day 31/365 have a nice day

day 31/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Today's post comes courtesy of the smiley face spatula at Sur La Table. Everyone needs a smiley face spatula to flip their pancakes, don't you think? Day 31/365... Have a nice day!

day 30/365 bob-bob

, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Vacation day 2/7...I probably shouldn't count down on the vacation...or else the end will be here before I know it. One of the best things about this vacation is that Cassidy gets to spend time with my parents. This is Cassidy with my dad. Hs name is Bob, so she calls him bob-bob. Makes sense, right!

day 29/365 vacation day 1/7

At last!!!! Vacation at last!!!! Whew!!

In addition to missing my baby, I also missed my camera. So I took quite a few pictures today and that's why we have a mega post! It's day 29/365 and this project is still going strong! And it's day 1/7 of my vacation!

We saw these little guys crawling on the walls at the place we're staying. If they were real, I'd totally be freaked out.

I also dusted off my macro and took some "nature" photos.

day 28/365 finally

The day is finally here! I am almost home. I'm currently at the airport posting with my iPad, waiting for my flight. This airport is so small, the lights were off when i got here and I saw only one other person waiting for a flight. I'm pretty sure the plane i'm about to take will be small. And by small, I mean SMALL. Hopefully it won't be one of those flights where they assess your weight and move you around for proper distribution. That always makes me super nervous.

Today's picture is sort of the culmination of my week away from home. A nice cup of Joe and something sweet to savor. The anticipation of going home and heading for my vacation is my dessert. I can't wait to dig in!

day 27/365 it's a good day, Charlie Brown

So, I'm still holed up in this little town for work and I'm still missing my baby. But I only have one more day to go and then it's VACATION (and I'll be reunited with my camera!!!!) So, this morning, I had a break from work and was able to walk around this little town that I'm in and look what I found:






I saw these colorful statues all over the town square. I saw Charlie Brown, Woodstock, Lucy, and even a super suave Snoopy with a handlebar mustache! There were also some other guys I didn't recognize and a guy with dreadlocks! How fun is that?

It's a good day, Charlie Brown!

day 26/365 view

photo, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

This is the view from my hotel room. Nice right? It's deceiving. It's not that nice. It's great what a little saturation can do. Two more days and I'll see my girl. I already feel like I've missed milestones -- when I talked to her today after school she told me she got 100% on her math assignment (yes, she's 5, so math assignment to her means something different than what it would mean to us...no fractions, no long division...I'm pretty sure it was just some simple arithmetric). But 100% nonetheless is still pretty awesome. And I feel sad that I missed giving her a hug for congratulations.
In other news, a benefit of being away from home? My husband took my car to work today and got it detailed and washed and Cassidy told me I had a new car! Yippee!

day 25/365 coffee

day 25/365 coffee, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

What do you see in your coffee? In my coffee, I see a chick with its beak pointed to the right and it's wing pointed up. My chick doesn't have any legs, or maybe I just can't see them. What do you see in my coffee?

day 24/365 the hipstamatic

day 24/365 the hipstamatic, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Today is day 24 of this project. It's hipstamatic time. I'm traveling for work and the only camera I have is my iPhone. Thankfully, I just discovered the hipstamatic. It takes cool-looking photos with different lenses and flashes. This is a picture of my room for the next four nights. I'm here Monday through Friday. It's the first time I've been away from my baby girl for longer than two nights and it's breaking my heart and making me sad.

day 23/365 time out

Back in the day, time out didn't look so sweet. I didn't have a chair to rock when I was in time out. Time out was a dark place with nothing to do, but reflect. Today, it's a bright pink place with rocking and song. Things sure have changed.

day 22/365 ballerina girl

day 22/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

day 21/365 stretch

DSC_0194, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

I took this picture of Cassidy before school today. It was a non-uniform day. So that means we need more time in the morning to figure out what to wear. Even if we choose it the night before, there is inevitably drama in the morning. Fortunately, this morning there wasn't too much drama, so that meant that I could take some early morning pictures on the couch.

day 20/365 mirror mirror

day 20/365 mirror mirror, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

It's craft time! Cassidy got this cool hand mirror kit for her birthday that came with gems, stickers and glitter glue...every girl's dream! Check out her masterpiece!

day 19/365 lavish

Day 19/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Oooooohhhhh. Dark chocolate for breakfast! Need I say more? Ok, maybe so. I made this for my daughter this morning for breakfast. How could you go wrong with warm, chocolatey yumminess? Well, she liked the chocolate. But she didn't love the oatmeal...so I ate it. And YUM! Can I say it again? Y.U.M.

day 18/365 before and after

Day 18, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

What a difference a week and a half makes. This is a before and after shot of some flowers we had sitting around after my daughter's birthday party. Obviously, the before shot is on the left and the after shot is on the right. We threw the fiowers away today. You're lucky I didn't take a picture of the water in the vase that was filled with dead flowers. I love flowers. But I hate dead flowers. About two to three days in, I think what's the point of real flowers when they die so fast. But for that small window of time, they do make me smile. I guess that's the point.

day 17/365 starbucks

day 17/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

There is nothing better than a morning with my girl at Starbucks! We love going to Starbucks and sitting at a table for an hour or so just shooting the breeze, drinking coffee (well, kids hot chocolate for her) and people watching. It has to be one of our favorite past times!

These pictures were taken courtesy of my iPhone and iPad apps. I used shake-it photo for the pictures. Then I used the photo transfer app to transfer the photos to my iPad (LOVE this app!). And then I used diptic to put it in a board. Finally, I used Photogene to edit, add text and upload to Flickr. Love to be mobile!

day 16/365 bear-bear

DSC_0128, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

This is bear-bear. My daughter has had bear-bear since she was about 9 months old. He's kind of ratty, has been through the wash about a hundred times, and lost his squeaker. But my daughter loves him. And by loves him, I mean L.O.V.E.S. him. The other day (before her 5th birthday) she told me that she would no longer need to sleep with bear-bear when she turns 5. Last night, I challenged her on this. When I was putting her to bed, I asked her if she was still going to sleep with bear-bear since she's now 5. She moved him to the foot of her bed and told me that she would sleep without him. But when I went into her room hours later to check on her, she was gripping bear-bear so tight that no one was going to be able to pry him out of her arms even if we tried. So bear-bear, I guess you have a little more life left in you.  Welcome back.

day 15/365 Who is this mouse?

Have you been to Chuck E. Cheese? My daughter's classmate had a birthday party there this morning AT 9:30 A.M.! Which in my mind, is a little bit early for pizza...and for this mouse. But after 3 hours, I decided it's an ideal place for a party. When you arrive, you get a unique number stamped on your hand and your child's hand. In order to leave the premises, the numbers of the adult and child have to match. Good idea, right? But here's the better reason why this place rocks for a party--the kids get to run around in a contained space and play while the parents can sit together and talk. The only thing better would be (1) good food (the pizza is not good); and (2) wine! But at 9:30 a.m., I was willing to overlook these things!

Happy day 15/365 everyone! Thanks for following me and thank you thank you thank you for your comments!

day 14/365 bubbles

Day 14/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

I'm blogging my picture so early today! I know it's going to be a busy day and didn't want to run out of time. Day 14/365 is one of my absolutely favorite things in the whole wide world! (Can you sense my enthusiasm?). I got a sodastream right after Christmas and I haven't looked back to soda in a can since! The sodastream carbonates water (plain old water) and then you add soda syrup to it if you choose. I like it plain because I like bubbles. I typically make one bottle in the morning before work and drink it in the afternoon and it's still bubbly! The sodastream rocks!

day 13/365 resting puppy

day 13/365 resting puppy, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

My puppy Yuki returned home from the vet yesterday. She had surgery on Monday to remove three stones from her bladder. The stones were huge--I'm told the size of golf balls! Needless to say, she is home now and recovering nicely. It's truly amazing--her incision looks so clean and she has bounced back to her normal self. Only she is resting more. Sleep puppy sleep!

day 12/365 the proverbial rose

DSC_0058, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

On my drive home today, after my business trip, I thought I would stop and smell the proverbial roses...and the roses smelled pretty sweet tonight. And even though I had a several hour drive in front of me and traffic waiting for me on the highway, I went against my nature to rush home and I stopped and the roses I smelled were beautiful. And I thought how lucky I am to see what I saw and to smell the sweet scent of my proverbial rose that was the ocean.

day 11/365 room service

Day 11/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

I often have to travel for work. It's hard because that means I have to leave my family. Fortunately, my husband does a great job with my daughter. So on the care front, there's not too much to worry about (except for the occasional time when I call and it's 8:30 pm, and Cassidy hasn't had a bath yet...you know what I mean). The only benefit I can see to work-related travel is staying at nice hotels and ordering room service. I love room service. Today, I ordered halibut. My day 11/365 picture is again courtesy of my new macro and my yummy halibut. I'm loving the tomato and asparagus bokeh!!

day 10/365 pets

day10c, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

My cat Snoopy (her name is Snoopy because she likes to snoop) loves to drink water from the kitchen faucet. So naturally, I thought what a great subject to photograph with my new 105 mm/2.8 macro lens! I'm so excited for this lens. I bought it from a fellow ClickinMom. It's great so far, even though I've only taken like 10 pictures with it. I can wait to get out and experiment.  Here's my first experiment!

And, speaking of pets, remember how I posted that my dog, Yuki, was peeing all over our house?  (See here).  Well, I took her into the vet yesterday and discovered that she had 3 large stones in her bladder.  Poor thing.  The doctor wondered how she could even urinate with stones that large!  But Yuki never complained, never seemed in pain, and never seemed unhappy.  She's such a sweet, people-pleasing dog. Today, she had surgery to remove the stones.  When I called to find out how she did, the vet reported that she was in recovery and doing well.  Poor baby.

an extra post - the PARTY post

I swear...this will be the last party post...well, we'll see.  Here are some of the pictures I took from my daughter's party.  These are the "before" pictures.  The "after" shots were not as pretty.  The kids LOVED the candy bar. At the end of the party, they each got a take out box to fill to their heart's content with all kinds of pink candy.  I feel bad for the parents--those kids were on some kind of sugar high!  I'm sure they all slept well that night!

I was really happy with the way the party turned out.  It was a lot of work, but because I started in November, I was able to pace it and get it all done.  Since I work full-time, I mostly worked on the party between 9-11 pm., after my daughter went to bed.  I found that it was actually relaxing to be creative for a change.  And I hope my niece (also turning 5) will want an Alice tea party too so we can use all this stuff again!

So, for the inspiration and printables, I used The TomKat Studio.  Kim's stuff is awesome!  I can't say enough good things about it. You can find her blog here and that link will also take you to her etsy shop.  There are so many adorable printables in her shop.  Just looking at it gets my creative juices flowing.

I got the fondant cupcake toppers here.  They turned ordinary cupcakes from Ralphs into extraordinary cupcakes that probably looked better than they tasted.  (You can ask my dog, Kimo, he got into them last night after everyone went to sleep!)

I also stalked Home Goods for the glassware.  They have amazing deals!

Thanks for looking!

day 9/365 find the white rabbit

DSC_0005, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

I know I said I'd post party pictures today...but I'm still working on them. Maybe tonight. For now, the white rabbit.

day 8/365 Today's the Day!

day8, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Today's the day! Cassidy's 5th birthday party! Lot's of preparation, anticipation, and excitement! The party girl was ready to go and put on her best party shoes and prettiest party dress.  The party was a lot of fun!!!!  But boy am I tired.  Hopefully I'll be done sorting through and processing my many many pictures so that I can post some tomorrow!

day 7/365 Party Prep

I took today off work so I could do some party prep (shhhh...don't tell anyone).  Whew!  It was a day filled with glue dots (LOVE glue dots!  So much better than glue itself!), ribbon, twine, scissors, flowers, sprinkles, white chocolate and pink (yes, pink!) marshmallows!  Here's a few more party preview pictures!  Tomorrow's the big day!

By the way...Thank you for following me and commenting on my posts.  It makes me smile!

day 6/365 a glimpse into the morning routine

day 6/365 glimpse into the morning routine, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

In order to get out the door on time in the morning, our morning needs to have a routine. Our morning routine consists of Cassidy waking up on her own, trotting into our bedroom, and plopping herself on the bed to watch her "show" (which is usually Franklin, or whatever happens to be on Nick Jr. at 7 a.m.) while I get ready for work. Then, after the peaceful confines of the bedroom, we escape to the kitchen, which I can often be heard saying "come on, come on, come on...put on your shoes...no not THOSE shoes (see day 5/365)...ok, whatever, we have to get out of here...let's go, let's go, let's go!" And off we go on our day. If only we had more time during the day to lay around and watch Franklin.

day 5/365 the ugly shoes

day 5/365 the ugly shoes, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

My daughter (the soon-to-be 5 year old) wears a uniform to school. As part of their uniform, they have to wear black, brown or navy shoes. She has lots of black shoes. She even has black shoes that she has never ever worn before. Why is it that every morning, when I tell her to put on her shoes, she inevitably choses these worn out, toe-scraped, no-more-glittered, black shoes from Target? Don't get me wrong, these black shoes were great in their prime (i.e., like the first day she wore them). But today, they are just plain ugly.

day 4/365 Party Preview

day 4/365 Party Preview, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

My daughter, Cassidy, turns 5 next week. We are having her Alice in Wonderland tea party birthday on Saturday. Here's a preview of some of the things I've been working on for her party (between the hours of 9-11 p.m., and since November). More to come!

day 3/365 - the party's over...it's back to work

All I can say is UGH! It's back to work Monday after the holidays. I think this is my least favorite day of the year! It was so hard to get up this morning. My daughter also struggled to get out of bed! (Why do they struggle to wake up on school days but pop out of bed before the sun rises on the weekend?)

This is a small glimpse into my life at work. (Notice my iPad at the bottom of the picture with all the fingerprints!) My desk is so messy and disorganized. But I can find anything on it at a moment's notice. I think every part of my desk is covered with paper, except a tiny 8x10 inch work space right in front and to the right of my computer where I get it all done!

So, it's only day 3/365 and I'm already taking pictures with my iPhone and editing it with Filterstorm on my iPad. (LOVE Filterstorm, by the way.) Whatever works, right?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

day 2/365 - Yuki

Yuki is my dog. She is a shiba inu. She is not starting 2011 off on the right foot. In fact, she's is flat out starting out on the wrong foot! You see, because of the new year, we decided to clean the carpets in our house. The carpets were not even dry yet when Yuki decided to pee on the carpet...twice! I think she trying to tell us something. We take her out for a walk twice a day, but still, she pees! What to do, what to do!

day 1/365

It's the first day of the new year. A year filled with new hope, new joy, and new projects. My project 365 begins today. Day one. Because of my anxiety of not being able to capture a photo today, I took a picture of the first thing I could...monkey bread. I took a picture of monkey bread even though I know I'll have many more opportunities to take pictures today of way more interesting things, like people we love and things we enjoy doing. But just so I can complete my first post, we have monkey bread.

Yum.