Home-made Monday

Setting a bar for myself here in writing! I am going to try and post at least once a day this whole week. I've got Sunday and Monday covered. Working on Tuesday might trip me up but surely I could at least squeeze in some time for a picture and caption?!?!? Then a work-free rest of the week should make for smooth sailing.

Not like it was a New Year's resolution or anything, because we all know how treacherous making one of those can be....but I have set a personal goal to work on a few things in my life. Like our budget as it relates to our diet and getting the most value out of the big bucks dropped on my new camera! As I am working on these goals I'm finding that my cooking cooperates with me and my camera better than the girls. The food does not make funny faces or run as soon as they see me heading into my camera bag!!

So this morning I made bread. My family, and Mari in particular, would happily live on bread and water!! The crazy hike in bread prices at the store coupled with their preference for "crunchy bread" made making my own bread a logical choice. Besides, then I can control the amount of salt and sugar in our bread not to mention the complete absence of chemical preservatives! It makes a very well behaved model as well!

I even did a little 'staging'. Bet you're thinking I purposely got that black kitchen towel for the photoshoot? NOT, those are my everyday kitchen towels! I did, however, purposely cut the breakfast slices on the black towel to catch the crumbs. The zoom practice revealed what may be a fatal flaw with my photography goals. I tried a few other bread positions so that I could get down eye-level and have the crumbs in the forefront in focus with the loaves in back softly blurred. I was so excited to get what I thought were successful shots! Then I uploaded them to discover that ancient eyeballs...even with their glasses on...cannot discern fine focus on the camera's bitty 3 X 3 screen!!! All the crumb shots were of blurry crumbs with even blurrier loaves.

So off to the photo editing I went. Had fun...not necessarily a lot of success 'saving' any weak shots but fun with the program's other features! Now, just in case you got the misguided notion that my newly instituted cooking regime was for anything other than our financial health I give you....

our breakfast!

Folks, I'm married to an Irish farm boy. That means bangers and eggs =  a 'real' breakfast! The cereal and porridge that get served on other mornings is simply a nod to the American lifestyle of his wife and daughters...to be endured but not necessarily enjoyed. Insufferable on the mornings that only toast or Pop Tarts are served!!----Now how about that frame and text?!?!?---- Yep, feeling pretty darn smug that I figured out how to do that WITHOUT once having to call for my personal geek squad...Mari. She was so smarmy in her congratulations..."Such a good job Mommy. I just knew you could do it!" Read high sarcasm and note the unusual use of "Mommy"....she is simply waaaaay to mature to use "Mommy" any more.

Our hard working man went off to work today well fed!

Now I'm off to the salt mine too! Thinking that some restocking of my Etsy site is in order. Been sending funds to Guatemala out of the Florida Vacation account lately. The drive to sit out on Lido Beach again is pushing me to make sure that both accounts get healthier...and if the clothing is as co-operative as the food in helping improve the camera comfort levels then all the better!