A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

northeast bloggers

Northeast Bloggers January photo challenge: Snow

Snow and winter and covered bridges.

Snow and winter and covered bridges.

As you all know, I’m a sucker for photo challenges.

One blogging group – The Northeast Bloggers Network – that I am part of has a monthly photo challenge. One photo with a theme.

This month’s theme? Snow. Like I had an issue with finding something in regard to that, right? There’s plenty of snow around here. However, I’ve decided to go with one photo that has snow … but it’s more of a winter scene I love to try and capture each year.

nephotoIn our area, we have some great and historic covered bridges. I’m a huge fan of these bridges and always love to try and capture them in every season. As I was driving home from work, I passed this one and saw this picture.

I had to turn around.

Of course I snapped a bunch of photos with the phone (and shared on Instagram), but I also pulled out my main camera and did some shots, trying to capture the winter feel of it being cold and crisp, which I think I did.

I always think winter helps the blue sky pop that much more and I’m quite happy I turned around. The sun was in a perfect spot, the sky was brilliant and the snow was enough to give a winter feel, but not hamper the shot. Though, I can’t lie, I would have liked to have seen a little more snow on the road as I think it would have added just a bit more to the photo.

In the end, I am quite excited with the shot and can see me blowing this one up and framing it to hang down the line.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Northeast Bloggers holiday swap: The results

I knew this Holiday Swap was going to go well when I read this note.

As a long-time blogger, I’ve watched as many other blogs do some interesting things. Whether it’s a meet-up, giveaway or some sort of swap, it’s always seemed kind of cool.

Truthfully, I’m often late to the party and miss these things. Other times, it just doesn’t fit.

See, a lot of these things are aimed toward female bloggers as, it seems anyway, they are the dominant sex in the blogging world — especially when it comes to personal blogs.

The swap came in the mail…

I’m an active member of the Northeast Bloggers Network, which has a few male bloggers but it pretty female dominated. That’s why I hesitated a bit when I saw the post about the holiday swap.

For those who aren’t bloggers, a swap like this is where a group of bloggers have some sort of theme (sometimes not at all) and do a gift box and send it to the other blogger. Think of it as a Secret Santa, where you know who the person it. The fun part of it is getting to know another blogger and having to think of different things to send.

Basically, you signed up by a certain date, were told who you were sending to (and who was sending to you — two different people) a few days later and you then had a couple of weeks to get to know your partners — whether it be e-mail, blog stalking or something else — and then send the package.  At the end, the bloggers could optionally choose to write about the box they received and link up with others. It seemed like a fun thing to do.

Before I get to that, however, I’d like to talk about the experience. I truly did enjoy this because it took me a little out of a comfort zone. I got to know somebody and got a bit creative with the box I sent. I was matched with somebody whose blog I had read before, so that was good. Still, I had to do some work to figure things out. It was challenging and fun. I hope MarlaJan (at Luck Fupus) enjoyed the results as much as I did doing it because it became a project of making sure I did things a little differently.

As for me…

I was matched with Kate at Another Clean Slate. I’m a regular reader of Kate’s blog, so it was fun to know the person who was sending to me was somebody I had actually gotten to know a little through blogging. A Boston-area blogger, Kate’s blog is one I always enjoy, so I figured the box wouldn’t be any different.

And … I wasn’t disappointed.

What I received was a thoughtful and fun package full of things that made me smile and items I’ll definitely use. Kate had sent me a few questions to answer and then she went from there. But the note at the top of the page made me smile because I realized she really had fun (hopefully) and understood what these types of swaps are all about. Thanks, Kate, for sending such a great box!

In the end, this was a fun thing to do and I hope to get involved with a few more swaps with other bloggers.

Allow me to share Kate’s wonderful items she sent along in this swap:

Yeah, pretty much awesome!

Anything Reese’s is fully fantastic.

During the holiday season it’s important to keep your beers cold!

I’m looking forward to trying this game out … looks fun!

Finally, an ornament … I’ll have fun hanging this next year!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Northeast Bloggers October photo challenge: Movement

It’s been a few months since I participated in the Northeast Bloggers Network challenge, so I wanted to get back in it this month.

When I do a challenge or a linkup, I like to make sure it’s a blog post and not just a link to an image somewhere. It makes it feel more like a challenge.

This month’s theme was “movement.”

For it, I decided to keep it a bit simple.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in South Jersey for a few days. A couple of those days were spent at the Cape May County Zoo, which has several baby animals that have been born in the past few months.

The one I really wanted to see was the baby giraffe, which was born on Sept. 2. Of course the first day we went, it was rainy. So the baby (or any of the giraffes) wasn’t out. We went back a day or two later and we got the chance, thankfully, to see it.

This photo shows the movement.

Basically, the mother giraffe was nudging the little one along to get walking and explore. It was fun to watch.

Mother giraffe nudging her newborn daughter to move along.

Feel free to stop over at the Northeast Bloggers Network blog to see who else participated this month!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!