An Awesome View of Life

Say what? This oriole visited the bird feeder multiple times yesterday.  This is the second best photo of it.  But I love the "attitude" shown in this one.

Nature's Perfection. We spent the day at my Dad's and as usual the hummingbirds were more than abundant.  As were the orioles and finches.  I love EVERYTHING about this photo.  It is perfection.

Famous Potato Salad My Grandma Engel always made the best potato salad.  I'm so glad I can carry on the tradition. This bowl is for the birthday celebration tomorrow. And it may only be famous with my own family but that still makes it famous in my book. ha!

For My Daddy... Today is my Dad's birthday.  I can imagine him sitting with this view today.  I know it was cloudy and maybe a bit rainy but its still a pretty lake.  (:

30 Seconds to Mars... This was their magical finale.

I was so excited... to hear Linkin Park in concert at the Minnesota State Fair that I knocked over a cup of pop.  What did you think happened?  (: And of course I found this extremely humorous when I was taking the photo.  ha!  My whacked sense of humor at work once again.

Serenity.

  Can you smell the rain? In an attempt to show the details of what I photograph I shot only in black and white today.  Also comments have been made about the color green showing up a bit too much in my photos. (: This has not been taken as a derogatory comment but more as a challenge to see things differently. To find something new to photograph. I love the photo above because you can smell the rain and you can see the color green without it actually being there. I love the shadows and the layers of the leaves as well. The bottom photo's lighting adds a wonderful dimension to the leaves and the background.

Creativity. Completed. This project was started a few weeks ago.  Today I used up the yarn I bought for them.  6 skeins of yarn.  2 each of red, yellow and green to match our kitchen.  13 dish clothes were created.  Oh, and one cute little coaster for my morning coffee.   My goal was to not use any of these until ALL of them were complete.  So very proud of myself for starting and finishing this project.  I can't wait to see how wonderful they are.  (:

Zipped. I couldn't decide which one I liked best.  Neither are great photos but I never promised great photos EVERY day.  The top one is more appealing to me than the one below.

Dreary Details It took quite a few shots to get the details of the rain on the window.  At least getting it the way I wanted it. Another photo from our road trip home from Nashville.  I am still battling this really lovely cold. I'm trying to lay low and rest so I can function again.

I love these old farm buildings. This is one of MANY barn photos I took on our road trip.  I love how many out buildings this farm has.  This is somewhere between Madison and Menomonie, WI.  It was sometime before I started taking photos of truck drivers in their mirrors.  (:

As seen in Franklin, TN While sittting on a bench on Main Street in Franklin, TN we saw this food wagon going by.  I just about missed taking a picture because of a truck going by in the opposite direction. The Chapman II  is not owned by relatives.  I tried to find a bit more about the history of the original Chapman Pie Wagon but didn't have much luck.  If I find more I will update this entry of my blog.

Creepy? While driving home through Wisconsin this morning I realized you can only take so many photos of barns, cows and corn fields.  Every time we passed a semi-truck I thought it would be cool if I could get a photo of the driver's reflection in one or more of their mirrors.   Cool? or Creepy?  (:

Prairie Wild Flowers On the trip towards home today I kept seeing these lone trees in the fields as we drove endless miles through Illinois.  This photo captured the tree as well as the lavender and yellow "wild" flowers on the side of the road. We are most of the way home tonight.  Overnight pit stop in Wisconsin.  Just too tired to drive the last 6 hours home.

Lunch Date This photo is for Saturday's photo of the day but was taken on Friday.  I took photos on Saturday of the family get together but I know I don't do people photos very well so... Friday, Isaac and I had lunch at  Tequila Cowboy  on Broadway in downtown Nashville.  Great BBQ Pork sammich and some pretty good talent on stage.

Centered The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge takes you from one bank of the Cumberland River to the other.  On the west side of the river is downtown Nashville with all of its honky tonk bars and boot stores.  The other side houses the home of the Tennessee Titans. I must say I am VERY surprised at what a nice city Nashville is.  Fun! Fun! Fun!

Wind Farm One more "road" photo.  This was also taken in Illinois and is just a VERY small part of the wind farms in the area.  Love taking photos while riding in the car. (: I did take a few photos today but nothing special.  Still so very ill.  Not a fun vacation.

Lunch time reflections While sightseeing in Franklin,TN we stopped for lunch at  The Franklin Mercantile Deli .  We all know how I like to take these "reflective" photos. This is the outside looking in.  I love that you can see some of what the inside looks like.  I love more the perfect reflection of my hubby. Now I need to feel better.  I have the worst cold I've had in years.  I slept about 11 hours last night but feel ready for a nap already.  ):

Down a country road While we were driving to Nashville I kept seeing these great cross roads.  With our speed at about 75 mph and other cars and trucks on the road it was a great challenge to get the shot I wanted.  I actually said "ha!" when I saw what I had. (:

...were made for walking. At least once we get to Nashville tomorrow.  Quick road trip to see family, do a bit of sightseeing and finding some great photo opportunities.  (: Not sure if I will post photos each day or wait until we get back.  We'll see how things go. Oh and the cowboy hat is in the back seat. 

Hello! This fuzzy friend was booking it across the patio this morning.  Fortunately my camera was just inside the back door.  This is the first picture I took.  He was moving so fast I couldn't even get the camera to focus.  He put his nose right on the lens so I had to click quick because the next second he was on the move around the camera. Below is a full shot of the little guy. Isn't he cute? 

The Color Blue. This is me being a smart ass.  (:  That is all!

Let's Make a Deal? Door #1 or Door #2? These doors on the old mill buildings in Minneapolis fascinate me. There were almost a dozen of them on this wall.  These were the best and were also eye level.  

Green light. Busy day today with Baby and making plans for the 2015 business season.  I'm also working on a plan to do something different and better for the next year or so and into the future.   So this is yet another photo of the maple tree in my backyard.  

Old Reflections. Another photo from my adventure yesterday.  This is inside the ruins that are part of  The Mill City Museum .  The light was perfect.  I love how the original brick wall almost connects at the top with the reflection in the glass of the new wall.

Seeing Red. My son and granddaughter were part of my photo adventure today. Today we cruised along the west bank of the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis.  It was a quick trip but fun. This building had this fun red facade.  Where the sunlight hit the building all of the red showed.  On the front of the building (right) only a small bit of the red showed in my photo because it was in the shade. Okay, there are a few other bits of red in the photo.  Can you find the flowers, the traffic cone and the bag of Doritos?  There is also a small bit of car tail lights but I had to zoom quite a bit to see them.  

Slightly warped. One last photo from my weekend in New Ulm.  These were on the wall in the bar we were in on Friday night.  Since I had VERY little to drink this is my very own warped point of view.  (:  

Peace. Tonight my hubby and I headed to downtown Anoka to have ice cream at  Two Scoops .  Awesome little ice cream shop. From there we headed over to the Rum River, found a bench, watched the boats and ate our ice cream cones.  Mine was Butter Pecan and Isaac's was Strawberry.  Both in sugar cones. While sitting there I spotted these chairs about 1/2 mile up the river.  I have many versions of this but I think this one is my favorite mostly as an "as is" photo. I cropped it a bit but didn't do anything else to it.   I don't think you can really see the difference in these two photos unless you click to enlarge them. You can see a bit of the sunset light on the trees in the one above.  The one below is darker and more zoomed in.   

Details This is the last of my "good" photos from my trip to New Ulm.  I must have taken a dozen photos trying to capture the details of this fountain.  What I was looking for was a good photo of the water streaming from the fountain. Its a busy park -- buildings, flowers, grass, lamp posts, signs, fencing, trellises, etc. which had to be incorporated into my photo without washing out the details of the fountain water.

Creatures in our yard. This little guy lives under my rock collection on the ledge on the front of our house.  I tried hard to get an actual closeup but ended up having to crop this to create a closeup.  Anytime I got close he would back up under the rocks. The gentleman below allowed me to come within about 2 inches of him and just pose for me.  I love the detail of everything about him.   I love to do photos like these.  (: