Explaining my Absence with Pics

I've been sort of busy lately what with birthdays and anniversaries, planning trips to other continents, planning trips to our friendly neighbors to the north, and planning trips to states with active volcanoes. Getting my computer fixed was also a big one as my optical drive died and I got my topcase replaced for discoloration (yay!). Oh, and of course, living the high life for one night here. (Pics to come another day for that last one).

Speaking of pics, we also bought a new camera! We've finally replaced our old 2 MP (yes, you read that right) digital that had full manual controls--the reason we've kept it for so long--and got a new ultra-compact one!


You must admit, however, that the old camera could take some nice pics:


Anywho, one of the awesome things about our new camera is that it has optical image stabilization, particularly helpful in macro and night shots. And it's not that digital IS crap that just changes the ISO making the shot really grainy.

So, I did a little test on my 5th wedding anniversary flowers:
New Camera:










Old Camera:
As you can see, the image stabilization makes a big difference because my hands were clearly shaking from the lack of martinis in my blood. Oh and the color is better too. I'll put up the cool Color Accent photos I took on flickr.







But most of all, I've been obsessing about my damned tomato plants. I bought 6 this year with the hopes that I'll get a fully ripe tomato from at least one plant, even if I kill the rest or those damned devil rabbits from Night of the Lepus eat our entire garden like they did last year (including my ripening tomatoes!). Oh, the destruction they caused.

I've watched as the first round of blossoms just fell off. I've only grown early variety tomatoes so this was a new thing for me and it freaked my shit out: was I watering them too much? was it getting too cold outside at night? WHY?!? Then, I noticed that the blossoms would open widely and then close, something that my early tomato varieties never did--the blossoms just stayed open and the little tomato grew out of that for everyone to see.

Just yesterday, we went to the garden to water it and I will share with you the marvels of our garden (because it is so utterly exciting).

The tomatoes are the newest thing:
Note that I didn't plant the seedlings until early June, so I'm a bit behind with the maturation of the garden.

But, can you see it??? There's a tomato there! Well, I learned that the non-early variety tomato blossoms do close back up (I assume to protect the fruit from the heat/sun) and then the little tomatoes eventually peep out. Meanwhile, I've had about 2 weeks of thinking I had a black thumb for tomatoes.

In case you don't believe me:


Yep! That there is a tiny baby tomato.






We also planted bell peppers:
A baby bell pepper. This is very exciting.








And lettuce, which likes it here:
And the arugula that bolted because it hasn't been as foggy as normal:








And finally, the cucumbers (well, just one in this photo):










I'm liking the new camera--especially how portable it is.