February is a strange little month. The big family holidays are over, our days are short and wet, someone is usually sick and I’m running on empty when it comes to creative thoughts. I shouldn’t be surprised as the same things happen every year but once again we hit the end of January and I realized I’m out of interesting blog material.
The only thing that changed this year was my decision to find a way through the block, one day at a time. I spent an evening in the WordPress reader looking for inspiration and while I found the web is full of enthusiastic bloggers who document their year with photo-a-day projects I wasn’t ready to commit to 365 blog-worthy photos. I should however be able to handle the shortest month and its 28 days so then the next challenge is how to make these 28 photo opportunities into blog posts that are interesting to write and read.
Regular readers might know that Hipstamatic is my favorite photo app but I’ve been stuck in a creative rut using the same lens and filter combination (Jane & Robusta) for most photos and not investing the time to experiment with everything else the app has to offer. This month I’ve decided to branch out and activate the “shake to randomize” setting on my iPhone so each time I shake my phone in Hipstamatic the app selects a new lens/filter combination. I can’t see my final image until after I’ve snapped the photo and I’m committing to taking and posting 1 photo from each day without any additional editing so what you see will be what comes out of the camera and as much a surprise to me as it is to you. Instead of a new shake-it-up post every day I’ll recap each week on Sunday and if you like the finished results the lens and filter combinations will be noted for every photo.
Feb. 1st was a fun day filled with junk food and Superbowl 49. Even though our Seahawks didn’t win the game we made the best of the afternoon and enjoyed a huge pan of nachos for dinner. My Feb. 1st photo is of the couch in front of our television. Even though we all got flu shots this year poor Ryan still came down with an unfortunate case of influenza and after 10 days of misery we spent Feb. 2nd at the Dr’s office. He’ll get better with rest but it could take up to a month before he is feeling back to normal. Feb. 3rd is a shot of our fruit bowl (looking a little sad with its old limes and lemons) and Feb. 4th is a close up of Finn in the car with me waiting for Ryan after wrestling practice. Feb. 5th is homework at the kitchen table and Feb. 6th made me laugh out loud. The text “We Will Be Unafraid” was an unplanned surprise from the RTV Shout film and looks right at home underneath my little Lego Wonder Woman ready to take on the world with her lasso of truth and borrowed sword. Saturday the 7th is a quick peek at the trinket shelves in our local Goodwill after I dropped off a box full of donations from our last closet cleaning binge.
I’ll be back next week with 7 new photos… wish me luck!
Northwest Frame of Mind 
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