Exhuberance

Taken by my husband today. He has the ability to throw frisbees and take pictures at the same time. And the dog? He's just happy to go along for the ride.
Have a great New Year's Eve, everyone.

Tranquility

Taken yesterday at Fair Hill Nature Center, Maryland. It's just so peaceful here.

Today's sky

The temperature soared to nearly 60 degrees today and we took a drive down to Rock Hall, Maryland. We walked out to an observation deck, then took a hike on Boxes Point Trail. The sky was grey and the clouds were moving fast. Weird weather for this time of year.

Resilience

A close-up of a frozen wineberry bush taken after the ice storm last week. This is an SOOC (straight out of camera) shot. I love how each little droplet is frozen to the hairy-textured branch.
This kinda stuff really excites me. (Can you tell I don't get out much?)

Chritmas Dinner

Every year, we travel to New Jersey to have Christmas dinner with my husband's family. It wouldn't be Christmas to me, without this ritual. We are always the first to arrive and I was so glad that my husband was able to come with us this year. I love Croft's sherry and I always have a glass or five when we arrive.
This is my beautiful niece, Colleen. We all eat with these hats on, you know. They come out of the Christmas crackers. I did warn you that my husband's family is British, didn't I?
And guess what? I'm having a GIVEAWAY on my other site to celebrate my one year anniversary with blogging. Groovy, man.

Holiday wishes

Just popping in to wish all of my blogging friends a Happy Holiday. I'm off again this morning to make merry in Jersey. I love making merry.
My husband and George are staying on the homefront and it's a beautiful day. Hope yours is, as well.

Waiting for Santa Claus

He's been good all year, this beautiful dog of ours. Maybe Santa has something for him . . .
I will be taking a small blogging break for a few days so that I can enjoy my loved ones. I'll be back soon.
Have a Wonderful Holiday, everyone!!

Frosty wind

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long long ago.

~ Christina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol

Country jewels

There was a present waiting for me when I got up this morning. Now I know that most of you don't consider an ice storm to be a present. But this wasn't a big storm; it was small and is now melting. But for several hours this morning, the world where I live looked like a jewel. And I looked on it as a present.

Horsey Serenade

We Wish You a Merry Christmas
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

They were all singing off-key. Quite horribly, too. So I'm sorry about that.

Skywatch Friday: Don't fence me in

From my photo files, taken last March on a cold day. I was doing a photography project and the lesson was "lines". You can see beautiful photos of skies from all over the world by visiting the Skywatch Friday site.
Have a wonderful weekend, and to those in the states, take care during the big storm that's sweeping across the country . . .

Holly

Perfect for the season, but believe it or not, I took this photo back in late July. Are you getting merry yet?

At the Cape

Taken last Winter at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, Delaware on a cold day. I was just going through my photo albums and reminiscing.

Lives to play

George lives to play and frisbee is one of his favorite games. Here he is looking all faded and dreamy. My husband took this photo this afternoon and I used some of Pioneer Woman's new Free Actions on it. This is her 2nd set and you can get them here, if you're so inclined. You need Photoshop to make them work.
Oh, and that's a big freckle at the top of his left leg there. Just so's you don't think it's a giant tick. Because that's what I would have thought.

Sycamores and sunshine

Rather than get a Christmas tree today, we opted to take a drive instead. Our journey lead us to a trail just over the Pennsylvania border. We put George on the leash and walked about a half mile and then turned around and stopped by the stream. A huge sycamore had fallen, probaly years ago, and had continued to grow along the bank, sending up shoots like you see here. Pretty adaptable, I'd say.

Remnants of autumn

Even though it's not officially yet winter, it's cold and it's almost Christmas and well, it feels like winter. And so many of my blogging friends have been mentioning SNOW.
I took this photo just a few weeks ago and was just liking the colors as I was flicking through my photo files this evening.

Skywatch Friday: Leaving New York City

Driving south on the Jersey Turnpike just after coming out of the Holland Tunnel, this photo was taken last weekend and is my offering for this week's Skywatch theme.
To view wonderful photos from all over the world, visit the Skywatch Friday site. Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Trinity Church at Night

Trinity Church, at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, New York. This shot was taken last weekend as snow was just beginning to fall. The cemetery was closed, but this beautiful little place of worship was all lit up in its historic beauty. For more information on the church, visit this link.

Matt Damon's Guitars

Well, if you look really fast at the sign, that's what it looks like.
Just another photo I took during my trip to NYC last weekend.

Nighttime on Wall Street

I had a great time in the city this weekend and we met my son on Saturday night. Went to a nice restaurant on Stone Street and walked down Wall Street where I saw this excellent display. It was much better in person and my photography doesn't even begin to do it justice.

Looking back

I'm autoposting for this morning, and did it yesterday as well, because this weekend I've gone to the Big City with some friends. I thought it would be good to get away, and my husband agreed. Adrienne and Bobby have come out to hang with my husband for the day and I'll return Sunday afternoon. I get to visit my son at his architecture job!
I took this earlier this year. There I am in the picture with George! Well, my shadow, anyway.

I miss this pond.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

My husband told me today that he misses the horses and I can sympathize with him. He cared for both Thoroughbreds and Dutch Warmbloods for thirty years and he just wants to be near them again.

So this picture is in honor of him. I took it earlier this year at the horse farm where we resided for ten years. He was Stallion Manager there. And he misses it. As do I.



Apologies to those who remember the old "Mr. Ed" TV show (one of my favorites), because you'll now have that song stuck in your head.

Skywatch Friday: Looking Up

Look up into the skies and hold your head up high.

To view beautiful photography from all over the world, visit the Sky Watch Friday site. And have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

A good capture

As most of you know, this is our dog, George. He's the best, and today he was outside playing frisbee catch with my husband. And he's getting really good at it.
And my husband is getting really good at capturing it all.

Here comes the sun

I found this and several other pictures on my camera disk tonight. I asked my husband about it and he said he was just out fooling around with the camera this morning.
He had the macro lens on it but didn't want to mess with it, he said.
I liked a couple of the pictures, and this one, in particular. I just love how that morning sun is shining through the trees, don't you?

Tiny berries

My husband and I took a walk around the permieter of the property the other day. I brought my camera and walked gingerly because I'd hurt my ankle the day before. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm really clumsy.

I stopped often, taking pictures of little things that caught my eye, as my husband threw the stick for George to chase.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but I love it when he holds my hand.

And I love mornings like this.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

Similar to my penchant for mushrooms, I also have a thing for feathers. It's simple things like this that I find on my walks that make me get down on the ground, on their level. Things look different from down there, you know.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—

~ Emily Dickinson

On the ground

It's normal to see me outside lying on the ground, with my camera on the little gorillapod and taking photographs. Today was beautiful in Maryland and I found myself spending most of the day outside. But I'm not raking up these leaves. I'm really hoping that the wind just takes them away.
Yeah, well it could happen!

I like ladybugs. And that's that.

I'm having fun with the mosaic maker over at Big Huge Labs again, and have decided to show four of my ladybugs. I have more, but I found these four rather quickly.

I'm not a member, so I simply upload my photos into Photobucket and then copy the URL. It's a little confusing as to the placement of each photo, but once you get the hang of it, it works.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving

My husband did something to the camera lens but it turned out it wasn't any big deal. The 18-300 mm zoom lens just wouldn't work and I kept getting an error code. Eventually, I figured it out and lifted the camera to the window and took a shot just to make sure it was working. When I opened this up the next day in Photoshop, I decided I liked how it looked.

This was taken through one of the windows of the house, out the back, into the waning sun. Hope you're all having a good day, whether or not it's Thanksgiving in your neck of the woods . . .

Cold snap

Wineberry leaves dying on the vine. Notice the color the resin on the top side of each leaf. I think it's beautiful with the green veins standing out.
Today I have off and will be planning our Thanksgiving Feast. It's just my husband and myself. We're keeping it quiet this year.

Favorite things: Eldreth Pottery bird house

A gift from a friend and co-worker during the holidays in 2007. I love this Eldreth Pottery bird house, an elegant dwelling for the descriminating tufted tweeter.

Only the strong prevail

Early Sunday morning, as I walked about the yard scanning the ground for photographic subjects in the frost, I came across these two feathers sticking up. So I got down on the ground and took some pictures, but it wasn't until I looked at them close-up in Photoshop that I realized that the crimson stain on the one was actually blood. And then I realized that the owl who sits in the dead tree by our house nearly every night had gotten a meal. Or something like that.
Don't mean to be gruesome, but it's what it is. Nature, that is.

Frosty morning

Tiny sparkles of frost highlight a fallen leaf this morning in the backyard. My husband is inside making me a cappuccino.

Life is good.

Goutte de pluie

This is another picture I took last weekend during that misty, rainy day. And sorry about the post title. It means raindrop, en Francais. I'm feeling a bit French today and am planning on wearing my jaunty little beret. Maybe I'll even smoke a cigarette. A funny one, at that.

Skywatch Friday: Memories of Ocracoke

The path to the beach leads to our own little spot by the ocean. This was taken in November 2006 when my husband took me for my birthday to Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The weather was wonderful.
To visit skies from contributors around the world, please visit the Skywatch Friday site.

Feels like home

Candlelight glows on a cold autumn evening in our living room as my husband rests on the couch after dinner and I read and/or play with my pictures on the computer.


Right now, I'm reading the 2nd of the Twilight series books and I'm loving it. To those who said they liked my candle stand from the last post, my friends Karen and her daughter Adrienne gave it to me as a housewarming gift over 10 years ago. Adrienne had picked it up at Pier One Imports. I've looked for it since then, but they don't carry it anymore.

Life is beginning to feel almost normal again.

Through the door

I still don't want to show too much of the house in which we live, but these are a couple of the rooms we're using.
You've seen the dining room in a previous post and this is the passageway into the addition of the house which was done in 1810. On the right is the original staircase, and past that wall is a small powder room. Ahead is the library which we're using as a living room. There's a fireplace, but our loveseat sits in front of it and I don't think the fireplace has been used for years.
And well, that's it for today.

Favorite things: Jewelry box

My husband gave me a jewelry box today. He fashioned it out of an old tool box he found in the deep recesses of the basement. While I was at work, he carefully sanded each little drawer, then the box itself, varnished it and shined up the copper drawer pulls. When he was finished, he lined the drawers with gold giftwrap and put some of my jewelry inside.

I'm posting about it on my other blog today because I was just so touched by his efforts. Sometimes, he truly is a gem.

Thoughts of the past

Just playing around on the computer and reading the history of this area during The Philadelphia Campaign 1777-1778. Yeah, I know. It's super exciting here!
But I love it.
This afternoon, I drove to the mall using the Old Post Road (Old Baltimore Pike), past Cooch's Bridge where the British and Continental armies had a skirmish. History is so interesting.
And Macy's was having a big sale.

Trees in black & white

How obvious for a post title, right? Perhaps if I were more clever, I could come up with something unique and exciting to title this photograph. But not today.

I took this on a misty, wet and dreary day this week. Well, some may have thought it dreary, but I was revelling in the weather and when I got home I thought I'd try this out in black & white.

The beauty of the rain

And you know the light is fading all too soon
You're just two umbrellas one late afternoon
You don't know the next thing you will say
This is your favorite kind of day
It has no walls
The beauty of the rain
Is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls

~ Dar Williams

I took a walk alone today, after a ride with my husband. I was thinking that things were beginning to feel normal again. I like a rainy day every now and then, don't you?

Skywatch Friday: Cupola at school

This is the cupola that's on the roof of the main section of our school. I think it's beautiful.

For more Skywatch Friday pictures from all over the world, visit this link. You will be glad you did.

Bittersweet and old lace

Much better than arsenic and old lace, isn't it?
I know that bittersweet is beautiful in the fall, but it's extremely detrimental to trees, for it has the capability of felling giants. Bittersweet will strangle a tree, eventually killing it. But let's not dwell on that aspect, shall we? Let's just enjoy it in a vase, next to a curtain of old lace.

Standing in the dining room

I don't like posting a lot of photos of the house in which we live because well, it's not really ours. We're just living in it and taking care of it. It's a wonderful, comfortable home and I love how it smells when I walk in the door. At first, I thought the wallpaper in the dining room would drive me crazy but I'm getting used to it and I now think it's sweet. This is the original staircase of the home and dates to 1769. On the wall hangs my Ann Ehringhaus photograph that I bought from her personally in Ocracoke, NC in the fall of 2004. She doesn't know it, but she was a big reason I fell in love with photography and it was so good to finally meet her.
Through the doorway leads to our living room which is actually the library. We're using it as our living room, though. I can't tell you how comforting it is to be in this place. It actually feels like home to me.

Tree in Silhouette 2

I guess I could have used this for a Friday Skywatch post. Sometimes I forget about the photos I have in my files, but found this one tonight when I was working on uploading pictures I will be offering for sale on my Etsy site. It's very time-consuming setting up shop and it's why I posted a contest for the next couple of days on my Chronicles blog.
Go ahead over and enter.
In the meantime, I'm working on getting about 30 items on Etsy for sale, including this one.

Favorite things: Little bee

I've had this little bee for years and it's really much tinier than it appears in this photograph. It's all of two inches and was given to me as a Christmas gift by one of my favorite people in the world. Wherever I've lived, I've always had this little bee hanging where I can easily see it. It was my eldest son who gave it to me when he was in about 7th or 8th grade and every time it catches my eye, I think happy thoughts.
The other good thing about it is that it doesn't have a stinger. Ha!

The precipice

This little ladybug is getting ready for take-off. Hope she finds what she's looking for . . .

Daisies in autumn

Taken last weekend at Bombay Hook Nature Center. I spotted the white puffs from the road as I was driving and was glad that I got out and walked across the field. Hope you're all having a relaxing weekend.

Skywatch Friday: Our front yard

What it looks like from the hill where I live. This is the view from my front door.