Thoughts
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Packing, Packing, Packing
Ok, so there isn’t a ton of packing going on this week, especially since Chris got back on Friday and we are just kinda getting back into the swing of things. Saturday we spent the day in the yard, cleaning it up and getting it ready for the plant sale. It was a big pain but it made the yard look so much better. A big pile formed at the end of the driveway for the trash man (and women if there are any). Sunday we held the plant sale, cloudy as it was. We had our first sale back in November and managed to sell a lot of the…
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Monday Garden Musings
It is fairly quiet in the garden these days. After the cold snap, everything took a hit. I like this time of year because it isn’t so overwhelming. The grass doesn’t grow 10′ in a day and the vines aren’t trying to suffocate each other. It’s more relaxing. A little bit more reverse lens technique for some closeups: A fly buzzing the loquat flowers Plantain flowers Hibiscus grandideri about to bloom A less mature H. grandidieri blossom Chalice vine Variegated vanilla A little fern, a little recruit… I’ve been enjoying these garden blogs lately: Chiot’s Run The Inadvertent Farmer Fennel and Fern: they have a blog but it appears their…
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Blogging is my Scrapbook
Going through my old scrapbooks the other day I realized that blogging has become my scrapbook. I abandoned the hardcore scrapbooking phase I went through a few years ago and it seems that it has been reflected here on my blog instead. It has changed for me over time, blogging. I remember the days of blogger and live journal and it was quite a different era. There weren’t any pro-bloggers, people who made money writing. These days it seems there are people making money at writing on their site, giving their opinions, and while all of that sounds great, I’m glad to just be here writing for myself. I think…
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Washed Up
I’m a little lonely today. It’s cloudy outside, the sun hasn’t peaked out and said hello, the cats are curled up, and everyone is out somewhere, doing something and I’m not. Reviewing the rest of the Cayo Costa photos make me a little depressed. Call it two weekends of not getting outside, that’s probably my problem. So, I’m savoring the washed up fauna that found its way onto the shore… Oystercatchers…the first time I’ve seen these birds. A gannett…not sure if it was injured or feigning injury, but it was nice to see the bird up close. An ancient animal, horseshoe crab… Even the man-made objects get washed up…
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Tomatoes Make Me Happy
I’m going through some older photos from the past years. No tomatoes this year. But, they make me happy. They are the perfect plant, I think. They smell divine, their fruit is delicious and they are just so pretty. We still have tomato sauce from last year. Not a jar of spaghetti sauce bought in this house all year! My mind is wound up these days. I follow Chris Guillebeau in my email and have been for awhile. He said something in a recent blog post that stuck with me: “The road not taken. The destination not explored. The adventure not pursued. The life unlived. If we’re going to lose…
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Meh Monday
My mind isn’t here, for various reasons but one of them is because my sister in law, Stephanie, is in the hospital right now. I’m getting my information second hand from my parents, but from what I understand she went in for a check up and found out the baby hadn’t grown in the past three weeks. She’s 26 weeks. After some tests they found out not enough blood was getting to the baby and well, there are various things going on, but the important thing is that it is possible this baby may be premature. Possibly as early as the next few weeks or six weeks from now, that…
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Ashleigh’s Blanket
I’ve been procrastinating making a blanket for my new niece who is due sometime in April. I was going to crochet something but sometimes my heart just isn’t into crochet, especially blankets these days. They’ve worn out their welcome after years of being on a blanket making frenzy. So, this time I went with a quilt first. Now, I am not a great sewer by any means so there are tiny blemishes on this that I wish I could fix but it will have to do. It turned out pretty good, but I am still in love with the one I made Zoe for her first Christmas last year, seen…
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Battle of the Bulls
We were at Dinner Island WMA on Sunday afternoon, driving around with our friends Randy and Kathy, when through the cattle pasture we heard this high pitched noise. Eventually we came up to the two bulls making the noise, in the midst of what seemed like a territory war of some sort, or maybe one was miffed the other took his gal. Who knows, but it was hilarious to watch them! Check out the puffs of steam coming out of his mouth—see it was cold here! Lots of throwing of dirt…it was great entertainment! The photo challenge is up over at Meghan’s blog: Strangers on the Street. I know there…
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Sewing—Up Close
I got a wild hair last night. I decided to try reversing my lens. Chris actually bought a mount for this awhile back and has played around with it, but I never did. I wasn’t even taking photos last night, was actually working on an uber large quilt (more on that in a minute), but I saw these… And decided I had to give it a whirl. I mean, itty, bitty quilting pins??? Perfect! You really need a lot of light for this so I put some lights on it and turned my ISO to 1600. If you have a mount, you could probably get away with it being lower…
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Chris & his Handmade Frame
Chris had found some old wood during a hike awhile back, probably at least a year ago if not more, and it had been laying around. Before Christmas we decided we were going to buy ourselves a Christmas present in the form of a photograph from a local photographer we both like, Paul Marcellini. We ordered the photo and he picked it up from him on Christmas Day, but we didn’t have the frame yet. The past few weeks Chris has been working away, making a mess, too, and made a really awesome frame for the photo. He bought some acrylic and foam board from our friend Kathy who works…