Sharon's Week 1: Out With The Old, In With The New

It's a new year and a new project.  This year I have company on the journey and I am very excited about that.  We have a list of six subjects and a wild card for each week and I am looking forward to again seeing the differences in what we come up with (even though everyone who is participating is either an occupational therapist, a former occupational therapist or a speech-language pathologist - you'd think we might be a bit more similar).

I know it has only been a week but so far I am happy with the change in plans from the weekly to the daily challenges.  I found that I couldn't be quite as lazy as I was particularly during the past year.  I had to think of ideas ahead of time and make an effort to capture them.  Here's to a newly energized creative spark.

Without further ado, here is my first week of 2017 project 365:

change

Now you might wonder how this photograph in any way signifies "change."  Let me explain.  We have had grey skies and snow every day for forever and on Friday, the sun came out.  I made good use of the beautiful day and went snowshoeing at Hiawatha.  The sky was so blue I kept pointing my camera upwards and likely missed a whole lot of beauty right in front of me.

bundled up

Wow, you might say, week one and already a selfie!  I know, right (that's for you, Dad).  I am camera shy but my attempts to get out in the weather with someone else were unsuccessful so I was left with a photo of me.  This was at the beginning of the epic snowshoe so my face is only a little bit red.  Did I mention that despite the sun, the temperature was -16 plus some windchill?

starts with K

This might be considered a little cheat-y.  Hiawatha Highlands, where we hike, bike, ski and snowshoe  (and swat mosquitoes in May and June and run from bears in September) is also known as (or used to be known as) Kinsmen Park.  The cheat part is because I am not entirely sure if the Kinsmen still have any involvement in the park.  Anyway, I say that this photo was taken at Kinsmen Park.

nuts

Yesterday I also spent some time at Whitefish Island.  Luckily I brought birdseed with me because those poor chickadees were hungry.  I guess that nobody ventured out during the storm that raged through the two previous days.  I think that this wild birdseed mix is mostly seeds but I am pretty sure that there are also nuts in there.  If not, oh well.

relaxation

Mom, this is why I couldn't answer your call this afternoon.  I could turn my head and see the phone but I couldn't reach it.  You wouldn't have me disturb your grandcats, would you?

J

I love looking for letters but J was eluding me all week.  When I was snowshoeing yesterday (again on an unfamiliar trail and again on which I had to eat snow to slake my thirst) I took a wrong turn.  It was okay to start because I was going downhill.  After about ten minutes of downhill, I realized I was going the wrong way and I had to turn around.  That ten minutes down took about twenty to get back up.  During one of my huffing and puffing breaks, this J jumped out at me.  You can see that I had to flip the photo upside down but I thought it was fate that I found it so here it is.

wild card

Speaking of wild, these are wild turkeys that live not too far from my parents' and sister's house.  On Monday morning my dad came back from a bike ride (because he lives in Windsor now and apparently you can ride a bike in January in Windsor!) and told us he had seen the turkeys.  So out we headed with the camera.  Since we had just had turkey dinner the day before, we figured these were the ones who had gotten away.

That's it for me for this week.  Happy Saturday night everyone.