Welcome! I hope I bring a spot of calm and happiness into these uncertain times. I blog about my photography adventures, flowers, gardening, the importance of chocolate in a well lived life, or anything else on my mind.
Sometimes, on an otherwise cloudy day where I live in the Southern Tier of New York, the sun will make a brief appearance (especially in the morning, for some reason). On January 12 I was fortunate enough to be out walking when I realized I was looking at blue sky.
I decided to take this picture. When do I see clouds like that in January? Not often.
About a half hour before sunset, I took another picture. Now, that's more like it.
But the sky wasn't finished with me yet. On January 15, I took this picture looking to the south. It's so grim it looks like it was taken in black and white but trust me, it's a color picture.
Perhaps five minutes later, I realized that the sun was shining if I looked to the east.
Today, two memes for the price of one: Wordless Wednesday and Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.
On the 15th of each month, I, and other garden bloggers, show you what is blooming inside and outside our homes or apartments. It makes for a nice garden diary.
So join me today at my zone 6a home in the Southern Tier of New York as I put off shoveling snow.
I may have flowers outside, an early blooming Lenten Rose that was
blooming in late December, but it's snowing right now and I am not going
to dig through snow cover to find it. So let's get the "emergency"
indoor flower pictures.
Each fall, I root up a handful of
impatien cuttings. Here are the survivors, and they have rewarded me
with blooms.
Let's start with white and salmon.
Red.
What else? How about this African violet?
My other blooming African violet is done but showing it anyway. The blooms are mainly dried on the plant.
Flower buds on my spider plant.
Finishing up blooming is a kalanchoe spouse and I got as a gift a couple of months ago.
Flowers are scarce this time of year for me, but if you click on the link for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day below, you can visit other flower gardeners from all over the world. While you are at it, why not check out this linky below for Wordless Wednesday, too?
Today
I am joining up with other Music Moves Me bloggers (and you can join us
at the linky above). We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music
each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video,
please! Otherwise, your post may be labeled "No Music".)
Every other week we have a theme. This week's theme is "songs to start 2025 or songs to motivate you for the New Year".
I am going to "steal" the first song from Stacy of Stacy Uncorked (link above), who had this on her blog last week. One of our national treasures here in the United States is an actor, Dick Van Dyke, who will be turning 100 in December. This first video, from Coldplay, honors Dick Van Dyke as he was "then", on several hit shows you remember (plus a fair number of movies), and now. What an inspiration to start the year off right. Watch him move at certain points in the video and realize he is 99, and tear up over his family photos. Thank you, Stacy, for posting this video. It made my day.
This second song is one of my favorite Cher songs - Believe. Songs using Autotune aren't everyone's taste (my spouse can't stand it) but I love this pioneering song from 1998. Let's try to Believe in our personal power in 2025.
Let's also be motivated by the song "Let It Go" from the 2013 movie Frozen. Has it been that long?
Finally, a song that can motivate and inspire at any time of the year. Here is 1982's Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. This was the theme song of the movie Rocky III.
And that's a wrap!
Next week, if I remember, I will pay tribute to a couple of recent inductees into Rock and Roll Heaven.
Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me.
Why not come out of the shadows and join us (linky is on Lisa's blog above)? All you need is a photo with a shadow. And it doesn't have to be cold, either.
My heart goes out to all those affected by the horrific wildfires in California. Sometimes the news exaggerates what is happening, but not this time. Hundreds of thousands forced to evacuate, thousands of structures burned (including within the city of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States), and an unknown death toll as of the time I'm writing this post. I fear the official death toll is way underestimated.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away...
We've had a cold stretch of weather where I live in the Southern Tier of New York. Yesterday started with a dusting of snow but the skies were clearing by sunset.
As my family member and I traveled, I noticed that the hills in front of us were glowing. These hills are covered mainly with bare trees and I've rarely seen them lit up like this What a golden hour delight.
Let's zoom in a little.
Suddenly I saw the road was bending, and I was able to see the actual sunset. (Sorry about the pole)
I got one more photo in before the road curved again and the sunset was visible in the rear view mirror. The mirror was dirty (as are almost all vehicles driving around here in this weather) from road salt but maybe I should have tried a photo anyway. Lesson learned.
From the archives, here are two photos from January 2019.
Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida (near Orlando) has a "Walk of Fame" containing stones from over 200 different locations. The collection includes stones taken from birthplaces, property, or even graves of famous people, or from locations important in history. Apparently, back when some of these were collected, this was not considered vandalism. However, my understanding is that the majority of these stones were taken with permission. Here's more information on the Walk of Fame.
Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers") (above, upper right), was an alumnus of Rollins College.
Here's another stone.
Orlando has so much more to offer than theme parks.
It's the first Monday of 2025, and it's time for music!
Today
I am joining up with other Music Moves Me bloggers (and you can join us
at the linky above). We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music
each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video,
please! Otherwise, your post may be labeled "No Music".)
