Black and White

On Flickr, I was recently challenged to post bw photos for 5 straight days. This would not have been a difficult challenge for me because I somewhat often convert my photos to bw just for the heck of it.

However, I formally refused the challenge because it also involved passing the challenge on to someone new on each of the 5 days. However, in my head at least, I accepted informally and posted my 5 photos.

Some of them will be the same as the following set, but I won't post all of these over there. For this post, I have decided to post only from my recent photos.

Above and below are photos from our recent sledding adventure. Above, we are walking toward the hill with Danica way out front and Jonathan bringing up the rear. This is how we roll.

Below is JJ at the end of one of his runs.

The rest of the photos were taken on his birthday although they are not all of his birthday. I have shown you the first one in colour already of Sue with JJ wrapped in the blanket that she is crocheting for him. It's one of my faves of this post.

The next one is from our lunch at Tim Hortons after taking them out of school in honour of the day.

I took the photos, above and below, while waiting for the school bus to drop the kids off. Above: it seems that every year, I take at least one photo of our neighbour blowing her snow. Below: another fave photo of the bus at the end of our street on a snowy day.

Finally, Sue and JJ at the birthday supper (above) and Danica looking in her great grandmother's silver hand mirror (below).

All of the photos were converted in onOne's BW Effects, which is the program that I now always use for my conversions. Some of them have a split tone filter applied, usually the one they call Black Tea.

Of Fire and Ice

We have friends, acquaintances really, who live by the lake. The lake is really just part of our Mississippi River but where it is quite wide before it reaches our town.

It's not easy to capture direct sunsets around here due to trees and angles, but it turns out that they look directly west into the setting sun.

We have a general invitation to drop by and take pictures but it has always slipped my mind. But Sue visited the other day and commented on the ice huts out on the lake, so, finally on Saturday, I remembered to make a point of visiting.

Fortuitously, we stumbled onto a rather wonderful sunset. The main probably was the bitter cold which caused me to kind of hurry my shots, but I still got a few that I liked.

This is our approach to the lake. I had already been down there but looked back to take this photo when we were heading back to the car to warm up before trying a few more shots. Our tracks are visible.

This looks like the same shot, but I shifted right just a bit and caught the rays on the snow a bit better, I think. I also didn't crop this one from the top as in the previous photo. A foot or so made quite a difference, and I like this one better because I can follow the path of the rays on the snow better.

After warming up in the car because the bitter cold had turned my fingers into icicles, I headed back with the tripod and a longer lens. I needed the tripod by this point because the sun was really getting low. In fact, it had really set.

With the zoom, I was able to capture a few folk and huts on the ice — one hut being an actual trailer. It looks like they were either drilling new holes or examining old ones as I was taking the picture.

Finally, a two-shot panorama of one lonely ice hut off by itself. What a sky though — looks photoshopped, but it isn't; this is pretty much the way that it came out of the camera, given that there are usually a few processing tweaks when you shoot RAW images.

But we and my frozen digits were soon back into the car. Did I mention that it was cold?

Danica's Special Gift

When our girls were young, Sue began a tradition of giving the non-birthday girl one little gift on the birthday girl's special day. We have continued this with the grands. Except this year, the gift wasn't all that little. It didn't cost us anything, but it was a keeper — literally (and when I say literally, I mean literally, not figuratively as in the modern misuse lol).

It's my mother's sterling silver dresser set that Sue has kept for all of these years and which I, being male, didn't even know that we had.

Of course, Danica wasn't at all pleased.

After cake, the girls went to Danica's room to lay out the set on a doily which also came from great grandma.

And Danica learned how to use the mirror while she brushed.

I am very happy that Sue thought to pass this heirloom, which was important to my mother, to the great granddaughter that she missed by four years.

JJ's Birthday

For the record, here are a few pics from JJ's birthday. Since Sue will do a more comprehensive post, I will just post a few in passing.

Somehow, we have got ourselves into the habit of taking them out of school for lunch on special days. While we usually hit A&W or McDonalds, we just took them to Tims this year because he had requested chicken fingers and fries for his birthday dinner. Because that's what he always orders at burger joints, we thought that a bagel and donut at Tims would be better this time.

I don't think I need to comment on each photo but the fourth one is of an early morning present — 2 Skylander figures. He was not permitted to take them to school but requested that we bring them for lunch.

We took the kids back to school, but once the day was over, we headed to his place for birthday supper and presents.

I think he had a good day.

A Midwinter Blast

This kids had a PA Day on Friday. After going to a little party at their other babysitter's, they came to us for the afternoon. After a little quiet time on the computer and tablets, we braved the cold to take them sledding.

It wasn't just cold but also windy. However, we bundled up and remained out there for a good hour. As comfortable as my core was, my toes felt like they were going to drop off in the cold. I have nerve damage in my left leg, and those toes feel inordinately cold quite easily. Anyway, we had fun. In fact, that is too mild; the kids had a blast as you shall see in the photos and hear in the clip.

Amma and Buppa will also make appearances on the toboggan.

I am so glad we did this with them, despite those toes.

We begin with two collages and then the individual photos that make up the collages, give or take a few. The video is at the end; it's a bit long, but I'm sure you want to see the kids having fun and the oldies making fools of themselves. :)

Happy Birthday JJ

The little fella celebrates his sixth birthday today, and I have made a collage of pictures taken throughout the year that represent a pretty good variety of faces and activities.

Hopefully, he will enjoy revisiting this in years to come.

Of Chocolates and Will Power

This chocolate has remained on my little chair-side table for the last month and has become a symbol of sorts. For I have been on a bit of a diet.

I say "a bit" because I am going slowly, and it doesn't feel like much of a diet. I have determined that I will have to be on it for a long time to see much in the way of results. It's more like conscious eating, really.

I asked my brother-in-law how he managed to lose weight so easily. Although he never runs to fat as I do, he does seem to have about a 20 pound range. I will see him one time with a little bit of a belly, but he will be as thin as a rail next time.

He told me how he does it — by counting calories.

Despite being on several diets in my life, I have never done that. But it's pretty easy now. If I want to know how many calories in an apple, I can simply type "calories apple" in my space bar, hit Enter and get this result (right). It's not exactly rocket surgery. If it's a search of a specific name brand, various calorie-counting websites will pop up, and one must go to all of the trouble of clicking more than once.

So, I pretty well know after a little internet sleuthing how to keep breakfast to 400 calories and the same with lunch. This allows me to keep my daily intake to something close to 1500 calories. A quick search also informs me that at my age, weight and lifestyle, I will expend about 2000 calories per day, so as long as I keep under that, I will lose weight, albeit slowly. Information is so easy to find now, and that makes the process a lot easier that it used to be — for me anyway.

So, what's the point of the chocolate photo? (Both images are a result of the same snap processed differently.)

Oh, it's just a symbol of sorts: of willpower or what have you. It's just there as a reminder. Mind you, if it were a bag of chips, I would pretty well have lost my mind by now. I like almost all kinds of junk food, including chocolate, but potato chips just about send me over the brink.

Mind you, I still indulge in a square or two of dark chocolate on most days. It's actually good for a body, and I find that it both satisfies and seems to suppress the appetite. I've worked the calories into the equation, so I don't consider it cheating.

I learn to live with the reality that I will never exactly be skinny. My taste buds plus my almost necessarily sedentary lifestyle see to that. But in a couple of months (I started well before Christmas but also took a Christmas break), I have gone down a pant size, and every little bit helps.

So, that's why I have posted a picture or two of a chocolate.