Look what I found

I saw these flowers on the side of the road today and had to stop and photograph them; I was so excited. Normally I might not have stopped because I had told Tom I wouldn't be gone long and I had Rascal in the car with me, but these were the first flowers of spring; how could I resist?
I have started to change my mind a little about Georgia winters being just drab and brown. Tom and I were driving home the other day and he started pointing out the shape of several old oak trees and how much character the tree shapes had. This is something that is not as noticeable with the leaves on. I hadn't given this much thought before. The bare trees have a beauty all their own. I had been looking at the Georgia winters from a half-empty glass viewpoint instead of a half-full viewpoint. I think I' going to go look for interesting tree shape to photograph later this week. Thanks Tom.

Church in the woods

I found this church sitting back off the road after the leaves had fallen off the trees. Actually since I have taken up photography and have started to notice things more; I have seen a lot of buildings I didn't know were there especially since the leaves have fallen off the trees. This part of Georgia tends to be very wooded and it doesn't take long for an unoccupied building to return to a wooded state. Anyway it is not unusual for a building to be built in the woods and than be difficult to see. I liked the look of the steeple sticking up out of the trees and took the picture. I didn't particularly like the dull browns and the light colored sky of the original so I added some blue to it. Then I thought about stained glass windows; the colors kind of reminded me of stained glass plus it was a church so I decided to go with that theme. I did the photo with a small mosaic effect, then went to FastStone (freeware editing program I downloaded from cnet.com) for it's frame effects and picked out a larger mosaic effect in light blue and then I added a light blue border to match and signed it. I really liked the way the edit came out it's much prettier than the dull scene that it started out as. I am really grateful for software that can change and enhance the photos I take. You have to have a good basic photo to start with but very seldom will all the elements of a photo come together for that shot that you really like, mother nature does not always co-operate, so it is nice to have a back-up. Sometimes I just plain like the art edit better; it gives the picture an boost toward that WOW.

Websites from my friends at MSS:
http://talitz2550.multiply.com/
This website is from Lolit. She choose a blogsite that is both unusual and creative. It is a photography site for people to use kind of like blogspot it gives you a template but this template is a collage and gives quite a different presentation. Her site is fun and delightful and well worth checking out. I love the collage approach.

Flower power-Remember

I made up these collages to remind myself that spring and summer will come back again and once again Griffin will be filled with flowers. Thank goodness for Georgia is not nearly as pretty in the winter as it is at other times of the year. The trees are bare, the colors of the landscapes tend to be brown and dull and it tends to be rainy; a perfect setup for SAD. The exception to the not very pretty is the rare snowfall and then it is beautiful for a few days and one can enjoy it because everything else comes to a halt.
In the top collage I took pictures of flowers from my garden and also from the roadside. There are always some kind of flower in bloom from like March through December. The bottom collage are pictures of Treasure Flowers from my garden. I had this one blown up to poster size and framed and it now is up on my wall where I can easily see it and remember. It does help to lighten my mood.

How does my garden grow ?

This is not my best post, sorry about that. I'm tired and my brain is defiantly in senior mode. The pictures are older from my point and shoot camera. However they do show the garden that my husband built for me so I could continue to garden even with all my health problems. It is wonderful to be able to garden again. You can see that I no longer have to bend down or get on my knees to garden. How wonderful is that! I can use my little tricks like the soda bottles as little greenhouses cuz I can see them and lift them if necessary without the deep knee bend exercise. Alright! The soda bottles in the front of this picture are covering the tomato seeds that became the tomato plants in the picture from my earlier post. As you can see the garden did take off and I enjoyed working in it. I am very camera shy and this is probably one one of the very few times you will ever see a picture of me. Even though it was taken a year ago I pretty much look the same except I'm 25lbs lighter and my hair is now down to my elbows. I guess that shows I am getting braver as there was a time when
these pics would NEVER have appeared.Today I got my catalog seed order in. A couple of weeks ago I hit up the local stores for the seeds that they had available (see earlier post) and then I ran out of money and had to wait till today to order the rest of my garden seeds, but now all my garden seeds are purchased. I ordered lots of salad and veggie varieties and am looking forward to getting those wonderful fresh salads and other assorted veggies from my garden that I can't get from the store or can't afford from the store. Yum. I also ordered some different flower seeds from usual so I can have unusual flowers to photograph. Some of them are heirloom varieties. I am really looking forward to that aspect of my garden, also. This all makes me feel like I'm making progress on my garden even if it is too cold outside to really work in my garden. The seeds I purchased a couple of weeks ago I already started and now the plants are ready or almost ready to be transplanted into larger pots so by the time these seeds arrive the seed trays will be empty and ready to start the new seeds, so I guess that worked out well.

Found on a Garbage Truck

SNOW DAY !!!!

When it snows here in Georgia the crazies begin. Even the threat of snow freaks people out down here. There is probably good reason for it though. We really don't get much snow here in fact we may go years with no snow or with just a flurry. Nobody has snow tire so everyone without 4wheel drive slides all over the road; if you add to that the lack of experience in driving in the snow and it is a recipe for disaster. Most people do not have proper clothing for the cold and wet, in fact it is hard to find warm clothing to buy here. When we were buying clothes for Emily to go to school out in Utah we had to order from catalogs or buy it there. For kids who are not dressed warmly standing out in the cold and wet; waiting for the bus is torture. I think you can get the idea of why Georgians freaks out. Just the possibility caused them to call off school today. By mid-afternoon businesses were sending their people home. We probably got about four inches which for down here is a lot. The first year we lived here, having moved from Utah where the kids went trick-or-treating in the snow, we had a snowfall where the grass was still sticking out from under the snow and they called off school. I laughed and laughed and the whole family thought it was nuts. We've lived here long enough now to understand.

Photo edits:
All photos had basic editing done in Picasa 3 (freeware downloaded from cnet.com) They were cropped, straighted if needed and the color balance set.
Photo 1: I finished editing this photo in picnik (free Internet editing software)
Photo 2: Went from Picasa to FastStone (freeware downloaded from cnet.com). I used the frame mask function and just experimented till I found one I liked. Then I went to picnic where I framed it using the Museum matte frame function, changing the color of the frame. I then signed it using the text function.
Photo 3: I used picnik to finish this photo. I went to the effect function and picked out the mode that edged it with white, I then put the border on it and signed it with the text function.
Photo 4: I used Photoscape (freeware downloaded from cnet.com) using the filter key I went to vignette setting to edge the photo then to the frame function to put the border on. The keys on the bottom of the frame function adjust the border. It was signed using the text feature on Picasa 3.
Photo 5: Signed using Picasa. Framed using the Frame function in PhotoScape, I used both an inner border lighter color and a regular border darker color.

Serendipity Super Webs

As I was organizing my photos today I was surprised by this photo. I didn't think I got any pictures of this spider, because my hands were shaking so bad that day all the other pictures I took were too blurred to use. Seeing this picture as crisp and clear as it is really made me feel good so I cropped it, adjusted the colors a little, signed and framed it. A pleasant surprise and serendipity in my life again. :^D

Hooray for me

Went in for my IVIG today, not my favorite thing to do. I got weighed, even less of a favorite thing except for today, because we figured out that since last Nov. I have lost 23 lbs. I finished a really good book, "A Great and Terrible Beauty" In fact it was more than good it was great. It is a teen fantasy set in a Victorian private school. It was a very good tale of growing up and growing into ones own power. I also did a lot of photo organizing. Than I ran errands. A very full day. Hooray for me all the way around; for the weight loss and getting so much accomplished.

Website from my friends at MSS:
http://wdphotografics.blogspot.com/
Wayne does not post very often but what is there is truly impressive; lots of information, inspiration, beautiful photographs. It is well worth reading ALL of his posts and checking for new ones. He also sells from this website. Check this one out.

Super bowl 2

I have seen a lot of negative comment on The Who's performance at the Super Bowl. I really did enjoy it and was quite taken aback by the negative comments. This is why I liked it so much. First off it brought back memories not only of my teenage years but also my children's teenage years. There was no "wardrobe malfunction" or other crazy stunts like there has been in the past from other stars who have been given such an honor only to act out in some ridiculous manner. If you look at the CD cover and see the microphone throwout and Peter Townsend jumping. They pretty well did the same in this concert, of course the jumps where not quite as high but they were pretty good for an old guy. They are older than me and I certainly wish I had that kind of energy. Their voices have lost some of the quality that made them famous, but it happens to almost all professional singers after a lifetime of wear and tear. The one great that comes to mind was Frank Sinatra and nobody complained when he sang in his later years. I love live performances when those on stage are enjoying themselves and it shows. That was certainly the case Sunday. They genuinely seemed to be into the music; enjoying it and putting their hearts into performing the music (most of which Peter Townsend wrote). They also seemed to enjoy each others company. In spite of the time limits this was still the Super Bowl with it's spectacular visual effects and use of technologies. Sure you could pick the performance apart and concentrate on the imperfections of the situation or as I choose to do sit back and enjoy the good that there was.

Super Bowl

Tonight was the Superbowl and like many people around America I was watching. Personally I was only watching for the commercials and the half- time show, most of the time I only watch for the commercials however this year they had The Who. It was a good thing because this year the commercials stunk.












This is how I remember The Who. It's a shame they're not still all together but at least the two best are still together. When CSI started using their music and they started to become well known again I had this album in the car and my kids friends commented on how awesome it was that I would let them play this CD in the car. My poor kids had to admit that it was my CD not theirs, which to their surprise upped the appreciation of their friends. When they saw the Iron Butterfly CD, WOW was I cool. I have very eclectic taste in music, because at the same time my kids and I also went to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra classic music concerts. I had season tickets.
Anyway back to The Who; when I first heard them on CSI I thought it was really quite ironic that a crime drama where the emphasis was on the good guys would have a theme song that was absolutely anti-police. Of course you have to listen to all the words to know that and the are not all played on CSI. Then when CSI: Miami came on another Who song this one a diffinately anti-government song I couldn't believe it. Of course once again you had to listen to all the words to know that and of course all the words were not played. Irony of Irony.
I was delighted to find out that The Who would be on the Super Bowl half-time. I bet they wished that their concert back in my day (see the CD cover) could have been as spectacular with all the new technology that we have today and that was used for their concert tonight.
Of course none of the pictures on my blog are mine. The CD cover and older picture was scanned off the CD. The Super Bowl pictures were off the Internet by the Associated Press.



































Enjoy

Spring has sprung

At my house we have had a terrible time with the Internet over the past several days. It took me well over an hour to download 2 photos Tues. Sometimes the Internet would only stay up for a couple of minutes and then take forever to come back. I got real frustrated and stopped trying. My provider just got it fixed last night, but I was too tired to post on my blog so I'm starting again today.
Tues was a wonderful, hopeful day, my pain was lessening after coming down on my pain medicines (I thought I was going to have to make an ER visit for the pain the first week of coming down), the sun was out (a rarity lately), I saw the first buds on the trees (see above), saw three robins who would not stay still to be photographed, felt good enough to go seed searching, found some cacti that I really liked and purchased two, started some cacti seeds and some seeds for my garden. All in all a day I thoroughly enjoyed. Personally I don't care what General Lee (the official Georgia groundhog) says about when spring is going to come, I watch for other signs in nature and since I've be into photography I've noticed them more. It certainly brightened that day.

Last night I sterilized the seed starters from last year and refilled one with peat pots and they are ready for seeds tonight. I'm looking forward to planting it.

Websites from my friends at MSS:
Roxane Bay at http://bluebayphotography.com

This is a sales site. It is well done and easy to navigate. She has some truly wonderful photos.

Raymond Fuller at http://raymondfullerphotography.com
This is also a sales site some of which is under construction. I really like his photo and hope he continues to build his site.

February goals

Last night I was reading through some of my favorite blogs and came upon a post that struck home for me. I was reading mysteries (if you want to read it go to my blog list and click on mysteries) and Jeannette was talking about her apprehension on her daughters first trip across Holland on a train even though she had been riding the trains since she was 11 and her daughter was 17. I have the same apprehension with my youngest daughter as she flies cross-country. The first time I flew with her, but after that she was on her own. At first we did park the car and go in with her and since she was still a minor we could go through securitywith her. But she got independent and now we drop her off out front. Of course we couldn't help her with lay-overs and she always has lay-overs. We also couldn't help when she got to Salt Lake so she has gotten to know several airports well; Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake and when she visits her sister, Pittsburgh. You will notice she goes through some of the busiest airport in the U.S if not the world. I know she is a very capable person and am very proud of her but still some apprehension remains. I guess it's a mom thing. I liked Jeannette's post because it reminds me that I am not alone in my feelings.
I enjoy many other blogs for many other reasons; the beautiful pictures, a different point of view, beautiful artwork, friendship and sharing in other people's lives- how they live and cope-viewing life in different parts of the world, lots of different reasons just like I have many different eclectic reasons for writing my blog.
This month I have set the goal of visiting the blogs and websites of my friends on MyShutterSpace (MSS) and putting in my blog what I like about them. I have found that if I make comments like I do on the photos on MSS that I pay more attention and learn more and enjoy it more. I decided to make my goal of visiting my friends on MSS for several reasons; to get to know them better, we already have an interest in common, and I was surprised at how many had a blog or website and it peeked my curiosity. I am still going to work on my edits but once again the emphasis changes slightly. I'm going to work on improving my blog and my friendships by learning from other peoples blogs with the emphasis on what I like on their blogs.

Sites from my friends at MSS:
http://kulanthapitha.blogspot.com/
http://lovenotionpixels.blogspot.com/
These are both by my friend Kuluth. His blogs are always fresh and interesting. His photography skills are delightful and he tells of his country (India), culture and life. He has a great love for his country and family and it shows through his pictures and words.