I was inspired by Alison’s “golden” photos last week, to do something a little different this week for “black.” I used to sell Premier jewelry, and I have a…shall we say….extensive collection. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to capture the shimmer AND black color of this necklace, so I cleared off the table in the reading room where the good natural light is, and set out a pashmina I used to use for my jewelry party display.

What do you think?

But I couldn’t post today without photos of either a kid or a puppy. Because who would I be if I did?! Certainly not myself.

Louise is growing by leaps and bounds. She’s half as big as the cats now! (When we got her, she was a third the size.)

We’re still working on housetraining, and the last few days, have been teaching her how to play fetch.

She’s actually doing really well. It takes a couple of tosses to “remind” her of the purpose of the game, but she’s actually been dropping it by us so we could throw it again.

It goes a lot like this:

Louise, want to play BALL? Louise, want the BALL?

Ready? GO GET IT!

Drop it.

Drop it.

DROP IT.

Good girl!!

Ready? Want the BALL?

Ball? GO GET IT!

Drop it!

Drop it.

GOOD GIRL.

Want the ball?? Go get it!

Drop it. GOOD GIRL!!

Then she starts dropping it in my lap. But look at that patience and concentration! It lasts for a whole couple of minutes!

And then we snuggle.

Through The Lens Thursday is a self-improvement photography project that Alison of Writing, Wishing and I are doing this year.

Don’t forget to join our Flickr group or share your own posts if you’d like to follow along and work on your own photography! And use the hashtag #throughthelensthursday to connect with others working on it, too.

Next week’s prompt is TALL.