Winter Visited Briefly Again, but it didn’t stick around

And since it only comes occasionally and snow pictures have been few and far between this year, when I got up Monday morning to snow, I had to grab the camera and capture a few just to refresh the memory later when we don’t remember how this winter was.

As dawn arrived, it created a distinctively pink hue over the world outside my windows and although I think you’ve seen this scene dressed in many different seasonal outfits, you’ve never seen it wearing pink, of that I am sure.

Twiggy joined me, enjoying lap time, inhibiting my ability to answer email or type a post or type anything at all for that matter. She needs to have a small lap desk on her back so my keyboard has a place to rest. I suggested to her that we look into that, but I’ll not repeat her response. We’d like you to continue to believe that, unlike Lily,Twiggy is a lady, a gentle, loving lady.

The snow changed to a light rain and by Tuesday only a few remnants of snow remained. This morning we have sunshine and blue skies with only a few small clouds hanging across the horizon. Perhaps they’re not clouds at all, perhaps they’re contrails from airplanes. Perhaps today is a heavy travel day and a good day for contrails to spread and cling to the sky, teasing us into thinking they might be clouds.

Can you tell I really have nothing to say, but I feel like blogging? You see, I’ve already performed enough chores this morning to feel I have justified my existence for another day, so now I’m free to indulge myself, to do what pleases me. For awhile. Until the dryer buzzes and I need to fold more clothes and then the washer buzzes and I need to put more clothes in the dryer and . . . oh you can fill in the blanks,I think. All of which is further justification for being lazy the rest of this day. One of the benefits of getting older and retiring is not only being able to control your time but also having developed the art of rationalization and justification to it’s highest point. So really I guess that’s two of the benefits, isn’t it? If you want to be picky, but I don’t think being picky gains you anything, so I would suggest you just take it for what it is, pour yourself a nice hot drink – because, while it might look like spring out there, it really is not yet – and chill. You know? Just relax and enjoy!

Because really life should have more time for that.

February Photo Hunt

Ahead of the deadline by just a little, I think I’m ready now to post my submission for Karma’s February Photo Hunt. This month Karma said “hope you’ll find this month’s hunt interesting and challenging”; well, Karma, I did indeed find it challenging. I’m not certain about some of these entries, but I’m giving it my best shot! Here goes:

1. Flake:

Normally in February getting a picture of a flake of snow should not be difficult, right? Well this one is multiple flakes, all stuck together. Not quite what I wanted, so we’ll try another flake, as in “A small, flat, thin piece of something, typically one that has broken away or been peeled off from a larger piece”:

a "flake" of a pine tree seed pod

2. Bow:

I knew there was a reason I took a picture of the bow off my Mother’s Day cake gift from my daughter a few years ago. A reason other than that I thought it was so pretty, that is.

3. Mug:

and

Thanking my Kat for providing examples of mug Noun /məg/ Synonyms:verb: grimace
noun: face

4. Row:

5. Bun: This one gave me trouble. I could not find a bun, as in a sweet roll which is what I normally think of, to save my life. So improvisation was required:

(buns) buttocks: the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on; selective blurring done to protect the privacy of my children.

Heart shapes:

See the heart? No?

Is this better?

And then, the bonus, which was “leap” in honor of leap year:

Blurred because Lily leaps faster than I click, but hey, it’s a leap!

More Sharing, Week 11

It’s week 11 of sharing, and this week Cee has posed the following questions:

1.What’s Your Least Favorite Mode of Transportation? I think I’d have to say bus. I thought about airplanes, but it’s not the flying part that bothers me, it’s the airport-going-through-security part, so I’ll stick with bus.
2. Are you a cat, dog, goat or prefer the zoo person? Cat and dog, although animals of any kind appeal.
3.What really makes my heart sing? Glorious sunrises/sunsets, the feel of an ocean breeze as I walk on a sandy beach, having my kids around me, a cuddly cat, waking up each morning, time with friends, there are a lot of things that make my heart sing.
4. What word or words are fun for you to say? Caribbean, extraordinary – those words that can be correctly pronounced more than one way. Although I don’t think I’ve ever thought about whether specific words are fun to say. All words are fun to play with, to string into sentences, which become paragraphs.

That takes care of information sharing for this week. Now I’ll share the rest of the wildlife refuge photos, since this past week turned into one of those with not enough time to do everything that needed to be done and wanted to be done.

Snow Geese coming in for a landing – this one brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock

Is there still room at the inn?

Canadian Geese in the foreground

Spooky trees – don’t they make you think “Tim Burton movie”

Eagle nest – but no one’s home

Female Golden Eagle – the male was flying around doing his man thing and I took some pictures, but not a one came out worth publishing. Not one! What a bummer!

The marsh, with willows sending up their spring growth.

That completes our day at the refuge. A gray day that initially I thought would be a good thing because we wouldn’t have to deal with sun glare, but then the gray grew heavier and made it darker than I’d hoped for. Still, it was a good day.

I hope you too will have a good day.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Down

Time again for the Daily Post at WordPress weekly photo challenge. This week we’ve been challenged to look down.

Looking Down Down Down

This was taken on China’s Great Wall. Going down was not so hard – going up again. . .

Sharing My World, Week 10

Cee has again challenged us to share our world. I am going to do that, but I’m also going to share some photos I took when I tagged along with some friends to visit the wildlife refuge on Sunday afternoon. Won’t you tag along with me now?

Can you change a car tire? No, sadly I cannot. I think that’s why they make men and cell phones so you can call a man to help.

Are you a collector of anything? Over the years, far too many things. For awhile it was clown figurines, then cat figurines, always books and magazines. I’ve always said you could tell my latest obsession by the magazines I’m reading.

If you HAD to change your name, what would you change it to? Oh goodness! I have no idea. Lucy Ludlow? Have no idea where that came from. I think I’ve been a Carol for too many years to feel like I might be something else now.

What am I wearing right now? This is where you get me to confess that I rarely am dressed before 10 or 11 a.m. So right now I am in navy yoga pants, a white t-shirt and my aqua robe that has snowflakes on it.

If you could be a tree or plant, what would you be? A quaking aspen tree – because they just sway gently in the breeze, pretty much going with the flow.

And now, the photos from the wildlife refuge tour, where the bald eagles should have been abundant this time of year but seemed to want to stand way far out in the fields, the few of them we did see.

A Blue Heron that ever so kindly posed for us

A Bald Eagle, far enough away that my unsteady arms beat out the image stabilization with full zoom

Bald Eagle taking off

This is where I insert that one of our group, the dieter who is now known as the woman without all her parts (she just had her gall bladder removed) has a special effect on flying creatures. As she sneaks up, ever so slowly and quietly, the birds sense her arrival and fly away. This would be fine, if ever I was prepared enough to catch them as they fly away. In this particular instance, I was focused on the sitting bird and just accidentally clicked as it decided to leave now, I’m done thank you, it squawked.

Another Bald Eagle sitting on a post far far away

A canal, which sat quiet and still for me

Red-Tailed Hawk, sitting on an idle crane (the mechanical type)

Trumpeter Swans landing amongst various types of ducks, coots, water fowl

That completes the first part of our tour. Next time, we’ll see Snow Geese and some other things.

Words, words and more words – where will they take us?

Another Sunrise

Sometimes I awaken in the wee dark hours of the morning, and I ask myself “why?”. Almost always, I will answer myself “no reason. Who knows? Just because. Just deal with it, okay?” I’m not always as nice to myself as I should be, I think. Sometimes I get a bit snippy with me. Then I think perhaps I should use this time, in the wee dark hours of the morning. I could read. I could blog. I could knit. I could listen to music on my pod, earbuds in place so as not to disturb husband. But I don’t. I lie there, because I think if I lie there quietly I’ll drift off to sleep more quickly. That doesn’t always work, but I always think it will.

Where is this taking us? you ask. Shall I give you an answer that I think will please you, or shall I be truthful? Let’s go with truthful. I have no idea where this is taking us. I just felt like blogging, like sharing some inane chatter, some blather, some words. Because I like playing with words, you know. I have no earth-shaking, wise words. But it’s interesting to see how they come out, whether they make any sense or just end up words strung together in a row, pretending to be a sentence. And then pretending to grow into a paragraph.

Another Morning

So in those wee hours, I lie there, my mind darting about from place to place, resting nowhere, concluding nothing, just playing. A lot like a kid in a mud puddle – there’s no reason, but they play because they are there and they can. Eventually I fall back to sleep, with no realization that’s happening. But I know I do because later, still in the dark hours but not so wee hours, the Shasta dog will come to me and tell me it’s time to get up now. I respond that it’s too early, lay down. She does, briefly. Too briefly usually. Sometimes I tell her it’s too early, then look at the clock and find it’s actually a bit later than she usually comes to me. So I get up, out of bed.

Now here comes the “probably TMI” part – the hairy/furry girls have a routine. They follow me into the small room almost all of us go into when first we get up, to take care of our business. Bailey brings her ball, so I can toss it to her. Shasta plays interceptor or ball thief, whatever works for her. Lily kitty watches, and Twiggy kitty lurks in the dining room, waiting for us to appear. And appear we do, because it’s breakfast time for the hairy/furry girls. The larger girls go out, I dispense the appropriate breakfast to the appropriate girls, let the larger girls back in, gather my coffee, my iPad and my keyboard and head in to the morning room where I check the weather, the email, Facebook, read my blogs and the morning headlines, watch for the sunrise and, inevitably, see colors in the sky that require my camera and another photo. One can never have enough photos of skies. Or shadows. Or reflections.

After the Showers

So now I have shared my morning with you, many words with you – perhaps too many words, but that is for you to decide – I have had my coffee, husband is up and about and I should think about getting myself ready for the day. My morning routine has been completed, and I am content.

For all of you, on this Sunday morning, I wish you the very best of enough.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Regret

regret

This week’s photo challenge from WordPress is Regret. I regret that the cookie jar has only bits and pieces in it. What I regret even more is that the bits and pieces are from store-bought cookies.