Pam's Week 12: Ice Ice Baby....

Oh, what a week...The weather wasn't as nice as promised by the weather man.  The +9 Celsius I was promised for Brantford on Friday and Saturday was only about 2, if that.  The sunny Sunday turned into freezing rain on our drive home from Sudbury.  I visited 5 different McDonald's in 4 different cities and NONE of them had Shamrock Shakes (and I actually visited the one in town before St. Patrick's Day even and nada).  The denim capris I have been eyeing up were in stock in my size in Brantford but they looked better on the hanger (I guess the upside is that I saved myself a lot of money...).  I arrived home to a hubby with the stomache flu and strep throat (a nasty combo, if you ask me).

On the positive side - I only worked 2.5 days.  My flight to Toronto was pleasant (even if the incoming flight was "tardy").  I got to spend some time with my brother and his pretty fantastic fiance and her cousin too.  I got to eat some yummy Vietnamese food (one of the ethnicities lacking in Sault Ste. Marie fare).  My dad's surgery was a success and he is healing well and in great spirits.  We had a good drive home in spite of the freezing rain.

Now a word of warning before I get to the photos - none of them, with the exception of ZigZag were particularly well thought out or executed.  I was more in "just take a picture and call it a day" mode this week.  Please accept my apologies....

ZigZag

Now I usually have Pinterest or my good friend, Google, to thank for the good ideas I come up with.  For this picture, though, I have Facebook ads to credit, Crayola specifically.

Oh, is it bad that I'm crediting Crayola for the idea when I used CraZArt crayons?  Oopsie....

A Beginning

My initial thought was to take a photo of a newly budding plant for the "beginning of spring".  While at my Aunt and Uncle's on our way home this past weekend, however, my cousin came with her youngest and we decided that the "beginning of life" was more exciting.  He's about 10 months old now but compared to the rest of us, he's just beginning.

Starts with Q

If I didn't know better, I would have thought Sharon purposely put this photo this week, knowing that I would be spending time at my brother's house.  Why, you ask?  Well, my brother has an English bulldog named Q-tip.  You see, as a little puppy, he was pure white with this orangish spot above his eye that reminded my brother of earwax on a Q-tip.  His name is usually shortened to Q, which he seems to enjoy.  I'm not sure how he felt about me calling him Riya for a few days though...  Unfortunately, he wouldn't be overly cooperative for a photo.

Strong

I decided that Mother Nature is stronger than all of us.  Her snowstorms bury us for days  (well, maybe not us northerners but they certainly bring life in the south or in the US to a standstill).  Her windstorms bring down trees and power lines.  Her rainstorms bring floods.  And then when she gets really angry, she throws hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis at us.  On Sunday, it was freezing rain that delayed our departure from Sudbury as we weren't sure how to get ourselves and our belongings from my Aunt and Uncle's house into the car parked on a hill on their driveway, let alone bust through the sheet of ice covering the car to get into it if we made it that far without a major break.  On the way home, I really wanted a photo of one of the speed limit signs or exit signs with the icicles hanging down.  Unfortunately, I wanted to get home in one piece more.  As a result, my photo is a rather pathetic attempt at capturing the ice on my neighbour's tree.

Joy

We had a lot of joy in our lives this past week, the biggest joy being the success of my father's surgery.  Of course, my mother's name is "Joyce" so she's another joy we are happy to have in our lives.  This is a photo of my parents at my brother's house after my Dad was discharged.

A Bunch

I considered taking a photo of the bunch of boxes I'd heard rumours were still in Chris and Renee's basement but I think Renee was possible horrified at the thought.  You see, they bought a house together and moved in at the end of August.  The problem is that they both are "collectors" and both had houses of their own that housed their "collections".  Now, they have had to bring their collections together and find places for all of it or decide what to get rid of.  Apparently Renee's cousin and another friend had planned on cleaning up and organizing the basement while Chris and Renee were on vacation if the Packers were going to the Superbowl.  Unfortunately, that did not come to pass so the boxes remained.  Luckily they cleaned out the boxes in my room before I arrived!  It was a super comfy bed even if all I could do was see a bunch of crystal penises hanging above me after they told me I was in the room with the penis light.

Instead of the boxes, I decided to take a photo of Liam, my cousin's little guy, playing with a bunch of blocks.  This photo was Duncan's favourite.

Wildcard

I considered actually taking a picture of a wild card while we played cards on Saturday night but since the wild card changed every hand in 2500, it was difficult to do.  Instead, I thought I'd include a photo of my dad in St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton.  My mom asked me to take a photo of him so I did.

He still looks a little dazed from either the anesthetic or the pain meds or combination of both but we were happy to see him smiling.

And that's it for this week.  I have one idea for this upcoming week so let's see if I can come up with more ideas and execute them too!  The sun is shining and the snow is melting, though, so I'm feeling inspired!

Week 12: What Does The Fox Say?

I can't believe that March is already coming to an end.  There certainly are signs of spring but there is still so much snow!  It's ugly and no fun to play in so I just want it to go away.  That being said, this afternoon I headed up the highway looking for my last photo for the week and I ended up playing on the ice on the shore of Lake Superior.  It was stunning how much ice is still there and I made myself a note about where to find my new favourite ice cave spot next winter.  I'd like to explore more when I'm not afraid of falling into a lightly covered crevasse or being caught in a calving chunk of ice.

There's a wide variety of topics again this week so let's begin...

wild card

I'm starting here because this photo is the reason for the blog title this week (the song has been in my head all week).  When I was walking at Whitefish Island last Sunday, I was startled by a chickadee when he made a loud piercing call right next to me.  I was rather insulted that he felt he needed to warn the other birds of my presence.  Obviously he was new to the area and did not know that I belong there.  Nevertheless I continued on my way.  As I stepped off the other end of the bridge, I saw this fox.  I realized then that the bird was worried for my safety and he was warning me not to go over there.  How sweet!  Luckily my camera was ready.  About five seconds after this shot, the fox jumped into the shrubbery, nabbed a squirrel and ran away.  I was sad for the squirrel but happy for my luck.

zigzag

When I wanted to get started with the photos last Sunday, I was really stumped by this topic.  I couldn't think of a single thing that was a zigzag.  Then I had an aha moment - I don't remember what made me think of it but I am glad I did.  I headed to the greenhouse once again to photograph the zigzag edge of a leaf.

a beginning

Why did I put this topic here instead of in week one?  I did take a few photos of some budding flowers at the greenhouse but then I found this at Whitefish Island.  Nothing says the beginning of spring more than pussy willows.

starts with Q

I bribed Levi with screen time on a week night and he gave me ten minutes of his time.  He needs a haircut and a shave but this is a teenage Quinn.

strong

The power of Lake Superior will never cease to amaze me.  The ice that forms every winter is just one of the many ways we can see the strength that is in the lake.

joy

When I was thinking of ideas for this, all I could think of were kids and dogs...I figured that those were the most likely places I would find joy that I could photograph.  Being lazy and not having young kids or a dog readily available, I gave up that line of thought and slightly altered the topic to (gives me) joy.  I love sunrises and sunsets...I am happy to sit and watch again and again and for hours every time.  We had an okay sunrise on my way to Elliot Lake on Thursday this week.  It was a little past peak beauty by the time I was able to find a safe place to stop.  Picture this with more pink and some red and that's what it was like before I stopped.

a bunch

As I was leaving the grocery store this morning these purple flowers would not let me pass so I stopped and bought them.

That's it for me.

Oh, one more thing I learned about my hand this week...there is a pin sticking out of my thumb!  Gross, huh?  I took a picture of it before the nurse put the new cast on.

Donna's Week 12 - Cannonball!

Hello

You know Spring is coming, because the crocuses are flowering and the Tim's parking lot is full of farmers waiting for the Niagara air bus to drop off workers coming in from Mexico.  These sure signs of spring used to make me happy, but not anymore, now I have a puppy!  Everything smells like wet dog, if it is possible, I actually think my glasses smell like wet dog.  We have walked in the rain a few times now and don't even think about how torn up our back yard and back door is.  There are mats and towels all strategically placed by all of the entrances and yet this morning I noticed that there is mud all over my bedroom carpet.  My bedroom carpet, really!  You know the one, the one upstairs, farthest away from all the doors where we diligently clean her every time she comes in. You know, the room she is not really allowed in!  Good thing she is so darn cute! 

Enjoy this weeks's pics.

"ZigZag"

The contrast of the fluorescent green on the pink rocks, makes this little guys zigzag back really stand out.  

"A Beginning"

A beautiful beginning to a beautiful day in Comox.  This is the Comox Glacier at sunrise on Vancouver Island.  Yes, I got up and took this picture.

"Starts with Q"

There were "Quite"

"a bunch" of

playful and

"strong" humpback whales

who went right under our zodiac and came way too close to eating us! Check out those baleens,

as they exhibited great "joy" while we were on our boat tour in the Straight of Juan de Fuca south of Vancouver Island.

Cannonball!

 Have a Great Week :)

Donna's Week 11

Hello everyone,  I hope you had a great March Break.  Mine included a snow day, while Blake was at grandma's and Rob went to work!! Ah Heaven!
Enjoy this week pictures.




A Snack

This is where Blake, Rob and I had a snack while digging up Diplodicus bones in Wyoming.  This is the closest I could come to finding a picture related to this topic.  Apparently I eat food, rather than take pictures of it. No, the hare is not and was not part of the snack!

Through the Window

This topic was fun, I had so many great pictures to choose from.  The first one is a picture of the Yellowstone yellow buses taken out the front passenger window into the mirror.  A slower shutter speed would have blurred the forest we were driving by even more, but I still think this is a cool image.

This is the same through the window and into the mirror picture as above, only we were not moving at the time. 

And in case you are wondering, the answer is YES!  All pictures of bison are to be taken through the window!

D

So, I know this is supposed to be a picture in the shape of a "D", but I couldn't find one, so I ended up with this picture of me, Donna.  At least it starts with "D" and is totally a"dd"orable, even if I do say so myself.

Jewellery

These thermal hot springs are the earth's jewellery.

Symmetry

I take a lot of nature shots and there is little symmetry in nature, well at least none that I am good at capturing with my camera.  This is a picture of a row of cabana's at our resort in the Dominican in December.

Black and White

I could have filled this entire blog with black and white images.  Here are a few of my favourites.

Sharon's Week 11: Ten Things I Learned About Being One-Handed

First let me relieve you all of your on-the-seat-of-your-pants anxiety about whether or not I am able to use my camera while my hand is healing...I can.  Yay!  It's not very efficient but I have been able to manage.  So far the most difficult thing has been changing lenses.

Here are a few other things I have learned this week:

1.  Sometimes you have no idea where your arm is in space.  After bonking myself in the head a few times with my new cast while getting dressed to go home from the hospital, that evening I was sitting on the couch with my arm in the sling and I could have sworn my arm was resting in my lap.  I reached over to touch my fingertips to see if I was moving them (I thought I was but I wasn't) and I reached in the completely wrong direction.  I could clearly see my arm on my chest but I would have bet money that it was elsewhere.  In case you are interested, that sense of knowing where your body parts are without looking is called proprioception.  The sense of knowing how those body parts are moving (or not, as the case may be) is kinesthesia.

2.  When you finally are able to move a finger, Fezzik takes over in your head and encouragingly congratulates you, "Look, you wiggled your finger!"  Those of you who don't get this reference need to watch The Princess Bride.

3.  Even screw-top wine bottles really need two hands to open them.

4.  Typos are a dime a dozen when trying to type one-banded - see?!?  

5.  In order to back up and park straight in your driveway, two hands are essential.  This week I have amused all my neighbours with my wiggly backing up and cock-eyed parking.  They will, I suppose, get used to it by the time the cast comes off.

6.  After successfully donning a bra for eight days, you can still mess up on day nine and put it on upside-down.

I will now get to the photos and surprise you with more one-handed wisdom along the way.

a snack

Oh look, more wisdom right away.

7.  One-handed cutting of fruit and vegetables is not easy and may lead to further injury.  Note to self:  do NOT try to hold the item between your index and middle fingers - it is not secure.

through a window

Well, I seem to be full of learnin' this week...

8.  When a pile of snow falls off of your roof and onto the front steps (which is very rare at my house since the roof pitches sideways, not towards the front), you cannot shovel it away without looking like you and the shovel are dancing.

Here are the cats studying the problem.

Yes, we do still have that much snow!

D

This is a window on the building at the entrance to the trails at Whitefish Island (I can never remember what it is called), turned sideways of course.

jewelry

This is a cute little bracelet my sister gave me at Christmas.  

This is the necklace I have been wearing for 26 years.  I thought I lost it last week (I noticed that I wasn't wearing it when I went to take it off before the surgery) but I found it the other day in my bed.  Whew.  I am still not wearing it because...

9.  You cannot put on most jewelry one-handed.

It needs a little silver polish but there you have another task that requires two hands.

symmetry

My first attempt out driving this week was a trip to the greenhouse at Bellevue Park looking for symmetry.  The first photo isn't exactly symmetrical since the leaves are offset but I like it anyway.  The second one has radial symmetry but I have photographed only a part of it.

black and white

I played a bit with my black and white software to create this.

wild card

I guess spring is truly on its way...at least this beaver thinks so.

This stream may cease to be if the beaver has his way.

I will leave you with one more thing I have learned this week...

10.  When you call your mom who lives six hours away to complain, "Mo-om, I'm bored!" there is nothing she can do.

On the flip side, she also cannot "give you something to do" which would most likely consist of chores.

Have a great weekend.

Pam's Week 11: It Don't Matter if You're Black or White

The sun has been shining nearly every day this week.  All week I've been feeling motivated, energized, ready to conquer the world (which is not typical for me after a time change; I usually miss that hour from the Spring Ahead until we get it back in the Fall).  I feel as though the events that have been stealing my mojo for the past two years will no longer have that power over me.  I feel like good trumps evil and karma will have it's day!  Then today the skies are grey and I'm worried it was all an illusion, a facade, if you will.  I worry that Monday morning will be like Groundhog Day and I will be transported back to 2015 and have to live it all again.   I am sure hoping tomorrow's anticipated sunny skies bring back my cloak of invincibility!

I am not sure what Sharon was drinking or thinking when she made this year's list of photo assignments but they seem to be getting more and more difficult!  I'm not sure if it's because I realize some of the topics are repeats and I worry about taking the same picture over again or if my expectations are higher or just the timing of the topics is off from my ideas.  I don't know what it is.  I feel like I need a vacation as the photo opportunities seem to be running out here in good ole Sault Ste. Marie...

Anyways, here goes nothing....

A Snack

You would think this would be a fairly easy thing to find.  The problem is that I've been really trying to avoid evening snacking and focus on eating healthier and I've been rather successful at it this week, in spite of the skinny people in my house who like to fill our cupboards with chocolate, chips, donuts, and the like.  I realize there are healthy snacks but I couldn't figure out how to make almonds or sugar snap peas look photogenic.  Last night while Sharon and I took Riya for a walk, we ran into my sister-in-law on her way home from the grocery store with a box of doughnuts.  Even though I have thus far successfully avoided eating them, I decided they would be a pretty snack for a photo.

Through a Window

We have a huge front window in our house and it doesn't have any window coverings, making it seem as though we live in a giant fishbowl at times, but also then making it the perfect window for this assignment.  Any other week, I could come home at pretty much any time and find the puppy and at least one of the kids sitting on the ledge and looking at me.  Do you think they did that for me this week?  Not a chance.  I tried to have them pose in the window last night but I didn't like the yellowish glow from the lights nor did I like the unnaturalness of the pictures.  (Is that a word?  I apologize if it isn't.)  I included the best one anyways.  This morning, however, as the kids and I got into the car to head to the Mill Market to meet Sharon for the maple syrup festival, there was Riya in the window so we paused a moment so I could snap the picture.

D

For a change of scenery the other night, Sharon and I met at Fort Creek to take Riya for a walk along the Hub Trail.  As I'm writing this, I realize how many puppy walks Sharon is a part of and it's no wonder Riya gets so excited to see her!  I spent most of the walk looking for symmetry but then Sharon asked me what I was thinking for "D" and I looked past her and saw this....

It was part of the railing along the path.

Jewelry

I will admit that this was the topic I was afraid of this week.  I have no idea how to photograph jewelry nicely.  Thanks to my good friend Google (you should meet him if you haven't already) and some glow bracelets Danica got from a birthday party last weekend, the arm of the couch in our darkened playroom, and my engagement and wedding rings from Robert, I was able to create this...

I know it's not perfect but I was pleased with the attempt.  It's too bad both bracelets were the same colour as I think it could have looked cool with 2 different coloured bracelets in the background.

Symmetry

Symmetry was rather elusive this week.  This is a photo of a symmetrical bridge on the Hub Trail.  Unfortunately the shadows, snow melt, and trees surrounding the bridge were only approximating symmetry.

Black and White

I have to give props to Duncan for this first photo.  After the Mill Market today, we were driving along the waterfront in search of something that may look impressive in black and white and he asked me to stop to take a photo of the Spirits Rising Monument.  He then took the camera and proceeded to take a few photos.  This was our favourite.

When we arrived home, I consulted my friend, Google, for further inspiration and decided to try to take photos of Danica and Riya in black and white.

Wildcard

After we toured around the Mill Market and indulged on waffles (the kids) and maple bacon apple pizza (Sharon and I), the kids wanted to visit Entomica.  It's a small but interesting little insectarium housed in the Mill Market.  Duncan was particularly enthralled by these Blue Death Feigning Beetles that play dead when they feel threatened.  They're happily walking around his hands so clearly like him.

While we were there, Duncan learned that they take student volunteers who can learn about the bugs and how to handle them and give little tours to the public.  He gave them his name and contact information as he is interested in helping out this summer.  I was surprised they would take kids that young but I think he would enjoy the responsibility.

Here's hoping the sun shines all week, the snow all melts, and my invincibility shield recharges completely!  Here's hoping for good things for all of you too!