Silhouette Beauty

Trees in winter have a unique beauty as they contrast with the bright gray skies. I was actually at the local zoo today to take a look at the baby elephant, but as cute as she was, it was this tree that caught my eye. Without leaves, the lines and curves of the branches are so interesting.

Wednesday's Word-Compassion

Several wonderful bloggers suggest the idea of choosing a special word for each new year. The idea is that the word is one that will be special to you and provide opportunities for meaningful meditation throughout the year. I love that idea! The problem for me was that I could not settle on just one word! I love words in general and I enjoy pondering their meanings. I decided that I would like to choose a word each week for this year...and I will post it on Wednesdays......hence Wednesday's Word! This week I chose Compassion. I love the definitions and some of the quotes I read when researching this word. Click here to go to the flckr group page for Wednesday's Word and share your special word or words. I would love to hear from you!

Merry Christmas.....and a Freebie

Just a quick Merry Christmas message to all who visit here! I am excited to celebrate the holidays with family and friends over the next couple of weeks. We hope to be able to hug and share at least a little time with each of our special family members. I am so thankful for the blessings that each one brings to our ever expanding tribe!
I have big plans in store for this blog site too! Today, if you look at the menu bar above, you will see a couple of new tabs that I added yesterday. One for a shop page where you can see the beginnings of my offerings for sale and one for a freebie page where I will offer various goodies for you to enjoy free of charge. The first freebie is a computer desktop calendar that is created so that you can add your own pictures to it for the month of January. I am working on a video to demonstrate how to add the pictures using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop and will add a link to it soon for those of you who are unfamiliar with how to easily create your calendar. The shop tab will take you to a page that explains my new shop and hopefully will have many more items added to it soon also!
For now, enjoy......Here is a glimpse of the desktop calendar with my pictures added....Click on the freebie tab above to download the template and add your choice of photos!

Most Memorable Christmas

The births of each of our children and grandchildren has been special and very memorable.The very first one was born just three weeks before Christmas in 1978. The wonder and amazement I felt when looking at this new little guy is something I will never forget. Of course those feelings alternated with the feelings of panic and anxiety! Being a parent has been the hardest thing I have done in my life, and yet also the most rewarding. Happy birthday (a few days late) to Jon!

Birds of Summer 2012

This is my Five on Friday post.....on Saturday! I started getting this ready yesterday, and my husband came home and presented me with a very cool Kindle Fire HD for my birthday. Can you say distraction? So this post didn't get finished til this morning but I had fun playing with my new toy!
As I was doing some more keywording of my photos this week, I noticed how often I take bird pictures. I love the variety of birds (like I enjoy the variety in mushrooms)! They are so unique and interesting.
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I am sure there will be lots of treasures there to see!

Mushroom Fun

I am fascinated by mushrooms! They come in so many colors, shapes and sizes and textures. I also like the fact that the more you watch for them, the more you see. It is like a treasure hunt on the forest floor. I began noticing mushrooms while hiking with my husband. When I get tired while on one of our adventures, I find something to stop and take a picture of! One day, I was having trouble finding something to use as an excuse to stop, when I started seeing all kinds of different fungi poking up. The more I looked, the more I found! I think my husband began to wonder if we would ever finish that hike! Since then, I have made a point to look for new and interesting varieties. I also learned that they pop out of the ground like crazy in the fall right after the rains begin. I now have a pretty large collection of pictures. My dad knows about my obsession, so when the ones above appeared in his yard last week, he called me to come and bring my camera.

My 5 on Friday

One of my current projects has been to finally organize and keyword my thousands of photos on my hard drive. I am using Lightroom and find the process enjoyable as long as I spend a limited amount of time each session working on it. I have loved looking back through pictures taken several years ago and remembering how much I enjoyed each month. When I wanted to participate in Kim Klassen's 5 on Friday, I knew just the plan for me! I would choose my favorite five photos that I found in my archives during the previous week and make a quick scrapbook layout of them. The hard part, of course was limiting myself to just five!
These pictures are from 2006 when our oldest granddaughter was turning one year old. She lived on the other side of the continent from us at the time, so I remember how much I treasured the pictures during the times when we didn't see her very often. She has since moved within a few miles of our house and I am fortunate to see her several times each week, but the memories of these early days, is still very special.
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