retinal perspectives

ode to joy, volume 52

{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent joy - my word for 2010}

offering up my gratitude for a year full of portland + nature + walks + camera + pup.

looking forward to the next year.

pure joy.

wishing you

a nosegay of crimson moments

twirling and twinkling in an endless pirouette

a wordless weimaraner wednesday

clearly i am a domestic goddess

there are some cooking/baking activities that - when i finally complete them - i feel like they deserve an extra round of celebration. (aside from the celebration of eating the result, of course.)

this includes activities like roasting a chicken, or roasting a turkey, or making homemade stock, or making lasagna, or baking bread (all checked off my list). or activities like baking a pie (with homemade crust), or making pasta by hand, or making chocolate pudding (all still on my list).

at the moment, i am attempting to perfect the art of nisu, a finnish sweetbread. i made my third batch in five days last night. (the first batch didn't rise. the second batch was good but the cinnamon rolls layers melted back together and didn't un-roll so i wanted to try again. the third batch is good but needed a slightly lower oven temperature and a few more minutes in the oven.)

apparently this is one of those activities that needs to be celebrated because, while the second batch was baking, i could not help dancing around the house every few minutes singing, "i have cinnamon rolls! i have cinnamon rolls!"

and when they were done! oh, the joy.

and when the third batch was done and i could unroll my cinnamon roll! oh, the bliss.

so now i'm curious. what cooking/baking activities make you feel like a domestic god or goddess?

signs, signs, everywhere there's signs

only in this case, they are not "marking up the scenery"; they are adding to it. i could have stared at the bicycle sign all day. that lettering makes me so happy.

ode to joy, volume 51

{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent joy - my word for 2010}

evening walks lit with color and light.

pure joy.

happy christmas if you celebrate

merry december if you don't

as is so in every season, i am thankful for you

may the remainder of your year be full of joy, love, and magic

let's play pretend

let us pretend that this is an artistic photographic rendition of the lunar eclipse.

since i missed it.

(due to very cloudy skies, i like to think. in all fairness, i was not outside at the actual time of the eclipse so i suppose the clouds could have parted. but at 11pm and 4am, when i was outside, there were clouds galore.)

my vice president, hard at work

"someone around here needs to take napping seriously," he says, "and i guess that someone will have to be me."

for eva, with love

lilting milky enchantment

wooing me

with the scent of suddenly september