No Excuses for Me...

I’m really offering no excuses for being bad about blogging lately.  Except that it seems to me although we no longer have kids in school and we are both retired, this time of year just gets busier for us.  For one thing, the church we attend, The Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church, goes back to regular services after Labor Day after a semi-hiatus during the summer.  For me, it’s a complete hiatus because the summer services are an hour earlier and I can’t seem to make it to them except on very rare occasions.  But with on top of that come committee meetings, the book club meetings, a website to maintain and lots of autumn brightness to photograph.  Still, I have plenty of free time so any excuse from me is pretty lame.

At this rate, though we’ve been home from our trip to the Canadian Maritimes for almost a month, I still have lots of photos to post and to go through.  Soooooo…I am going to post a few from our drive into Nova Scotia and along the Cabot Trail.

Nova Scotia is very different from Prince Edward Island.  It’s isn’t red, for one thing, and it has a more dramatic and rugged terrain.  It’s beautiful!  And it’s a place I’m hoping to get back to one of these days.

Looking back on where we've been.

The Orangedale Presbyterian Church...rather charming, I think.

I seem to have found Old MacDonald's farm.

Fear of flying?

I have been feeling rather uninspired lately and I tried to remedy that by looking up what other people had to say about inspiration.  That’s how I ran across this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, which was filed under "inspiration" on the internet:  “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

  It kind of made me chuckle because I manage to do my one thing every morning as I get out of bed.  Just looking the world in the face is enough most mornings to scare me.  After all, who knows each day what that darn world will throw at you?  But is scary actually inspirational?

Well, while it’s not really scary except in the photographic sense, here the world had thrown me three dreary days in a row without a lick of sun until today.  Today right after I came back from my morning walk with the Olive, the pug, during which I had to put my camera away under my jacket so it wouldn’t get rained on, all of a sudden the sun came out.  I cursed.  Why couldn’t it have come out ten minutes earlier??

A little later, Greg and I went out to lunch at a local joint that sits by the Quinnebaug River.  As we were leaving, I saw a blue heron standing in the river.  Greg humored me when I asked him to turn around and once he stopped, I jumped down from the truck. Now, that’s really scary for me being much shorter than that darn truck, but I’ve yet to be inspired by it.  I walked over to take a picture of the heron.  This time, the sun was in exactly the wrong spot and all I could see were silhouettes making the heron look like a stick sticking out of the water.  Ten minutes earlier and I probably could have gotten a half-decent shot.

  Oh, well..

In spite of the dreariness of the last few days and my lack of inspiration, I have gotten a couple of shots I can live with.  Here they are.

This photo is greatly enhanced by the use of one of Kim Klassen's textures.  Thanks, Kim!

Even dreariness has its moments.

Now I’ll leave you with the words from one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman.

  He wrote, “Sometimes you wake up.  Sometimes the fall kills you.  And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”

  Here’s hoping we all sprout wings.

LINKING TO KIM KLASSEN'S 

TEXTURE TUESDAY.

Simple reflections....

Earlier this week while it was still really hot out, Olive the pug and I walked down to the pond early in the morning.  I like the pond in the morning.  Often it is very flat and  therefore gives good reflections.  We were rewarded that morning and got a few nice photos.  The one that I am posting here was one of my favorites of the day.  It is a section of Wells State Park across the pond that has a circular aspect to it.  Why the trees have grown like this, I'm not sure, but I like it a lot and I often stop to look at it.  It is a little world reflected upon itself like a nice phrase stuck between parentheses.

Today, I am linking up to Simple Things Sunday.  Stop by there if you have the time.

The Life and Times of Olive the Pug...

Sometimes it's just not possible for a dog to have a better day.

  Yesterday was one of those days for Olive the pug.  On our way home from lunch, I noticed that the pond was very flat and reflective.  When I see that during the day, I just want to go down there and take pictures.  The weather was okay but it was pretty cold.  Still I asked Olive if she would like to wander down to the beach in the golf cart.  Well, if you have followed this blog for any length of time, you would know that the golf cart is Olive's Favorite Thing  (it might even trump cheese) and wandering down to the beach is her Favorite Thing.  So, in spite of the cool weather, she just couldn't say no. 

Once down at the beach, I saw some cool things and Olive smelled some cool things. 

Then we got back into the golf cart and came home.  At home, Olive's new bed was waiting for her on the couch.  That bed might just be her new Favorite Thing.  She loves it and she didn't even have to wait until Christmas to try it out.  Can a dog have a better day than that, I ask you?  I think not.  At least not until tomorrow....

Do I have my act together?

I actually managed to get my act together this week for the Sunday Scavenger Hunt.  I thought I was going to have to dig into my archives but I didn't have to ultimately.  Yay me!  And then I looked at the website to link up and it seems like I got the wrong prompts.  Oh, well....  Here are my entries.  They may not be right for this week.  I'm not sure.  Do I have my act together??  I don't think so...

Memories:

Left to right:  me, my mother-in-law Lois Hale, Evan and Carrie (my kids), Asta the cat, my father Paul Lambert and the whole damn Lambert family at Greg and my wedding.

Sillhouette:

Doorway:

Reflection:

Trees reflected in a pond.

Silver:

Linking up to Sunday Scavenger Hunt on Ramblings and Photos: