Photo 365 #102: A pop of color

November 17, 201412 Comments

Over the summer, we had a potted impatien out in front of our office. It was a lovely thing, and when the temps turned colder, we brought it inside. But sitting just inside the door as it was proved detrimental to its health, and it withered.

One of my coworkers brought it inside and set it near the window in our coat room. She’s got a much greener thumb than I have, and decided to try nursing it back to health.

winterbloom

Last week, we noticed a bloom. A couple days later, there was another one. This morning, I counted four or five, and those are just on the side of the plant I can see – the side facing the window appears to have a few more blooms on it.

Now that we’ve got a bit of snow on the ground, it’s a treat to see something so bright and different amid the white.

Photo 365 #101

November 16, 2014November 17, 2014Leave a comment

We had our first significant snowfall this weekend, and as a result, we didn’t go anywhere for most of the weekend (the lone exception being a trip to the store this morning for some milk). I was quite happy to stay inside because it was brutally cold outside (though it wasn’t a whole lot better inside), and yesterday the roads were quite slick.

Miss Tadpole is concentrating awfully hard. 🙂

That blur just above the blue robot is his head flying off. 🙂

Instead, we stayed inside and played with the newfangled Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots that Bubbles got last year for Christmas. It was certainly an entertaining way to spend the afternoon, and the boys loved watching Bubbles and Miss Tadpole pop each other’s heads off. 🙂

How did you spend your weekend?

Photo 365 #97: The natural world

November 12, 20149 Comments

Living in a rural area is nothing if not fantastic for capturing wonderful moments in the life cycle of nature. As evidenced by my deep and abiding love for skyscapes, I’ve got no shortage of inspiration for nature-based images. And since it’s hard for me to choose just one, here are several!

Beautiful…and treacherous.

Our yard is littered with pine cones.

“Come into my chamber,” said the spider to the fly.

Just another beautiful summer day.

Tasty harvest. 🙂

This is completely unacceptable at this point in the year.

These are only a handful of the nearly two thousand pictures I’ve taken of the world around me this year alone. I feel blessed to live in such a beautiful place.

Photo Friday: Minimalist

November 7, 20143 Comments

IMG_20131205_112005 I checked my calendar this morning and realized that – horror of horrors! – Charnele and I are out of prompts for our Photo Friday feature.

Whoops.

But then I saw that this week’s photo challenge is all about minimalism, and guess what? I just happen to have something that fits the bill. It’s a picture of the frozen condensation on my bathroom window one morning last winter. Sadly, I awoke to find condensation on the inside of the windows in our new house this morning, and it’s not even that cold yet (although we did finally break down and turn on the heat yesterday).

I hate to think what it’ll be like in another month or so when winter is in full swing.

Photo 365 #87

November 2, 2014October 29, 20144 Comments

I love lazy Sundays. And since I’m feeling a bit lazy today, I don’t know what to write here other than I can’t believe it’s November already.

Another beautiful start to another gorgeous day.

Today was the kind of day that makes one glad to be alive.

I love Iowa. That is all.

That tree is on fire…

I could have watched this sunset forever.

Enjoy the pretty, pretty pictures! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have more to say. 🙂

Photo 365 #82

October 28, 2014October 27, 20144 Comments

The photo ops on Saturday lasted into the evening with a beautiful sunset (for a pretty morning shot, check out my Instagram feed). I was getting supper ready when I noticed that the trees on the western edge of our yard looked almost like they were on fire, so I headed out with my trusty phone camera and snapped some pictures.

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Surprisingly, the boys behaved while I was outside capturing the sunset. As a matter of fact, the only bad thing that happened was that I ended up with some puncture marks on my tummy, thanks to Miss Opal. Apparently, she thought I was the perfect cat tree because she climbed me more than once and my thin T-shirt was no match for her tiny kitty claws.

Oh, well – she’s too cute to stay mad at for long. 🙂

Photo 365 #81

October 27, 2014Leave a comment

Saturday was an absolutely glorious day, and I just couldn’t resist spending time in my yard taking pictures. The sky was bluer than blue, the sun was shining bright, and my trees finally figured out that they owed me a little color before Winter claims their remaining leaves.

These are two of my favorite leafy shots, though there were several others. I hope your weekend was just as beautiful as mine!

Photo 365 #77

October 23, 2014October 22, 20149 Comments

There was another beautiful sunrise yesterday morning:

fallsunrise

Normally I’m not up early enough to see things like this, but when the sun doesn’t come up till after 7:00 a.m., which is roughly when I have to be out of bed if I have any hope of making it to work on time, that makes it a little easier. And with colors this beautiful, I should perhaps try to make it a habit to rise a bit earlier so I can catch more of them. 🙂

What’s your favorite part of rising early?

Photo 365 #76

October 22, 20144 Comments

The trees at Pine Lake looked so beautiful Monday on my way home from work that I just had to stop and take their picture:

pltrees

A friend of mine is lucky to commute through this beautiful area every day. I think if I had to drive through there every day, I’d be late getting to work and late getting home, and my camera would have even more pictures of pretty trees than it already does. 🙂