April 2011 Photo Hunt

It's the first day of May now... time to present the pictures for the April 2011 photo hunt.


01. Animals

(30 April 2011)

Well, just an "animal" for me... I took this after I took pictures of the sunset clouds. For a few days already, I have been hearing a different kind of chirp, and while taking pictures of the clouds, I heard the chirp again and saw this bird. It was pretty, but because it was dusk already, my camera wasn't able to capture its colors well (it's brown with white).


02. Bedroom

(29 April 2010)

I just changed the linens because mom told me cousin Jayson might arrive today. I didn't bother clearing up the desk anymore since this wasn't my bedroom anymore, but later that day, I found my cat Orange-y sleeping on the bed! This cat really loves fresh linens (I can't blame him - who doesn't love the smell of fresh sheets?), so I just let him sleep for a while. Of course, I gave the linen a pass of sticky tape to take out the fur.

03. Best From 16 / 17

17 April 2011

My sister and I went to the Sidcor Weekend Market, and before going home, I asked sister if we could pass by the plants section so I could take pictures of the flowers. It was already near lunch that time so there weren't that much to take pictures anymore, but I was able to see this passion vine flower hidden somewhere - hooray!

04. In Fashion

(04 April 2011)

A rather "stolen" shot of my sister wearing tank tops and miniskirt - something in fashion this summertime.

05. Lawn / Garden

(17 April 2011)

Another picture taken at the weekend market.. I am not sure what this plant is called, but I typically see the yellow kind, so seeing ones in purple made me very interested in taking pictures of it.

06. Lazy

(10 April 2010)

A few years ago, I got to read an article about cats being the "masters" and not a pet because of how it manipulate its owners to do things for them, and that they are always asleep, etcetera etcetera. Digging deep about it, I tend to believe it, and my cats aren't different - they surely love to sleep and relax. :)

07. Playtime

(05 April 2011)

Another picture of my cat Oreo. I was playing computer games that day, which made him a bit jealous I guess, so when I wasn't giving him much attention anymore, he decided to jump up the desk and lied on my net book! What a way to ruin a playtime. :)

08. Rain / Water.

(30 April 2011)

My old Troll doll taking a shower in the sink.

09. Silhouette

(30 April 2011)

I was writing a blog post when a Twitter friend of mine twitted, "Sunset Alert!" It made me check the sky and true enough, it was beautiful! Well, there's a big house hindering my view of the sun, but the colors of the sky were so beautiful, I went back to get my camera. I took this from the side part of our house... we had some chicken wires as fence to deter robbers (well, there was a high concrete wall anyway, we just had the wires installed to add more protection), so as you can see, there were "mysterious" lines in the image.

Framing the shot... the neighbor's avocado tree was just there - so might as well include them in the shot. The warm light from the sun provided a good silhouette look on the tree, don't you think?

10. Something Tiny

(01 April 2011)

A macopa flower I was able to take a picture of. It had so many tiny pollens (am I right?) that made it really, really pretty.

11. Something Huge

(27 April 2011)

Well, the fish wasn't huge to begin with, but seeing the cat and presenting the image in this perspective, it really made my cat small and the fish huge.

12. Texture

04 April 2011

There is texture from the strawberries, but as I post processed this, I incorporated two textures I downloaded off the Internet. This was the very first image I post-processed with textures, so I don't know if I did good or not... I just experimented with the image.

By the way, the textures I used for certain images were taken from different sources. The pink one, which I used in the strawberry image was taken HERE, the grungy old paper which I used both in the strawberry image and that of the macopa flower was taken HERE and the last, which I used in the bird image was taken from HERE. My biggest thanks for sharing your talent.

For more takes on different items for hunt, please check the Photo Hunt Challenges website. The May 2011 photo hunt list is now up, as well... see you all again next month, and thank you for dropping by here.

*** Jenn ***

Don't Disturb!

I have always wanted to join Live Every Moment since Simple Life Photographs hosted "Flowers on Saturday," but weekends are my lazy days to blog, and I always kept forgetting taking pictures of the prompts. I feel lucky today because there is no specific prompt, meaning I can finally plunge in the fun. I am also linking this up to Camera Critters because I might be out tomorrow.

This is my cat Oreo. When he and his siblings were a few weeks old and they started opening their eyes, they used to sleep next to me, occupying a part of my bed. Now, they don't like to sleep near me anymore, but I realized that whenever he sleeps, we would always sleep like this - kinda like a human lying on a bed.

I just finished tending my little vegetable garden, and when I got back inside the house, I saw Oreo sleeping in the terrace and thought it looked cute, so I took a picture using my cell phone, which was always inside my pocket. I just took a picture for the Art of Composition meme so my cell phone was still in B/W mode, which I didn't bother changing, since I didn't want to miss the moment, should the cat wakes up upon sensing me coming near him.

Well, I guess he was really sleepy because he never moved even if I already took the pictures.

*** Jenn ***

5 Minute Friday | If I Could, I Would

I wasn't able to do anything online this afternoon because I watched the coverage of the Royal Wedding... and now that's over and that I was able to finish editing Facebook pictures for upload, I can now start writing for my blogs.

Topic for Five Minute Friday is, "If I Could, I Would..." and here's my take.




GO.

If I could erase all the negative vibes and the pains in my heart, I would. It would surely be great being in a happy state - away from everything that's pulling me down, but I do know that would be impossible.

If I could just forget every wrong thing people said and did to me, I would. It surely is nice to move forward feeling brand new, but just like me, I know everyone have their own scars they wanted to erase.

If I could be away with problems, I would. It surely is nice living a great life without having to think of responsibilities and obligations, but I know problems will always be there to test us, and that sometime we are the ones who create our own problems.

If I could be all these, I would... but I know I can't, and I totally understand, because problems, negativity, pains, and scars aren't things given to me to wear me down, but little challenges to test my faith and courage. Problems are part of all of us, and thinking hard about it, if there are no dark sides, life would surely be very boring.

STOP.

Wow, that is quite a long entry I got there for five minutes. :) The picture in this post is actually a scan of a 12x12 paper scrapbook I created in 2007. That was the year I lost my father, and I used the pain to create this layout, and a letter for myself. I really love this layout because I was able to finish this in one sitting. It was quite an easy layout to do, but cutting the letters I used in the title took sometime because I printed very small letters.

Anyway, being positive is a learning process for me. While I could say I am doing good at it - there are times that I really struggle, especially now that there is a little hatred brewing up. Well, not really hate, but I could say I am starting to dislike a person and I hate myself for feeling like this. I have already lifted up my concerns to God, and I know He will help me ease the pain. See... there is beauty in pain, because I can use it to come closer to God and to my family and friends by seeking their opinions and advices.

*** Jenn ***

Orange-y's Playtime

I have two sets of AA Batteries left for my camera, and it was quite unfortunate that I wasn't able to charge the other set while using another, so both of the sets were not available for quite sometime this week. Most people were sharing pictures from Holy Week, and I feel a little left out because I didn't go out to do Visita Iglesia (church hop - a tradition among Catholics here in the Philippines), and I also wasn't able to attend church services because all celebrations were done at the parish church and not here in the sub-parish. I did attend the Easter Sunday mass and we had our own time for reflections and contemplation, so I wasn't as guilty as I should be. :)

Anyway, my favorite shot from last week was this - a picture of my cat Orange-y I took last Sunday. This cat of mine was a bit aloof and didn't want to mingle with the other cats (he's also the one that always love to be indoors and could stay inside the room whole day if we allow him to), so after eating his lunch, he just went to lie on the desk in our terrace and played with this little plush toy. It just looked so cute - a male cat playing with a plush toy, so I quickly grabbed my cell phone to capture it. I set my cell phone's camera to macro, and it took a while for it to focus and capture the shot, and when I looked at the image, I was quite amazed seeing Orange-y sticking out his tongue like that.

I am happy Orange-y is feeling much better now... last week he was having a cold and a flu (well, he was so hot whenever I would carry him and he would just sleep all day and would walk a bit sluggish), and although he still wheezes from time to time, seeing him with so much life makes me a happy mama.

*** Jenn ***

Happy Monday | Siblings

I still am not done re-uploading the photo files I burned in DVDs, so there wasn't much pictures I could check for certain memes I am joining. This week on Happy Monday Challenge, the prompt is "siblings," and from the few pictures I had in Facebook and in Flickr, this was the first sibling picture I found:




Early this year, my sister and I found ourselves a little "addicted" to the soft ice cream being sold at a corner store near the entrance of the neighborhood. Every day, we would walk there to buy a cone of ice cream each, but we didn't want to walk back home with a cone of ice cream in our hands, so we would always stay at the store and eat our cold treat.

Anyway, I found a table for us, and while sister was lining up, I saw these two siblings (their father was with them, so even if I don't know who they were, I knew they were brothers) who were also eating ice cream. The younger brother wanted to tell something, but he felt a little shy to say so because their father was there, so the older brother just leaned over to listen.

This may not be captured wonderfully (I used my cell phone here by the way), but I did like that I was able to capture a nice candid moment.

*** Jenn ***