Foto Finish: Food (with a special bonus theme)

The optional theme for this week's Foto Finish is "Food".  Here's my entry:

It's a peach pie I made several years ago along with that week's blueberry chutney canning extravaganza.  I haven't always made pies, but for whatever reason, I got my panties in a twist thinking about it.  This was a spur of the moment (as much as pies can be spur of the moment) project, and it turned out pretty well.  As I recall, I'd seen a fix for the top crust, which I seemed wholly unable to get to the pie without having it rip and crumble.  I'd seen where you could use a cookie cutter (the example shown was a flower cookie cutter) and piece the top crust together instead of moving it in one fell swoop.  I didn't have a flower, and so I used a biscuit cutter.  You can see the resulting layers of circles.  It worked out pretty well, and I was stoked.

Today's bonus theme is "The End".  Here's my entry:

Now I'm not mooning you, nor is the zebra.  This guy just seemed a little camera shy on that day, but I sort of liked how you could see both ends of a zebra in a single shot.

I'm adding "The End" as a bonus theme today because I regret that today's post will be the end of Foto Finish.  I imagine a few of you will be disappointed, but that sort of brings me to the reason for ending Foto Finish today.  Foto Finish has been a weekly feature on my blog for over two years (with a few breaks for traveling).  In that time, I can't recall a single post where more than half a dozen people or so linked up.  Some of you have been regular and faithful linkers, and your participation has been appreciated, believe me.  Further, you have posted some fantastic photography, and it has been fun seeing your entries each week along with your often amusing interpretations of the theme.

I've often wondered why there wasn't more participation on Foto Finish since I see lots of participation on other similar photography linky parties.  I haven't taken this as any sort of slight; rather, I've come to a couple of conclusions about it.  For one thing, I think Blogland is saturated with photography link-ups.  For another, my blog is first and foremost about quilts and cats.  Cooking and photography are just other passions of mine, and so I include them in this blog simply because I blog about my day-to-day life.  Sometimes that includes photography and cooking, but most of the time it is about cats and quilting.  That simply means that I have a lot more quilters than photographers reading my blog and following along.

The biggest reason for ending Foto Finish, however, is that lately I've felt overly burdened by deadlines on my blog.  When I was a working person, I kept a to-do list, which freed up my brain for more important kinds of thinking....like, when I was going to get my next paycheck.  Since retiring, I no longer keep a to-do list, which means that weekly deadlines keep my blog at the front of my thinking much of the time (and I don't have a lot of brain power to spare, so this can be a problem).  Further, it means that I'm spending time writing posts when I would rather be sewing.  I decided weeks ago that something had to give.

Last night, I was looking back at the last Foto Finish to remind me what this week's theme was supposed to be and I found that of the four linkers, one of them was a spam link to a shopping site.  If I'd not been doing this on my iPad while lying in bed half asleep, I might have felt enraged by the spam.  (SPAM= Super Pissy And Maddening)  I was only mildly annoyed.  Nevertheless, I knew in that moment that Foto Finish had become too onerous to continue.  So that, in a nutshell the size of a basketball, is why I'm choosing to end Foto Finish today.  (Cue Auld Lang Syne music.)

Thank you to all of you who have posted links to your beautiful photography so regularly.  And thanks also to the rest of you who have looked and commented.  Some of you will be disappointed at the end of Foto Finish, but I would like to direct you to some of the other link-ups that I participate in:  Macro Monday, the 52 Photos Project, and Wordless Wednesday.  Also, I discovered one just this morning that I'm going to start participating in where there is a daily prompt and images can be posted to social media.  It sounds like fun to me.  You can find more information about it at Fat Mum Slim.  These are just a fewI can think of off the top of my empty head.  I know there are many more, and I sincerely hope that you will continue to showcase your photography.  If you know of others, please leave a comment directing us to your favorite sites.

And now, finally, the last Foto Finish linky party.  I'm ready to see what you've been eating...or to what ends you've gone to take pictures.

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