Today is a day of mixed emotions. Today we celebrated a life that has ended, entirely too soon and tonight we will celebrate life it self simply by living.

   Today Diane was laid to rest and I was so happy, but not at all surprised, to see how much she was loved and respected. The service was absolutely her, a quiet, classic and properly done affair. Her family couldn't have captured her spirit better. Her service was well attended with no empty seats and no dry eyes either. The love could be felt in every corner and I am sure Diane was smiling at us all as we said our final Good Bye.

   As sad as this morning was, there is so much to remind you that life is still going and it is mostly good. Like the  grandparents that celebrated the birth of their newest grandchild this past week, or the birds nest being built right out side my front door. A robins nest we  believe. I touched it for pictures and it was empty. Now however there has been more added to the nest tightening it up and making it ready for babies, so I won't touch it even a little bit. Make no mistake I will be continuously curious as to what is going on in the nest, and I will really really want to look but I will resist and let Momma  bird do what she needs to , to get her family raised.

  The dance is tonight!  It is the Second Saturday Social. I LOVE to dance. As you may of guessed this is one of my most favorite events. I wasn't sure if I was going to go to this one or not, but in the end I decided I just wanna dance my blues away and be with people that understand and feel the same as me.

   Now for my favorite part of todays bog.The challenge in photography group. Film Noir! I had fun with this one once I figured out what I wanted and how to do it. First I found a Noir filter in the editing program on my Apple, so I took a random photo from my library and applied the filter to see what the results would be. I pretty much got all the information  for camera settings I needed from doing this,  as well as the type of lighting that might work best. My next issue, finding a subject.  Some of that answer came by accident while walking out the door to walk BowD. There is a hutch out side the front door and on it is an eclectic collection of things that don't fit in the house but we like too much to get rid of. It was there I found two of my subjects. Including the birds nest that I had not seen until then. My doll house on the back porch caught my attention as well and it gave me so many ideas that I was entranced for a hours. Each room offering something cool and different for my cameras eye. In the end I only used one photo from the doll house and I felt with it I had nailed the assignment. I am not going to go into anymore detail then I already have of how I took the photos or how I edited them, I will just show you.

It started like this

   

This is how I finished it.

 

 The nest on the hutch

A different type of view 

The doll house stairs

  

 

  

Now they are a dark and mysterious 

                  It seems I still have room for" What's for Dinner".While I am no longer an All Recipe All Star, I still enjoy cooking and creating different dishes. 

    Things have changed in my house when it comes to dinner. We still eat, but without Mom we don't have a regular dinner time at the table. We cook and often use leftovers for days and graze as we wish. 

  This what's for dinner is, yep! you guessed it leftovers. Bill prepared the perfect Prime Rib on Sunday and we both enjoyed a typical steak dinner with potatoes and roasted veggies. From the left over steak on Monday or maybe it was Tuesday I created my version of a steak fajita using refried beans, leftover steak , canned tomato and chillies, onion, peppers and because I had some zucchini. Oh and because it struck me that I should, I diced up some golden new potatoes and lightly fried them up before adding them to the mix. I did not season the meat mixture at all letting the veggies be the seasoning. After having dinner with the girls last Friday at a Mexican restaurant and realizing they don't season the meat I thought I would give it a try. I was not disappointed. The flavors in the dish were well balanced and were better tasting without the heavy flavoring of the normal seasonings we use in Mexican cooking. This will be repeated.

  As the song says, " And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance        I hope you dance,     I hope you dance." "Lee Ann Momack"

                 Hope to see you next time!