#JanPhotoADay

Hosted by the lovely Chantelle over at Fat Mum Slim there is a themed photo for every day of January.

Here is my collection

Day 31- You. Again

This time round I was able to take the photo myself.  Thanks to my lovely new iPhone 4S that has one of those reversible camera deals. (yes I was just a bit of a name dropper there but if you have one of these little beauties you would tell the world as well).

When I got hubs to take my photo at the start of the month I hated it.  It was late and rushed and I was actually in my nightdress.  I was feeling less than comfortable with myself and had hoped to do one of those really cool shots in the mirror or with just part of me showing but due to it being late and me being tired it just didn't happen.

Mind you even after having a whole month to think about it I still couldn't come up something a bit out there.  Oh well, maybe next time?

On the upside though I do feel much more comfortable looking at this photo of myself which is nice.  I think my recent haircut has something to do with that.  

Oh and the I'm worth it challenge 

Day 30 - Nature

This was another one of those oh this is easy, I will get to it later.  There were many of these and sadly most of them didn't get taken because later never came.

This week has seen a rather large amount of rain fall, which invariably means mushrooms and toadstools pop up all over the place.  These ones were in my mum's front garden.

Day 29 - Inside Your Fridge

Day 28 - Light

Day 27 - Lunch

Day 26 - Colour

Day 25 - Something You Made

Christmas before last I purchased a heap of cane to weave baskets with.

Just after Christmas last year I actually got around to doing something with it.  Lucky for me I really stocked up on the cane so there is still plenty for me to play around with.  Anyone got any tips?

Day 24 - Guilty Pleasure

Day 23 - Something Old

Day 22 - Your Shoes

Day 21 - Reflection

Day 20 - Someone You Love

I thought that today was going to be easy.  After all I love lots of people.  Only I love them so much it was too hard to choose without picking a favourite.  It didn't take much thought though to realise the newest addition was the most sensible option.

Day 19 - Sweet

Day 18 - Something You Bought

Day 17 - Water

Day 16 - Morning

This was one of my desperate days.  The morning was fast approaching it's ending and I hadn't found something to capture.  We were heading to Bondi and I had hoped to capture some morning traffic madness.  I thought this was as good as it was going to get.

Naturally as soon as I posted it we were surrounded, like in a jam surrounded, with cars.

Day 15 - Happiness

As I said when I posted this photo.  Not necessarily my happiness but lots of other people have left signs of their happiness here.  This is the Sea Cliff Bridge in NSW.  Every rail has at least one pad lock.  Apparently locals, and not so local at times, come here to propose.  They then leave a pad lock as a sign of the ever lasting love.

Let me here awwwwwwweeeeee

Day 14 - Something You're Reading

More like something I wish I was reading.  I took this book on the plane.  How I thought I would get time to read is a little beyond me.  Welcome to the delusion world I some times reside in.  

Reading is a thing of the past for me.  Unless of course it is a blog.  I seem to be able to find plenty of blog reading time.

Day 13 - In Your Bag 

After falling behind for a few days I was desperate to catch up.  I don't know why but for some reason I had it in my head it was important to take a photo each and every single day.  I think I only got this on in by minutes.

Mind you this time last year I wouldn't have been able to take this photo at all.  Back then I was bag free.  I wonder how I ever managed.

Day 12 - Close-up

I had tried to get a close up of a frog.  It ended up looking more like a dead, skinned and headless chicken.  Not very pretty at all.  This is one of the sunflowers that the girls planted in the front driveway.  Looks like they will flower while we are away.  Naturally.

Day 11 - Where You Sleep

Day 10 - Childhood

Day 9 - Daily Routine

Now based on what others posted this day I think I may have missed the mark a little.  I do not exactly routinely drink my coffee here but I do routinely drink coffee and I do wish it was always sitting and relaxing here.

Day 8 - Your Sky

This was a late afternoon photo.  Instagram made it look a lot bluer than what it was.  But then that is why we love it I think.  Or at least why I love it.  If I had of had my thinking cap on I would have gone down the foreshore and taken a sunset shot.  Oh well next time maybe.

Turns out this whole photo a day thing is a bit tricker than I thought.

Day 7 - Favourite

This is actually a shot of my favourtie electrical device.  Yes that's right good old Mac.  That's him hiding down in the bottom left corner.  I know that he only just makes it in the photo.  The main reason for that is that the desk on which Mac sits is rather untidy and I did not have the time nor the patience or inclination to tidy it up before snapping away.

As it turns out that photo has quite a few favourites in it.  It is also my favourite corner of the house.  A place where I want to run and spend hours in.  My gateway to blogging notoriety.  Even if tis only my own lunchbox kind of notoriety.

The spikey things behind Mac also happen to be my favourite Christmas decoration that can be left out all year round without looking out of place.  In fact the only things that make them even look like Christmasy is the fact that they are red and green.  Which you can't really see in the terrible light.

The other favourite is obviously the picture frame.  Which also brings with it a bit of angst.  The frame itself was made by a former lover.  Actually one of my first loves and very serious relationship former lover made it.  Best bit is he is still one of my little brother's besties.  He gave it to me with a picture of over 2000 smiley faces in it.  I loved smiley faces at the time.  Now however it contains all my favourite photos from the best day of my life.  Well one of them.  It really is hard to split the birth of children and marriages.  Each are such wonderfully magical days it is hard to think there could be anything better.

Day 6 - Makes You Smile

How can chocolate cake not make you smile?  Especially when it is freshly made choc orange swirl kind of chocolate cake.  As I captioned when posting on Instagram, it was the process as much as the cake that made me smile.  I had the pleasure of creating this master piece with Miss Z, (formerly DD2, aka Miss 5) and one of her little buddies from school.  Actually it is her best little buddie from school as they would both tell you.

It really is lovely watching children learn the ropes of friendships.  I have seen some truly beautiful moments between Miss Z and her friends.  Mind you I have seen some equally cringe worthy times where I wonder what on earth has gone wrong.

I actually posted this photo a day late.  Which I am a bit cranky about but will not dwell on.  I had wanted to share a photo of hubs for today, as he makes me smile like nothing else.  Only he is somewhat camera shy.  Somehow though I got him to pose with a net bag over his head.  At the time to both of us it was hilarious.  In fact it did more than just make us smile.  I was giggling so hard I could barely take the photo.

Unfortunately though the finished project did not look as funny as it did in my minds eye.  So I was left disheartened and photoless.  Just when I thought my creative juices were ready to flow at full capacity and create something more than awesomeness I crumbled at the bit.  Misread the signs and somehow got lost along the way.

I was tempted to just throw my hands up and give in but realised that was over reacting.  You see I was starting to put just a little to much thought into the challenge and that was resulting in unnecessary and ridiculous pressure.  After all it was supposed to be something fun.  Light hearted and joyful if you will.  Not pull your hair our OMG I simply must  have the most creative/inspiring/best ever photo each and every day.

With over 30,000 photos shared in less than the fist week that would be a pretty big call.

Day 5 - Something you wore

 Not exactly being glamour model material, or loving seeing myself in photos I really didn't want to share a photo of what I wore on this particular day.  The fact that it is the middle of holiday time and I may or may not have showered or brushed hair in a twenty four hour period has nothing at all to do with my lack of shyness either.

Sure I could have just taken a photo of my clothes spread out on the bed or hanging from the curtain rods or what ever, but that is not really my style.  Plus I really fail to see how that could possibly be an appealing photo.  My wardrobe is pretty simple.  Think singlet, shorts and thongs.  Of the feet variety.

I contemplated taking a photo of my wedding dress or perhaps of my deb dress (which looks more like a traditional wedding dress anyway) but since they are both located at my mother's house it was easily put in the too hard basket.

Putting my thinking cap on though I came up with this little beauty.  This is a dress my mother put on me as a baby.  My sister also wore it as did Miss L (formerly DD1 or aka Miss 10) and I think Miss Z.  The chances of Lil T wearing it were somewhere between slim and none.  You see she was substantially bigger than the other two and by the time she came around the sentimental in me was rapidly dwindling.

Day 4 - Letterbox

 Bleh.  What a totally boring photo.  I tried to jazz it up a bit with Miss Z peering in.   Truth be told it was a bit of a fluke really and I am not sure how successful it really was in jazzing up the photo.

The worst part about this is that I kept thinking if I lived in the rural area this photo would way better.  For some reason people in the bush or in farmland, seem to have super cool letterboxes.  What makes it the worst part is that on this particular day I happened to find myself in the rural area.  Not really knowing the area though I wasn't sure of where to find the cool letterbox shot I desired.  Sadly I was unable to find one.

Day 3 - Something you adore

On the surface the topic seems so easy.  Something you adore.  Being the free and easy type of girl that I am there are many things that I adore.  Choosing which one to share was not going to be easy.  Choosing one that I could photograph well was going to be harder.

I spent most of the day wandering round wondering what it was I adored.  I really didn't want to go through the challenge taking cliche photos.  I wanted to be edgy and different.  Something that would be able to stand out from the crowd.  Something that would make people want to read my blog.

By late afternoon I was feeling rather despondent and wondering why I had ever thought I could come up with a cool photo every day for 31 days.  Even though it was only day three I briefly, only briefly mind, contemplated if I should go on.

Electing to take my quandary to the cooling waters of my resort style swimming pool I was suddenly faced with something that I greatly adored.

Two little mermaids, relaxing in the summer afternoon sun.

I adore that at this time of year we can spend that wonderful twilight time chilling by the pool.

I adore that the girls love the water and took to it so easily.  There is  nothing more fun than swimming the afternoon away.

I adore that we are fortunate enough to have such a wonderful swimming area at our doorstep.

Day 2 - Breakfast

 I had been saying to Miss Z for days that I would cook pancakes for breakfast.  Only one thing would always lead to another and sadly none of it lead to pancakes actually being made.  On this particular day we came very close to this scenario being repeated.  Till I found out the day's challenge was.

Luckily for me I did this while it was still possible to serve what some would call breakfast.  Scraping in at ten to eleven the caption read It's still breakfast before 11am right? You would not  begin to believe how uber cool I felt right then and there.  Amplified by the supportive followers who quickly liked my post.

Oh and in case you were wondering yes they were very very yummy.

Day 1 - You

Here I am in all my glory.

Yep that is a pile of washing in the back round.  Like I said me in all my glory.

This photo challenge is off to a wonderful start.  Nearly forgetting all about it on the very first day.  Which means rather than some elusive it's me but you can't really see much of me shot I got a in your face this IS me.

Quite a bit of a shock really.  I do not like photos of me very much.  If at all.  This one is not too bad.  I guess.  In the scheme of things and given the circumstances.  You know the late at night on the first day of the year scheme of things.