Friday, April 24, 2015

A Friday Photo and a Shadowy View



Today's Friday photo was taken in June 2013 on a nature walk that we took here in Wiltshire. It was a gloriously beautiful day. Everything was green and lively. You may ask, if it was so green and beautiful then why is this a black and white photo. Hee hee :-)  Well, if you've visited me here before for a while, you probably know that I love black and white photography. I love a vibrant color-filled photo too, especially when nature is really showing off in all its splendor, but I also love the shadows and light in black and white photos too.

I took some colorful photos that day too and over time I'll share some of them also :-)

I loved taking that walk. I'm gonna have to visit there again soon. I can't believe it's been almost two years since that day. A revisit is long overdue!

Have a great weekend! :-)

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Monday, April 20, 2015

Beautiful Weeds


Happy Monday!

These are some of the dandelions that are taking over a corner of the backyard currently. I know that they're a weed, but I can't bring myself to cut them down. They're so beautiful!!! The yellow color is so vibrant.

Seeing them takes me back to being a little girl and sitting in the grass with a few dandelions dotted here and there. I think we'll enjoy them for a little longer since they're over to the side and out of the way. Having that sunny yellow around makes me smile!

Have a wonderful day and week! :-)

Friday, April 17, 2015

A Friday Photo and Less Raggedy Nails

Today's Friday photo is a very simple, day-in-my-life one. This one isn't my usual post about somewhere picturesque that I've visited around Wiltshire. Nope. Today is something that I found this week at a store here in Wiltshire and now it's in my Wiltshire house ;-)

As you can see my photo features a pack of emery boards. Nothing fancy. Lol. But these made me very happy this week for a few reasons:

#1 - There are 36 of them so I won't be buying emery boards for like a decade or something (Hee hee)

#2 - They were dirt cheap....only 99 pence in British pounds, which is about $1.49 in US dollars.
 I LOVE A BARGAIN!!!

#3 - They actually work so it's not a case of buying something inexpensive and then finding out that they're useless. (I'm way too excited. Lol.)

#4 - They come in pretty colors. I'm a creative type, so lots of color makes me happy and a bonus is that there are BLUE ONES! If you've visited me before you'll know that I LOVE blue! If you'd like to read a bit about my number one color go here and here.

#5 - This is the best part.....drum roll please.....I can have less raggedy fingernails. LOL! I need to do better and now I have no excuse ;-)

So that's just a little peek into a highlight of my week. As I've said before, I'm easily amused. Simple pleasures and all that :-)

I hope you have a great weekend! Hopefully the weather stays nice here so that I can get outside and walk. I'll probably work on my book a bit too. What will you be doing this weekend?

Whatever you do, I hope that it's fun!

P.S. If you'd like to see a few of my past Friday photos you can see some of them here and here and here and here.

Happy Weekend!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

A Friday Photo on a Tuesday


Sorry for the delay in getting back here. I've been tied up with my book a bit. Thanks for coming back to visit.

Since I missed my Friday photo, here's a Friday photo on Tuesday ;-)

This is a photo taken back in June 2012. It's a tiny flower that I saw in the grass when we were out for a walk one Saturday. The original photo came out blurred so I played around with it and made it look like this, just for fun one day. I don't know what I was doing. Lol. It's still blurry, but I had fun. Here's my played-around-with-photo :-) If you've been here before, you know how I am.

I hope you have a great Tuesday! I'll be back in a couple of days.

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Easter Weekend

Today is my first day back in the regular day saddle. We had an extra day off yesterday since Easter Monday is observed here. We had a really good Easter weekend. It all started on last Thursday. My other half took off half of the day to take me to an appointment and then we decided to go into town to pick up a few things for Easter dinner, etc. Well, Easter weekend traffic started early. It's always kinda annoying to get stuck in traffic, but having a nice view made it not so bad. I took this photo out the car window. Don't worry, I wasn't driving ;-) Interestingly, there was hardly any traffic in the other direction so that's why the road on that side looks deserted...because it almost was. Lol.



On Good Friday, we went to visit a garden center out in Cirencester, which is in the Cotswolds. I love going out there. The garden center has a little bit of everything, including: gifts, food, clothes, games, and of course plants. It's one of my favorite places to visit. Also, the drive to and from is beautiful. We'll sometimes take the scenic route home as we veer off the path a bit. As we were driving along, for a moment there was a lull in oncoming cars so I snapped this quick photo. It was a damp day and you can see a little bit of a smudge on the left side of the windshield. It can get kind of muddy driving out in the countryside sometimes, so this is just a reminder of nature licking the windshield ;-)

There's lots of beautiful countryside out there, so it's always a treat to take a moment to appreciate it.

I hope that your weekend was great too!

Friday, April 03, 2015

Blue Plates and Memories

Hello again :-)

In my previous post, I blogged about my love of blue. If you'd like to take a look, it can be found here. In my post I talked about how I'm seemingly drawn to things that are blue and often it's not a conscious thing.

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I occupied myself with the thoughts running through my mind. All of a sudden I thought of something that I left out of my blue post. That's the beauty of blogging though...a new day is an opportunity to write a new post ;-)

Here's my other favorite blue thing that I forgot...my pretty blue plates. When I bought them a while back, the label on the back called them Chateau Blue. They're sort of Wedgwood-esque....very sort of, but I like them. Maybe one day I'll have the real thing, but if not these will definitely do :-)
 


I love that the plates have a vintage look to them and they cost very little. I got them at an outlet store. You know I love a bargain!

These plates remind me of back home. Even though these plates don't look exactly like the dishes that I remember from my growing up years, they take me back to that time anyway. They remind me of my parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins all sitting around having Sunday dinner. They remind me of this post that I wrote a few years ago now, about going back home and finding some vintage glasses. You can read that post here.

With Easter coming up this weekend I'm very reminded of those Sunday dinners, especially the ones on Easter Sunday. Everyone got together and we were all dressed nicely for lunch/dinner after church. After we'd finished eating, we'd go outside and sit on the big front porch and enjoy the warm breeze as the conversation went back and forth. I was little, so I didn't say much. I would just sit and listen to the grown-ups talk. It was comforting and lovely. The dogwoods and spirea would be in full bloom in the yard and often I'd go out and make a tiny bouquet to bring back to my mom or my aunts. Or sometimes I'd just sit on the steps and make little flower wreaths totally lost in my own thoughts with the grown-ups talking in the background. It was comforting to have that tradition in my life as a child. Those memories are what ground a great part of my identity to this day :-)

So these plates give me two special feelings. They give me my lovely dose of blue...my favorite color and they also open up the memory place in my mind. Not bad for some simple little blue plates.

However you're spending this Easter weekend, I hope that it's wonderful :-)

*My usual Friday Photo post will be back next Friday.