate holiday party.  SCORE.
• inside your bathroom cabinet -- not room for much other than some toothbrushes (inc. the mini one for HD)
• green -- my brother and I had a blast on Saturday taking HD to the park and local library.  Green swing set, green trees, green jacket.  Seemed right to me!
• night -- this former LA girl is still a sucker for the Oscars, despite the fact that I never have time to see more than 1-2 of the nominated flicks anymore.  I think my obsession is less about the speeches and clothes...and more about the fact that I'm pretty excellent at making Oscar picks (it's all about knowing the Academy's politics, which I'm a bit ashamed to say isn't hard to pick up).  Guess what I did all Sunday night after HD went to bed?
• something you ate -- second time this topic was on the monthly list.  This is one of my favorite home desserts: vanilla ice cream, lots of chocolate sauce, and dry roasted peanuts sprinkled on top.  The perfect salty-sweet, and still good even if the IC and syrup are low fat :)
• money -- in an effort to pretend I have some, here's a glimpse at my wallet.
• something you're listening to -- this was today's shot.  And I was extremely tempted to put in a pic of HD screaming with gumdrop sized tears and snot obscuring her face.  Let's just say that teething incisors makes for a pint-sized drama queen.  But I spared myself the agony of trying to get that shot, and focused on my refuge (iPod) instead.  Play on, Zeppelin.

Have I mentioned my recent obsession with the older model of Fisher Price Little People recently?  These are the ones that any person who was a kid in the 60s-90s will remember.  Apparently they were deemed a choking hazard after 40 years in production, and the new models are a but more...rotund.  I scooped up some of the oldies on eBay and HD is IN LOVE.

Portraits of a February, Thriceover (or, "Photo Project 3")

Welcome to another glimpse into daily life of the DP Mama!  We have photos from my once a day photo project at the ready, for Sunday Feb 12 - Monday Feb 20.  Let's have at it.  Explanations and daily topics are below the photos.  Please excuse the haphazard formatting.

• Inside Your Closet - a close up of some of my fave items.  You didn't really expect to get a full shot of my bedroom's designated disaster space, did you?
• Blue - HD, wearing blue henley and cardigan.  Whenever we put either of these items on her, she insists that she's "blue like Toodee."
• Heart - apropos topic, as it was Valentine's Day.  Hubs and I have never gone out on V-Day, not even in our dating days.  We've always stayed in to cook together.  We made sea scallops with bacon and spinach...the heart is the bacon bits :)
• Phone - HD's Fisher Price phone, courtesy of the Grand Admiral Madre.  It was hanging out in her room next to her fairy door.  [Sidenote, HD loves to knock on this door and try to ask her resident fairy, Elizabeth, to come out.  I've explained to her that Elizabeth is nocturnal, so HD inevitably whispers "sleeping" whenever Elizabeth does not appear during the day to the knocking.]
• Something New - Hubs and I decided that our big present to each other for the holidays would be to attempt some decorating in our bedroom.  You know, make it a space that isn't a haven for baby toys and story books with a bed in the middle.  So all the pillows in the photo below are new-ish, but the headboard is all of a week old.  West Elm is my fave, and totally affordable when they have sales and you cash out credit card points to get gift certificates to the store!
• Time - best depicted by my always full calendar work planner.
• Drink - on Saturday, Hubs went out with a friend.  Once HD was asleep, I enjoyed a bit of scotch.  Nom.
• Something You Hate to Do - potty training.  HD's totally cool with using her potty, but she's still not so adept at always telling us when she has to (but she's getting there!).  Which means to avoid accidents, we basically take her into the bathroom every chance we get.  DP Mama's lower back is not loving sitting on that cold tile to read Green Eggs & Ham for the 12th time that afternoon.
• Something You Ate - who says Panda Express doesn't have healthy options?

Portraits Revisited (or, "Photo Project 2")

And for week 2 of my one photo a day month...Here are the daily topics from Sunday, Feb 5 (kind of) through Saturday, Feb 11:

- 10am (I forgot to take the photo last Sunday!  Which would have probably been a pic of HD on the potty, so you're welcome on being spared that sight. You have Monday morning at my desk in the office instead.)
- dinner (awesome Hubs made a pizza with pine nuts when I wasn't feeling well.  And yes, he made the pizza.  No frozen ingredients whatsoever.  My hero.)
- button (courtesy of my cardigan and coat)
- sun (another make up pic from the next day. I was home with a sick HD on Wed so I snapped this shot of a building near my office on Thurs)
- front door (Hubs was home with sick HD this day,  and they came to meet me when I arrived home.  Nothing makes a working woman happier than that.)
- self portrait (note the tired/stressed tension in facial lines.  I was once an actress, but that's hard to fake with such accuracy unless you're Meryl.)
- makes you happy (napping kid definitely qualifies)

In case you can't tell, I'm having tons of fun playing with the photo effects, playing up various colors and lighting and faux old-timey qualities.  That's it for this week! More to come...

A Romantical Tradewind (or, "February's Date...with the Kid")

Remember the Christmas gift for Hubs?  The one pre-planned date a month deal?  Well, February's date was a doozy.  Mostly because we opted to bring the kid along, as it was a day excursion.

We drove out to the coast to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.  It's this gorgeous expanse next to the Pacific with a rocky coast that's perfect for tide pooling.  And the weather!  It was a crazily beautiful day in the mid 60s, wild with sunshine.  Tide was lowest at 2:38pm that day, so we got there after her nap, about 3:10pm.  Kid had on her ladybug rainboots and was all set to go charging into the ocean.  She adores the beach, so how could we not bring her along?

Winter in CA?  Yeah, it's not just like this in the movies.

We had a blast charging over the sand, chasing gulls, and gazing up at the bluffs.  We had to teach HD to be extra-super-insanely gentle with every creature we came across.  There were anemones, hermit crabs, barnacles, and seaweed everywhere.  HD had a fabulous time quoting every book/tv show she'd ever heard regarding sea life, insisting that there were octopi in the pools, etc.  It was definitely perfect (FREE) entertainment for a kid, but roping in our ball of energy wasn't the easiest task.  After close to an hour of romping and "HD-BE-GENTLE-touch-it-niiiiiiiice" we were off to the car for a snack and the drive back.

HD admires her "lagybug" boots.

Sandbluffs make her seem even teenier.

Hubs is wearing his best date face.

From there, we went out to eat.  Since salt air gives you a case of the starves and all.  We hit up Jack's Prime, a neighborhood place that's your basic upscale burger joint.  This place is genius, y'all.  To quote ...myself (I wrote a Yelp review on the place), "Love and hearts and puppies and cuddles abound."  Jack's obviously strives to be a family place (smart idea, considering the area demographic)!  It was hopping on a Saturday eve, but we were seated after a mere 10 minute wait.  Huge booth, instant crayons & coloring sheet, local craft brew (delectable Full Boar Scotch Ale for interested parties) for the parents and a superfast served kid's plate  ofwhite meat chicken fingers & crazy fresh fruit plate.  And the juiciest burger I have feasted upon in a long while, besides my precious In'n'Out.  It was such good food and service, I made a point of telling the manager how much I appreciated having a swell local resto to which we could bring our toddler.  [Y'all like my awkward I'm-not-ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition bit?  You can't ever unteach an English major...]

Daddy, you can't expect me to pose when there are fries to be had.

Back home to wind the kid down for bed and for us to snuggle up to watch Sherlock (grab on Netflix Watch Instantly; it's a fun miniseries).  A perfect Family Date Day, although next month we're definitely taking off for some adults only time.

Portraits of a Certain Nature (or, "Photo Project 1")

I'm going forth with a photo challenge that I found on Pinterest. One photo for every day of February and each day is assigned a specific topic. I have to take them on my phone.  Since I'm Android rather than phone I'm using my really fun Vignette app to edit the pics. I'll post each week of this month. 

Enjoy the following snippets of my life.  From Feb 1 - Feb 4.

We have, totally not in order:
- my view today (from my cubicle at work)
- words (my current read)
- hands (HD's & mine)
- a stranger (from our day at the beach, more to come)