Day Fifteen - O is for...

Olives, it would seem, are not very photogenic

I will confess to taking the O photo in a hurry and with little more thought than the first thing that came to mind when I considered my options.

Olives are indeed a staple in my diet - not that I am Mediterranean or have any real ties to the cuisine, other than I just enjoy it.  When we went to Turkey and Greece, I ate a Greek salad for something like 10 consecutive days and of course the olive is an important part of that recipe.

The olives here look a little worse for the wear.  I use them in salads at work, so there was at one point 2 or 3 jars going at the same time that I consolidated into 1, draining out some of the brine and in that, it appears I have not preserved the fine look of the mighty olive.

While I offer some apologies for my not so great photo in this assignment, I do not apologize for my love of the olive and therefore my desire to make it the star of the day today.

Day Fourteen - N is for...

A night-lit nativity is nice!

I enjoy today's photo for two reasons - it is a beautifully hand-crafted nativity scene AND the photo was taken at night, really allowing the simplicity of the design, color and lighting to shine through.

The original plan was a night picture - there are already a lot of amply decorated houses with all kinds of colored lights and the occasional inflatable.

We were on our way to Life Group in the evening and I was just remarking that I planned to take an evening shot on our way out, when we walked up the pathway and saw this nativity scene.

That was quite the gift, as far as I was concerned and I wasn't going to pass it up, so as soon as we put the casserole dish and our books down, I was back outside snapping a picture and emailing it to myself.  We might have sounded like we were blathering on a bit, trying to explain to the hosts what we were doing and why, but the finished product is exactly what I was going for...N has been represented nicely!

Day Thirteen - M is for...

No money madness this weekend!

Lots of good M opportunities today, as we spent the first half of the day painting Christmas panels for use in the Worship Arts and then another 7 or 8 hours helping some friends put up their Christmas decorations, including a cool Christmas village.

For some reason (and a lack of attention is probably the leading cause here), I missed those big chances and landed instead on some greenbacks from my wallet to represent M in the form of MONEY.  

Had I done any of the crazy super sale shopping, this might have been more applicable, but I stayed safely away from the malls and big box retailers - my only real shopping plan for the whole weekend is going to be the Farmers Market on Sunday.

Perhaps the absence of spending is what kept the bills in my wallet and accessible to represent the mighty M!

Day Twelve - L is for...

I can't resist the lure of bright lights!

It is interesting as this project progresses, I find myself waking up each day, wondering what I am going to do for the corresponding letter.  Some days it is very easy and I have a plan, others I find myself looking for some creative inspiration at the very last minute.

Welcome to the very last minute.

Friday turned into a very busy and full administrative workday, with 7 1/2 hours logged at the local Starbucks working on the computer.  Only 1 latte was consumed during that time, so I feel like I got the good end of that deal.

After working all day, Ebe and I decided to see a late (10:05 pm) movie and had both heard that Flight was on the must-see list, so we took advantage of some free passes, short lines and low demand for a movie that had been out for a while.

I realized as we were going into the theater that it was going to technically be Saturday when we came out, so the flashy lights were the winner for L, as they caught my eye and therefore, my fancy.

I am not sure that the same can be said for the movie.  Well-acted, but kind of disturbing, in my mind.  If that was the intention, then I will say that it was well done!

Day Eleven - K is for...

Kind of like a Kaleidoscope, right?

Thanksgiving Day proved to be a little more challenging creatively than I thought that it might for the K entry!

It was getting late in the day when I looked out on the patio at my parents house to see the white lights on and looking very lovely.  They reflected in the sliding glass window and reminded me a bit of a kaleidoscope, so I trotted outside and stood up on a chair to take a close-up picture.

Fail is the only way to describe the output, so then I went on a hunt through the house to duplicate the effect with some other lights.  I found a lamp in the living room with some decorative holes on the top, and...success, at least in my mind!

Happy Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for so many different things, including the opportunity to blog about whatever I want to, including pictures of things that represent letters of the alphabet!

Day Ten - J is for...

It's the tiniest JUNIOR meal in the whole world!

Wednesday was a busy little day, given it was the day before Thanksgiving and I had a full day of work to cram into a 6 hour timeline.

It wasn't until I got to dinner (at about 9:45 pm, after the GREAT interfaith service at church) that I received what I would call inspiration for my J entry today.

Chipotle offers kid meals and since I knew that I would not be eating any lunch leftovers because of Thanksgiving weekend (we all know that we have expanded from a single day of eating to a whole 4-day weekend), it made sense to me to get the smaller meal so that I didn't waste any food OR consume too many calories (relative to what loomed for the weekend).

I got a quesadilla, which is in that little foil packet, but the miniature bag of chips was what really caught my eye in the whole process (it held 5 chips, in case you were wondering).  I guess that this could be considered some brilliant marketing, as the kids get the same experience as a full size meal, but it seemed a little wasteful to me to have a bag that small, even if it is intended for the junior crowd.

I will say that I was glad to have been with Ebe, who got the full sized bag of chips.  5 just wasn't going to cut it for me, especially with that itty bitty quesadilla!

Day Nine - I is for...

The Irony of today's entry is not to be overlooked

I am not a fan of IHop.  In fact, I can safely say that I am rarely ever a customer and I don't think that I have set foot in one for 10 or 15 years.

That context is important to realize on this, the day of I in our project.  I had not settled on a good I image and was walking along Victoria Road in Ventura (I had jury duty today) during the 90 minutes they gave us for lunch.

There are a lot more businesses and strip malls along that stretch of road than when David and I lived there 25 years ago.  I was looking at all of the different signs, trying to figure out what was going to hit the mark for I.

There it was, on the side of the road, just a block or two down from AAA.  IHop.  The restaurant that refused to make substitutions for me on two different occasions to accommodate the deletion of some meat that I requested.  Nope, would not do it.  At all.  No negotiating, not even if I paid extra.

I suppose that all these years later I might actually try an IHop - I am a big fan of pancakes, after all - but at this point it is so ingrained in my mind that I am not sure I would actually be able to enjoy it.

Inflexible could also be applied to today's entry - for both the IHop organization and myself!

Day Eight - H is for...

My favorite H

I knew as soon as we cycled to H what my entry would be...Holly, of course!

Unfortunately, our schedules were not synched up too well, so I had to wait for her to get home from school (she has all late classes and some days is not home until after 10 pm) and then snap an action shot.

Props to the Schnoogs for playing along.  I don't think that I even got out of the chair.  I just said to her, "I need to take your picture." I pushed the camera (phone) in her phase and snapped.

She is a good sport like that!

Day Seven - G is for...

Good grief and gross were my two initial reactions

David and Holly definitely live life in their own way, and every now and again I find something that just makes me scratch my head and wonder what the heck they do when I am not around.

Sunday night afforded another opportunity to wonder what was going on.  No one was home when I walked in the door, so I decided to do a few chores while I waited for everyone to show up.

I looked on the clean side of the sink and saw this perplexing scenario - a bowl of something cream colored in a bowl with cold water, sitting next to a clean plate in the drainer.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what the heck was sitting in the sink!  To figure it out, I had to back my way into things...the panini press was still out and it was Sunday...Holly must have made bacon on the panini press for breakfast on Saturday (I saw her posting on Facebook) and saved the grease for David to feed to the dogs.  I suspect that he started to warm it up for the pups morning dry food, but forgot about it.

When David and the dogs arrived home, I casually asked what was in the bowl...yep...I was right.  I didn't let on that the mystery substance made it to the G is for GROSS entry, I don't think that David or Holly would have understood why!

Day Six - F is for...

Finished Feet - feeling refreshed after a little rest

Saturday is typically a busy day in the life of the Newton clan, with this week being no exception.

On deck in the events department was the Fishbowl 1/2 Marathon, a nice little regional event held in Fountain Valley, benefiting a group called Students Helping Other Students (SHOS).

The weather was perfect (it looked a little threatening around mile number 9, but it stayed clear), the course was easy, the volunteers friendly and we finished without incident, all good news!

There were many F photo opportunities - Fishbowl, fitness, fun, finish and of course, the things that got me through the 13.1 miles - feet!  The feet pictured here are actually 'day after' feet, because my phone battery died at about mile 11 and I didn't take a picture of them as we crossed the finish line.  The balance of the day was spent eating (pizza and garlic knots, yum!), running errands and (as sheepish as I am to admit this), sleeping from about 8:30 pm on.

I guess that it has been a little while since I have done a 1/2 marathon, so in some ways, F can also stand for fatigued, as I was uncharacteristically exhausted!