Kit Kat

Photo Challenge Day 19 - Someone you love

She is my niece, the first grandchild, the apple of my eye. Years and years of laughter. Years and years of awe. Years and years of love.


 

Cold & Flu Season

Photo Challenge Day 18 - Something you bought


 

Baby it's cold outside

Photo Challenge Day 17 - Water

Today is the second day of clear blue skies here. Had only this photo prompt been earlier in the week I would have had so very many options, from drips to flows to pours.

Alas, even though science was not my strength, I do know that water is either solid, liquid or gas. Since it froze here last night, I present the solid, or ice state of water.

I'm sure that friends in the northeast would find this photo laughable but this indeed is winter moisture on the ground. Not snow, but a light frost on the grass. Look closely, it is there. This is the winter wonderland of my front yard.


 

Chimes

Photo Challenge Day 16 - Morning

My friend Sharon gave me this wind chime for Christmas last year. I hung it on the back porch where it catches and reflects the rising sun. The chimes make the sweetest sounds, such clean and bright music.

The past several mornings have been grey and rainy but not this morning. This morning the sky is blue and the sun is shining. What a joy to see!


 

A picture in words

Photo Challenge Day 15 - Happiness

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Can words paint a picture? When I read today's prompt, the first thing that came to mind was a memory. If you'll indulge me, my photo today is to share that mind's image in words.

My earliest memory of happiness is clear in my mind, and black and white. I was just a toddler and I had climbed out of my crib and crawled down the hallway towards the living room. My mother was there, ironing and watching the television. I remember looking up at her, the love, the safety, the thrill. When she saw me, she smiled at me with such surprise and joy, such love, and she walked to me and scooped me into her arms. I remember how good that felt, I remember being happy to my toes.

Of that moment, she told me, you were so happy, you just squealed with delight.

I like that memory, that full body memory of being so happy.

Night Table

Photo Challenge Day 14 - Something you're reading

Usually I have two books and one or two magazines in my reading rotation. For the past year or so, I've been reading biographies and memoirs and these two books are no exception.  Last night I finished reading Shirley MaClaine's I'm Over All That - And Other Confessions.  Inside these pages, in a series of essays she writes about all those things that have fallen from her list of importance, and several that never will.  She shares personal stories of her life, her home, celebrity, loves, past lives, reincarnation and politics. Hers is a wide open mind and I like that. The book isn't a light read because it is so thought provoking.   

Andrew McCarthy, I have learned, is so much more than the Blane McDonnagh in Pretty in Pink.  His book, The Longest Way Home, takes his readers on his journey of his restless travels -- far and wide across the globe -- that led him ultimately to being able to settle down. He is incredibly self-aware and posesses a tremendous ability to bring his sights and experiences to your mind's eye. I am half way through this one and already wishing it were twice as long.

And then there's Vanity Fair. My friend, Carrie, renewed my subscription for Christmas. I read this pop culture magazine cover to cover. It covers fashion, crime, society, entertainment and politics in well written articles of decent length and usually I've just finished reading one issue when the next arrives in the mail. I like that in a magazine -- heft enough to last me the month.

And there you have it.


 

In the bag

Photo Challenge Day 13 - In your bag

This is my camera bag. It holds my camera and two lenses and then all this stuff that I hang onto but never use.


 

Day 12 a day late

Photo Challenge Day 12 - Close up

I shot one picture yesterday and this is it. While it is close up, it's not really what I had in mind. Still, I like this photo because I want to look at it later in the year and remember that Fall colors do dot Houston in the middle of winter and they are so pretty among the ever present greens. This tree is almost bare today from the rains and winds last night. 

I was away from the house most of the day yesterday and was too wiped out to upload and post this last night. So, this photo is technically from the challenge day, it's the post that is not.


 

Fail

I can't.

Windows

Photo Challenge Day 11 - Where you sleep

At the top of the stairs, two steps up from the landing, through a short  hallway, past some framed family photos, and through a windowed-door, is my bedroom. When I bought this house I thought those windows might bother me but the truth is that I rarely shut that door because Cheyenne sometimes likes to wander the house at night.  That reflection in the door is the stained glass window on the opposite wall along the stairs.