Yellow

Tags

dandelions, flower, Lake-effect snow, snow, spring, spring scenes, The Weather Channel, yellow

 

Yellow

  

 We’ve made the news here in NW PA, apparently the national news.  Seems as though the weather predicted here was to be so astoundingly poor, we were thought to be newsworthy 🙂  A colleague of mine, several counties away, emailed me yesterday to ask how I was.  “Why do you ask?”, I replied.  “The weather,” she stated.  “You guys made the national news!”.  I glanced out my office window.  It was snowing, which it does here, pretty much, four to five months out of the year.  I laughed as I hit reply:  “Well, thanks for asking…but it looks pretty normal to me for December.”  Must’ve been a slow news day for the media.   

One of my employees also emailed me late Monday:  “Will the county being closing down tomorrow because of all the snow predictions?”  At this point, I admittedly pulled up the weather channel on my laptop.  Looking outside was apparently passe as a measure of…well, what was going on outside.  I pulled it up.  Indeed, a warning for Lake Effect Snow.  A possible additional 10 to 15 inches.  Satisfied that my instincts were correct, that this was no more than a typical winter’s day for our area, I returned to my email and hit reply once more:  “I don’t know,” I replied, “Let’s check tomorrow morning and see what happens.”  

 Sigh.   

I’m all for taking a snow day and first in line to check the news channel, like an eager 5th grader waiting for that wonderful announcement:  “Schools closed”.  I’ve got my sled slicked up and some cocoa stashed in the cupboard for just such a day.  But not today.  Today, it’s just cold and snowy.  And I’m pretty sure it will melt away at least once before it really slows us down for the winter.  

 For those of you not quite ready for prime time winter, some added spring sunshine in the form of my very favorite posies–the dandelion.  If they don’t warm you up, nothing will.  

 Have a great day! 

 

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By any other name

Tags

flower, rose

Rose on an altar

There are some times when I want to write but seem to have nothing to say.  Rather than try and force something, I will simply post something I find to be beautiful.  Have a great weekend.

Emerge

Emerge

Single blue flower

Single blue flower

 This solitary soldier of the meadow greets the morning with open arms, standing tall until the sun begins to slip behind the horizon.  Part of summer’s beauty. 

Have a great day.

Me who?

Surrender

Where exactly did I leave off?  What was that last thought I’d had?  Where did I leave my camera???

My goodness.  What a struggle.  I was here.  I was posting.  I was out.  I was shooting.  I was writing.  I was creating.  And I got lost, somewhere in the drive to work.  Somewhere between phone calls and appointments.  Meetings.  During the days I nary get a rest room break, let alone time for lunch.  Where are my days?  How does the sunrise move so quickly to sunset?  It used to be a summer’s day was fifteen solid hours long.  Not anymore.  Summer days I see passing if I trouble myself long enough to take a glance outside my office window.  I wonder, “Is it warm out?”  Have I been in here so long that I wouldn’t recognize the day if I stepped out into it?

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Me.

Me who?

That’s right.  Me…who?

Fading flowers

Tags

fading, Flowers

Fading flowers

While February always seems to me to be the month of 35 days, August rolls through as if there were only three weeks of it.  I glanced out my window  yesterday and, lo and behold in the forest of trees behind our home, one small tree had already begun to change leaf color.  How can it be that the seasons change so quickly and time passes almost unnoticed?  How is it that the once vibrant flowers of July have now begun to fade, retreating already into next year?

How does time pass so quickly?

When I was younger, I thought I would never reach adulthood.  Days were endless.  I felt like Peter Pan, destined to never grow up and certainly to never grow old(er).  And  yet, seemingly suddenly, here I am, in the middle of my life.  The middle, that is, if I live until my early 90’s.  Peter Pan flitted off or morphed, as it were, into an grown up of sorts.  And here I sit.  Still full of child-like wonderment, simultaneously faced with the realities of adulthood.

I certainly do not wish for my colorful blossoms to fade.  I am not ready for my leaves to change color, must less fall off!!  I understand my spring has passed, but summer…summer…I still want my summer.  This is, I understand, a normal passage.  A doorway through which many peek into with a similar perspective.  I am not alone.  This should be a comfort to me, but it is not.  I am a bit uncomfortable in my own skin right now.

I wonder, is this how a caterpillar feels before it breaks from its dangling chrysalis and emerges a beautiful winged creature?

No. 

But it might be menopause.  Which is no time to wax philosophical.

(Lol.  🙂  I never know where my photos will lead my fingers across the keyboard…)

Wildflower

Tags

cosmos, flower

The wildflower

Wildflowers say summer for me, and the last few days its actually felt like summer, so I’ve been spending a little extra free time outdoors and a little less time on the computer.  Just briefly stopping in this morning to share a summer icon–the cosmos.

Have a great day 🙂

The hollyhock

The hollyhock, a most romantic flower

Very long day, so really no commentary…but I hope you enjoy the picture.  I think it is a Double Hollyhock…but having been wrong on several occasions today, I won’t swear to it.  Nonetheless, a beautiful summer flower.

Here’s to getting past hump day with a little beauty left to spare.

Have a good one.

Daisy, up close and personal

Tags

daisy, flower, macro

The daisy

The daisy. 

One of my very favorite flowers.  Seemingly simple and plain, with its yellow center and white petals, it proudly stands out in bunches amongst its fellow garden flowers.  

Like anything else, however, its intricacies reveal themselves when viewed more closely.  The delicate nature of its petals, transparent like tissue when graced with a droplet of water.  The thousands of pieces which make up its center, inviting to bumblebees in search of a nectar bounty.  Its fragility and its imperfections, all visible to the naked eye, just for the looking.

Is it better to examine the things we see and experience from a distance…or with a microscope?  Do we benefit from understanding the whole, and seeing how the part fits into the whole–or is it more useful to dissect a problem or issue from the inside out, piece by piece, examining all parts closely…and perhaps losing the entire context?

The answer to this question is completely dependent on the individual asking it.  I would suggest that neither approach is better than the other.  Any view that deliberately or inadvertently leaves out the larger picture or an understanding of the individual parts that equal the whole will leave you without a complete answer.  Most of us have a preferred style of reasoning and problem solving, lending itself to the possibility that five people presented with one problematic scenario will arrive at five different solutions.

How do you experience and make sense of the world–contextually, or in a piecemeal fashion?

The slump

Blue skies, white flowers

I’m in a photographic slump, of sorts.  Seems as though every picture I’ve taken lately is…blah.  Bleck.  Ewww.  I have to resort to some photos in my archives, because I am not posting anything I’ve recently taken.  I am post-a-phobic.  I am not exposing my ill-exposed exposures.

Ever hit a slump like this?

I am, therefore, going to do what I know works when I am in a slump of any kind.  I’m ordering pizza.  Pizza cures all, as I am sure you know.  My toppings will be meatless, but I’ll need to get meat on the other half for the carnivore in my life…double cheese, black olives, onions and mushrooms on my half.  Pepperoni on his. 

I’ll take the camera along…just in case I get lucky 🙂

Have a nice night.