Fellow Tweeters and Flickrers already know the exciting news: earlier this week I became the proud owner of a Lensbaby 3G!

As if I haven’t already acquired enough photo toys in the last few months, but I couldn’t resist nabbing the Control Freak my good friend from college was selling (who made sure to let me know it was up for grabs before she put it on eBay. What’re friends for, right? :)

These are all shots I took yesterday while visiting with my Ma-n-Pa-in-law, who were in town for the weekend. I’m still trying to get used to the bending and tilting, but I think I came out with a few quality shots after my initial test drive.

Though I still have lots of learning and experimenting to do, I immediately noticed what a dreamy, almost surreal sort of feeling the Lensbaby can have on almost any scene.

And, while the Control Freak definitely lives up to its name, it’s also entirely possible to shoot fast and loose with it, so long as you keep it in the unlocked position.

Thanks, Brittney, for the stellar matchmaking! :)

Well, I survived my train ride afterall! And not without more than one test of my mental strength.

I thought I’d get so much reading done on the ride but as it turns out, it’s very hard to read, or do much of anything, when you’re constantly craning your neck towards the window. So, here are some scenes I managed to capture while whizzing by on the Coast Starlight, until it was lights out and time to catch some z’s.

Enjoy!

The night it snowed in Portland we took advantage of the huge park across the street from our place.

We were too cold and tired to do more than wander around and take pictures, but that didn’t stop everyone else in the neighborhood from building snowmen and sliding around the park hills on cardboard.

Alan made some changes to a couple snowmen we found with beer bottles on their heads.

Chris, on the other hand, had different plans for our wintry friends.

I had to work the next day and feared the snow would melt away (which it did), so I took a few minutes that morning to wander around with my camera.

It all started to disappear almost as fast as it got here, and it never takes long before pristine, new snow starts to look disgusting.

Fun while it lasted!

The other day I heard it was in the 80’s back home. Clearly, Redding hasn’t gotten the memo that it’s Fall… But that’s no surprise considering it generally tends to only have two seasons down there: summer and winter.

We’ve been taking advantage of the crisp weather with walks through the neighborhood, and finishing things off with a good TV show while snuggled next to the heater. My hot cocoa consumption has jumped through the roof these last two weeks.

The leaf in Chris’s hand fell right onto his lap while we were sitting in the park the other day, soaking up the evening sun. He put it in his back pocket and, as far as I know, it’s still there.

On an unrelated note, I want to give a big thanks to everyone who replied to my last post! I am so tickled by your comments and will get to responding very soon!

As promised, here’s the awesomest flower in all of Portland: Black Magic.

And to keep the geek party rolling, this rose reminded me of a piranha plant. Doesn’t it look like it just wants to eat you up? Scary!