Mi Vida Ocupada: My Busy Life!

Day 129 ~ Bird of Paradise

Day 128 ~ Boxer Puppy

Isn't this puppy adorable??!! Unfortunately I wasn't paying attention to my ISO...this was set at 1600! oops! Too grainy but too cute to delete!

Photo Hunt #2 Check-In and Reminder

Whoa... how can it be June 19th already?
This month has really flown by.  The summer solstice is just 48 hrs away!
June 19th also means that there are just 11 days left for taking and organizing photos for  Photo Hunt #2.
Hopefully many of you who signed up have had the opportunity to get a good start on the list.  (ha ha- I know there are other procrastinators out there!!) If not, you might want to get out this weekend and start snapping (that's what I need to do). 

The strategy I use for my entry is to create a post at the start of the month with the list of items (in draft form), then insert pictures as I go throughout the month.  I'll publish it June 29th or 30th.  So far this month I have multi-shots for several specific items and have had a hard time choosing which to go with for my entry, or I have specific photos that would be good under a few different categories and don't know which one to put it under.  Decisions!!  Some categories I have absolutely nothing for as of yet.   I really need to get them all organized and then start focusing on which shots I still need.  Time to get a move on!!
Anyway, just a gentle reminder to get crack-a-lackin on the photo-taking if you're still game for the challenge!

Day 127 ~ The Whole Wide World

Field Trip to Leben's Old Town Market

What started as just a simple trip to a local garden center turned out to be a wonderful discovery..... I had no idea Leben's Old Town Market was as cool as it is!  I have been back more than once this week already and have taken many, many photos.  Here is a quick tour of Old Town Market: To see more photos of hibiscus, hydragea, cactus, horses, tropical gardens check out my Daily Photo Blog! And I highly recommend that anyone in the area go on your own little trip to Old Town Market!

Day 126 ~ Blanket of Geraniums

Day 125 ~ Hello Handsome Horsey!

This handsome horse (at Leben's Old Town Market) wandered up to see what I was doing and then he posed for a pic :)

Summer Wedding Time

Wedding season has slowed down considerably for me over the past couple of years but I happened to attend a really nice wedding this past Saturday. 

The bride and groom were blessed with a beautiful day, considering that most of last week had been overcast.  The reception was at a golf course on the Mississippi River.  Beautiful! Check out more pics on my daily photo blog

It was nice chatting with the ladies

Enjoying a gorgeous sunset...

Loving summer time!

Aardvark!!

This is totally one of those "you had to be there stories", but I think it is still funny so I am going to post about it.
The other day I was outside playing "4 square" with some of the neighborhood girls (ages 9-10).  Do any of you remember playing that during recess as a kid??!  Well anyway, we were playing and one of the girls makes up a rule that you have to name an animal when the ball come to you, or you are "out" and no animals can be repeated.  Easy, right?
So we each say our first animal, continue to play for about 10 seconds and then just as the ball is coming to me, I had to think fast about an animal and the next thing you know, I shout out,
"Aardvark!"
It was such an impulsive thing to yell (I mean really, who thinks about aardvarks?!) and caught me by such surprise (even though it came out of my own mouth) that I immediately started ROFLMAO!!! (For those of you not in the know about internet lingo that is "rolling on floor laughing my ass off").
The girls had never heard of an aardvark and didn't quite understand what was so funny, but I do not think I can hear that word again without recalling this incident and laughing!
Aardvark!

Day 124 ~ St Croix Falls, WI

Cactus Gardens at Leben's Old Town Market

Tropical Garden at Leben's Old Town Market

One of the greenhouses at Leben's is set up as a Tropical Garden

Hibiscus Galore!

Beautiful Hydrangea

Old Town Garden with Waterfall

Day 123 ~ Old Town Market

Hot Pink & Purple Sunset over Mississippi River Valley

The sunset was unbelievably gorgeous tonight, had to pullover to get these quick shots after leaving a wedding.  These photos were not enhanced, this was the natural sunset!  I am not happy about the powerlines but because of the natural gradient of the sun, I was unable to remove them in Photoshop.

Reflection over Mississippi River at Grey Cloud Island

Day 122 ~ 18th Hole at Mississippi Dunes Golf Links

Day 121 ~ Glass on Glass

I thought these vintage glass lights looked interesting in front of the stained-glass windows (found at Pineda Tacos in St. Paul)

Day 120 ~ Downtown St Paul view from Robert St. Bridge

 

Summer Reading...

Just finished reading The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc.  Pretty good, fast read.  Now what should I read?  Summer has  begun and I am pretty much of out adult books that I haven't already read, although I did bring a couple of good young-adult Newbery Medal books home from school.  I know I can get through each of those in just a day or so, so I am looking for recommendations for good summer reads. 
This is the current NY Times List of Trade Fiction Bestsellers:

1	THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. (Dial, $14.) A journalist meets the island’s old Nazi-resisters.	4
2	THE SHACK, by William P. Young. (Windblown Media, $14.99.) A man whose daughter was abducted receives an invitation to an isolated shack, apparently from God. (†) First Chapter	54
3	VISION IN WHITE, by Nora Roberts. (Berkley, $16.) A wedding photographer finds romance with the brother of a bride-to-be; Book 1 in the Bride Quartet series.	5
4	PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. (Quirk, $12.95.) The classic story, retold with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.”	9
5	MY SISTER’S KEEPER, by Jodi Picoult. (Washington Square, $16.) A girl sues her parents after learning they want her to donate a kidney to her sibling.	36
6	OLIVE KITTERIDGE, by Elizabeth Strout. (Random House, $14.) A seventh-grade math teacher is the link in 13 stories set on the Maine coast; the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.	6
7	ANGELS AND DEMONS, by Dan Brown. (Washington Square, $16.) A scholar tries to save the Vatican from the machinations of an underground society.	8
8	TESTIMONY, by Anita Shreve. (Back Bay, $14.99.) Sex acts caught on videotape ignite a scandal at a prep school in Vermont.	4
9	UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, by Jhumpa Lahiri. (Vintage Contemporaries, $15.) Stories about the anxiety and transformation experienced by Bengali parents and their American children. First Chapter	8
10	SARAH’S KEY, by Tatiana de Rosnay. (St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.95.) A contemporary American journalist investigates what happened to a little girl and her family during the roundup of Jews in Paris in 1942.	16
11	FIREFLY LANE, by Kristin Hannah. (St. Martin’s Griffin, $14.95.) A friendship between two women in the Pacific Northwest endures for more than three decades as they make different choices in their lives.	21
12*	LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH, by Emily Giffin. (St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.95.) A woman’s happy marriage is shaken when she encounters an old boyfriend.	6
13	THE LIKENESS, by Tana French. (Penguin, $15.) Detective Cassie Maddox is drawn into a murder case in which the victim looks just like her. First Chapter	1
14	THE ALCHEMIST, by Paulo Coelho. (HarperOne, $13.95.) A Spanish shepherd boy travels to Egypt in search of treasure.	89
15	CITY OF THIEVES, by David Benioff. (Plume, $15.) Two men arrested in World War II Russia must complete a seemingly impossible task to save their lives.	9
16	THE BEACH HOUSE, by Jane Green. (Plume, $15.) When a widow on Nantucket learns she may lose her house, she turns it into a bed-and-breakfast.	1
17	7TH HEAVEN, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. (Grand Central, $14.99.) Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women’s Murder Club hunt for an arsonist.	8
18*	NETHERLAND, by Joseph O'Neill. (Vintage Contemporaries, $14.95.) A Dutchman deserted by his wife after 9/11 finds solace in New York''s immigrant cricket scene. First Chapter	,
19	THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG, by Muriel Barbery. (Europa, $15.) A young girl and a widowed concierge, both closet intellectuals, become friends.
20	CHASING HARRY WINSTON, by Lauren Weisberger. (Downtown, $16.) Three glamorous friends, New York women nearing 30, vow to change their lives.

I would be willing to swap books with anyone who is interested, if you have a book you want to send me.  Just take a peek at the books in my sidebar so you can see what I have already read and what kind of books I like and if there is anything you might be interesting in swapping for :)

Interesting Rock Formations

Tropical Pink Hibiscus

Playing with Macro....

Marjory McNeely Conservatory at Como Park

Since the sky was rather downcast, I opted to convert these images to b&w.

Day 119 ~ Gardens outside Como Conservatory

Day 118 ~ "Embracing Reason" Public Art Sculpture

There is quite a bit of public art around both St Paul and Mpls, and I recently downloaded a map of where to find it all from the Start Seeing Art blog. This one is called Embracing Reason by Don Osborne

Stop! Hammer Time

I may have mentioned before, but my little brother Jeff started a new blog last year called Funny Video Search.  On his site he posts funny videos that he finds (or that people send to him), then he makes commentary about it.  For one reason or another, Jeff finds stuff from the early 1990's the funniest and he loves to somehow connect the funniness he finds to me and the stupid things I used to do when I was just turning a  teenager. Recently he posted the following video and blogged about the awesome MC Hammer Pants I used to wear circa 1990.  Its true! I did have at least one pair of mom-sewn Hammer pants of my very own.  They were the bomb! Check out this video, it is great!!

Watching this video was great! Those gold lame MC Hammer pants are the best! You can even buy a pair here.  I had to laugh at all the moves of the dancers, totally brought me back in time 20 years. Just to prove that I once could do some of MC Hammer's moves back in the day, here I am making a fool of myself by trying to do the "Chinese Typewriter" that Hammer made so famous. Hope this makes you smile today!

Day 117 ~ Red Barn in Bloom

I have been trying to take a series of Seasonal photos with my favorite little red barn.  Here is the Red Barn in Fall, here is the Red Barn in Winter. This past week one of the big trees near the barn has been in bloom with little white flowers.  I am not entirely happy with any of these photos because it is hard to see the white blossoms, taken at two different times of day 7:30 am and 7:30 pm.  I will try for better photos this week if the blossoms haven't all disappeared!

Day 117 ~ Cute Little Chipmunk

Day 116 ~ Through the Woods

Day 115 ~ Waterfalls at Como Park

Hairy Spider

If You're afraid of spiders...DON"T LOOK!
This hairy guy was crawling on the screen door but stopped to pose for me before I threw him outside.  Used the macro setting to get better details, in real life he was less than 1"

Day 114 ~ Purse Dog

Holy Crappie!!

A few nights ago I tagged along with the guys as they went fishing out on White Bear Lake.  It seemed hot (although windy) before we got onto the lake but as soon as we were out there, the wind had really picked up and it got pretty darn cold.  Since I am not interested in actually fishing, I was just along for the ride while reading my book and snapping some pics.  Just before sunset my man caught the biggest dang crappie any of us has ever seen!!  For those of you who do not know, a crappie is a pan fish that is usually just slightly larger than a sunfish.  The one that he caught was just over 14". It was so big that when he first pulled it into the boat I thought it was a bass!  He had been fishing using a chatterbait which made it even more amazing since crappies usually prefer live bait.  This bad-boy is going to be proudly mounted (to be displayed where, I do not know)

 

I posted many of the photos over on my Daily Photo Blog if you'd like to check them out: Silhouette of a fisherman, sailboats, reflection over water, and the moon.  Here is one of the sunset over the lake....

 

Getting great photos and seeing a trophy fish being caught made the night an enjoyable one (despite the wind)

Day 113 ~ West Side Mosaics

These mosaics are proudly incorporated into the front of the Paul & Sheila Wellstone Community Center in St Paul.  They are all made with colored rock (rather than tile)

Out on the lake...Finally!

This past Sunday my parents had us all up for a day of boating and dinner.  This was the first time I had been out on the lake all year!  It was a very windy day so the boating portion was very short-lived, although we hung out at the dock/marina for a few hours to do a little fishing.  The community marina where my parents live is the hottest fishing spot on Lake Chisago.  Check out all of the anglers we could see very close to us:

This was our biggest catch of the day, a 3 lb large-mouth bass

My nieces did some fishing with their daddy (my brother Brian) and Grandpa

Grandpa and Bianca

Bianca and Brian

Annika and the fish she caught

 

Oh, and we saw a couple of loons out on the lake very close to the boat (wish you could see how red their eyes are but for some reason you can't tell in this photo)

 

My weekends are going to be very busy this summer, so I hope I have a chance to get back on the lake soon!

Silhouette of a Fisherman

Lamplight reflecting over White Bear Lake

Thought the reflection of these lights looked pretty cool on the lake....

Partial Moon over Lake

The Moon tonight....

A peek of it over White Bear lake (Its tiny!)

Sailboats on White Bear Lake

It was a very windy night out on White Bear Lake, perfect for sailing! There may have been 20-30 sailboats on the lake tonight, here are just a few

Day 112 ~ Sunset on White Bear Lake

The sun setting over White Bear Lake, MN. This week I am submitting this to Skywatch Friday

Day 111 ~ Bridges at Keller Park

I drive by a couple of beautiful bridges at Keller Park every day on my way to work.  I got some nice shots of one of them late this winter and wanted to get some spring/summer photos as well. Not sure which of these I like best!?

Day 110 ~ Common Loon

While boating on the lake my parents live on, a pair of loons came extremely close to us and I was able to get a pic of this fascinating bird.  If you are unfamiliar with loons, the are Minnesota's State Bird and make very unique vocalizations (listen here).  Too bad you can't see his glowing red eyes in this photo :(

Sweetsauer Photo Hunt #2 ~ Details & Sign-Up

Here is the list of items to photograph (all subject to photographer's interpretation). **If anyone would like clarification on any item on the list, please leave a comment**

1. A View from Above (looking down)
2. A Macro Shot
3. Laughter
4. Relaxation
5. A Celebration
6. A Sunset
7. Sun/Lens Flare
8.  A Bridge
9.  A Shadow
10.  A Garden
11.  A Park
12.  A Street Scene
13.  Signage
14.  A Summer Activity
15.  A Summer Treat
16.  Earth
17.  Air/ Wind
18.  Fire
19.  Water
20.  Something Vintage (pre-1980)
21.  Something Made of Glass
22.  Something Made of Wood
23.  Something that Floats
24.  Something Railroad Related
25.  Something Round

It is preferred that you take your photos between today and June 30th.  If for some reason you are stuck on the 30th without a few of the items on your list, then you can use a maximum of two photos from your archives, as long as they were taken less than one year ago. 

It is up to you whether you post your photos on your blog as you go, or wait until  June 30th to unveil them and make it a surprise.  One thing I ask is that everyone who participates posts all 25 photos in one single post on their blogs or in a set in an online gallery by June 30th.  (See all entries from Sweetsauer Photo Hunt #1)

A new post will go up here at www.sweetsauer.com on June 30th.  I will be using the Mr. Linky auto-link widget.  Anyone who completes the Photo Hunt will need to add their name & the permalink of where their Photo Hunt photos are posted.  Everyone who adds their name to the auto-link will have their photos considered for my Favorites.   After I go through all of the participants' entries, I will post my favorite photos for each of the 25 items on the list in a separate blog post with a poll for each (See all of the Favorites from Sweetsauer Photohunt #1).  Please note that I will not include archived photos in my favorites (it hardly seems fair!)  Anyone who votes is encouraged to vote based on their favorite photo, not just for a particular photographer. Voting is also open to anyone and everyone.

If you would like to participate, please sign-up by adding your name and blog url to the Mr. Linky widget below.  If you would like to recruit others for the Sweetsauer.com Photo Hunt or announce your participation, please feel free to post the above badge on your blogs and remember to link back to this post.

Happy Hunting, I look forward to seeing everyone's photos at the end of the month!

ETA: You ARE allowed to use Photoshop or other photo-editing software as you'd like (it often adds to the artistic quality of the photo)

Last-Minute Get Together with my BFFs

I spent some time on Friday night over at Mary's house.  What was supposed to be a low-key evening with a few of us girls turned into a backyard get together with several of our group. Amazing that it worked out that way on a Friday night!
I was only able to take a few photos before my camera battery died....

Chase and Angelina dressed up with power tools

The kids checking out baby Jake

 

Isn't Jacob precious?

 

Lanee & Rog

 

Mary, Kim, and Me (This was the last photo and then my camera battery died)

 

Luckily Kim has an phone with an awesome camera so we were able to get one of just us girls....

 

I hope we're able to get together a lot more this summer!

Jay Leno's last night on the Tonight Show

After 17 years, Jay Leno hosted his final episode of the Tonight Show this past Friday night.  As many of you know, Conan O'Brien is taking over as Host starting this Monday.  For Jay's final show he had Conan on as a guest, a nice way to pass the reigns.  In case you missed it, you can watch the full episode of Jay's last show here.  I especially liked the ending when Jay shows us his legacy....so very sweet!  I wish both Jay and Conan good luck in their new positions :)

Day 109 ~ Downtown St Paul on the Mississippi River

I tried somewhat to see if I could get another photo of downtown St Paul while crossing over the Hwy 52 Bridge.  Although it isn't as cool as the first photo I got from this perspective, I still think its pretty awesome.... I like how you can see more of the water.

Rhubarb Potluck

Every year around this time, the rhubarb plant is ready to be picked and eaten. 

One of my co-workers has a garden full of rhubarb and brings a ton in to share with everyone and then we have a Rhubarb Potluck.  This is a potluck beyond a dessert-lovers dream (if you like tart rhubarb, that is!). This year I finally got around to documenting all of the desserts my colleagues bring in.  I think there were 25-30 different desserts/dishes all containing rhubarb.  I did not try everything, but will share with you my two absolute favorites.
Rhubarb Cheesecake- to die for!!!

 

Rhubarb Angel Dessert- This one had a merengue topping on top of a sweet-tart rhubarb filling.  WOW.  They must call this one angel dessert because it is truly heavenly!

This is the plate of what I tried:

I am not going to post ALL of the rhubarb desserts here on the blog, but I do have an album of all the desserts here if you would like to take a peek! 

Day 108 ~ Glass Garden Decoration

From my BFF's garden....