Things Precious

This is a china doll my grandmother gave me when I was 11 years old. She bought it when she was 12 years old after having saved all of her quarters. It's wrapped in a blanket my great grandmother made for me when I was a baby. It spent a lot of time wrapped up in a little shoe box at the back of my closet. I was always afraid of breaking it. Now it sits in my china cabinet looking out at all of us as we go through the day. New and old. One is silver the other is gold.

Peace

No, I didn't have time to hunt down a picture today. At work, I was writing and it makes me crazy to walk away from that. This evening has been hectic. So, here's a picture I took about 3 and a half years ago of a statue of Jesus in our church's grotto. This is a picture from the fall of 2006. I thought it was appropriate given that Jeremy is making his first communion on Saturday.

Happiness Is Music

Happiness is music. This is my guitar. I love the sound of it. However, I don't get to play (make the time) as often as I would like. But playing the guitar is definitely something I've always done just to please myself. Play and sing. For a few reasons, it's gotten away from me. But it's always right there just waiting.

Happiness is...

Happiness is chocolate and strawberries.

When I finished taking the pictures, I dipped the strawberries in the chocolate and ate them. Gabbi saw the smeared chocolate on the plate and asked what I had done. When I told her I made a smiley face out of chocolate and strawberries, she only hesitated a minute before grabbing her own strawberry to dip in the chocolate. Like mother like daughter :)

Backyard Bird Watching

These are finches--one is a barn finch. These little guys flock to my bird feeder all summer long. Some of them might be gold finches and maybe a sparrow or two. It's a little early for a lot of color.




Looks like she sees something interesting in the grass. Probably something tasty. As long as it stays over there and doesn't get near me or the house, I'm fine with it.



This robin nests in the birch tree in our front yard every summer. Pretty soon I'll bet we'll see a little robin hopping around our front porch.

Beware of Monsters!

Today, I helped Jeremy create the beginnings of a diorama rather than do housework. Together, we created things that might live in the mountains, like mountain goats, a tortoise, big scary monsters with spikes, and that sort of thing. We didn't finish. So we'll be working on it again soon.



This is Jeremy's mountain goat.




I definitely think this was more fun than vacuuming up the dogs' hair off of everything. LOL.

Watching and Waiting

I wasn't really up to trying to find the right picture with my camera today. So instead, I dug up one of my favorite animal pictures from last year. This is a picture of a mexican grey wolf I took last fall at Brookfield Zoo. Since we were there, they've opened a new exhibit that includes the wolves, along with the bears and some other creatures I can't remember at the moment. Can't wait to see their new digs.

She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing

The humble mother board. It's the work horse and the heart of your average computer. But it never gets any credit for all of the great things it does. Sure--the processor, cache, RAM, the graphics processor--even the data link protocol that keeps growing and changing.(Nobody uses 802.11b anymore, don't cha know?) Those guys earn all of the praise and recognition. But never forget, without that gosh darn motherboard, none of it would be worth a penny.

Bubbles

One thing the kids really like to do when it's warm outside is to play with bubbles. No bubbles in this yet, but there will be soon. There was a guy that came to their school recently who did all kinds of things with bubbles, including a trick where the guy made a bubble big enough to hold one of the kids at the school. Ever since then, the kids have been trying to duplicate that and capture each other in a bubble.

Digging in the Dirt

Well, the garden is ready to go. Now the weather just needs to cooperate. Can't plant until the chance of frost has passed. In a few months, this area will be green :)

Food

Well, I intended to spend my lunchtime today walking the Chicago financial district with my camera. There's lots of history and unusual things to see. But lunch was not to be today. I did take a few pictures of wheels, thinking about something along the lines of "spinning my wheels." But the pictures aren't interesting. So, here's one of my favorite pictures that I took at Angela's birthday party a few weeks ago. Yes, Debbie asked me "why are you taking pictures of the food?" But I think this shot is great :)

Things that Stand Out in Chicago

My original intent today was to roam Millenium Park for things that stand out. There's so many of them in MP. The picture above is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. This is the money shot that everyone wanted. It's the ultimate Chicago tourist picture.



The other thing that stands out near Millenium Park is one of Mayor Daley's legacies--flower boxes on Michigan Avenue. Today they were full of spring flowers. Michigan Avenue is a lot brighter than it used to be.



There's also a lot of tulips in Millenium Park this time of year. I really don't know if the bulbs in the planters are the kind they leave there all year round or not.



Actually, I'll bet they remove the bulbs and plant something else in the flower boxes just so that not one steals them.



But I think this photo was my favorite from today. Chicago hasn't always been a garden spot, that's for sure. But I think it will be eventually if some folks have their way.

Things that Stand Out

My kids think that the most distinguishing feature in town is the steeple of our church. One can see it from practically any place in town. Even though we live in a small town, there are quite a few churches. But it's really difficult to miss this one.



However, I think the structures that stand out the most in town (and is probably the tallest building in town) are the silos at the end of main street. It's a small town.

Another Cactus Blooms

Surprise! More of my cacti (cactuses?) are blooming. They're so pretty. I get so scatterbrained sometimes that I'm not always really good about watering my poor houseplants. But it seems like the cacti like being ignored, as long as they have some fertilizer in the soil. Didn't do anything special for this picture. Pretty much, turn the flash off, aim and shoot.

Water

Water is a fun subject for photographers. The picture changes so much depending on the ISO. The above picture was taken at an ISO of 1600. If you look closely, it looks like chunks of ice coming out of the faucet.

one of my oversized puppies

I think that taking pictures of Moe, my black lab, has to be one of the most difficult things to do. It's so hard to get the camera focused properly, whether I do it manually or let the camera do it, because the camera uses areas of contrast to focus. There's no area of contrast when you look at Moe. The proper thing to do is to find something at a similar distance, focus on that by pressing the button halfway down and then move the camera over to look at Moe and take the picture. It's still a difficult thing to do. Poor Moe. He's such a big baby. There should be more pictures of him. So, I'll have to keep trying.

Tulips

It was a lovely day today. There are still a few spring flowers around if you know where to find them. We have a lovely Grotto at our church and the tulips are still in bloom over there. Actually, this isn't the original picture I took. I cropped the picture and flipped it over, then enhanced the contrast a little bit. I like the outcome.

Waiting for Renewal

Not feeling very positive today. This picture kind of reflects my mood. It's from my garden which has yet to be tilled. I took a clue from Laura and just put the camera on the ground at my foot, aimed and clicked. Not in the mood to roll around in the dirt and mulch today. I did get one small piece of good news today, which was a relief. But for the most part, today sucked. "Waiting for renewal" is my attempt to put a positive spin on a bad day.

It's definitely spring

When the flowering pear trees in my front yard actually flower, it's really spring. We're probably not done with the winter-like weather around here, unfortunately. Plus, one good thunderstorm and those pretty petals will be all over the ground. But for today, the trees are pretty and I know it's spring. I like the trees so much, you get two pictures instead of just one. :)

Did they get you to trade your heros for ghosts?

Lonely peeps. A week from Easter and they're almost all gone...reminds me of Pink Floyd.

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Non sequitur, I know. It makes sense in my head ;)

Daffodils

Angela's birthday was a lemony success. It was a beautiful, sunny, comfortable day, even if it was a little windy. I have a lot of nice pictures from the party itself. But I'm not sure those people all want their faces in my blog, let alone facebook. So here's some daffodils from Debbie's garden. (They're daffodils, right Deb?) It's been kind of windy around here lately, so I had to be patient.

Dreaming of Summer

The grill is dusty.
That cast iron pan is rusty.
Time for the drill
let's get ready to grill!

Patterns in the City

It's cold and damp outside again today, so here's a change of pace. Can you guess what it is? It's the ceiling at my train station at Randolph and Michigan, captured by my cell phone. I think the pattern is cool. However, I think I should have taken it at a different angle to not include so much of the wall. Oh well. It was fun to hear the comments while I stopped to take the shot--why is she taking a picture of the ceiling? You would figure I'd be used to it by now. Maybe after day 125 I will be. LOL.

A Cactus Blooms in Illinois

It's raining and thundering today. So here's a fresh bloom from one of the cacti that has been sitting in my kitchen window all winter.

A Beginning

Calling something a "new beginning" is redundant redundant. Don't you think? So, I'll just say that this is a beginning--the blog and the new leaves sprouting on one of the spirea bushes out in front of my house. Like my friends Laura and Lisa, I've decided to take up the Project 365 Challenge. Take a photo every day for the next 365 days and share it. I love flowers, so I imagine that while I have them, you'll be seeing many. In a few months, there will be all kinds of flowers in front of my house just as there has been since we moved here 7 years ago.