365?…not!

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Everywhere I turn lately someone is throwing down the gauntlet for a 365 challenge. Doesn’t matter if it’s a challenge to upload an entry a day, a photo a day, a recipe a day…you just have to say I’m going to do such and such every day for 365 days and then plan on sharing it on a blog or something.

Doesn’t sound too bad in the excitement of the New Year and goal setting but having just completed a 365 project I can tell you it WILL GET OLD!( This is my link to  my 2011 project:  http://project365challenge2011.blogspot.com/)

Last year when I heard about a 365 photo challenge I enthusiastically embraced it. I was puzzled by the number of people who said they started it and only lasted a few weeks. My thought was  that it would be a piece of cake.

Well, I have just about finished the challenge. Today being December 28, I only have 3 more days to go. That’s not to say all of the shots have been uploaded. The last one I uploaded was Monday’s. I’ve taken one for yesterday and one for today but both are still in the camera.  I’ll probably wait and upload the last of them all at once on Jan 1, 2012.

I didn’t have a problem taking pictures. My camera travels with me all the time but lots of days I took many, many pictures. Sometimes over 100 so to sort through them and chose just one for my photo of the day, well sometimes it seemed overwhelming and I would procrastinate.

Right now I’m cleaning off my hard drive so I can start 2012 with a clean slate. I think I must have 5000+ images. Sort, delete , copy, label disc…I need a better system in place for next year or at least not wait til year-end!

But back to the 365 challenge. I enjoyed it but got frustrated at times. It definitely improved my camera skills. My photos are much , much better than back in January 2011 still I don’t want to commit to that again, at least not right now. I have too much going on in my life between my full-time job and an upcoming project launch. (More on that in a future post)

I am thinking a 52 week challenge. Instead of posting a picture a day …good, bad..or awesome…I think I’ll continue to take daily pictures but I’m going to push the envelope. Snap shots need not apply. I want really good quality shots suitable for gallery prints (those are big enlargements for the non photo bug). If I complete the challenge then I will end the year with 52 really nice photos. To reach that quality I will have to improve my skills even more and that’s really the reason to take on a challenge like that.

So what do you think? Anyone starting a 365 project for 2012? What kind are you going to do?  Love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

What can Brown do to you?

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T’was the night before Christmas (almost)

When all through the house 

Not a creature was moving

Not even a mouse.

Not one had a care

(Unless you count the cats attacking the tree…)

We were watching and waiting for UPS to be there.

Extra postage was paid and promises made,

That necessary supplies would be delivered by 5!

At 5:31 A brown truck took a turn.

It went past the condo and on down the street

Away to the window I flew  in a flash

Tore open the shutter  and threw up the sash!

But the truck never stopped.

It just kept on  trucking.

But a trip to the website show lots of nothing!

The driver had delivered but found us not home! (What? Outrage!)

So wrong , so strange, not a bell ever rung!

After calling and screaming and begging a lot,

UPS promised faithfully that I could go to their lot.

The driver would meet me they promised with glee.

So Christmas would be saved after all, we would see.

Yes, I got to pay extra so I could drive to their store (30 miles) (and pick up the package at 9pm at night)

Now silence reigns. No response from their crew , to my request for a refund.

I never get through.

So next time you hear “What can Brown do for you?”

Remember my story…shouldn’t it be “what can Brown do TO you?”

Bah Humbug to you UPS!

Apologizes to Clement Clarke Moore ( author of the Night before Christmas and also Dr, Seuss as I think I started to fall into some “Seussisms” too.

Up Date

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Hello Guys and Gals

Sorry  I took so long getting an update in here. I still have a few more things to tell you about before we close the door on 2011 but right now I want to bring you up to date on what’s been going on while I’ve been away from these pages.

So we’re all here, Dusty, Editor in Chief Rocky, and Scout our tipster and contributing reporter, Smokey. Of course they are all my various alter egos but don’t spread that around! Talk about multiple personality syndrome!

Since we’ve been away we’ve been hashing about where we’re going with the blog and what we want to accomplish and what is a realistic goal. That was the clincher. We knew we didn’t want this to turn into an on-line diary. The intention was to write a blog that had a travel based theme. It doesn’t matter if the travel is to far away exotic locations  or the local zoo. Let’s face it, not everyone lives in New England.

Seemed like a fairly easy goal to meet. Dusty isn’t one to stay put for long but what we didn’t consider was that in addition to the time it takes to visit different places it would also take time to put our thoughts on paper (even virtual paper). Then there’s the need for a job. Yup the real world job that pays the bills and gives us the freedom to go exploring. After all , not too many things are free. Even National Parks have entrance fees and the car needs gas to go.  

We also didn’t factor in the needs of friends and family and even sometimes our need to just have some “down time”.  And that was where we were when we took our sabbatical.

There are some things on Dusty’ s plate for 2012 (we’ll be making the announcement at the appropriate time right here) that are exciting but are going to be  time-consuming . The last thing we want is to turn out a boring page just for the sake of posting something. So what we’re leading up to saying is that we’re going to cut back on the number of posts per week. To parody the expression…If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all…our motto will be ..If we can’t say something interesting, we won’t post anything that day …

One of the bloggers I follow has a “Wordless Wednesday” and we love it. The camera is our passion even more than travel. We used to travel and taking pictures was a way to create a record of the trip but more and more the purpose of the trip is to get the pictures so our emphasis has clearly changed.  We always used photos a lot in our posts but you may see some “wordless” ones popping up now and again here. My thanks to Homestead Ramblings for the awesome idea!

Last week Dusty came down with a bear of a cold! It had such a kick that she was stuck in the recliner for 3 days. She couldn’t even sleep in bed at night because the minute she lay flat she would start to cough. Anyway, this has delayed quite a few excursions she had planned and the tree (oh how excited Smokey and Rocky are over the tree)has not been set up yet. Hopefully we’ll get that done this week so everyone can see how much help Rocky and Smokey can be at times like this. ( Update, after a visit to the Doctor Dusty is on antibiotics and told that she is recovering from a fine bout of pneumonia. Prognosis excellent and it’s only slowed her down a little.)

In the meantime, we’ve sprinkled a few pictures of the Taunton Green in all its seasonal glory throughout this post. We hope you’ll enjoy them and we hope you’ll keep coming back often even though we won’t be here every day.