Capture Your 365

We are past the halfway mark! Even though I haven’t taken a picture for every prompt, this is still exciting that after 6 months, I am still making progress on this challenge.

a dark backdrop

ISO 100, 50mm, f/6.3, 1/200 sec

Day 180 – A Dark Backdrop: For the second time this summer, temperatures in our area were around 108 degrees. My husband and I were suppose to go on a miniature golf date, but with those temperatures, we knew we would just melt. So we drove over to the coast for the day instead, just the two of us. Capitola had temperatures in the low 70’s that day. Kev is not a beach person, so we walked around the shops and had an early dinner. We did walk out on the beach for a bit and I had a chance to get a few pictures under the pier which were perfect for this photo prompt.

whiskers

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/13 sec

Day 183 – Whiskers: I really need to start watching the shutter speed when I take pictures. Once I pulled this photo into Lightroom, I could see that parts of the photo are blurry, that I didn’t intend to be blurry. So to try to salvage the photo somewhat, I converted it to black and white. I probably should have used my 55-200mm lens on this one and zoomed in.

contrast

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/2000 sec

Day 184 – A Contrast: When we picked out the red chairs for our backyard beach retreat, I knew I wanted to have some type of blue pillow for the chairs. My daughter and I found the perfect material. I just love spending time out there with a good book and a glass of homemade iced coffee.

fireworks

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/20 sec

Day 185 – Fireworks:  I know these are not fireworks, but we generally don’t do fireworks at our house on Independence Day. I have a really hard time spending money on them, knowing that you are just going to burn them up. The month prior to Independence Day, our town does a big fireworks display during our town fiesta which we can watch from our driveway. So I couldn’t resist this bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers at least to decorate our table for Independence Day. At least cut flowers last for about a week or so.

Question for you: What did you photograph this past week?

Pray for the teachers and leaders

This week, our church is going all out to share the gospel with kids in our community through a week long Vacation Bible School using Answers in Genesis’ Kingdom Chronicles lessons. I am teaching the 6 through 8 years olds (we had 42 of them today!) and my daughter is helping in the 2 and 3 year old class. We had just over 100 kids arrive today!

As I was sitting home this afternoon, relaxing from a busy morning, I was thinking about the many leaders and teachers in the 26 countries where Compassion is sharing the gospel with kids each and every day. I am thankful for them and the time they spend making sure the kids who attend their centers know about the hope they can have in Jesus.

Question for you: Will you pray for the Compassion leaders and teachers today?

BBQ Chicken Salad

I love summer! But after a week of almost 110 degree temperatures, I even get a little tired of it being so hot. And on these days, cooking in the kitchen is the last thing I want to be doing. Recently, I picked up Christy Jordan’s Southern Plate magazine at Target. You will remember me mentioning her a couple of weeks ago as one of the Compassion Bloggers that went to Nicaragua.

Anyway, one of the recipes she has in the magazine is a Chopped Bacon-Veggie Salad with Creamy Bacon Dressing. I decided to change her recipe up a bit and here is what I came up with:

• one rotisserie chicken, shredded and chopped
• bag of romaine lettuce
• bunch of broccoli, chopped
• a couple of roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
• about a cup of grated cheddar cheese
• one package of bacon, cooked and crumbled
• avocado, chopped
• bbq sauce
• ranch dressing

Once you have shredded and chopped all of the chicken, mix in a little bit of bbq sauce (not too much, just enough to coat the chicken). Mix the lettuce, broccoli, and tomatoes in a large bowl. Set out the rest of the ingredients in separate bowls. You can mix everything together at this point, but I thought it might keep better in the fridge for leftovers if we kept a lot of the ingredients separate. Have everyone assemble their own plate and enjoy!

This salad does have a lot of possibilities! I was even thinking you could add some of the following: grilled corn and/or thawed frozen corn kernals, black beans, chopped red onions, and/or chopped green onions.

Questions for you: What is your favorite ingredient in a salad? What do you like to eat on these hot days of summer?

Capture Your 365

Four photos to share with you this week!

put it on a plate

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/20 sec

Day 176 – Put It On A Plate: Summer time food - BBQ hamburgers, sweet white corn on the cob, freshly picked zucchini from the backyard. Just looking at this makes me hungry.

boots

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/3200 sec

Day 177 – Boots: OK, I have to admit that I laughed when I saw the prompt for this day. Seriously? Boots in summer? Maybe if I plan on going hiking, but during summer, these feet love to be wearing sandals or flip flops all summer long (looks like I need a new pair of flip flops!)

adandoned

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/13 sec

Day 178 – Abandoned: When we first started Civil War reenacting, Kelsey was interested in learning to spin wool. A fellow reenactor even had us over to her home to learn how to make soap and she ended up giving Kelsey this lovely spinning wheel. Unfortunately, the spinning wheel is not being used at all right now. Maybe one day, she will take up this hobby again.

fresh produce

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/50 sec

Day 179 – Fresh Produce: Apricots and plums from a neighbor’s tree. There is nothing like freshly picked fruit in the summer time.

Question for you: What did you photograph this past week?

Hey, there is an app for that!

Today, I want to share with you a couple of fun apps for my phone that I have found to help me prepare for my upcoming Compassion trip!

Big Day Lite: I have the free version of this app which is a fun way to countdown the days until our trip. This screen shot is from a few days ago, because we are now at 191 days until our trip! Once I know which new child we will be sponsoring from Mexico, I may do a collage photo for our countdown photo. But until then, I really like this photo of me and my traveling companion!

Duolingo: Now, I did take a year of Spanish when I was in high school, but then I took 2 years of French. This app kind of reminds me a little bit of Rosetta Stone (which we only have level 1). Every day I try to do a little practice on here because friends have told me that the kids may respond to me a little better if I even know a little Spanish. Not sure if I will use sentences like the one above very often, but hey, maybe we will see turtles while we are down there!

Instagram: Are you on Instagram? I have been tagging a lot of my trip prep photos with the hashtag #compassionmexicoprep. So if you head over to Instagram, you can see all of my trip prep photos that I have posted there. Like this one! I have lost count of the number of dish cloths I have made and sold.

Question for you: What are some of your favorite phone apps?