Bonnets of Blue

On my morning commute into work, I have these brief moments of creative brilliance. For instance, this morning, I was sitting at a red light, as one does when driving in the city, and I came up with several bullet points for a blog post. I knew for sure, I would remember them and be able to jot them down as soon as I got to the office. But once I stepped into my office and sat down at my desk, I was suddenly mind blocked. Work things started taking the place of creative things. Which is probably a good thing, since work things pay the bills and creative things only entertain me. But it’s a bummer when I wanted to record those creative things for later use. Staring at a blank note pad, pen in hand didn’t bring the thoughts back either. So, they’re lost…until tomorrow on my next morning commute.

All that to say, I don’t have anything cool to say. But, I do have lots of photos to share…

Remember in this post I promised lots of bluebonnet and wildflower photos from my trip to the great state of Texas this past April. So here we go…

We went in early April, so it was a little early to see a lot of different wildflowers and I really didn’t get to see the sea of Bluebonnets like I had envisioned. But I still got to shoot lots of them despite how sparse they kind of were that time of year. On the bright side, the route we took gave us a good tour of the Texas hill country.Texas as a whole really is one of my favorite places, but I seem to have a special place in my heart for central Texas and the hill country in particular. I can’t explain it, but it just feels right.

We left fairly early on a Monday drove through New Mexico, West Texas, and finally arriving in the Austin area. From there we went south to New Braunfels, because Buc-ees, I’ll have to tell you about that later. It’s not just a gas station by the way. From New Braunfels, husband and I decided it was time to move further north, so we headed up to Waco. Which by the way is a super charming town, and had me at all the great eateries (Health Camp anyone?) Then sadly, it was time to head home. But today, lets focus on the reason for the trip, the flowers!

These were taken lakeside in Waco…

solobluebonnet

bluebonnet

BluebonnetsTree

bonnetspideriii

butterflybluebonnetsNotice the butterfly in the center of this photo? I didn’t have a macro lens to properly capture that quick moving sucker. Maybe next time.

bluebonnetfield

These were taken outside Austin at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. An awesome stop if you ever get the chance. They have beautiful grounds.

bluebonnetsgroup

bonnetsofblue

morebluebonnets

stonebluebonnets

texaswildflowers

yellowflower

I have tons more photos of these beautiful blues. But for now this is what I have to share. I’ll be talking about the little Texas towns I had the pleasure of visiting along the way. So there is more to come!

Also, any of you know of an easy to use photo editing software? I am using a pretty clunky system now, it’s very time consuming, and apparently I can’t seem to get my watermark to be consistently less intrusive. I have played around with Photoshop and enjoy using it, but it’s so expensive. I’m leaning towards purchasing Elements since it’s a little more user friendly and not as costly. Any thoughts?

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5 years…

I forgot my blogiversary. Does this make me a bad blogger? Is this like forgetting your child’s birthday? Does this in essence make me a bad mother?? My blog baby has been neglected, I’ve forgotten the day that marks it’s birth. I am a bad mother. At least to my blog. And it’s a big blogiversary too, 5 years! If my blog were a child she’d be wanting a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, and would be preparing for Kindergarten in the fall. And probably wouldn’t let me forget about the day she entered this world. But alas, a blog is not a being that can tell me how she feels.

So, for 5 years now I’ve been gabbing about this and that, and wondering why I do it. But I’m still here. Maybe not as regularly scheduled as I used to be, but still here none the less. In this post I talked about doing something new and improved. That’s still in works, news coming soon about that. It may not be as new as I had thought, but it will be improved.

Dear Blog, I’m sorry I forgot our most important day of all to celebrate you and I, me and you, blogger and blog…together. I’ll try to make it up to the best I can. How about dinner at Chuck E Cheese. I hear 5 year olds like that.

Maybe some flowers will make it up to you…they always make me happy.

snowball

Spwint

I can’t wait for it to be full fledged spring, as in no-need-for-a-coat-and-gloves-on-the-morning-dog-walk spring. Although, I do have to say the weather has been super nice here in the land of enchantment, the mornings are cold but by lunch time all you need is a cardigan. It’s that season, the one in between winter and spring, where it’s not cold but it’s not super warm either. Wonder what we could call that…Wintring? Spwint? Let’s go with Spwint.  Anyways, this fifth season I’ve made up is my favorite, because in New Mexico spring time brings with it warmer weather, but also wind. Lots and lots of wind! The entire state is a dust storm from mid March to somewhere towards the end of May. So, maybe I should scratch my first statement about how I can’t wait for it to be spring, I should say, I want it to stay spwint. So to celebrate spwint, here’s some flower shots I took a while ago.

daffodils

purpleflowers

moredaffodils

tulip

Happy Spwint Everyone!!!!

 

Shoot Happy: Joy in the Morning

Over the month of October, I’ll be posting (or trying to post) everyday. These posts will be centered around all things nifty about the fifty, they could be about how awesome the 50mm is, or just some cool shots captured while enjoying the nifty-ness of the fifty. You can read this series from the beginning here.

This week, I’ve been posting florals that were shot with my trusty nifty fifty. Each shot is accompanied with a short verse that has spoken to me in some way.

psalm305

Green Eyebrows

Alright, I don’t really know where this post is going to take us, I just know I have a random assortment of photos I took and then edited. So, I would hate to waste them by letting them just sit on my hard drive, waiting for that perfect blog post when it may never come. Besides that, who said a blog post really has to be about anything. Can’t it just be a post about nothing, like Seinfeld was a show about nothing. Maybe I’ll just yammer on about the injustice of a hair in my marble rye or that woman in the ladies room that couldn’t spare a square.

Anywho, as always, grab a nice tall glass of sweet tea or your preferred beverage of choice, sit back and enjoy the randomness.

This is Annie, she’s always so sweet and so kind, when there’s something edible involved. Otherwise, she takes her stringy tail and butt flaps to her nasty bed where she can ignore us all from a distance. For some reason, I feel she is silently judging me.

This is what she was eye balling when I snapped this image of cute sweet normal dog Annie.

My breakfast, well my Saturday mid-morning breakfast. On a normal day my breakfast consists of a banana eaten hastily while entering the on ramp of I-40, generally 10 to 15 minutes behind schedule. Tardiness is my constant companion.

So, back to Annie, she’s definitely the most unusual dog I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a home with. She communicates by yawns. No, I don’t mean normal silent doggy yawns, I mean low guttural Dorthy from Golden Girls yawns.

This is the most close I could come to capturing one of her yetti yawns, usually the mouth is opened much wider.

Aside from yawning and begging, she enjoys photobombing, and like everything else Annie does, she does not simply make an appearance in the background of the picture. Any Annie appearance is always front and center, toothy grin and all.

She does enjoy posing though, particularly with her newest conquest.

This time it happened to be a bowl I used to hold that nasty dry crap, otherwise known as Iams, when her regular bowl was infested with ants during the Great Ant War of 2012. By the way, after numerous attempts at putting an end to the battle of the ants, I still have survivors, cornstarch and Raid don’t seem to phase them much. Anyone have any ideas?

Although, Annie can be a very sweet dog, she can also be quite ruthless, especially when it comes to time outside. Poor Goldie tends to get the brunt of this ruthless-ness, as evidenced by the green eyebrow. That’s a grass stain, caused by Annie slamming Goldie’s head into the lawn. All summer long Goldie has had odd green eyebrows, it took us a couple weeks of monitoring to figure out how it was happening. Poor Goldie lets Annie-Devil take out her many frustrations on the Golden One during their outside time. I should probably mention though, Goldie and Annie are the same size, Goldie could easily take up for herself, but her passivity tends to keep her from doing so.

(Not that I would know anything about being passive.)

I always end up having to break up the head slamming fest. Sometimes, I wish there was someone to break up the head slamming fest that I tend to allow myself into at times. I suppose I do have someone that intervenes when the head slamming and grass stained eyebrows become too much.

My Savior, Christ Jesus, He’s always there to pound on the window when the head slamming becomes too much.

“121 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

Psalm 121 KJV

So, He does help me even when my head is being slammed against the perverbial lawn, and He doesn’t even take a break from watching over me. How could I possibly be worried over a few green eyebrows when I know He will be there when it’s too much?

And look at that, this post really did have a point!

Also, Happy Autumn a week late!!

Note: Although I mention name brands within this post such as, Iams and Raid, I am not being compensated for such mentions. They are just brands that make a frequent appearance within my household, much like dust bunnies make frequent and ever present appearances under my sofa.

I Heart February

February brought many things, first of all a Valentine’s Day celebrated with my husband. Our very first V-day spent as Mr. and Mrs. April (yeah, Bubba hates that one). He brought me these lovelies to celebrate…

Then we took a stroll downtown…

Fur to cover your Hide anyone??

How about a pint of Glorietta Beer?

After all that hide covering and beer drinking you’ll probably want to take a nap on your Supreme Bedding.

And after your nap, you can wake up and enjoy a beautiful sunset…

I hope February brought you many pleasant strolls, happy naps, and pretty sunsets to enjoy!

 

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Pancakes and French Fries. Please join the fun!