25/52 {Fantasy}

Something I have fantasized about all of my life is about to become a reality...

24/52 {Heat}

30 by 30

I've been thinking about the things I want to have on my 30 by 30 list for a couple months now and after I saw Annie's post about her list, I decided it was time to stop putting it off and finish it up.  Here's my list, broken down into a few categories

Health/Fitness

1} take a yoga class

2} complete a 5K

3} climb Mt Fuji

4} do 1 unassisted pull up

5} pass the Army PT test for my gender/age group

Food

6} learn to cook lobster

7} make gnocchi from scratch

8} learn to make grandma's relish

9} try 5 new foods

10} make Pioneer Woman's homemade cinnamon rolls (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/)

11} learn to make 5 traditional Japanese dishes, including sushi

Travel

12} drink the Absynth we bought in Prague 3 years ago

13} visit at least 3 new countries

14} learn enough Japanese to carry on at least a 5 minute conversation

15} visit Disney (Tokyo Disney will have to do)

16} visit Hiroshima

17} scuba/snorkle the Great Barrier Reef

18} ride an elephant in Thailand (this and #17 are trips that will help knock off # 13 as well and are sort of in the early planning stage.  If our vacation locations change, these will have to be changed as well)

19} visit a Japanese Onsen (hot spring)

Random

20} get out of debt (ALMOST THERE!  STUPID STUDENT LOANS!)

21} get caught up on my scrapbooks and stay current

22} read 50 books

23} find out my blood type

24} design a logo for BleuDress (or pay someone else to)

25} MASTER all the functions on my camera

26} solve the Rubik's cube or complete a crossword puzzle without any help

27} save $20K

28} watch all of the Star Wars movies (I've only seen the newest one)

29} renew my CPR certification and keep it current

30} complete a photography project or be paid for a photo

I hope to photograph and blog each one of these as I go.  I have 15 months to complete the list.  Wish me luck!

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Oh, and apparently I'm still not caught up on my 52 in 52 project.  After I posted yesterday, I look at my planner and realized I should be working on week 24, so here are 22 and 23! (I better get my act together so I can complete this and cross off #30 on my list)

22/52 {Downtown}

In DOWNTOWN Taipei with my love

23/52 {Summer}

Does it get any better than SUMMER bbq's with friends?!?!

Taipei and {52 in 52} update

Ok, so I haven't blogged a photo for 52 in 52 since April 9th.  That was week 14.  It's now week 22 or 23.  I decided to catch up on that project using photos from out trip to Taipei.  Here they are:

15/52 {soft}

We took a cooking class and made the most delicious dumplings with this SOFT homemade dough

16/52 {Perspective}

17/52 {Love}

18/52 {Start}

Jason really wanted to try Taiwanese tea...this is how it STARTs

19/52 {Free}

Ok, so this guy isn't really free, but he sure looks FREE in the photo

20/52 {Texture}

21/52 {Toys}

And a few more random photos from our trip:

He walked to get me a coke while we were waiting for our gondola ride just because he knew it would make me happy.  He's the best!

On our gondola ride into the mountains of Taipei

Him drinking tea, me eating peanuts while we were in the mountains

LOVE THIS MAN!

We set the self timer for a couple shots and this was the last one.  It's a horribly unflattering angle for me but it just makes me laugh.  My reaction to his action is so typical us.

We took a cooking class and I made the perfect onion pancake =}

Eating all the yummy food we'd just made

I love frogs!

I could never have planned for this guy to jump through my shot, but he did and I love it!

Our trip was....OK.  It rained a lot so I don't have many photos (other than the iPhone shots). We ate some of the most disgusting food either of us has ever tasted on Friday night.  It was just an innocent looking noodle dish but it seriously tasted like dirty feet smell.

Trying not to be the rude Americans, we sat there and ate until it was gone and then sprinted out of the building.

Saturday we went to the cooking class and although the food tasted good, something didn't agree with me and I ended up tossing my cookies in a train station bathroom.  That was actually the turning point of our trip.  After that, I felt much better and Saturday night we went off in search of some dinner.  We settled on a ramen shop that had a long line.  We thought we'd be good since the menu that was posted outside had English and Chinese but when we got in line, they handed us a clip board to place our order and it did NOT include English.  We spent the next 20+ minutes (thank goodness there was a long line) matching the characters on the menu we could read to the ones on the clip board.

I was extremely proud that we were resourceful and had figured out it.  I'm pretty sure we got exactly what we wanted to order and it tasted DELICIOUS!

Sunday was BEAUTIFUL and we rode the gondola up into the mountains then went to the zoo.  It was a perfect day for us and a great way to end what had started out as a horrible vacation.

When we got home, I realized I had a rash (that's my 2nd one this month if you're counting, I mentioned the 1st one here and posted a photo here). This one was all over both of my forearms and ITCHED! 

So I went to the DR and he gave me some steroids which cleared both of my rashes completely!!!  Ironically, the medicine he gave me was the same medicine that had been prescribed to my dog that same morning.  While we were gone, he was staying with some neighbors and managed to rupture a disk in his back and had no use of his back legs.  It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.  He is doing so much better now and can walk on his own except for on our slick tile floors.  Hopefully in the next week or so he'll be back to his old self and running around again.  For now, we're spoiling him rotten with love and attention.

Lastly, we got to add another pin to our travel map!

WOO HOO!  Yay for travels!

14/52 {envy}

Celebrating 50 happy years of marriage, that's something to envy!

me with me grandma's brother and his bride of 50 years

I miss my husband terribly, but I'm so grateful to be able to celebrate moments like this with my family!

12&13/52 {hands&shiny}

I was so focused on my trip around the world that I skipped week 12, so I just combined them =)

Pedicures with 3 of my favorite ladies was just what the doctor ordered after 36 hours of travel!

11/52 {round}

It took me all week to notice something round and then 3 different round things came at me within 10 minutes...

Our speed limit signs here are round instead of the rectangles we are used to in the States

the filter/lens cap feel off my camera and broke into lots of round pieces

 and I packed some DVD's into my "oh shit" bag

10/52 {morning}

I'm not a morning person but there are 2 musts for me when I think of morning:

music and makeup

(and yes, I skipped the gym and slept in that day, don't judge)

9/52 {pattern}

I am in love with this kimono I purchased recently at a recycle shop for $25!  The colors, the price, the PATTERN, I love it all =)

8/52 {pink}

I'm not a huge pink person, but I LOVE the way my sunglasses turn sunsets a gorgeous shade of pink

7/52 {time}

I sat down to finally start editing the 1,000s of photos I have currently waiting to be edited, starting with this weeks 52 in 52, and this AWESOME song came on my shuffled iTunes:

a song called "Time and Time Again" by Tony Lucca that starts with the line "I saw your picture just the other day"?!?!?!  Doesn't get any more fitting than that huh?

ANYWAYS, I was pretty excited when I realized this weeks theme was "time" just a day after I bought a much needed new watch

I'm a planner, so along with the watch, my fun Lilly Pulitzer planner is a must for me when I think of "time"!

As you can see, March is already looking like it's going to be a busy (but super fun) month and I haven't even scheduled my ESL (English as a Second Language) students yet!  This month has also been super busy. Tomorrow is the only day this month that doesn't have at lease one thing written in the little box.  It makes for a crazy life and leaves very little time for blogging, but I love it and wouldn't have it any other way!

6/52 {red}

I like this photo for this weeks theme straight off the camera and since I'm not at all in the mood to do any editing, I'm going with it!

5/52 {ennui}

ENNUI?!?!??!

Yeah, I had no clue!  I had to look it up.

According to dictionary.com, ennui is

"a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom"

I spent the whole week thinking about this theme and I kept coming back to the same subject

Buster

4/52 {reflection}

Don't worry, there's more Hawaii to come tomorrow but I need to throw in this weeks photo for 52 in 52 before I forget!

I love all the mirrors around Japan, so when I saw the theme "reflection", I went out and took some shots of the mirrors

then, this morning, while at Bible study, I realized that most, if not all my personal reflection happens here

(one of my favorite verses: Ephesians 4:32 "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you")

so I chose two photos this week =)

3/52 {self portrait}

I had way better things to take photos of this week than myself  forgot to pack my tripod so this is the best I have for this week

taking a moment to remember the men that still rest in the USS Arizona

2/52 {food}

I had quite a few photos to choose from for this weeks 52 in 52 theme (hey, I like food, this one was too easy) but I chose this one because of the story behind it.

I've mentioned a time or 2 that we have a favorite restaurant here in Japan so of course we had to have dinner there one last time with some friends before we leave for vacation (and then some subsequent TDY's for Jason).

The wonderful guy that owns the place (in the middle of the above photo with the AWESOME hair) brought all the ladies delicious desserts for free!  I think my exact words were "it's like strawberry shortcake on delicious crack" =)  I didn't think there was any way I could love that place more than I already did, but free dessert?!?!  YES PLEASE!  We are officially HUGE fans of Sakura in Sagamihara.

That is why I had to use this photo over all the artistic shots I took this week.  I can't wait to see what everyone who is participating came up with for this week!

1/52 {B&W}

The theme for week 1 of my 52 photos in 52 weeks was black and white.  I don't shoot in black and white or edit my photos to black and white very often, so this was fun to play with!

52 photos in 52 weeks

I hope everyone had a safe NYE and is having a great start to 2011.  We had the great pleasure of picking up a new soldier on NYE, so we spent 3 hours on a bus to Narita, an hour waiting for him and then about 2-3 hours on trains trying to get home (SOMEONE thought it would be faster than waiting for the bus back but it pulled into base right as we got back).  We made it home in time to feed the FNG and get to our friends house with about 20 minutes left in 2K10.  Not very exciting, but we were together so we were happy!

I don't make resolutions, but I do like to set a few goals for myself each year.  Last year I attempted Project 365 and was fairly successful until the big PCS started and then it all went out the window!  One of my goals for 2011 is to take more pictures. I saw something on a blog I follow and I thought it sounded WAY more reasonable and attainable than project 365 so I did a little research and found Project 52 and decided I like their list of themes so I'm going with it.  I'm going set a reminder on my phone to go off at the beginning of each week reminding me what the theme is for the week to try to help keep me on track. 

Here are the themes for the 52 weeks of 2011

Week 1 - Black & White
Week 2 - Food
Week 3 - Self Portrait
Week 4 - Reflection
Week 5 - Ennui
Week 6 - Red
Week 7 - Time
Week 8 - Pink
Week 9 - Patterns
Week 10 - Morning
Week 11 - Round
Week 12 - Hands
Week 13 - Shine
Week 14 - Envy
Week 15 - Soft
Week 16 - Perspective
Week 17 - Love
Week 18 - Start
Week 19 - Free
Week 20 - Texture
Week 21 - Toys
Week 22 - Downtown
Week 23 - Summer
Week 24 - Heat
Week 25 - Fantasy
Week 26 - Water
Week 27 - Shadows
Week 28 - Light
Week 29 - Night
Week 30 - Macro
Week 31 - Nature
Week 32 - Clothes
Week 33 - Green
Week 34 - Map
Week 35 - Laughter
Week 36 - Child(ren)
Week 37 - Yellow
Week 38 - Candy
Week 39 - Pets
Week 40 - Never Ending
Week 41 - Sports
Week 42 - Books
Week 43 - Blue
Week 44 - Letter of the Alphabet
Week 45 - Innocence
Week 46 - Most Important Thing in Life
Week 47 - Heaps
Week 48 - Family
Week 49 - Favorite Spot
Week 50 - Metal
Week 51 - Three
Week 52 - Fun


Week 1 is B&W and since I never shoot in B&W, so I'm going to spend this whole week shooting in B&W and see what happens.  I'll share my favorites at the end of the week =)