1/12 From Frost to Warmth

 Frost on Window

1/12 Photograph Frost

Ice / Frozen / Chill

12/365 Rainy Afternoon on the River.

Left this morning during a little bit of snow to arrive in Florida where it was warmer. Unfortunately we ended up with a rainstorm with 3 inches of rain. But not complaining, at least I didn't have to worry about icy roads when I went back to the airport to pick up my brother.

10-8 to 10-10 Three days of Catch up

Family Running

10/8 Photograph a Race

Competition / Beginning / Meet

There used to be a time when I could get a picture of cross country race and my youngest son running during any week in the Fall, but those 5 years are past. Now I settle for quickly turning on a walk to catch the backs of this family running. Photographed with the iPhone 6.

Distorted Buildings Reflected

10/9 Photograph Distorted

Askew / Contorted / Crooked

What a great prompt to have for our first day in Chicago. There were so many photo opportunities   for distortion views while taking the Architecture boat tour on the river.  This building above was built specifically to reflect the skyline including the blue of the sky. It was a beautiful day just as it was reflected.  I will have to do another blog post just of a few of the photos from our trip. 

Miles of Fields and Sky Seen from the Highway

10/10 #Off Prompt

Another good prompt for the weekend! These shots were taken from the car during our drive from Chicago to Iowa City. The views of the corn fields were expansive with miles of fields which make the farms here look like like specks. It was a four hour drive and we stopped at the Antique Archaeology Store from the American Pickers tv show just over the state line in Iowa. I was expecting to see more of their finds rather than a bunch of tourist items like tee-shirts, shot glasses and cards. The yard outside of the garage looked like some of the yards of New England.

Eyes, What are you Reading and Family fun

My Eyes

5/3 A Vision Of My Eyes

Close up / Me / My Eyes

In My Hands- Trying to learn Lightroom

5/4 A Vision of What I am Reading

In My Hands / On The Shelf / On The Night Stand

In keeping with the vision theme for the month of May, the Saturday self portrait was eyes. I confess, I cheated and my husband took the picture. We were in Vermont and I was not going to bring my tripod with me and do the focus, run and pose routine. The photo of my eyes were taken while we were visiting the Von Trapp Family Lodge. My Aunt and Sister in law went into the lodge while my husband I wandered about the grounds. It was a shame that the weather was not sunny, since the area is beautiful. I just don't know how the people who stay there during the winter make it up and down that road when it snows! Before we headed back to town, we went over to the ski area where skiers were hiking up the mountain to ski down. Now that is what we call dedication to the sport, the dogs were loving it! Sssh, can you hear the hills' music?

                                                                                                                                                   

Heading back to town, we asked if anyone wanted to stop anywhere and when no one said anything, I asked if they could indulge me and stop at the Sculpture park that I saw on the way up. West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park was worth the stop! The outside sculptures were very cool to look at and photograph. With all those texture and natural frames, I just want to get back there in the Fall to get pictures during foliage. Then we went inside to visit the gallery and both my sister in law and I fell in love with a small winter scene painting, Winter River by Kathleen Kolb.  The colors and light just drew us both in. As my sister in law said, "It was better than looking at a bunch of over-priced tee shirts. 

 Then in the afternoon, we had the main event of the weekend, my cousin's wedding. The ceremony was short and very personal, so sweet. I kept my promise of not taking out my camera during the ceremony to let their photographer do his job and for me to enjoy. It was nice to get together with family for a happy event. Our first destination wedding and the Green Mountain Inn was a beautiful place to be. Selena was a beautiful bride and Matt had a great time.

We were going to meet friends on the way home to golf, but the weather was cold and raw so we cancelled. Will make it back up there again to golf, but was glad to get home, take my picture of the day, read a bit, post my picture and take a nap. Had to get up and be awake for The Good Wife!

Considerate

 Considerate Husband

4/26 Photograph Thoughtful

Considerate / Helpful / Black and White

So nice to have my husband come down and enjoy Florida before driving back with me today. This picture fits all the categories of the prompt for today. It was considerate of him to change his work plans to fill in for my friend who ran into a work conflict and couldn't make the drive back with me. We make quite the driving team, I pack the food and check the iPhone for delays while he just motors on.
Actually, he did all the driving today which he enjoys while I read a book on photography, Bryan Peterson's Understanding Composition Field Guide. I learned plenty and am looking forward to working with my friend Terry to take each chapter and work on composition.

Last night we thought we would see the dolphins leaping, but we ended our vacation with the dolphins just catching fish in front of the condo.

We left at 5:15 AM this morning with a cooler full of healthy snacks, some publix apple turnovers and all the left over snacks. Sunrise was north of Daytona, the rose is from Santee, SC and of course the last picture is from South of Border. And no, we did not stop. Lot of traffic in VA and we were lucky to call ahead and get a room, here by 6 PM, tomorrow will be a shorter day, but busier traffic.

Quick Trip over the Pond Again

I love my new camera! Had a wonderful trip to England last week with my friend and we dropped her daughter off at college in Buckingham. What a cute village.

 The trip over was uneventful until at 2am on the plane, I got a pain in my leg that wouldn't go away. By the time I got off the plane, on the tube for the ride into London, train to Euston and taxi to Buckingham, I could barely stand the pain. At this point, I was on 8 hours of sleep for two days, not a good thing.  We went to an Urgent care and no blood clot from the flight, just an inflamed nerve. ( That's what I get for being tall on a plane!) But with the right meds, I was up and walking the next day. Turns out laying down was more painful.

Mags is there for the next two years. I am jealous of what she gets to experience! It's a nice place to live and only an hour from London! I loved the small food stores and the weekly market we went through on Saturday morning.


My friend is an experienced photographer and we spent a morning in Regents Park where we took many pictures of the gardens. Absolutely beautiful. It was nice to spend a quiet morning away from the crowds that were everywhere in London. Earlier this summer, I got a  Canon EOS REBEL T3i  .
It takes great pictures, but there is definitely a learning curve to using it.

More pictures to come later.

Life and Death

One of my expressions at work for not getting something done is that life got in the way. In the case of blogging and the past 6 weeks, life and death got in the way. Six weeks ago, life was pretty grand, I got to go out to California to visit with my oldest son who got a "real" job and the opportunity to stay out west while also staying with an old friend who lives in Venice beach. It was a great visit as my old friend was one of the best techs that I have ever worked with and even if we don't politically agree, we enjoy talking about everything else. Plus, she's pretty mellow, along with intelligent, my kind of friend. She has been a wonderful support person for my son who works right across the street from her. I got to enjoy the beach, the sun, the sights and a tour of Sony studios, an excellent vacation.
While away, my husband told me that his Mom wasn't feeling well and that his Dad wasn't too much better. She was seeing a doctor for blood in her urine, while Poppa had stomach pains. Well, I thought, they're both seeing doctors and should be okay. It wasn't until I got home, that I realized that this could be serious. Meme had a cat scan done on Wednesday and no one called with results, she was in the ER by that Sunday night where we got the first bad news. I don't want to get into details, as the news got worse as time moved on. Two weeks later, Meme was in the hospital, with metastatic cancer and we were scrambling to get her into hospice as my father in law was diagnosed with gastritis and was unable to care for her at home. The four grandchildren who lived away were called and flew home from all around the country to visit with Meme while she was still able to enjoy their company. The day after the last grandchild went home, Meme's health took a turn for the worse at hospice and she peacefully passed away last Friday morning. We term the time from the initial ER visit as the quickest/longest time. The illness was so quickly overtaking her as we waited for results.
Meme was 85 years old, she lived life to the fullest and was the homemaker who ruled the nest. Her family was the most important thing in her life. We are happy that we were able to honor her life by following her last wishes, no treatment and a simple funeral. During her time at the hospital and hospice, we had the chance to learn even more about her life. Fortunately, the hospice is located on the hospital campus where I work, close to family and accessible to us 24/7. The end result was not surprising, it was just that 6 weeks ago, it was unimaginable that it would be so quick.
So yes, life and death got in the way, but I was off doing what I felt needed to be done at the time. Coordinating my sons' quick weekend trip home, cooking for the family and visiting with my Mother in law. This was the important life work that goes along with being part of a family. The housework didn't get done, the leaves didn't get raked, bulbs weren't planted and I did what needed to get done in the short time that we had left. It all got done after Friday.
I guess some writers would have a lot to write about given the emotional roller coaster I was on. It's just not my style to write in such emotional detail. But this is what I can say, I am proud of my sons for coming home to visit their Grandmother and to make her smile. She loved them all equally and I gave her permission to haunt them everyone once in awhile. To which she replied, "No, I will haunt you instead."

A Little Bit of Writing Analysis and the Rest of the Story

Two of my last three blog posts were analyzed as being similar to the way that Stephen King writes and the other blog submitted had me as Dan Brown. Sounds good to me, as both are New Englanders, Dan Brown lives on the coast of New Hampshire and Stephen King is from Bangor Maine. We were just talking about Stephen King and Maine the other night as we went to the movies with my Aunt up in Bridgton, Maine. I guess he was someplace in Maine where my aunt and grandmother were visiting for the day and a store clerk asked if they were there to see Stephen King and my grandmother said, "Whose that?". He is a celebrity in Maine, but not someone that my Grandmother would know. At least if a computer program is going to analyze my writing, I am glad that I know who the authors are and have at least read a few of their books.

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Geese on Long Lake

We have spent a fair amount of time in Maine this past year but haven't run across Stephen King yet, although we did drive by a cemetary on a road from Bridgton to Sunday River that was in the middle of no where, not a house for a mile and here's this graveyard with tombs and levels of tombstones, not a place to hang out at night and definitely a spot where a Stephen King book could take place.
You can see more of Maine driving on the side routes, than on Rte. 95. Besides lakes and oceanfront with vacation home cabins and McMansions, there's also side roads with little towns and beautiful scenery where you see all ranges of homes/lifestyles. You have the "yankee" yards where the home owners have kept every piece of machinery that has ever belonged to their family in the front/side/backyard. Because as you know, you might need it sometime. Then there are homes with huge gardens and homes set in the woods with little dirt roads heading off into the woods where others want to live off the beaten track. The contrast comes when we get to Sunday River where there are mansions clinging to the sides of hills for those who ski in the winter or come up to golf in the summer, when down on the roads leading into the ski are, there are a couple of homes barely standing.

View from Sunday River Golf Course

Sometimes you drive through an area and ask yourself, "Could I live here?' And rarely is the answer no in Maine. The only drawback for me, a wicked long winter, November to April, but the summers are beautiful. What's not to like? Maine has mountains, lakes, woods, ocean and if you want city life, as Portland is a fun place to hang out. It looks like Stephen King and I have something more in common than just our "writing style", we also share an appreciation of Maine. (And the writing style part of all of this? I take web site analysis with a grain of salt.)

Simple Blog Changes

I am enjoying the monthly change to my blog, simple enough to do with downloads from sites such as The Cutest Blog on the Block, then I can play around with the header on Scrapblog.com using my own pictures. The theme for this month is a combined I feel lucky and travel. At the end of the month, I will be taking another road trip down south with my parents and my #2 son. I am helping my parents out by sharing the drive to Florida where they will stay for a month. #2 son will be home on break and we will bring him back down to Savannah where we can enjoy a little sightseeing and some fresh shrimp. Forrest Gump has been on every night this week and those scenes with the Bubba shrimp has me wishing for warm sun and fresh shrimp.

And then, lucky me, I get to spend a week with my cousin in Florida where we will enjoy the sun and walks on the beach. There's even a lap pool at her complex where I hope to spend time each day. Will it be strange being on vacation without my immediate family, sure, but I know they will manage and I can't wait for sun. We have the sloppiest, wettest week going on right now and sun and sand are beckoning. The travel bug has bitten and I need to hit the road!

Jumping totally off topic, if you were to be in the Winter Olympics, what sport do you think you would want to do? For me, it would be Ice Hockey, I was born 10 years too early to enjoy hockey like my brother. All my playing was done in the street, but I could see myself on the ice. How about you?

A trip back to London?

Saw this on my travels through the internet, Knit Nation to be held next July in London. After our trip to London this past Spring, my husband and I would love to go back and see more. It would be fun to meet other knitters from around the world. Just not sure I could justify the cost with two in college this year. That's a lot of extra shifts. May have to think about this for awhile.