Weekly Winners, People and Faces ...

I have been trying some portrait photography last week, and I think this is a side of photography I would love to improve on.
So if you have any advice to give me, please do so in a comment, because I love to learn new skills. Here we go...

I photographed myself first.

Then pointed my camera at my first complete stranger.
I found out that did not hurt....

... and zoomed in just a little bit more

and when I came home and saw them, I knew I wanted more.

One week later when we returned to the Museum Park I took these.


Sometimes it's all in the details ...

From the inside, looking out ...


I think I like this!





Now those were all actors, and they don't mind being photographed.



But the real hard part in all of this ...

is to ask for a picture. It took a little courage, but the man was more than willing to pose for me.
I think I want more of that!


Find more Weekly Winners at Sarcastic Mom's.


Ooooh, wait ... there is more!

Summer Stock Sunday.

Welcome to the brand spanking new Summer Stock Sunday. Each week, beginning at midnight Saturday night Israel time, 5pm EST, we'll be sharing our quintessential summertime photos. So what says summer to you? Is it the pool? The beach? A backyard barbecue? A comfy old pair of flip-flops? Whatever summertime looks like in your corner of the world this is the place to come share it - put up your post and then come add your link to Mr. Linky. Visiting other participants is encouraged, after all, sharing is what blogging is all about.

This is a new Sunday meme at Robin's Around the Island.

So here's mine! Iremember when I saw the kid, this is my Summer Stock Sunday picture, but I almost forgot to publish it!




Have a great Sunday!

Saturday Something I Think Should be Arrested.

I'm a very busy girl this weekend, so please forgive me if I am not around to comment as much as I usually am or would like to. I'm going to use autopost to publish today's and tomorrow's post and I'll try to catch up as soon as I can, okay?
I'm a little bit too busy to be very inspired, so for this Saturday Something, I nicked a meme from Thom who stole it from somebody else last Sunday, who in their turn had stolen it too .
So there. I am officially a thief among thieves now. Maybe you should arrest me now?

One thing I am not. I am not a copycat, I have added my own answers. Enjoy ...?
Oh and um, I wrote this post yesterday. Any questions about tomorrow should really be about today.You know you will be reading them tomorrow, but I was writing this yesterday.

Confused? You should be. So am I.



1. Name one person who made you smile today: Only one? You must be kidding! Can't do that!
2. What were you doing at 8am this morning? Writing a blog post or reading blogs most likely.
3. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Running an errand. Shopping for food for this evening.
4. What is your favorite candy bar? I try to keep away from candy bars as much as possible, so I seldom buy them. If I want something sweet I prefer having some dark chocolate. Dark Belgian chocolate. Yum.



5. Have you ever been to a strip club? Yes.
6. What was the last thing you had to drink? A glass of South Australian Jacob's Creek.
7. What was the last thing you ate? A fruit salad.
8. The last sporting event you watched? Ummm???
9. Do you go to church every Sunday? No
10. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza? I like them both. Depends on the mood I'm in.
11. What are you doing tomorrow? We're going to have a brunch with some of the people from my husband's work.
12. What do you think of when you hear Australia? David Mc Mahon. You know, I have read this answer somewhere else too, and I thought "that's exactly what I'm thinking when I hear Australia"! Boy that man is popular!
13. Biggest annoyance right now? I don't get annoyed easily. Firefox isn't running! DUH!!
14. Last song listened to? What would I choose? Hmm. I think I'm in the mood for um ...
Robert Palmer! Every kind of people. I like that song. And that's what we bloggers are. every kind of people. Enjoy ...

Every Kind of People - Robert Palmer

15. Do you have a maid service clean your house? MOI.

16. Are you jealous of anyone? No. We all have our share of the good and the bad. Why should I be jealous, or what for?
17. Is anyone jealous of you? I don't know.
18. What do you usually do during the day? Enjoying whatever it is I do, whether it's housework, blogging, or taking and editing pictures, I love it all.
19. Do you hate anyone that you know right now? That would be a complete waste of time.
20. Are you thinking about someone right now? Yes, I think about lots of people all the time.

So there, I hope I have entertained you a little?

Friday's Fave Five, Life is Good.

Friday's Fave Five, one of my favourite meme's, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story. Time to look back on the week that has passed and share some of my favourite moments.
There are always many more than just five, so here we go ...


1. My patio garden is now in full bloom. The plants are thriving, I so enjoy looking outside and see all the colourful flowers. I just love to go outside every morning and tend to them a little.

2. The sound of the water trickling down our little fountain on the patio. A recent gift from my hubby and I absolutely LOVE it. The sound of the water is so relaxing, and you know you just can't resist a smile looking at that sunny water gushing figure.

3. The new pictures I put into my photo frames. One of the finishing touches of my living room project was to replace some of the portraits by new ones I took more recently. I love how it looks now. Only one more empty frame, I'm still undecided about which picture I should put in there.

4. Bokrijk Museum Park, revisited. We had bought a ticket for the whole season last week. Some special events were planned last weekend, so we decided to drive up there again and enjoy another wonderful day there. There were reenactment scenes with actors and actresses, and this inspired me to do some portrait photography. I'm usually rather shy to point my camera at people, but performers and actors usually don't mind being photographed, so I tried and I think I took some good ones. Portrait photography might become one of my next photo challenges I think.

5. My cat. If my cat was human, she would probably be diagnosed as autistic. Any change out of the usual routine drives her nuts. Remodeling the living room totally disorientated her and she spent the first week under the bed in the guest room. But since a day or two, she seems okay with the change. She's found a space of her own in the living room again and she happily snuggles up to me when I sit on the couch. I lit some candles last night and just enjoyed the sight of my newly decorated living room, my cat purring on my lap. Life is good.


Find more Fave Five's at Susanne's Living to Tell the Story. I'm always very much looking forward to read how everybody else's week has been!


Oh by the way, there is something I need to ask. Did anybody experience any trouble when visiting my site or trying to leave a comment lately? And could you please tell me what browser you use? You see, some of my Belgian friends, my sister and my daughter told me they get kicked off my blog lately as soon as they try to open the comment box. After I downloaded Explorer 8, I experienced the same problems, so I think this might be the cause of this?
I have uninstalled IE 8, and I have followed Thom's advice to use Mozilla Firefox. This has solved the problem for me, everything works just fine for me now but if you have any problems at all, please let me know?

Sepia Scenes, How to Make a Traditional Beehive

Remember the picture of the beekeeper making a traditional beehive I posted last Sunday? Quite a lot of my readers wanted to know more about how they were made, so I'm sharing some extra photo's from the demonstration we got at the Bokrijk Museum Park.
The warm beige natural colours of the pictures and the nature of the subject inspired me to do a Sepia Scenes series.

The baskets are woven from long stemmed grass or straw.

A piece of cow horn was used to make tight bundles from the straw. The bundles are sewed together with leathery strings of cord made out of bramble shoots. People did not have much in those days, but as you can see, they did manage to be pretty resourceful with the materials Mother Nature provided.





And this is how they look inside after the bees have built in their honeycombs.

Click this link to read more about beehives and their history.


Find more Sepia Scenes pictures here.

A Thousand Words in Idioms K and L

As long as people have been around, they have tried to communicate with each other. As a means of getting the message across as clearly as possible, idioms and sayings have found their way into our language. Now, because "a picture paints a thousand words", I thought it would be nice to make this a photo challenge. The idea is to choose an idiom, or a saying, ( even slang is allowed) and illustrate it with a picture. Each week we'll cover two letters of the alphabet, okay? You can find the first edition here if you need some inspiration.

"A Thousand Words in Idioms"

If "language is the dress of thoughts" ( Johnson), then idioms must the wardrobe ...

We are doing K and L this week.

K is for .... Knock on wood.
A person knocks on wood or touches wood for good luck.

Knock On Wood - Amii Stewart

Remember the song? I can never hear that phrase, without hearing the song.
Aaahhh, memories from the seventies ...

L is for ...
Like a kid in a candy store.

If someone is like a kid in a candy store, they are very excited about something.

Yes, well okay, they're still in FRONT of the candy store in this picture, and if you're curious about the inside of the shop, here's another picture ...

Don't forget to sign the Mr Linky if you're playing?
Can't wait to see what you'll come up with!

Time for an Award ... How About Two? Twice?

About two weeks ago, my Hawaiian blogger friend Thom gave me with this very special award...
Mahalo Thom, it's an honour to be one of your friends, so this award is much appreciated.

The following rules came with this prize:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming.These kind bloggers aim to find and
be friends.They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when
the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.
Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight
bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into
the body of their award."

So here we go, my friendly bloggers are ...

1. Christine, at Chris's Coop, because we are friends from the very beginning.
2. Terri, from Ways I See the World, because I'm very much looking forward to meet her in real life in November.
3. Paz's New York Minute, because I love her pictures of daily life in New York city.
4. Carletta from ROUND THE BEND . She recently had a little break because she became a grandmother, and I'm very glad she's back now!
5. Jacki, at Moving at the Speed of Life because it was her birthday yesterday, and this is my way of thanking her for her friendship!
6. Brenda, at Brendas Blog from Paraguay Posting from San Francisco because of health issues. A very courageous optimistic person who always has something interesting to tell.
7. Nicole, at NicoleB Photography for her inspiring photography and interesting challenges she offers.
8. and finally Gabriel from Live from Waterloo. Visiting his blog always feels like being welcomed in his own family.

Now if you were not on this list, don't despair! Don't go running off either, because there is more to come! Yes, ANOTHER award!! This time, it's the creative blogger award, and I got it twice in two days!! Yes indeed. Both Thom ( oh yes, THE Thom! LOL!) AND Quilly, my Hawaiian friends both gave me the Creative blog award, and I'm very happy with this one too.
Creativity is what this blog is all about, so Mahalo, or thank you as they say in Hawaii.

The rules for this one are simple, I have to name seven things I love and tag seven blogs.


1. People
2. Sunshine
3. Flowers
4. All things pretty
5. Nice food
6. A glass of wine
7. my cat

And the blogs I'm tagging with this award are:
1. Kirsti at Mi Vida Ocupada: My Busy Life
2. Wanda at Moments of Mine
3. Jan at Murrieta 365
4. Lisa at Lisa's Chaos
5. Barbara at Whispering Photos
6. Mar at maremagnum
7. And Abe Lincoln at Gobsmacks

Their photography is something that inspires me each and every day.

But I'm a bit confused here, since I got this one twice, does this mean I have to name seven things twice, and tag seven blogs twice? OK, I think I will do that, so hold on to your hats, here we go again.

1. My camera. (of course)
2. Blogging
3. The birds on my patio
4. Coffee
5. Travelling
6. Butterflies
7. Teddy bears

And the blogs I'm tagging are:

1. Word of the day! A very creative use of words and photography
2. Cpaphil Vintage Postcards a great blog with lots of old postcards
3 Art of Seeking another new blog I've been following recently
4. French Word-A-Day because I love France, and it's always useful to brush up one's languages.
5. Maggie's Mind another friend from the early days. She will soon be moving to Japan, I'm much looking forward to get to know more about daily life in Japan once she gets there.
6. This Irish Photograph. Pictures from Ireland, a country I love so much.
7. And last but certainly not least, Robin from Around The Island, because I like her words and her photography inspires me. And she has started this new Photo Challenge called Summer Stock Sunday. A very nice place to share and view Summer pictures.

Macro Monday, A Snail Tale

Bonjour!
Aaah oui, allow me to introduce myself. Antoine l'Escargot.
Yeah, I prefer to speak French.
The name Escargot sounds so much more refined. Imagine "Snail", Tony Snail? Nah, sounds like a character from a Chicago gangster movie. And they told me I'm way too slow to play in a gangster movie when I tried to audition once. Nah, that did not work.
So there, Antoine l' Escargot. It has an aristocratic ring to it , don't you think?

One morning, not so long ago, I woke up to this cliffhanger of a story...
Mon Dieu, I'm quite sure this was not what I had in mind when I was heading home last night.
Yeah, I know. My house is on my back, so I'm always home, right? Hmm.
Somebody must have picked me up or something. Probably that Jientje woman with her camera. Yeah, should have known. Trespassing her patio without being noticed? Uh-uh!
I slowly ... (yeah, us snails do everything slowly, haven't you noticed?)
Anyway, as I was saying, I SLOWLY slimed myself from my hiding place ...

Mon Dieu!!!
I'm afraid of heights!! Aaaack!

I'm clearly NOT in control of this situation here, this is horrible!
I mean , have you seen how DEEP this is?

Okay Antoine. Take a deep breath. Breathe .... Concentrate.
Dang!! I'm talking to myself now! Quel horreur!!
I'll never make it to star in a gangster movie now!!

No way I'm taking this plunge! Snails don't DO bungee jumps, uh-uh!
I think I'm just going to sit this one out.
Wait till she picks me up again. And then what? Oooh, the worries!
I could end up on her plate, for all I know. Yeah, they do that to snails. They let you starve for a couple of days, and then they cook you in an aromatic broth, and serve you with garlic butter!
Aaack, and I LOATHE garlic! And they use your house as a serving dish! Aaack!!! The horror!!
And I don't CARE if she's a good cook or not!

I'm getting the hell out of here! As FAST as snails can be?
Before she catches me again.

More Macro Monday pictures at Lisa's Chaos.