August Dreaming

It is Labor Day here in the USA – a day to celebrate work by playing all day! For most people it is also the day that feels like the end of summer, even though that isn’t “official” for 16 more days. It has been a beautifully warm and sunny long weekend in the northeast, and I hope you’ve been enjoying whatever you’ve been up to. I’ve been taking my baby steps toward adjusting to both girls being off to college, reaching out to friends for help along the way.

a memory of mine from August

Today is also the day to have a look back at August. At the end of July, I made the suggestion that we play along with I Heart Faces August photo challenge in the loosey-goosey style of the “When I Feel Like It” way.

As of this writing four bloggers posted pictures for the August photo hunt.

Mike over at Picture Day decided to do an approximately weekly look at August. He started off here, and added more here, here, and here Did I get them all Mike? I enjoyed following along with Mike’s thinking process and seeing the very creative results!

Carol at Wanderings of an Elusive Mind did three posts on the challenge. The first one is blended with “Share Your World” questions, she continues in this post and finishes, with a little kick-start from her muse here. I always enjoy Carol’s photos from the other side of this country and from her travels all over the world, and these did not disappoint!

I was sure that Robin at Breezes at Dawn would find a unique way to present her August photo challenge. She created a beautiful post, showcasing her month here. Robin pointed out how this challenge ended up being a fun look back at the month for her and mused that maybe it could be fun to wrap up a month in a similar way from time to time. I like that idea too, but won’t be making any blog promises!

Sonali at Dreams Hope Destiny started out with a happy post here and continued with some more shots in this post giving us fun look at her part of the world.

In the spirit of reaching out, I extended the invitation to a couple bloggers who really seemed to want to participate in this challenge but perhaps ran out of time. If they happen to add posts today, I will happily add them to this wrap up.

I’m sure you’ve already seen my posts for this challenge, but if you missed any of them my three posts are here, here and here.

As we transition to the next season, I’m beginning my transition too. My heart is still heavy with ache for the two big pieces who are no longer here on a daily basis. I’m still thinking and sorting and trying things out and wish to maintain a presence here in the blogosphere – connecting with all of you is something I enjoy. I’ve been touched by your comments of support and hope to continue this sharing as I find my way.

I Heart Challenge, Part 3

Visit

A great visit – Renae and Meghan and I visited Pickity Place for a lunch date in early August.

Fresh

The water at Pickity tastes extra fresh with the addition of lemon and herbs.

Shadow

Hi there – that’s me taking a picture for you!

Sign

A sign with my surname on it near the beach that I love so much… it must be fate, right?

Splash

Dream

This house was being built last summer and it appears it is still for sale. My dream house at the beach! A girl can dream.

Outside

This prompt was a bit on the vague side, but I thought this would be a nice view to have whenever one is outside.

Details

Patterns left in the sand by the retreating tide.

Sunrise

I made it outside just in time for this one!

Silence

Stars on the water seemed to evoke a sense of silence. One night that week Sarah and I sat outside together, mostly in silence, except for the occasional, “OOH! There’s one!” while we watched the Perseid Meteor Showers.

Warmth

I stood in this spot one morning near the end of our week, feeling the warmth on my face and trying my best to appreciate the moment and just be.

This completes my August photo challenge. Remember, you have until September 5th to let me know about your photo challenge posts through either a pingback or comment to my original post, which you can find by clicking here.

I Heart Challenge, Part 2

Up High

This was a lucky shot I happened to grab on a morning walk, and one of those times I wished I had the telephoto lens attached. I’m pretty sure this is a great egret that was soaring above my head.

Someone Special

Sarah on her 18th birthday, with her uncle Larry (my sister’s husband)

Throwback

This is a throwback to 13 years ago this month; the girls were flower girls for my sister’s wedding.

In the Sun

Shiny water sparkling in the sun…. ahhhhh…..

Circles

Spirals are kind of circles, aren’t they?

Adventure

I walked by this scene several times on my morning walk. It isn’t my adventure, but I’ve always thought it would be a great adventure to actually camp out on the beach.

Cool

It was too cold for me to go swimming this year, but this is where Sarah found her cool on several afternoons.

Window Pane

A nice scene of a beach cottage found on one of my walks.

Simplicity

A simple but lovely place to sit.

Before/After

Lunch, followed by dessert, at Pickity Place.

I Heart Challenge, Part 1

I never thought this would happen, but would you believe I’ve finished my own photo challenge? I kept a photo of the list on my phone, and kept it in mind in my travels this month. The grand majority of these photos are from my vacation in Maine, which is what allowed me to actually complete the list. The other photos come from other good things that happened in August, like Sarah’s 18th birthday and a visit to Pickity Place.

Rather than overwhelm you with 31 photos at once, I’ve decided to present 10 at a time, with a bonus 11 in the third post. I’m going to present them in the order of the original list, but please know, for the most part there is no correlation between the dates on the list and the date the photo was taken.

Happy

Sarah’s 18th birthday was a family BBQ, with this happy little Minion cake that made everybody smile.

Sidewalk

Not a traditional sidewalk, but my favorite kind of sidewalk, my walk from our cottage to the beach.

Treasure

A “treasure” of the natural type, sand dollars found on my walk.

Floral

I could’ve chosen from lots of pictures to fill the bill for this one, but I chose this one from Pickity Place because it reminds me of a photo that I would eventually like to take. Someday I want to find a huge field of sunflowers to photograph, but thise huge grouping of black-eyed susans was gorgeous and summery too!

Messy

There’s lots of messes around my house I could have shown you, especially with laundry being done in full force in anticipation of the girls heading off to college in the next few days (wahhhhh!!!! 😦 ) but I’ve picked a view of my little “home base” at the cottage. This is where I had my breakfast each morning, and where I collected my supplies for the beach each day like camera, magazines, books, sunscreen etc.

Two

You probably could have guessed what I’d use for that prompt, right? If not my two beautiful girls, it probably would have been my two four-legged oafs, who will be almost as sad as me when the girls leave. (Cedric the cat has 4 legs also, of course, but he’s not an oaf)

Relax

I took this photo kind of by accident, but I ended up liking it. I was playing around with the timer seeing what shots I could get from where, thinking maybe I’d take a shot of myself relaxing on the beach. Instead this is a shot of my favorite place to relax.

Blurry

I was actually thinking about what Mike wrote here “Blurry could be an easy one… put the camera in manual mode and capture an image out of focus” and that being the easy way out on that one. We had one rainy day on our vacation and I was looking out from our porch when I realized the rain provided the perfect opportunity for a cool blurry shot.

Horizon

Being at the beach, it was always easy to find a horizon shot. I liked what the boats and the lighthouse added to this one.

Feet

Super easy shot for me. I always take pictures like this one. It’s like a summer thing for me taking pictures of my feet happy and out of shoes and relaxing. I even wrote a whole post about it last summer!

So there’s my first ten shots. Its a rainy day so I may just sit here and write up the other two posts. Not sure how soon I should send the next ones out to you. Got busy days upcoming – annual Lobsterfest party with great friends tomorrow. Meghan back to campus on Sunday, Sarah goes Wednesday – after that, a real look at How Life Will Be. 😯

Want to Play?

Hi there bloggy-photoggy friends. Do you remember 2 years ago when we did this? I found on Facebook yesterday that the #iheartfaces ladies are running another month long photo challenge that I thought maybe we could use for a photo hunt again. Here is their graphic of proposed photos for the month of August:

I’m proposing we try this real loosy-goosy style like we did back in June of 2013. Like last time, I’m inviting you to play along with them and/or with me. Choose as many or as few of these words that you’d like to photograph. Make one big post or as many smaller posts as you would like, following the dates the ladies layed out or not, and leave me a link in the comments of this post. If you wish to participate with the I Heart Faces folks, check out the directions in the link above.

This challenge runs at I Heart Faces, as you can see, from August 1 to the 31st. I’m going to stretch the deadline for sharing with me a bit because I know for me, August 31st is my first day back to school – a teacher work day, followed by the kiddos returning on September 1st. So let’s set September 5th as the date any posts you’d like to contribute to this photo hunt should be up by. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Wrapping Whimsy

The whimsical photo hunt did what I was hoping for – it brought a lot of fun and happy and silly photos to this little blogging community. In a month that was at times trying, visiting all your posts made me smile. We had 10 whimsical participants, my own being the 11th.

In case you missed any of the fun, here is a little summary of what we got to see.
Robin of Breezes at Dawn was the first. Robin found quite the array of whimsical sculptures for us to enjoy. I loved the dancing bunnies.

Dawn of Change is Hard came next. Dawn had some funny little visitors to the garden for a glass of wine one summer evening. Thanks for the adorable little scene, Dawn.

Amy-Lynn from Flandrum Hill was the third post and found a little whimsy out in nature. I loved the idea of imagining just what could be found on the other side of that door.

Mike of Picture Day showed us his love of toys in his post. “Pool Vader” especially tickled my funny bone.

Carol of Wanderings of an Elusive Mind posted a fun variety of whimsical shots. I just loved “Cat in the Hat” and thanks again, Carol, for helping to inspire this photo hunt!

Sybil from Eastern Passage Passage played along with a post that slightly pushed the definition of whimsical. That’s totally fine by me, since you all know how I feel about so-called “rules”, but does anyone else get the feeling that Sybil has an unusual affinity for poop? LOL!

Isa from Isathreadsoflife found a unique group of whimsical photos. Those shoes trying to keep the balance are how I often feel in day to day life!

Kathy of Lake Superior Spirit found the time to play along with a whole park full of whimsical sculptures. They are all so much fun and so creative I’d be hard pressed to name a favorite, but the final photo of the moon and stars taking off for adventure seems to be the very definition of whimsy.

A new-to-me blogger from a blog called Purpleborough posted a cute shot of crazy little flamingo. Thanks for participating purple!

Bearyweather from Bear in Mind lamented that she thought dipping into her archives would be cheating, but please remember how I feel about “rules” Ms. B – they are just guidelines as far as I am concerned. I just loved all your whimsical animal shots and you are so right, is there a more whimsical animal than a bear cub?

If you didn’t see my silly little bit of whimsy, you can find it here. Whimsy was not presenting itself to me in the month of June, so I had to create my own with a visit from Scooby Doo and some friends to my garden.

Thank you very much everyone for all your enthusiastic participation in this photo hunt. I had great fun visiting your posts – they all put a smile on my face and in some cases really did make me laugh out loud.

I don’t know, Raggy – is ris rimsical?

“Ri there! Ry name is Scooby Dooby Doo! I seem to have rotten rost in a rery strange prace witdout my best friend Raggy and da gang!”

“Have rou ever seen frowers as tall as giraffes?”

“Rat salamander rooks rike he’s big enough to eat me! Rikes!”

“Roccoli? Ruck!”

“Now rait a minute! When did I get to the Rundred Racre Woods?”

“Ris rady bug is really big but its not scary…hee hee huh hee…”

“I really hope Raggy comes to find me soon – I’m rungry!”

ETA on June 30th: Today is the day – the deadline for the whimsy photo hunt. This post is my silly contribution to my photo hunt. If you haven’t done so yet, and planned to play along, please post your links to your whimsy photo hunt in the comments of my original post.

In Want of Whimsy

It was bubbling around there in my mind for a while. I needed it to gel together so that I could see it clearly. My blogger friends have once again come through. On a day that I really needed to see it, Carol posted this. Within this lovely blog post Carol included these lines (along with some cute photos): ” there are things in my life I wish I had done differently. But would I go back and change them? No! Not at all!…..I would not be enjoying the whimsical parts of life and thrilling at the talents of those that can demonstrate that whimsy, that joy, for the rest of us.”

Then, in the comments of my last post Kathy said this: “I really really like the whimsical nature of that last shot.”

The Merriam-Webster definition of “whimsical” is ” unusual in a playful or amusing way : not serious”. After the way things have been around here lately, this is what I need! For a June Photo Hunt, please show me whimsy!

You may choose as many photos as you would like for this photo hunt – just have them be fun and playful photos. Or how about a whimsical collage?

Post your links to your whimsy in the comments of this post. Let’s say Sunday June 22nd for a due date – but as usual, that date is flexible. Let me know if you need more time. Please help me spread the word of this photo hunt so we can spread the joy and whimsy as far as possible!

Hey Bud!

I mentioned in this post how bummed I was that I had barely any lilacs this spring. While that is still true, it appears as though my bearded irises are planning to make up for the lilac lack!

I’ve got lots of iris buds. I counted over 50 when I took these pictures!

I’m thrilled with the abundance of buds. They should be opening any day now. This blog will likely be flooded with their photos in the near future.

The peonies are budding too – and the ants have definitely found their way to that sweet scent.

I guess you can’t call them buds, but the vegetable garden is under way as well. Despite a minor injury to my ankle that I suffered at Zumba class Saturday morning, with some help and some bribery of the teenagers in my life it is all planted. I got my girls’ and daughter’s boyfriend to do the clearing away of last year’s garden debris. Then I was able to comfortably scoot around and do the actual planting.

This year I’ve planted 2 types of tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, jalepenos, cayennes, zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli and eggplant. I’ve never had a heck of a lot of luck with eggplant or bell peppers, but I decided to give them another try. Some little critter has already nibbled the leaves of the of one of the eggplant seedlings, so we’ll see what happens there.

I did plant all those annual flowers I showed you in my last post too. Those were mostly for containers, so that was easy, pleasant work.

I’ve been contemplating some kind of photo challenge too. As I told you at the beginning of the year (or technically at the end of last year) I’ve been trying to focus on the simple joys this year. There have been some rather trying events for both me and someone very close to me over the last couple weeks that, while I cannot discuss them here, have affected me deeply. They have left me feeling bereft of joy at times and attempting to seek it out wherever possible. I’d like to have a joy-themed photo hunt for June. It wouldn’t be a Karma kind of hunt if I just left it at that, though, would it? You awesome bloggers so often inspire me. Would you do me the favor of leaving some joyful comments or ideas or links? I think I could come up with just the thing with a little help from my friends!

It’s “Z” Wrap Up!

It’s Z wrap up, get it? Z like the end of the letters and Z like speaking with an outrageous French accent?

Where are my Monty Python fans?

The return of the photo hunt seemed to be a popular idea as those of us in the northern climes battle our way through this very cold and snowy winter. By February, we’ve had about enough of this and I think the photo hunt turned into a welcome distraction. We had 8 wonderful participants in the

themed photo hunt this month.

Sybil jumped on board almost immediately! She had her photo hunt, in which she tried to fool us a bit (and succeeded!) posted the day after I announced the hunt!

Next came Dawn, with some very lovely reminders of my favorite time of the year in her photo hunt from the south. Ahhhhhhh!

Robin played in her wonderful Robin way – going far above and beyond the general photo hunt requirements. Faithful readers of Robin’s blog are familiar with Robin’s creative style and were treated to not one, not two but three pretty posts leading us to her chosen word.

Mike thought maybe his choice of words would be a little too familiar to his regular readers, so he mixed up his letters in attempt for it not to be too easy for us. He has a beautifully photographed array of indoor shots leading us to the place that I believe you would find Mike right now if you were to go looking for him!

I was happy to hear that Michaela had decided to play along. It had been a long time since I’ve posted a photo hunt and even longer since she had participated. We had no mystery to figure out over at the Daily Click because we were told that she decided to use her name as her word. Michaela showed us a gorgeous display of her tack-sharp photog skillz.

Carol’s life these days has been a flurry of household activities and get ready for her upcoming cruise (very jealous here, by the way!). She found a perfect word with perfect photos to remind us all of what she has been up to lately.

Isa decided at the last minute that she’d like to play too, and asked if archived photos would be okay to use. You know how loosey-goosey the rules are around here so I said “but of course!” Isa has a colorful arrangement of beautiful objects, but I must admit she stumped me good. Our friend Sybil from up above was the smarty who first figured out Isa’s word!

Nye also came in with a last minute submission. She tricked me a bit by using her first photo to represent two letters rather than one. In the comment section where she revealed the answer, she reminded us about the rule of thirds in photography – that’s where she wanted us to look to discover the real clue to her letters. Nicely done Nye!

If you happened to miss my own photo hunt photo hunt (no that’s not a typo 😉 ) you can find it here.

Thank you so much everyone for your enthusiastic participation! I’ll do my best to come up with some other fun hunts throughout the year.
Happy end of February too! Spring begins in just 3 weeks! Let’s hope it feels like spring really soon!