Yorktown Beach

Will had been promising to take me out to take some night time photos, I wanted to try and get some sunset photos, so on Monday in the below freezing temperatures he took me out.

I was disappointed with my choice of location, I thought that it was west facing but i was wrong it was east facing so I didn't get the sunset shots I was hoping for, I did still manage to get some nice sky colors, and some other shots.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Ice Hockey and the Weekend

Friday night I went to watch our local Ice Hockey team with Will and his work colleagues, I really enjoy going, the game was slow to start and as the Admirals got closer to loosing the game they stepped it up a notch, and it became a more interesting game. The Admirals did loose, here is one of photos I took:


Saturday was of course volunteer day at the cat shelter, we worked on cleaning everything and then taking more pictures for the cat of the month for February. Here is another picture of Madeline.


On Saturday afternoon the weather took a cold turned and we had a sprinkling of snow, in fact we still have snow although now it is just frozen snow, its been very cold getting well below freezing the last few days, but it has been so lovely and sunny.

Rainy rainy days.....

After having bright sunny days with the odd snow shower this last week, its seems the cold wet weather has set in for a while, although being Virginia who knows how long it will last??

On Tuesday we had snow flurries through out most of the day, nothing that stuck around on the ground, it was icy cold and nice to see some cold weather after some of the record breaking hot days we had been having. I of course had to take pictures of the snow, I really wanted to capture a snowflake so I tried a couple of experimental shots, and I really like how this one turned out.

My favorite cat pictures from the shelter

Many of you who read my blog know I volunteer every Saturday at a non profit, non kill, cat shelter called The Cat Corner I spend every Saturday cleaning out cages, liter boxes and cleaning the floor, then we get to spend time socializing the cats, I also help take pictures of the cats for the web site.

One of the things that bothered me while taking pictures was the photographs looked scruffy and unprofessional, this was due to the fact the pictures were normally taken in the cages, and the cages look a little bit tatty, so after a few attempts at trying to hang material in the cages to cover the bars,which didn't work to well. So one of the other volunteers made an excellent contraption for us to use, I like to call it the 'goal post' its constructed with plastic piping and joiners and looks like a football (soccer) goal post, the material hangs perfectly over the frame giving us a mini studio to take our pictures. We set up in the sun room which gave us plenty of natural light and started taking pictures.

The picture above is Martina she is almost 6 months old and is still quite shy, she had been rescued from some woods with her 2 sisters, she is very inquisitive and loves to see what is going on, she had to have a good look when we were taking pictures of the other cats.

This next picture is Bear she was abandoned when her new owner purchased a kitten, because she was unfriendly towards it, however Bear seems to be quite friendly with the other shelter cats, and even shares her bed with some of them, she is a beautiful Main Coon Mix so she is very fluffy.


Madeline is about 18 months old, she is a friendly playful cat, that loves to jump on your back if you are down low cleaning cages, she likes to try and rule the roost with the other cats at the shelter, and she certainly has allot of personality

Photoshop

I edit all my pictures with photoshop elements 4, I know it is quite an outdated program, (the current version of elements is 6) Photoshop elements is also allot cheaper than buying the full CS version of photoshop.


I thought I would post a few of my attempts at changing pictures:


This is our car and I took the picture while it was stationary, I aligned the picture, then added slight blur to make it look like it was moving.


This is The Natural History Museum in London, which I used a 'Poster' tool to get the desired effect
I added some darkening around the edges of this picture of Martina and turned the whole thing into sepia to give it an old apearance, I did not take this picture, (I borrowed it from Ember)

This is a London street near Harrods, I used selected parts of the picture to remain in colour


This is called the Orton Effect, it gives a dream like look to the picture, Its created by using different layers and blurring techniques.
CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO VIEW FULL SIZE!

Home Made Beef Burgers and Buns Accompanied by Home Made Leek and Potato Soup

Thats One Tasty Home Made Meal!

This morning while I was thinking about what to make for dinner I decided that Leek and Potato soup would be lovely and warning on this cold January day, I wasn't sure what to cook with it so I opened up the freezer and pulled out some ground beef hoping that inspiration would come, well it did, I decided to make burgers, but then realized we had no buns, so I looked through my bread machine recipe book for Burger Buns, of course I found a recipe, but didn't have all the ingredients. After some searching on the internet I found a basic recipe and with some changes to the ingredients I came up with these buns:

Hamburger Buns

1 cup water
1 egg
3 cups bread flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine pan starting with the liquid ingredients first and salt, add dry ingredients leaving the yeast to last then select the dough setting on the bread machine.
When the dough is ready lightly flour a counter top and roll the dough into a 12" long rope
Divide the rope into 8 sections and roll those sections into balls and flatten
Place the rolls on to a greased baking tray and cover, allow to rise in a warm place for 15 minutes or until the rolls have doubled in size.
Cook rolls for 10-12 minutes at 400, serve warm or wait to cool.

Hamburgers
1 small carrot
1 small onion
1/2 teaspoon Worcester sauce
1 tablespoon traditional ragu sauce
1 small pack ground beef

Grate the onion and carrot into the beef.
Combine the remaining ingredients stirring well
Divide the beef mix into four sections
Roll each section into a ball and then flatten
Cook your favorite way, I cooked mine on the foreman cooker as it was way to cold to cook on the grill outside!

Leek and Potato Soup

2 Leeks
1 small onion
6 medium potatoes cubed
2 cup milk
2 cup water
2 vegetable or chicken stock cubes
1 tablespoon butter

Melt butter in a large saucepan
Chop leeks, onion and 4 potatoes and add to the pan to sweat for 40 minutes, keep the lid on, the heat on low and stir occasionally.
When the vegetables are soft add in milk and water
Bring to a boil and add the stock cubes
When the stock cubes are dissolved and the vegetables are almost falling apart, take the pan off the heat and allow to cool
Using a separate saucepan bring the remaining two potatoes to a boil and cook until they are soft.
Drain those potatoes and put to one side
Use a blender to cream your soup until smooth then add the cooked cubbed potatoes.
Soup is ready to serve.

I like to top my soup with cheddar cheese and bacon bits, Will likes chunky soup which is why I add the 2 potatoes at the end, if you like smooth soup just add all the potatoes at the beginning.

This whole meal was incredibly tasty and very easy to make.

What to do on a rainy day....

Sunday was an absolutly miserable day here in VA, it stayed dark and rained hard with absolutly no let up, so we decided to drive up to Williamsburg and do some window shopping, there is one road where we have talked about stopping many times it has antique stores, souvenir stores, and some nice looking restaurants, they are all spread out along Richmond Road.

We saw the Yankee candle store from the road and wondered what the shops were that flanked it either side, we made a quick dash through the rain and opened the door. we were hit with sunlight, blue sky with white fluffy clouds and a small market place with no rain insight....

Of course the blue sky was just painted on the tall vaulted ceiling, and the market stalls were just display stands, but it made a nice bright change from the weather outside.

I was actually in awe of this store, it took up the whole of the building you see pictured above, it was nothing like the Yankee Candle stores I had been in before. The market place was the central point to the store, on the left side there was a fudge store, a candle dipping place, a cooking/home store and a cafe. to the back of the store there was the Christmas store, which stays open all year round, they had a starlit sky and a suspended train bridge that ran around part of he store above everyones heads, they had a toy shop full of toys for children and then the whole of the ride side of the store was designated to candles.

WOW there was allot of candles, I think they had the most candles I had ever seen in one place, the shelves were stacked way above my head, It reminded me of being in an old fashioned library with dark wood shelves and books in every nook and cranny possible, the only difference was instead of books there were candles. in the center of the candle store was the 'pick and mix' candles where you could choose 18 small candles for $20, which of course I did.

Although each store appeared separate, to give the whole place the appearance that you were outside and entering different stores, each store was interlinked and you could pay at any register you wanted, carrying your merchandise from 'store' to 'store'.

Will and I spent over an hour in there, and he only got bored right at the end when I was trying to decide which candles I was going to pick. next time there is a rainy day and your not sure what to do, go and visit Yankee Candle, 2200 Richmond Road, Williamsburg, VA.

Once we finished up at the Yankee candle store, we had a brief look around the Prime Outlet Mall which was just down the road, then headed back to get some dinner at the Red Hot and Blue BBQ restaurant. This restaurant was extremely good value for money, they had a couple of non BBQ items for people like me who likes plain food. Will ordered the pulled BBQ chicken and the portion was HUGE and very tasty, the service was excellent so I absolutly recommend this restaurant to anyone local.