So, I’ve been disappointed lately that I haven’t been out shooting more. Life is busy. But today I decided to just go in my backyard and try something NEW! I was very inspired by the impressionistic look from a recent post at melinda anderson photography using the camera shake method. I thought her “Wildflower Impressions” photo was so beautiful. So I tried it. It’s rather FUN! What do you think?
Here is a “normal” shot of the daisies. AND, we finally got rid of the ugly plastic edging and put pavers on the sides of our garden path. So that is another NEW thing!
Lesson learned. Even when I’m busy…getting prepared for a son’s wedding, working long hours at the day job, preparing for our upcoming Europe trip, yardwork etc., I need to take the time and have fun with my camera. This only took a few minutes, and now I have an impressionist photo to enjoy. Thank you to Melinda Anderson for the inspiration!
Have a wonderful day! I hope you do or learn something NEW today!
Happy Monday! It’s been a while since I brain-dumped some miscellaneous NEW stuff, so here goes.
Miscellany #1: It was fun to see some wildlife on our hikes in Grand Tetons National Park. There were quite a few of these little guys running around! A grandpa pointed to one and asked his grandson if he thought that one was Alvin, Simon, or Theodore. I really doubt the little boy knew what his grandpa was talking about! Haha!
This guy wasn’t fazed at all by the attention he was getting!
Look very close. That’s a bear across the lake. I need a better zoom lens!!!
Thanks to Google, I believe this is a Western Tanager. Again…Santa, I need a zoom lens for Christmas! Haha!
AND, what do you think of this “wildlife”?!? He (or she) is livin’ the life!
Miscellany #2: What I’ve been reading lately. I’ve already hit my GoodReads 2023 Reading Challenge goal (my goal was 52 books, and I’m already at 62…). So I think for the last part of this year, I’ll make a goal to read a book from every genre that GoodReads list on its browse page. I figure that’s one way to read NEW and different material (I hope to learn LOTS of NEW stuff!). Here’s the genre list.
AND lastly, miscellany #3. I learned something NEW recently. I showed my friend at work my photo from the Tetons and she taught me that these yellow flowers that were everywhere are called Mule Ears. She had been to Colorado that same weekend and noticed a lot of them there too! Here’s more from our trip to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I’m taking her word for it (so I hope she’s correct). It’ll be an easy name to remember (I hope).
That’s it for today’s NEW miscellaneous stuff. Have a great day and I hope you do or learn something NEW today!
Happy Tuesday! What?! Posting two days in a row? Amazing, haha!
Well, after updating my National Parks bucket list yesterday, I had to also update my 100 Waterfalls bucket list today. While at Grand Teton National Park, we hiked around Jenny Lake and up to this wonderful waterfall. It’s called Hidden Falls. We could’ve taken a boat across the lake and then up to these falls, but we opted to hike around the lake. It was beautiful and peaceful.
There’s something about bucket lists that make crossing off items so much fun! If I haven’t forgotten any, this is my 49th waterfall visit. 51 to go until I retire this particular bucket list.
It was fun to visit this NEW (to me) waterfall. Have a great day and I hope you learn or do something NEW today too!
Happy Monday! I have the day off work, so I’m finally dumping the photos off my camera. AND…I’m updating my National Parks Bucket List. We recently visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Grand Tetons National Park. Here are a couple of my favorite shots (Tetons above and Black Canyon of the Gunnison below). If I counted correctly, we have 45 more National Parks to visit! We’d better make a plan and get busy.
LIST OF US NATIONAL PARKS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Acadia National Park {done}
Arches National Park {done}
Badlands National Park
Big Bend National Park
Biscayne National Park
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park {done}
Bryce Canyon National Park {done}
Canyonlands National Park {done}
Capitol Reef National Park {done}
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Channel Islands National Park
Congaree National Park
Crater Lake National Park
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park
Denali National Park and Preserve
Dry Tortugas National Park
Everglades National Park
Gates of the Arctic National Park
Gateway Arch National Park
Glacier National Park
Glacier Bay National Park
Grand Canyon National Park {done}
Grand Teton National Park {done}
Great Basin National Park
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
Great Smoky Mountains National Park {done}
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Haleakala National Park
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park {done}
Hot Springs National Park
Indiana Dunes National Park
Isle Royale National Park
Joshua Tree National Park
Katmai National Park and Preserve
Kenai Fjords National Park
Kings Canyon National Park {done}
Kobuk Valley National Park
Lake Clark National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mesa Verde National Park {done}
Mount Rainier National Park
National Park of American Samoa
New River Gorge National Park
North Cascades National Park
Olympic National Park
Petrified Forest National Park
Pinnacles National Park
Redwood National Park {done}
Rocky Mountain National Park {done}
Saguaro National Park
Sequoia National Park {done}
Shenandoah National Park
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Virgin Islands National Park
Voyageurs National Park
White Sands National Park
Wind Cave National Park
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
Yellowstone National Park {done}
Yosemite National Park {done}
Zion National Park {done}
Have a great day! Do or learn something NEW today!
I’m a sucker for reflections, so I think this is the favorite of my shots from today’s photo walk. Reflection in life is important too. I like to reflect on my lifestyle, choices, and accomplishments from last year before l list out my goal for the upcoming year. Yes, I’ve made my 23 for 2023 list. I’m excited to progress, but I know I’ll mess up at times. I’ve learned that’s just how it is…year after year after year! I’m not going to let that get me down. I’m just going to keep on keeping on and try to improve each day. I loved getting out in the snow today. Here are some other shots:
Have a great day! I hope you do or learn something NEW!
UPDATE: Per Terri’s suggestion in the comments, I’m linking to Sunday Stills “White & Gray”. Go take a peek at the other entries.
Thanks to Cee, I became aware of the RDP (Ragtag Daily Prompt) photo challenge. Yesterday’s challenge was LIMIT, as in, The Sky’s the Limit. So, I had to go see if the shot I took on my phone as I was running errands yesterday turned out.
These contrails, or condensation trails, caught my attention. But the best thing is, I learned something NEW. There are LIMITS to when a jet will leave contrails and there are LIMITS to how long they’ll linger in the sky etc. If you are as curious as I was, you can read the BBC article “Why do aircraft leave contrails in the sky?”
Back in 2016, I posted this quote. Look at all those contrails!
Have a great day! I hope you do or learn something NEW!
Monday eh? No, I know it’s Tuesday. But I just can’t figure out where the entire day of Monday went, haha!
Here’s some of the miscellany from the last few weeks:
I’ll share a nice little didactic story I read recently. A family member was commenting on certain personality traits of some people in his life a few days before I read this, so I think that’s why I paid attention to this story.
The Parable of the Hedgehogs: In the winter, the hedgehogs were cold, so they gathered together to stay warm. But they kept poking each other with their quills. They decided to separate, and all went their own way. But then they got cold again. They came back of course. ‘Tis better to suffer the occasional pokes and pricks of others than live a lonely existence without the warmth and companionship of friends.
Miscellaneous photos of sea lions, seagulls, and pelicans from our December trip to San Diego. A local woman we chatted with said she’s never seen so many pelicans there before:
I thought this plant was so interesting. We have nothing like it where I live. Let me know if anyone knows the name of it!
And lastly, I learned some NEW Latin words: Nulla dies sine linea.
At the university where I work, we get a monthly newsletter-type email. This month it introduced me to this phrase, which inspired me to keep up on my 23 for 2023 list I made, and the many other NEW things or goals I want to do this year. I think I’ll make myself a “Don’t break the chain” chart with Nulla dies sine linea as the title.
That’s it for this week’s miscellany. Have a great day and go do or learn something NEW!
Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope 2023 will be a great year for everyone!
So, we did something NEW this year for the Christmas holiday. Since it’s kind of my pet peeve to give people “gifts” that they don’t need or even want, we decided we’d give the gift of an experience this year instead. We went to San Diego for our Christmas holiday this year. It was a really fun trip. This Bingo game was a hit (since my family is VERY competitive):
After dinner one night, we enjoyed the extreme lights on a house nearby:
Between activities at the resort where we stayed, we’d put a few puzzle pieces in our Christmas jigsaw puzzle:
We went to the beach, and we hiked through the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve:
The resort had a lot of activities. Some of us played golf, others played foot golf or frisbee golf. We played pickleball, horseshoes, worked out in the resort’s gym and went on bike rides. It was quite different than what we would have done at home in the cold and snow!
We loved the NEW experience.
Again, have a Happy New Year and best wishes for doing or learning something NEW!
On my to-do list today, since it’s my day off work, I wrote: “Go shooting” (as in go snap photos type of shooting). But the closest I came was to open my front door and take this pic of my neighbor’s yard with my phone. Because although this photo doesn’t really show it, white flakes are still coming down, and I’d rather hibernate by my fireplace today, haha!
So I’ve been listening to an audiobook while I worked on my “indoor to-do list”! I just finished “The Power of Fun”. My niece recently introduced this book to me when she posted about reading it and publicly wondered what it says about her since she’s reading the book instead of going out and actually having fun. But I’m sure she’ll put what she learned into practice, eventually. As I intend to do! One of the exercises in the book invited the reader to think back to times when they really had fun. The author pointed out that most of the time people have the most fun when they’re with other people. And as I thought of my fun times, I guess I tend to agree. The times when I laugh so hard I get a side ache is definitely not when I’m alone. Lesson learned. Although I typically have fun doing my solitary hobbies, it’s not quite the same as when I’m having fun with other people.
And here’s what else I’ve read this week (actually listened to…mostly on my commutes at 2-times the normal narration speed).
The year is almost over. My Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge was to read 35 books this year. Well, thanks to audiobooks (at double-speed) I’ve “read” 84. Killed that challenge, haha! Some of my favorites this year were:
52 Ways to Walk by Annabel Streets
Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Kite Runner by Khaded Hosseini
The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
My Name is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
I love a good book recommendation, so let me know what I should add to my to-read list for next year! Have a great day! Stay warm if you have weather like us, and do or learn something NEW!
Happy Tuesday! Well, it’s early December and my NEW Christmas PJs project is finished! Woohoo!!! I haven’t done Christmas PJs for a few years, but I thought I’d be ambitious, oh, maybe every 3-4 years…or maybe every 5-6 years, haha!
Here’s a text from my (adult) son in 2019:
I hope he and everyone else enjoys their NEW PJs this year, even though they aren’t onesies!
Oh, and since last December I wasn’t really in the blogging mode, I’ll share my NEW (now a year old) Christmas tree decorations. My good friend went with me to pick out the decorations. She’s THE BEST! I’m loving it…still. :o)
Explore Newness 