Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: birthday

My husband works as a product photographer at a company that sells zillions of kinds of beads. Just before my birthday a couple of years ago, he brought home an assortment of colorful beauties as a treat. I loved them, and enjoyed taking pictures of them to share. If you roll your mouse over the upper left corner, you can see the picture I chose for my Alphabet Project! :)

3 more picture in a note above! :) A couple of months ago, I found out about a very special horse show happening just 30 minutes from my house! This show is for Gypsy Cobs and Drum Horses , which are very uncommon in the United States, so the opportunity to see a show full of them had me bursting at the seams in anticipation! :D And, it just so happened to be on my birthday weekend!! (9/29 is my 49th birthday!) I have been so excited while the weeks passed, and finally the day for us to go arrived!! Steve and I got up at 7am this morning so that we could be sure to be on time for the first class, and I got to sit and watch all the classe and take pictures of the horses. It was such fun!!! Going around to the stalls was fun too. It was a fantastic day and I came home with lots of pictures, as did my husband! :) I picked the above image as my Picture of the Day because this baby represents so much of what I love about these horses: spots, an interesting color, fun face markings, and a blue eye! What a gorgeous baby!!! (By the way, this image has a textured background as well as a frame from Jerry Jones, called PaperBox . THANKS JERRY!! :) Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century and the greatest black philanthropist in American history. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world. Wikipedia: Oprah Winfrey Explored on September 29, 2013. Highest placement, page 4.

Wow! Back to back TIME CRUNCH challenges! It's not 11:45 like last night but it's still 10:45 and I'm about to collapse! :D Today was Steve's 50th birthday!!! Such an important, wonderful day! Steve wanted to celebrate this day by setting a 50-mile challenge on our trikes, and that's exactly what we did! We did the first half as part of Steve's Sunday Lunch Ride, which was an absolutely beautiful ride around our greater neighborhood--we rode out to a nearby grocery/convienience store and met the group of 7 other riders, and did 25 miles, stopping in the middle for lunch at the beautiful Touvelle State Park, which is on the Rogue River. After the ride we rode home, relaxed for an hour, had a cup of coffee and took off again, for another 25-mile ride! The second ride took us over to Rogue River Drive, another very pretty road which we really enjoy. It was such fun and we were conditioned enough for the distance because neither of us was overly tired when we got back to our front gate! How wonderful to do something so good for us and such a super challenge as well!! After jumping in the shower for the third time today, we got ourselves dressed and out the door quickly so we could make it out to Medford in time to have dinner at Outback Steak House...mmmmm....what a tasty feast we had, and a perfect finish to a perfect day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVE!! I'M SO PROUD OF US BOTH!!! :D Marie Dressler (November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 for Min and Bill. Wikipedia: Marie Dressler

One of my longest Flickr friendships was made last summer when I was fortunate enough to meet Joe Vimal Raj Jeyaraj . I was very excited to find another photographer who used my new camera at the time, the Canon SX30 IS. I was amazed at the quality of his images, and thrilled that he was as friendly as he was talented. Joe's taught me so much! We've been trading comments almost every day since we met and become great friends along the way. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!! I hope you have a GREAT DAY and here's to another year of friendship!! *big hugs* I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :)

On Saturday (the 29th), I turned 48 years old!! Holy cow, it's just such a strange number to me because I act and feel like I'm in my 20's! Ok, I'm lying. I'm a 6-year old. I can't help it, I love to be silly! :D I had a wonderful day! Steve and I got up early and drove out to the coast, something we've wanted to do for 7 years since we moved to southern Oregon! We got to spend 5 hours walking on beaches, taking pictures, and totally enjoyed ourselves. It was bliss! Both of us were raised on the coast (San Francisco for me, Los Angeles for him) and we really miss the ocean! (I'll have pictures starting tomorrow!) We were both exhausted when we got home so we went to bed early, but I forced myself to take some moon pictures first because it was just one day off from being full, something that's only happened twice in my lifetime (1966, 1985). In 2015, the moon will be full a day earlier, but the next full moon on September 29 will occur in 2023 when I'm 59 years old! By the way, I've uploaded 2 more pictures today, and I'm going to be spending my free time catching up on everyone's photostreams!! YAYYYY!!! Thanks so much for all of your visits while I've been too busy to visit you all! And thank you for making my Flickr experience such a great one! You guys ROCK!

MANY notes above! :) Dad, I love you with all my heart. You have given me such a wonderful life. You've always stood by me and encouraged me to try when I didn't think I could. You saw the potential in me that I didn't know I had. You have always made me feel like the best and brightest star. Much of who I am today is because of your wonderful upbringing and solid foundation. Thank you so much for my life, dad. Happy Birthday!!! ------------------------------ ABOUT THIS PICTURE: ------------------------------ A few days ago, I realized that my father's birthday was coming up and I knew instantly that I'd dedicate that 365 Day to him. After thinking it over for a day or two, I knew exactly what I would do! Back in October, I went to visit my dad in San Francisco, and while I was there, I had some time to look through and scan many of our family pictures. I didn't have time to scan in all that I wanted, but looking through the images, I was happy to see that there were more than enough to create a collage for my dad's birthday! :) I spent a couple of days putting the collage together, and yesterday I went down to our granite valley, where I picked out many dozen rocks that I would use for my border. Last night I lined my rocks up, picking out the right shapes and arranging them. This morning I took my two rows of rocks outside and placed them on a rubber mat we have outside, sprayed them with water and took a picture. Then, I took that image, selected the rows of rocks and removed everything else. I then enlarged my image canvas size to that of my father's collage. I copied and pasted the collage into my rock image, aligned the rows, desaturated the rocks by about 60% and...PRESTO! Save To Web, and the picture is done! Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909) was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern seacoast of Maine. Wikipedia: Sarah Jewett (The original quote is this: "My dear father; my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along the country by-ways.")