An Awesome View of Life

Red Topper Love the layers of colors.  Also love the fallen birch tree and the birch trees in the background.

Depth of Field A quick walk in between rain showers late this afternoon yielded an abundance of unique photos.  I love birch trees and have attempted to get a great photo of them.  The decision to focus on the leaves in the foreground was the right decision.  Love this photo.  

Retirement Plan Above photo is step one in my latest creative endeavor.  Below is step two.  Stay tuned for future steps in this project. While working on this project today we discussed the future of me continuing to do some variation of this project into retirement.   When we move to Florida I will be known as THE Bag Lady.  EVERYONE will bring their plastic bags to me for my wonderful creations.  My darling daughter Mandi thinks I will that lady who is always tan and always in my swimsuit wearing beach cover-ups created out of the plastic bags I collect.  She also thinks I will make friends with a lady who collects aluminum cans.  She will need some of my plastic bags for her cans. I will probably also collect glass dishes to keep my ever growing collection of shells in.  But I will have so many dishes and will need to start creating glass lawn ornaments.  Our yard will be filled with glass lawn ornaments of any color ...

Fall Prairie. Can you find the person walking?  I love the different shades of color of the grass.  And the bits of green left on the trees. 

Come follow me... So afraid today was our last really good day to go walking. At least without being bundle up so much you can't move.   My daughter Mandi and I have been exploring our county parks this fall and wish we had found this one a couple of weeks ago while the leaves were still on the trees.  But even so this park was amazingly beautiful.  

Come sit with me... Editing this photo gave me a tremendous amount of grief.  I tried to crop the lady walking in the distance out as well as the dead tree branches in the foreground.  But it just threw the balance off and lost the beauty of the total scene.  My cropping ended up being minimal which was for the best. I tend to be a bit too critical sometimes of my photos.  This project isn't about perfection it's about capturing what I see and sometimes what I don't see. (: I hope more people enjoy what I do than those who seem to have to give me grief about what I do.   

Blue and some others... Our neighborhood still has lots of fall color left but this county park was a bit disappointing.  The blue of this little creek (pronounced creak in this case).  There are still some fall colors in the background but not much. Maybe tomorrow's adventure will find more fall colors.  Or maybe the adventure needs to be in our own neighborhood?

Maroon and Gold For my University of Minnesota daughter.  I know I just saw you on Tuesday morning but I miss you anyway.  (:  Love, MOM.

Black and White. Light and Dark. Today was a fabulous weather day and this is what I did for photos.  I've been a bit out of it with some serious back spasms.  I am feeling much better but did not feel like any kind of adventure. This is the knob end of a work space light with the light shining a fuzzy zebra pillow.  Clever, huh?  ha!

Guido and Sal* This is probably my favorite photo from our vacation.  They are always on the beach when we are in Pompano Beach for vacation. "Friends of friends", I think? (:   *Their names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Mainly me) ha!

Golden Light This is our backyard.  It is such a beautiful color at sunset.  But we sure aren't looking forward to the work that needs to be done before the s**w flies! Will I miss this when we move away?  Probably!  (:

Fallen. Love the fall colors but dislike the yard work. (:

Golden Canopy This isn't quite the same as beach photos but is beautiful in its own way.

Ready. Waiting. Saturday is checkout day for our resort.  Most of the week's guests will be leaving for home so most likely these chairs will be empty for the day.  

Sunrise. This photo makes me smile and teary all at the same time.  I LOVE this beach so it makes me smile because of that.  But also makes me sad because of that.  We have to come up with a plan to make being here most of the year a reality. Soon.  This was a tough morning of photos.  The sunrise was one of the best I've ever seen on this beach.  I stayed as long as I could but it never seems to be enough time. (:

Veiled Beauty This was taken through the branches of a palm tree.  I was trying to capture the flowers in the sun light and this was the only way I could do it. Below is a close of the above flowers. 

Beacon of Light. I waited too long to go out and take a photo of the Hillsboro Lighthouse when it was darker out.  This was a tad darker than I had planned.  But the end result was kind of cool?

Beach Fashion. Apparently she left her hat at the resort and fashioned one out of her beach towel.  The next day she had on a pretty white floppy hat. And we will NOT discuss his choice of swim wear.  But there were men who had made the same choice that looked MUCH worse than this gentleman.  ha!

Wait for me... Truly enjoyed watching this young lady kiting.  Most of the time she was too far away to get a good shot of her jumping.  And I was really "off" on shooting kiters this vacation.   I will create photo albums on Facebook for each of the days' kiting photos.  I have good photos just not much in the great category this year. ):

Beautiful Noise Crashing waves do have the most beautiful noise.  Our resort is undergoing a major renovation and the construction noise could be heard most of the time even on the beach.  This day the waves were louder.

Most Creative. I know every one would like to see vacation photos but this was by far the most creative photo of my vacation.  I just shoved my camera lens into the airplane snack and this is what I got.  ha!

Two Birds.  Two Shots.  Love both of these photos.  The female cardinal is normally around only late at night when it is too dark to catch her in a photo. The blue jay has just been elusive.  I've tried for most of two years to get a GOOD photo. It's still not a GREAT photo but I'm happy with it.

GREEN Beauty Once again something green.  I seem unable to avoid green.  Or am I drawn to it just to be annoying?  Hmmm...  (: And this is another new photo.  Since saying I was putting my camera away I've found a few things to take photos of.  One more day and then beach photos.

John. Deere. Took a road trip with my son, daughter and granddaughter to Buffalo, MN this afternoon.  My son was driving so I got to do my favorite thing -- drive-by shooting.  (:   It was a beautiful sunny day and the fall colors are amazing.  Thus the photo of a John Deere tractor.  ha!

Beautiful Neighbors This tree is awesome with a bit of sunlight shining on it which we haven't had much of lately.  Or not that I have noticed anyway. Wish this one was in my yard instead of in our neighbor's yard.  (:

Blurry Vision With my vacation only days away I have decided to take a break from my camera until I am somewhere near the ocean.   There is just too much to do before I leave.  Too many demands and definitely too little appreciation.  If I take the pressure of HAVING to take a photo every day out of the mix it will make things better for me.  I will still post a photo every day, they just won't be taken on that date.   And you never know, because I've decided not to be "pressured" about the camera thing maybe I'll feel a bit more inspired?  You never know.

Columbia Fruit? This is a beautiful pumpkin display.  Love the crates stamped with "Columbia Fruit" on them.

Bump in the road... A few fun photos were snapped on our way to and from grocery shopping tonight.  On our way back I took this photo of the sunset but just a second before the camera clicked we hit a series of bumps in the road. I love everything about this photo.  (:

Ready for the S**w! Here in Minnesota we are waiting for a "wintry mix" in the weather department.  There have already been a few posts on Facebook saying there is a bit of the white stuff falling already.  Florida will be a very welcome vacation starting next weekend. *Pictured - Peanut Butter  Chocolate Chip   cookies 

Swept away. Another rainy fall day.  I ventured as far as the back patio and found this in the corner.

Crimson Rain A beautiful rainy day here in Minnesota today.  On my way out to the mailbox I spotted this beautiful leaf.  I love the little drips on the stem. Fall is my favorite time of year.  I love rainy days. And I love the color red.