Hanging in There…or Feeling like the Flowers

I feel a bit like some flowers in my yard these days. They are still hanging in there, trying to enjoy the last warm days of the year and battling the progressively chilly nights. I took these pictures Columbus Day weekend though, so I’m not sure they are all still out there! We’ve had a couple of lightly frosted mornings these weeks. (Gee that sort of sounds like a type of breakfast cereal, doesn’t it?)

This is the last bloom on the mini rose the girls gave me for Mother’s Day. It is still hanging in this morning – I can see it out on the deck as I write this post. It is a good reminder to hang in there, and the fact that my girls chose it for me is good on those days when I find myself missing Meghan.

This post from Robin reminded me that I had spied a few morning glories hanging in there the other day. It has been many years since I’ve planted morning glories in that spot, so I was quite surprised to see them one morning when I jumped in the car. I went outside with my camera after reading Robin’s post to see what I could find. I didn’t have many blooms, but this is what I saw:
Still closed up, not ready to start the day -how I feel when I have to get up for work and it is still dark outside.

Getting ready to open – at work enjoying my first cup of coffee!

Open – ready to face the day and whatever it throws at me!

I planted a few zinnias near the base of my deck this spring, and they are soldiering on, like I feel I must on some days when I would rather just curl up in a ball and let life do its thing without me for a while.

Mums signal acceptance of the cool weather – the last bastions of the floral season. As we enter the second month of autumn, I must accept the fact that the warm days are waning and cold nights are here. The mums will make it until we have the coldest of nights…

…and I will hang in there with them, even as my summer soul must head into hibernation for a while!

Bubble Wrap

Did I make you wonder about this blog post with that title? It is me trying to be cute. I had three brave participants (four if you include me) in the iHeartFaces June Photo Hunt, and I’d like to draw your attention to their posts if you haven’t seen them already.

Mike of Picture Day jumped right in, going so far as to create a category for the hunt on his blog page, but then felt he kind of petered out. I gave him a gentle nudge explaining the easy ways of a photo hunt around here and how I’m pretty much “rules shmules”. He ended up finding a beautiful variety of photos to share from the month of June.

I was looking forward to the gorgeous collages that I was sure that Robin of Breezes at Dawn would create. She not only came through, but managed to showcase something for all 30 words of the hunt! Robin has some really lovely photos and was very creative.

Carol of Wanderings of an Elusive Mind also thought that she would jump all over this photo hunt, but lamented that she got distracted and forgot to take the photos she planned. I’m happy that Carol decided to post the photos that she remembered to take. No worries, Carol, about being “feeble” or anything else! I enjoyed your photos and am glad you made the effort to participate!

(Pssssst…. hey Joanne and Dawn….weren’t you going to show me some photos for this hunt? 😉 )

You can find my photo hunt here. I had fun just taking random photos here and there during the month, trying to keep the list in mind when I had down time. On the day I did the post, I had Sarah come outside and blow bubbles for me. I had forgotten how difficult photographing those could be.

That same day, I started picking raspberries from the patch in my yard. I’ve been enjoying at least this many

each day since. I’ve been thinking about making this pie again soon if it isn’t too late to still find local strawberries.

I’m starting to wonder, my friends, is the hey-day of blogging starting to wane? I know we all have busy lives and other things going on. It seems to me that this WordPress community that I feel lucky to have become a part of 3 years ago, has started to lose interest. I was doing a little housekeeping around the blog the other day (you may have noticed a couple widgets I have removed and a couple I’ve added) and realized I haven’t seen posts from plenty of favorite bloggers in quite a while and folks that used to comment fairly often, rarely do anymore. Do any of you find this to be the case at your blog?

Is there interest in another photo hunt this summer? Let me know what you think about this -and my other questions too – in the comments. Thanks!

November Chill

Here I am today, wishing to reach out to you.

The Thanksgiving feast with extended family is over.  Leftovers are not found in my fridge.

After relative warmth for the past few days, a distinct chill has settled in to the air.  My thermometer claims 40°F, but I find it difficult to believe.  A wind that chills my bones makes me think otherwise.

Can you feel it too?

I’m on my own this chilly afternoon.  Husband has returned to work, daughters both visiting with friends.  Why does my phone remain quiet, I ask myself.  No friendly texts or emails to say hello?  Hmmm, perhaps I should be making better use of this time.  No one asking me for anything, requiring anything of me.  Jump in the car, go do something, take pictures!

But then I remember the chill, and I remain.

Was that a snowflake alight on my collie’s back?  It’s surely poorly focused here, but that is indeed what it was.

In addition to the chill in the air and in my bones, a certain coolness is seeping into my thoughts as well.  Kathy has published a post today that has me pondering.  I challenge you to go and read it too, and not find yourself questioning and thinking.

Just what was my blogging muse hoping to say today?  I’m not sure that I know.

Currently playing in my head:

I am a woman of many masks

The theme for October over at NaBloPoMo is “Masks“.  I am intrigued by some of the questions posed as writing prompts for the first week of October: When you saw the word mask, was your first interpretation protection, covering up, persona, or performance? Are you good at hiding your feelings or is your face an open book? Do you enjoy acting?

Masks.  We’ve all worn them actually or metaphorically.

Halloween and pretending are what first came to mind when I thought of masks.  But then I started thinking more metaphorically.  Sort of like wearing many hats, only perhaps a little more personal.  How easily can we hide an emotion when we need to?  Can a mask allow you to live out something you’d never admit to wanting to do in your real life?

I, as all of us do, play many roles in my life: daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher, friend – to name a few.

When I am with these people, I need no mask.  They are my heart and soul.

What about the blogger me, the photographer me, the me I hope to be?

Can all these me’s happily coexist without the need of a mask?

It seems I’ve asked more questions than I’ve answered here.  Am I good at hiding my feelings?  In general I’d say no.  There are times when I must, but I’ve been told my eyes give me away.

Do I enjoy acting?  I know I can put myself up on the stage.

I can act the way I need to in a given situation, despite what my heart may think.

What do you think, voodoo-man?  Do we need to wear our masks to get along in this world?

What about you, dear readers and friends?  Who is that masked man or woman?

Thoughts on a Friday

It’s Friday afternoon.  I feel like writing a blog post.  I’m going to do what Kathy tells me to do when I’m blog-blocked.  Just start typing and see what happens.

I started doing what I normally do when I want to write a post and checked through my pictures. Sometimes I find something that sparks a memory of something I meant to blog about, but never got around to it.

I found some food pictures that I think I meant to share with you and tell you about something fabulous that I ate.  I’m not sure, maybe the food wasn’t so fabulous?

I found some pictures that I took in hopes of completing Scott’s current assignment, but none of them moved me. **sigh**  I kind of like this one that I took quite a while ago:

but we’ll see if I can do better.

I considered creating one of my silly animal conversations with pictures of cardinals,

but my humor/wit doesn’t seem to be flowing concerning Mr. & Mrs. C’s possible domestic situation.

I thought about flipping through some photo albums (yes REAL photo albums,  not on the computer) and trying to recall some funny story from my early days of motherhood to tell.

That would require pulling out the photo albums, finding the ones from the mid-to-late 1990’s, plucking the photos from their carefully nestled positions in the albums, hauling my clunking old scanner up from the basement, connecting to my laptop, scan the photos, put them back, put the the photo albums away.  It’s Friday!  Nope, didn’t want to do it.

I considered mentioning that it is only one month until we leave on our cruise and blathering on about how excited I am and how I went to see the travel agent today to ask a bunch of questions and about how I’m even excited to start my “electronic check in” procedures on Carnival.com, but I thought who’d want to read about that? (oops, I kind of did that anyway didn’t I?)

I could blog about the fact that we are off to Pickity Place once again tomorrow, but how many blogs have I written about that?

Many of my favorite blogs, including Robin’s and Holly’s, have been proclaiming the joys of early spring and showing lovely signs of it.  It’s about time I took a stroll around my yard to find some of that myself,

but today is a bit drizzly and cool (funny to be calling 50° cool at this time of the year, but that’s how it feels after the week of 60’s and 70’s we’ve had) and not inspiring me to go poking around outside.

So what happened when I started writing a blog with no plans?  I think I just wrote my first blog about not blogging!

Thoughts on a Snowy Saturday Morning

It’s snowing today.  It has snowed a bit here and there this month, but the first really significant amount of winter is expected today – 3 to 6 inches – although I realize that amount wouldn’t be considered “significant” by many of you.

My empty shepard’s hook in that picture, as well as Robin and Bob, have been reminding me that I still need to get out and replace my bird feeder.  The squirrels destroyed mine last summer and I never got around to replacing it.

My blog post title reminds me vaguely of a favorite children’s book I used to read with my girls: A Summery Saturday Morning. Quite the opposite today.

My blog post content today gets some inspiration from Kathy:

I was following my usual Saturday morning  routine, drinking coffee and reading blogs.  I knew I wanted to post today, but the thoughts weren’t quite jelling in my head.  Kathy wrote a post about an ordinary day, but made it extraordinary with her writing skills.  I don’t have Kathy’s writing skills, but sometimes I can tell an interesting story.  Hell, maybe this won’t be too interesting, but I think it will satisfy my desire to blog today!

After noticing the snow and the tight rhododendron leaves this morning, my thoughts turned to the somewhat evil purchase I made:

Have you heard of Paczki (pronounced “poonch-key”) before?  They are crazy, over-stuffed Polish donuts that are only made in the few weeks before Mardi Gras:

Our local supermarket chain, Big Y, makes a big deal about them every year, and every year I get suckered into buying a box.  I regret it after I eat them.  I’ve got that cruise coming up in April – paczki will NOT help me look alright in my bathing suit!  I think I better spend some time doing this today:

Wii players!  Highly recommended for a fun  workout game!  The different songs you can play even give you “sweat levels” so you can gauge how much of an aerobic workout you might get.

A snowy day also brings opportunities for  watching the furry ones enjoy themselves:

Gotta love a doggy snow-beard!

And this picture has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’m writing about today, but I still find it blog-worthy:

(What do you think, Kathy, a step in the right direction? 😉 )

Well that was a thoroughly disjointed and rambling blog post!  Enjoy your Saturday, snowy or otherwise!