I’m over here on my photo blog talking about snow holes and frozen feet. You had to be there.

I have a new best friend. He doesn’t have a name yet, but he’s definitely awesome. I took him out for a test drive and these are a few of my favorite shots so far.

I’m looking forward to a long and beautiful friendship!

Four badass chicks from the Moulin Rouge…Or Savannah. Whatever.*

It’s not often in a lifetime that you meet people that just get you. It’s even rarer that you meet three of them. Even better? The four of you have the kind of ease together that you can be in a car for five hours straight without anyone thinking about turning on the radio. Twice.

I couldn’t have asked for a better gift than to spend my birthday with these three women, and even though it was firmly established that none of us would be going gay for each other there’s a kind of bond that you only find with your girlfriends. There is no better way to recharge your batteries than to laugh for days. I love you girls, more than my luggage.

I also got the chance to spend time with one of the smartest women I know and the biggest teddy bear on the Internet. I am truly blessed.

These are a few of my favorite photos from the trip. The whole set is here.

*Photo courtesy Britt Reints.

Definition of POGONIP: a dense winter fog containing frozen particles that is formed in deep mountain valleys of the western United States

I almost wrote a whiny post  about how my back went out while I was running on the treadmill, but wouldn’t you rather look at this pretty daisy instead? I took Ren’s suggestion and resized it for the internet before uploading it and it worked! The colors stayed true to the original photo. This makes me happy in my ice-pack frozen pants.

This second photo I uploaded the way I normally do – I uploaded the full-sized shot and then resized it within WordPress. The vibrancy of the colors appears reduced. I like the first photo better. Thank you for the suggestion, Ren!

It’s been nice knowing you. After months of my husband good-heartedly challenging me to do the P90X, I’m finally taking the plunge. It might very well kill me, but I’m tired of this lack of motivation and spinning in circles. I need forward motion. I need something to shake my tree a little. So starting Monday evening, I’ll be P90Xing my ass off. Hopefully literally.

I’m also going to try to continue increasing my running program, which on some days is going to mean twice daily workouts. The last time I tried twice daily workouts it ended with me having a total meltdown on the elliptical at 5:00 am. I totally reserve the right to have another meltdown and quit with a colossal hissy fit if it ends up being too much. I anticipate that by happening Tuesday morning.

I wasn’t going to talk about starting this at all in case it was an epic failure, but I figured that 1) letting you guys know what I’m up to would keep me honest and more motivated to stick with it so I didn’t have to tell you later I quit, and 2) I can’t whine about not being able to move my arms if I didn’t tell you I was doing this in the first place.

Photoshop is pissing me off. The photo at the left looks completely different on my blog than it does in Photoshop. In Photoshop the colors are really vibrant, the pink is bright and glowy. Here, not so much.

I’m also having trouble with printed photos turning out underexposed when they were perfect on screen. While I’m learning more about Photoshop all the time, I have no idea what could be causing this. At first I thought my print problem was a screen calibration issue, but since I’m looking at the same photo on one screen and seeing differences that can’t be it. Here is a link to the same photo in Flickr, which on my screen is much more vibrant than the one at left. Can I be having two separate issues: one of screen calibration, and one being a difference in the way the blogging software processes colors?

Weights and measures. In preparation for starting the P90X, we finally took my “before” pictures and measurements. It’s not really “before” since I’ve lost almost half of my goal weight already, but at least I’ll have a starting point for the P90X. Seeing those pictures was hard. It’s easy to get caught up in my partial success and forget that I still have a long way to go. It’s motivating, at least!

It’s Monday – have a great week everyone!

Over the weekend I played with my new 100mm macro lens. I am in total and utter love! I had asked for this Sigma lens for Christmas because it was less expensive than the Canon, but I just didn’t like it. It was loud and clunky and I couldn’t get a decent hand-held shot to save my life. I gave up trying and sent it back. Once the money had been spent on the Sigma, though, it was a lot less painful to use the store credit and then make up the difference between the two to upgrade to the Canon.

I’m so glad I did! The Canon is quiet and yet fast focusing on auto-focus, and this shot above was made hand-held. It’s not absolutely perfectly tack-sharp, but it’s close enough for me, and the sharpness only gets better on the tripod. It is a heavy lens so I have to be careful with my tripod or it will topple over when I have the camera pointed straight down.

I also took these photos, which are totally not SOOC as you can surely tell, but I rarely leave any photo untouched because I’m a little OCD that way.

Maybe that last one has a bit too much detail since you can see how dusty he is!

All of these shots are hand-held. I’m completely happy that I made the investment in this lens! Canon glass really doesn’t let you down.

It’s Daylight Savings Time again, when the clocks turn back an hour and instead of getting up in the dark it’s light outside.

I really hate Daylight Savings Time.

All last week I drove to work under the most beautiful sunrises.

By the time I got to work the sky had almost lightened completely.

It gives me such hope for the day to see the sky painted with such beautiful colors.

The sunrises happen so fast that the colors are constantly changing.

And sometimes you’re lucky enough to get a really cool and yet weird effect with the HDR app for the iPhone.  This one made my day.  It looks like the sky is on fire!

Starting tomorrow it will be full-on daylight when I drive to work, and fully dark when I drive home.  I like the middle ground before Daylight Savings Time much better.  Not quite light…not quite dark.  It’s peaceful.

I’m not sure why we need Daylight Savings Time anymore.  We are only a little over a month from the shortest day of the year and then the days will be getting longer again.  I wish we could just leave well enough alone, so that I can have my sunrises a little bit longer.

All photos were taken by me, with my iPhone.  All rights reserved.

It’s a beautiful day!  The sun is shining, the birds are busy repairing their nests, and it’s supposed to venture into the 70′s this weekend!

Spring is my favorite time of the year.  It’s when the first brave flowers poke their heads out and Winter gives it up in the face of such delicate beauty.  Sometimes it makes one last-ditch effort to hang on and blasts us with a Spring snow, but really who can hold out in the face of such hopefulness?  Everything else is still sleeping, or just starting to wake up as in the case of my daffodils, but here comes the forsythia, blazing the trail for Spring and brightening up the drab that Winter is leaving behind.

I’m going to spend as much of this weekend outside soaking up the sun as I can.  It’s time to start getting the garden ready for planting, and to clean up all the branches and mess that Winter leaves.

What are your weekend plans?