Food, Philip & Flowers

Listen, I don't know about you but I'm still exhausted by yesterday's awful post and all the comments about it. So today I have prepared for you this simple hey look at these things I love and took pictures of post. A palate cleanser if you will.

See how I did that? The phrase yesterday's awful post and all the comments about it is two things. An accurate description of yesterday's post AND it piques your curiosity. Everybody loves a train wreck. People are more likely to click on negative things than positive. 2.3% more likely to be precise.

These are the things we have to consider as a blogger. What headline is going to capture the reader's (your) attention? With everyone getting 100's of emails and texts and messages, bloggers have to think about creating a headline that MAKES people want to click on it; without being spammy.

You want it to be enticing, but not clickbait. You want there to be a reward equal to or greater than the headline waiting behind it.

There you go. Your first lesson in blogging. You need to use both psychology and marketing and math every day.

If you're lucky and I'm in the mood, next week you'll learn all about the exciting world of "click rates".

Pictured above is my first garden haul of the season. I've picked things earlier than this but nothing you could make a meal out of. A pint of strawberries, some radishes, garlic ... that sort of thing. Not that I'm against a radish smothered in a garlic/strawberry sauce but the thought does make me a little barfy.

The bell pepper is a Dragonfly, which is dark purple. It's one of the new varieties I grew this year. I picked it too early though and it was green inside. I do not like green peppers. They make me a little barfy.

I have absolutely no idea why I'm saying a little barfy so often.

Let's move past that and into Teletubbyland.

This quality of this photo is terrible but you can only expect so much from me when you consider I started with this ...

Same photo. What transformed it? In LightroomCC I straightened it, removed distortion, cropped it, boosted the rainbow & the sky colour and lightened up Philip so you could see him.

It poured rain here the night before last and as I was letting Philip out I noticed a huge rainbow right over him. I had to run inside, find my phone, run out again, make him sit where he was sitting before I "getaway-carred" through my house looking for my phone.

Then I had to STARE at my phone, open the camera app, change the little thingy at the bottom to get a wide lens, adjust the light, fall down on the mudroom floor and click.

This one I did differently than that.

My first attempt at creating a very distinct shape with flowers. The vase is The Cove vase from Oh Flora ($57 Canadian). Tanya, the owner operator, designs the pieces from her home in Australia and then they're hand made in Sri Lanka. ( Oh Flora is a favourite of Floret's Erin Benzakein as well, which is how I learned about them. )

My arrangement won't be winning any awards - not even at the local county fair where 2 flowers in a child's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle boot once won top prize.

I hope your palate is sufficiently cleansed. You can expect your next course soon.