Donna's Week 8 - Too Much of a Good Thing

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me knows that, for the most part, I like people.  Especially smart people and to me, smart people include pretty much anyone who knows something I don't already know or in some cases something I have already forgotten!  One of the worst things about being off work for 16 months was that I missed learning new things from my peeps!  So, I was super excited this week to go to the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Convention.  Basically, a place where all my awesome peeps gather together.  I planned to stay in a hotel room with my friend, attend the sessions and schmooze with everyone both nights.  Well to make a long story short, I think I met and interacted with more people on the first evening and day, than I did the entire time I was off work.  I was so wiped, that I had to go to bed and slept for 12 hours between day 1 and 2 of the conference and even though I attended all of day 2's sessions, they are kind of a blur!  No I am not old and no I did not drink, when you come back after a sick leave there is a reason they tell you to take it slow.  

A Dozen

I can think of a dozen reasons why I would not climb the Devil's Tower in Wyoming!

Macro

These were some lovely flowers from Mexico in 2015

Lazy

These iguana's are everywhere in Mexico and they are pretty Lazy.  Even when they are moving, they look like they are sleeping.

P

This brown pelican was so funny.  He was on a post not far from my lounge chair, watching me, watching him.  He would fly out and dive for fish, then fly back to his post, swallow and dry off in the breeze.  

Quirky

I have to give credit to Rob for this one.  He pointed out the irony of this lovely lady trying to take the same shot as the guy from Germany, who was actually being paid to take pictures of bison.  Now I will admit, that I will sometimes try to see what others are seeing, when they take their pictures.  It is kind of like when you are at the grocery check out and you look in other peoples cart to see what they are buying.  Only far less creepy, I am sure!  I also have to admit, that when I took the shot, I was doing it just to please Rob at the time, thinking to myself, what am I ever going to do with a shot this quirky.  

Smoke

We were told when we were in Yellowstone, this past summer, that at any point in time during the summer there is a fire in the park somewhere.  In this picture the fire was off to our west and made for this really awesome sunset shot.  And now come to think of it, I made Rob pull the car over to take the shot, with just the right foreground I wanted, and by the time we left there was a whole line of cars stopped taking the same shot!  Quirky eh!

Wild Card

This is from my window at the Embassy Suites in Niagara Falls this week.  Wednesday morning started really misty and hazy and made for this different perspective shot of the falls.

Have a great week!

Sharon's Week 8: Skating on Thin Ice

I have spent the day avoiding work.  Instead I got groceries, made some yummy honey sesame chicken in the crock pot, drank tea and read...a lot.  Maybe I had a little nap in there too.  The bottom line is, I didn't work.  It really is too bad that those reports won't write themselves.  

I have been thinking over the last few days about my education.  The five cent description of what an occupational therapist does is to help people perform their activities of daily living considering what barriers they might encounter.  That can mean helping someone figure out how to get in and out of the tub following hip surgery, manage their time and household finances following a recent psychiatric hospitalization, avoid repetitive strain injuries on the job or a million other things.  If there is something that a person does during the day, there is likely an occupational therapist somewhere who can help problem-solve when something occurs to limit that activity.  What I have been thinking about in particular is if, after working with kids the past 16  years, I still have the skill to solve the barriers that will present themselves to the one-handed me following the surgery.  How will I get the button on my jeans fastened?  Will I be able to open my tea canisters?  Will Levi cut up my meat for me?  Most of all, will I be able to handle my camera???  Since I expect my hand to be elevated in a sling for less than a week, I am not going out and buying any assistive devices.  My solution might be to stay in my jammies, buy teabags and eat yogurt.  Hermione might have to give way to my point-and-shoot camera temporarily.  Well, huh, I guess I will be able to figure it out.

On to the photos...

a dozen

A dozen eggs, a dozen donuts, a dozen roses.  That's what I think of when I think of dozen.  I'm sure I could have put together twelve of anything and photographed them but I went with the obvious.  These are mini roses I picked up at the grocery store today.

macro

On Family Day, Levi and I headed over to Whitefish Point in Michigan to see if there were any ice caves this year.  We brought his friend Christopher with us and since Chris is a birder, he brought his binoculars.  While Levi was trying to break some ice that appeared breakable (it wasn't) and Christopher was scanning the skies for birds (there were none), I wandered around looking for things to photograph.  I found this bit of melted ice at the edge of a cave and got out my macro lens.  I see a little cat reaching up to play with a dinosaur that is getting ready to eat something.

lazy

After we left Whitefish Point, we headed to a little place called Rudyard where snowy owls are known to hang out.  I wasn't hopeful since I have been there several times and have never seen one.  A few years ago, snowy owls were quite abundant in the Sault and everyone and their dog was spotting them but not me.  So we headed there with not much hope but wait!  We were driving slowly down this country road scanning the tops of barns and hydro poles when I spotted something brighter white than the snow in a field to my left.  I reversed and looked again and it was...it was a snowy owl!  I think he looks lazy with his half open eyes.   He (Christopher, the birder says it's a he) eventually flew off but even that looked lazy.

P

This is one handle of a pair of self-opening scissors I have for work. 

quirky

I mentioned earlier that Levi was trying to break some ice at Whitefish Point.  That activity eventually morphed into a game of hockey-golf on ice.  Levi and Christopher used driftwood to get a stone through some barriers to another stone .  It was much more difficult than it sounds and I got quite a kick out of watching their attempts.

smoke

I know I have done this before but it's different every time so I like to do it again.  Well, I did like it.  Today, the smoke would not cooperate...it didn't rise to where my camera was focused.  For some reason, the smoke was wafting sideways and despite my attempts to redirect it, it kept going back.  Eventually I moved the camera (you would think I would have moved it sooner but I guess I am stubborn).  I like the repetitive curls in this shot.

wild card

This makes me think of the moon.  It is actually the frozen beach at Whitefish Point.

And this is a longer view of the shoreline.  For an idea of the size here, look for the tiny person at the very left edge of the photo, near the top of the icy part.

Here's hoping I get motivated to work tomorrow.  Happy weekend everyone.

Pam's Week 6: Is it Too Late Now to Say Sorry?

I apologize for the Justin Bieber lyrics for the blog post title but I am nearly 3 weeks behind now on this project....Life, and my computer, are just making it difficult for me to keep up!  Things have been rather hectic lately and then we add in a computer that may or may not allow us to use the internet, depending on the day.   And once you're behind, it just seems so daunting to try to catch up!  But catch up I will, dang it.  I am determined!

I can't even remember what this week actually looked like in my life....Lucky for you, that will mean no babbling!  Onto the photos....

A Heart

We should give credit to google images again for this one, rather for the inspiration for this one....

Not sure how this one was going to work out, I also finagled my kids into helping make hearts into the blue sky...

Kids

You think this would be an easy one since I have 2 of them and all but it was a little more challenging than I hoped.  I also hoped to be able to snap a discreet yet gorgeous photo of someone else's kids but it somehow made me feel like a creep so couldn't do it...

This isn't a particularly creative photo but it's of a pretty great group of kids.  My kids had a swim meet this past weekend in Lansing, Michigan and this is their swim team.  Everyone did really well and the team actually got 2nd place overall!

V

This is perhaps the lamest photo of the week....I took it of our crazy tree trunk in our front yard.

Pink

This may have been the easiest photo as our house has an abundance of pink.  It just happens to be Danica's favourite colour.

Fun

Since Monday was Family Day, when we checked out of the hotel in Lansing, we headed over the Frankenmuth for a night.  Another swim team family who happen to be friends of ours from before joined us.  We had loads of fun.  They're one of those families we don't hang out with often but whenever we do, we decided that it should be a more regular occurrence.  Our kids get along beautifully and we adults seem to enjoy each other's company too.  And they may or may not enjoy Robert's famous mojitos....

Love

A boy and his dog....

Wildcard

I didn't really feel I could reference Robert's famous mojitos and not include photos of the process.

And now I'm only one and a half weeks behind.....

Donna's Week 7 - A Screen Writer is Born - Not!

Act 1

Well, I finally got paid this week.  I started my graduated return to work on November 29, 2016 and before you get too excited, the money didn't come from my job and the Pheonix pay system, it came from the insurance company. 

Insert dramatic pause here!  

So, Pheonix is now referred to as an actual person upon which blame can be squarely and appropriately placed, because obviously, there is no fault held by the people who actually run or are responsible for the system.  

Insert more dramatic pause here and include fascinating psychedelic sci-fi music!  

Yep, this is the serious plot twist! In order for the insurance company to pay me, Pheonix had to send them my graduated return to work hours, they had to calculate their proportion of what to pay me and issue the payment.  Fascinating, an insurance company that can do all that faster than my pay centre! 

The End!  

Pre-credit content: 

To date there have been no payments issued by Pheonix to Donna.

The race is on to see if anyone will ever send an actual statement indicating how the payments were calculated.  

Okay, so none of that had anything to do with this weeks photo topics, which I find are getting harder and harder each week.  Here you go, enjoy and have a great week!

4

Well I think this first one is self-explanatory.

Help

I had no idea for this one, so was just browsing through pics, when I noticed this one.  A little bit of cropping et voila! Nothing says HELP more than a wide-eyed baby elephant trying to swim.

Drawing

This week was hard, who makes up these topics!  So here goes!  Ready for it!

I was drawing on all my strength not to throw up listening to this guy eat his breakfast meat!

The african lion safari has a Wake Up the Wild early morning tour.  You ride in a two different safari vehicles.  This one had us in the cage instead of the animals.  We saw the lions all run into their enclosure from their overnight pens as they searched out their morning food.  The second vehicle was more of an open jeep.  We got to feed giraffes and off-roaded with the rhino's.

Fence

Next to otters, cheetah's are my favourite animal. Even though we were in the caged-in Jeep, I was pretty glad to see that there was still a fence between this beauty and us.  The african lion safari has one of the most successful captive breeding programs for cheetah's in North America.

Starts with "A"

This is an Agouti.  They run semi-wild on the resort that we usually visit in the Mayan Riviera.  They are rodents.  Before you go eeewe, think more similar to capybara's than rats!  Agouti's are found throughout the Amazon rain-forest and are required for Brazil nut trees to reproduce.  They chew open the big multi-nut seed pods and then, like chipmunks in provincial parks, run away with some of the Brazil nuts and cache/plant them all over the rain-forest floor.

Funny

This picture is funny for a few reasons.  One, it almost looks like a piliated woodpecker, that I have yet to see in the wild, despite several attempts at following them through the trees and Sharon telling me they are everywhere in the Sault.  She even took a pic of one on her neighbours lawn, and texted it to me, while I was in Parry Sound and on my way!  The second reason this picture is funny, well, just look at him, he has such a funny face! This great Mexican cousin of the piliated woodpecker!!!  

Wild Card

One of my best chick-a-dee shots!  Have a great week!

Sharon's Week 7: Have Work, Will Travel

What an awesome day it has been!  The temperature rose to eight degrees above zero and it was sunny...blue skies popping sunny, not just plain ordinary sunny.  I am very glad that I had already decided I was doing no work today.  The million pending reports can pend a little bit longer.  I enjoyed some time at Whitefish Island (as you will see) and I headed up to Sawpit Bay to see if there are ice caves this year (as you will also see) and I even had time for a nap (nope, you're not going to see that).  Can't get much better than a day like that.  Well, I guess if Levi had agreed to join me, that would have been better but it was pure awesomeness anyway.

It was a much needed happy day after a very long week in Timmins.  I headed up there for work (long story which I won't bore you with) last Sunday in heavy snow which cancelled and delayed flights and resulted in a long day of travel.  That was followed by five days assessing kids whose referrals were two and three years old in schools I am not familiar with (and whose addresses in Google Maps were not altogether accurate) addressing issues other than those I see during my regular work.  On the positive side, I stayed with friends and we did get to spend some relaxing time together enjoying some delicious wines, playing cards and watching their ridiculously gigantic television.  Just before I came home I had a couple of hours before I needed to be at the airport so I headed for a conservation area which turned out to be so beautiful and it was the perfect opportunity to take out Hermione (as, once again, you will see).

About the week's photos, they were HARD!  I had almost no ideas for most of the week even though I thought of them all the time.  I really hope next week is easier.

wild card

I am putting this first because I love, love love all of these birds!  The eagle was spotted at Whitefish Island this morning.

The rest of these birds were at Hersey Lake Conservation Area in Timmins.  A note about Hersey Lake...apparently it is pronounced Hershey Lake...sort of like we say Pointe Aux Par for Pointe Aux Pins here in the Sault.  Weird.  After I had a little walk and I was driving out of the park, I noticed two large platforms and a bunch of birds flying around.  I stopped and got out of the rental vehicle to check it out.  I immediately headed back to the vehicle to get the long lens...so many birds!  Donna, there was a pileated woodpecker - I saw him fly, heard him peck and heard him sing - but he didn't come within photo range.

4

I found this shadow on the snow near where I was stalking the eagle this morning.

help

The McIntyre Mine is what I picture when I think of Timmins.  It graces much of the literature about the city and it figures prominently in Timmins photography.  I was in Timmins helping out.

drawing

I saw this on the rocks at Sawpit Bay this afternoon.  It says, "I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart."  I was surprised this week by my reaction to the death of Stuart McLean.  Maybe the death of this much admired Canadian icon who I have been listening to for many years just renewed my grief about John's sudden death but there have been several days with tears and sadness and I appreciated the sentiment in this pretty little piece of graffiti.

a fence

I have been kicking myself for months for missing out on a unique photographic opportunity that involves a fence.  There was a house just this side of Thessalon that had old bicycles lined up along the front of the property, forming a fence.  I have always wanted to stop and photograph it but I always made excuses...there was a transport behind me, I was running late, the light was bad, etcetera.  Well, I missed my chance.  Those folks have moved and they took their fence with them.  As I drove around today looking for something interesting, it became evident that our overabundance of snow has covered many fences.  This photo is not interesting but I like the three layers of fence and the pink evening sky.  The fences house a herd of bison.

starts with A

Did I mention my many, many hours in the Porter airport last Sunday?  Did I mention the delay was due to snow?  At the time I took this photo, planes were grounded.  See all the huge snowflakes?  Here are some airplanes that start with A (but don't fly).

funny

I had a really hard time with this.  I ended up choosing this photo taken at Hersey Lake.  It shows the funny trees that I like so much.  Years ago when I visited my friend Fiona in Inuvik, I was taken with these trees...I think they are black spruce.  The way they are skinny all the way up then have a tuft of needles right at the top amuses me.  They were all over the arctic and they are all around Timmins.  We have some here but not in the same abundance.

Here is what they look like from the road...

And here is a photo of the ice at Sawpit Bay today.  

Happy long weekend everyone!

Donna's Week 6 - Hearts for Everyone and Finally - Some Snow.

Hello and welcome to week 6.  There is obviously a Valentine's Day theme to this weeks photo topics.  Rob and Blake and I are not big ones for holiday and birthday traditions, so I will admit that this one usually goes by unnoticed.  Saying that, I do love me some cinnamon hearts!  Crazy addictive little bastards.  

On a different note, we failed at puppy training this week.  I did not even know that was possible.  We have been taking Shadow to private classes with Celine in Niagara on the Lake.  We showed up for our third week of training with our collective tails between our legs because we didn't practice much last week.  So far, US - the trainees, have learned SIT, STAY, SLEEP, HEEL and OFF.  So far, Shadow has only learned SIT and STAY - and that one only works through 2 ball tosses.  By the time you throw the third ball Shadow just looks at you and says this is "BS" and runs after the ball.  Apparently, without enough practice, we are not ready to move onto the next training steps, so we were sent home to practice.  My wild card pic is a great one of Shadow. She is so cute and loves the snow.

Enjoy!  

Kids

Trying to stay with the Valentine pink theme, here is a picture of Blake and Levi.  Can you tell that the only pictures currently on my new computer are from 2015, 16 and 17.  I was in the Soo a lot over that time. 

V

This humpback was playing around us in the Juan de Fuca Straight, just south of Victoria, BC.  The tail makes a perfect "V"

Fun

This is Blake using a pneumatic drill to remove rock from some diplodocus bone fossils pulled from our dig site.  This was part of our dig for a day experience at the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre, this summer.  We all had so much fun.

 Love

I love my son, I love my husband and I love my family.  I love my puppy, I love my house and I love my friends.  I love my camera, I love chocolate and I love Sea Otters!!!  Especially when they are flashing you their best toothy grin.

Pink

I am 5th generation Adams, from Smithville.  My great, great grandfather was one of the founders of Smithville.  They owned land on the south side of twenty creek, across from my mom's house and across the swinging bridge.  They were farmers and they grew gladiolas.  These flowers have always held a special place in my heritage. 

 Heart

I couldn't find a good heart picture, so I asked Rob to buy some cinnamon hearts.  I used my scrapbook double sided tape to glue the hearts to a white sheet of paper and then took a picture by the window in natural light.  Can you tell which picture is the original jpg processing?  To the rest I applied different Lightroom 5 filter presets. There is one for everyone you love.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Wild Card

No wonder she is not trained yet.  Who could say no to her?  And look, we finally got some snow.