Come on over!

A note to my subscribers: Please be sure to sign up for the new site’s email updates. Your subscription at the old site won’t carry over. Use the “subscribe” box over in the right-hand column at http://www.napangel.com/. Thank you!

Lilacs.

Lilacs (detail).

They really are beautiful flowers, aren’t they?

Unfortunately, they won’t be around much longer.

Renaissance spirea blossoms.

We found some baby powder in our laundry room (Jess, is it yours?), and the boys put it to good use.

Being the obsessive careful mom that I am, I kept telling them to hold their breath during the entire shoot.

Renaissance spirea buds.

Evening game.

Gus had his first tournament over the weekend, and the games started on Friday evening. It was a perfect night for a game. Finally! Perfect baseball weather. No more blankets!

Wait. I just knocked on wood. This is Minnesota, after all.

Gus’s team ultimately took fourth place and earned a berth in the league state tournament. (The first- and second-place winners had already earned their spots, so this was a very welcome surprise for the third- and fourth-place teams.)

Moss.

I spent all day with my camera close at hand looking for something to shoot. Nothing inspired me.

It was finally getting late in the day, and I was losing the light, so I headed out to the backyard. The backyard. Have I mentioned how bored I’ve become with the backyard?

But just when you think you won’t find something new to photograph, BAM! You do.

The moss on the trees is beautiful. It looks like little jewelry on the trunks.

Project 365 disaster averted.

Pitcher.

Gus pitched beautifully last night. And most of the photos I took just didn’t work. I was playing around with my shutter speed and wasn’t hitting it quite right. And I just can’t get close enough with a lens that maxes out at 135mm. I could really use a 70-200mm lens. (Hint.)

As with the others, this shot didn’t quite turn out. It’s out of focus. There’s too much noise (which I reduced using Lightroom). I don’t like that fence line in the background. I could go on and on.

But I LOVE it. Look at that beautiful pitching action! I may have gone a little overboard on the post-processing, but I wanted it to look DRAMATIC!

Is Gus awesome, or what?

Jim’s spaghetti sauce with pepperoni.

Jim makes a wonderful spaghetti sauce, and the boys love it when he adds pepperoni to it. I prefer it with Italian sausage and meatballs. Every now and again, he’ll cook it all day long with some type of pork roast. Oh, man.

You should come over the next time he makes it. I’ll set an extra place for you.

Wimp.

Max had a game tonight, and it was cold and rainy, and I watched it from the car. They won.

The end.