Chasing Waterfalls

One of my early summer adventures this year involved a couple of my favorite things. A day spent with both my daughters, having fuzzy Teddy along for the ride and photography. I feel lucky that I got my girls to agree to go on this ride-along with me! The four of us piled into my car and headed west to the Chester-Blandford State Forest, about a 50 minute ride from here.

I had hopes of taking some really spectacular pictures of rushing water, but it probably should have occured to me that late June of a fairly dry spring wouldn’t be the time for wild water. However, we enjoyed an easy walk through the shade of trees and followed a path that eventually turned out at a small fall that I imagine could be quite pretty when flowing at full capacity. I took this picture with Meghan in the shot to give some idea of scale.

Sarah and Teddy waited near the bottom while Meghan climbed up to do a bit of exploring.

My best shot of the bunch I took:

So not a glamorous rushing thundering waterfall shot, but a good day! Sunshine, a walk, my daughters, my dog, and my camera – time well spent.

Poking Around Pickity

I’ve mentioned many times the favorite luncheon spot for Jennifer, Renae and me, Pickity Place in Mason, NH. After going so many times, I stopped taking regular photos of our visits, with the exception sometimes of the oh-so-beautifully-presented food. However, Renae brought to my attention that Pickity was having a photo contest this year to win gift certificates! “Capture the magic of Pickity” is the theme of the contest. During our last visit, I brought my Canon and set out to find the magic. It isn’t difficult to do at this place, but I was also hoping to find a few shots that other folks might pass by. I’ve collected my favorites here. Some are just because I really like them, a couple I am considering submitting. I won’t tell you the ones that struck me as possibly contest worthy just yet. Tell me your thoughts in the comments and we will see if we are thinking along the same lines….

Baaa, baaa … well you know!

Foxglove-a-glow

Set me free…

A gardener’s work is never done

Dragonfly in Copper

Grow dammit!

How sweet it is

I have until Labor Day to make my submission. I may not be limited to one selection. I’ve inquired at the FB page for the contest. Which ones do you think might have a little magic touch?

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!

If We Were Having Coffee

Many times I have admired Robin’s “If We Were Having Coffee” posts, and thought I should give it a try myself.

If we were having coffee, I’d brew you a cup from my handy Keurig and suggest that we go sit out on the deck to enjoy it. It is summer afterall, so I could even make you iced coffee if you’d like.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I saw this image on Facebook this week and really loved it. The words are so very true. I’ve had a bit of each recently: sweat from exercising, gardening and mowing the lawn, tears when I think about both my girls being off to college in a few short weeks, and the sea on a recent quick visit to Cape Cod to visit my mother, as well as spending some time with my sister on her vacation in Maine.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I spent a lovely day with my daughters this week. I “bribed” them to come with me to Smith College in Northampton so I could take pictures of flowers on the grounds in exchange for lunch in the fabulous town of Northampton and a visit to the Williamsburg (MA) General Store where trinkets and gadgets and baked goods abound. I might stick out my foot and ask what you think of the cute little trinket I purchased for myself for only $5.

If we were having coffee, I would rave about the lunch the girls and I had at Filos Greek Taverna. I had gyro meat for the first time and was questioning why I’d never had it before! The truffle oil french fries were a decadent treat.

If we were having coffee, I probably couldn’t help but lament about how quickly the summer seems to be passing by.

That would be part of the reason I roused my girls from their late morning sleeping to get up and go with me to Northampton in the first place. The days of summer whiz by in a blur, all three of us often guilty of not knowing what day of the week it is.

If we were having coffee, I’m sure I’d mention the weather. Here in New England winter was slow to let go its icy grip, spring didn’t warm up as quickly as I would’ve liked it to, and even here in July, there have been few truly hot and humid days.

According to weather.com, however, that is about to change. Starting Tuesday this week on the 10 Day Forecast, temperatures look to be in the 90’s for a good string of at least 5 days – our first real “heat wave” of the summer.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you this coming week I will be getting ready for Sarah’s 18th birthday. My baby girl will officially be an adult come next Sunday. Since we just had a big party for her high school graduation, we are keeping things low key for the birthday celebration. A few close friends are invited to come hang out at our pool on Saturday, then my family will come for a cookout on Sunday afternoon, her actual birthday.

If we were having coffee, of course I’d want to know all about what you’ve been up to as well! Will you tell me in the comments?

I must give credit where credit is due; although I read and was inspired by Robin’s Coffee posts, the original idea goes back to another blog called Part Time Monster.

Six Photos, Six Days, Day 6

The people of the tiny fishing village came out to stare in wonder one evening at the strange occurance. Old-fashioned folks well versed in superstition were very familiar with phrases like, “red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, red sky at night, sailor’s delight”. But what in the world was meant by “striped sun at set”? Should they take a bet?

Real story
After a month of what felt like non-stop activity, July rolled around and my days were suddenly much more free. Not to say I’ve been doing nothing, there’s still been enough to keep me busy, and that kept me from getting back to blogging sooner. A lovely respite arrived in the form of an invitation to visit my sister for a few days on her vacation on Peaks Island in Maine. I’ve been there before and shared it with you. It was a lovely two days of salt air breezes, walks around the island, relaxing on the quiet beach and taking photos like this gorgeous sunset.

And that nearly catches me up to where we are now. The annual camping trip happened about a week ago, and we have plans to head down to the Cape for a couple days soon. I’m afraid summer will pass by in a blur after that – Sarah’s 18th birthday and our vacation to Maine approach in August, and all too soon after that both my little birdies will fly off to college. Let me tell you, this mama bird is no where near ready for that.

Six Photos, Six Days, Day 5

Late at night, one of those nights it is hard to sleep. You toss and turn in your bed, wallowing around in that place between wake and sleep, not sure if you’re dreaming or if it is really happening. Your body does one of those sudden twitches and convinces you that you are not actually tumbling away into darkness but living in this strange dreamland. The faceless souls that invaded your sleep are creeping to the edge of your conscience… what do they want? You have to find out… but then…. you are awake…

Real story
This is a photo from one of Sarah’s dances in her last recital. It was choreographed to have a creepy feel to it, and Sarah really got into her part. If you’d like to have an extra taste for the creepiness, click here to be taken to a youtube video of the song they danced to. You may remember that last year, the dance studio that my daughters and I attended sadly closed for business. We stayed in touch with our teacher, and she was able to find a place and the time to teach Sarah and couple friends from the studio so that they could finish their senior year of high school dancing with the woman who had been their teacher since they were little girls. In addition, Sarah got involved in one other class at the studio with another instructor. I glowed with pride when at the recital, during the finale, the teachers came forward to speak about graduating seniors. The new instuctor, who taught the class this photo is from and only knew Sarah for a year, talked about Sarah coming into the class and “taking over like a rock star!”

Six Photos, Six Days, Day 4

Real story
I don’t have a fictional or imagined story to go with this one because the real story is just too damned cute as it is. I went to the wedding of the cousin of my former dance teacher(groom) and a former student of mine(bride) (how’s that for small worlds?). They had two adorable little flower girls who did a perfect job walking and gently scattering petals from their baskets. At one point during the ceremony, one of the little girls must have decided it was also her job to pick the petals back up again after she scattered them because that is exactly what she is doing in this shot!