Snow beneath whose chilly softness

I awoke this morning to a beautiful world transformed by snow. After I got the 5:30 call that school would be closed, I looked out the window and then fell back asleep and hoped that I wouldn’t sleep through the sunrise.

And I am so glad I didn’t miss it.

 

Here in Maryland, today’s sunrise was 7:26 a.m. so I had to get dressed and bundled up quickly to catch it.

 

We have about 4-6 inches of the white stuff today and I’ve been outside in it for a couple of hours, walking and taking photos to share here with you.

 

I have said this a million times, but I don’t care – we are so lucky to be here in this home on this property. It’s just wonderful sometimes.

Ok. I’ll stop now.

 

I love when the snow sticks to the branches and every tiny little thing.

I love my new favorite breakfast cereal, too. I’m having some right now. Have you ever tried Yogi cereals? The cherry almond crunch is fantastic. Today I’m having the walnut spice crunch, which is also good.

Yogi Cereals

 

It was so quiet, with that muffled sound that comes from a nice blanket of snow.

 

I absolutely love this soft, gentle morning light.

 

I love me a good dog, too.

 

 

At this time, George and I would like to say hello to Grace. She knows who she is.

Hey, Grace! Were you up at sunrise?

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Want to find out when the sun rises and sets in your part of the world?

Sunrise and sunset times

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Today I am venturing up to the third floor where I think I will wear my coat and gloves. I’m gathering clothing for a drive at school and if I’m really industrious, I may clean out my closet afterward.

But then again, I’ll probably nix the closet thing. It’s too beautiful to be inside all day. I may go sit in the sunshine and take pictures of birds.

: : ~ : :

So what’s happening in your world today? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Suddenly in the wind

When I got home from work today, the first thing that my husband told me was that the hawk was back in the tree today and that he’d gotten a couple of pictures of it before it took off again.



This is a sharp shinned hawk and the photo above is my favorite of the group, although I like the one below as well.




The two photos below were taken yesterday by me. My husband had come into the living room to tell me that if I wanted to get the camera, the hawk was back in the tree.

I shot these through the window of the breakfast nook, trying to adjust for the bright sunlight.




Do you see the sharp gleam in the eye? My husband thinks it is the same hawk that keeps returning to hunt in the yard. I last posted about him here:

Afternoon surprise

I prefer my husband’s photos above, with the bird against the light colored sky rather than the blue.




And I prefer his vantage point over mine.

: : :

They did the deed of darkness

In their own mid-light.

He plucked a gray field mouse   

Suddenly in the wind.

 

The small dead fly alive   

Helplessly in his beak,

 

His cold pride, helpless.   

All she receives is life.

 

excerpt from You and I Saw Hawks Exchanging the Prey

by James Wright

 

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

Nothing gold can stay

I opened my eyes this morning and the first thing I saw was a sparkling orange glow.



Crystals had formed during the night, making beautiful patterns on the storm windows in the bedroom.

So, of course, I ran down the stairs to get the camera.



The sun was just coming up.



And this beauty was left just for me.



And I love the colors.



Nothing altered here. Just the colors of the morning against the frosty panes of glass.

And life is good.

: : : 

Have a beautiful day, all. Thank you for stopping by my little part of the world.

A little snow, a little fetch

When last I wrote, I was sitting in the waiting room at my favorite Honda dealer, about an hour south of where I live, and worrying a little about my drive home because of the bad weather.

Fortunately, though, the drive home was a piece of cake – the snow stopped, the roads had been cleared and I was able to move at a decent clip. The odd thing was that the further north I drove, the less snow I saw. And by the time I arrived home, there was only about an inch of the white stuff on the ground compared to the 4 inches further south.

After I got here, I put myself right to work and accomplished my single goal for the day, other than the car thing, which was to get all the holiday stuff packed away. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the trick to accomplishing my daily goals is to not have many.

Maybe that sounds lazy, but hey - it’s the weekend and I’m not going to beat myself up over a long list of things to do. I had two things that had to be addressed today and I did them both, making everything else I managed to accomplish simply icing on the cake.

It became dark all of a sudden in the middle of the afternoon, and then it began to snow as I shot the first of these photos. There are 12 birds that I counted in this bush. I promise, there are 12.

The snow really began coming down at one point.  So I took the camera outside.

 

I still had the 70-300mm lens on.

Then I put the 18-55mm lens on and took this looking out the kitchen window.

 

Oddly enough, by the time I walked around to the front of the house to get this picture off the front porch . . .

 

 

. . . the snow had completely stopped and the sun was attempting to break through the thick cloud cover.

: : : :

And tonight, as I wait for dinner to be ready, it’s good to see the house back to normal again. It’s also good to play a little game of fetch in the living room with my little friend.

Here’s a 14-second video that is so boring, you’ll wonder what came over me. But as I was uploading these photos for a post, George came in from a walk with his dad. He came right to me in the living room, then went to his toy box where he spent quite a bit of time until he returned with what he was looking for.

And so I give you -

Fetch in the living room with scary bird.

Playing fetch in the living room from Kate Young on Vimeo.

Please do not judge. The dog has his own couch and we play fetch on it.

This is Scary Bird

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

Snow-covered in Delaware

I got up early this morning to head about an hour south for a scheduled service appointment for my Honda Element at the dealer. My husband and I checked the weather last night and then again this morning, and he told me that there were going to be “snow showers” but I should be fine.

Well, I made it here.

Not sure what going home will be like and I nearly turned around a couple of times. The further south I drove, the worse the driving became and in some areas, I couldn’t even see the road. Not good!

But here I am, safe and warm, at my favorite Honda service center. We have one much closer to our home, but I’ve been there twice and don’t trust them. We bought the Element at this place, and they’ve always been up front with me and have never steered me wrong.

And besides, they have a beautiful new waiting room. I used to have to walk over to the Acura building rather than sit in the dingy little waiting room here. Over at Acura, there were leather couches. And Starbucks coffee. And lotsa room.

But last year, the Honda dealer updated its look.

I’m not going to worry about the drive home.

Well, not yet anyway.

So how’s your day going?

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant

Today I’m sharing a few random photos from my visit to Longwood Gardens just before Christmas. I love walking through the many rooms of the main conservatory and during the holidays, it’s dressed in its finest.

Sure, it’s cold walking outside to view all the holiday lighting and the fountain display, but inside the conservatory you can take your time and let the beauty fill your soul.

I’ve posted photos of some of the holiday displays here.




These large hanging sconces are just off the Children’s Garden. I think they’re gorgeous and so unique.



Looking straight into one from below.



One of the little fountains in the Children’s Garden. It’s at the perfect height for a small child.




I enjoy walking through this place in any season and almost wish I had a year-long pass. In fact I do wish I had a year-long pass. There is room after room of natural beauty combined with some fascinating architectural detail.



You could spend an entire day there in the spring – there’s just so much to see around the grounds.

Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square PA

This year, I went with my in-laws.

I just love them.

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Tonight, I’m popping in a movie that I rented from Netflix. It’s called Everybody’s Fine and stars Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsdale, and Sam Rockwell in a story about a family who’s going through a bit of a rough patch around the holidays. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I love wintertime.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

Something stinky this way comes

I had just come in from my afternoon walk and was sitting here in my favorite chair, checking e-mail and minding my own business when I heard the telltale sound of a stink bug. And it was right near my ear.

Here’s what they look like.

I shook my head, moving forward and suddenly began to smell that awful scent. And then I heard it again, this time on my head. Oh, Lord have mercy.

The stink bug was in my hair.

I shook some more and heard the tiny monster take off on its slow roll across the room where it landed on the edge of the couch. So I took a small piece of paper, intending to let him walk right onto it so I could open the door and throw him out into the cold night. I wasn’t quick enough, though and the bane of my existence was crawling up my hand by the time I released him into the freezing darkness.

But by then, it was too late. I had been stink bombed.



The odor was in my shirt, on my hair, and on my hand. My husband insisted he couldn’t smell it, but after about ten minutes, I couldn’t stand it any longer and ended up taking a shower and washing my hair.



If you’ve ever smelled a stink bug, you know what I mean. The little devils release a foul-smelling odor when crushed or bothered. When the temperatures get cooler, they try to enter your house through small gaps in the windows and we have a few die hards that I find flying about in the living room every now and then.
I’ve decided to paint my nails to take the smell away because I think it’s lingering somewhere. I truly hope I haven’t grossed you all out. I’m fine now. It was nothing like this little fiasco that occurred in my early 20’s, though.

I hate fly strips

Don’t even visit that link. I’m serious. It’s a long story.

Now, where’s that nail polish?

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore

Returning to work today after two weeks of holiday bliss was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. The most difficult thing was getting out of bed.

I love our new flannel sheets. And it's so hard leaving them on cold mornings.

I thought I’d share a few more photos of the trip I took to NYC just before Christmas.



We don’t see many of these here at the manor house.



Our table at The Smith, where we had lunch one day. I think this in Greenwich Village. I liked the water bottles and the retro s&p shakers.



Nice-looking guy walking down the street. And I love that wrought iron work.

(and this is my son)



Vintage Range Rover. A rare find!



I remember just standing here and smelling the wonderful scent of these trees.



Love the colors here.



I’m wondering where 207 might be.

(update: there's a park across the street; it's why I was wonderin').



Walking around in Alphabet City, which I kept calling ABC Village, stupid tourist that I am. My son told me that the streets are named A, B, C, and D and are the only avenues in Manhattan that have single letter names. It’s located within the East Village and the Lower East Side, so hopefully you can understand my confusion here.



More confusion over at ABC Home & Carpet, where Margie and I found these lovely little glass bottles filled with magic stars. The little bottles like the one she’s holding were priced at $75. It astounds me that people would pay that much for something so frivolous.

But that’s just me.



And finally, St. Patrick’s Cathedral at night. I can’t believe I almost walked right by it without going on. (Thanks, Margie).

Hope you enjoyed the photos today. Thanks for coming by, my friends . . .

The night before

I knew this night would come – the night before my return to work and the real world. I’ve always loved the quietness of the week after Christmas and I’ve been engaged in many lazy activities. But tomorrow, the real world begins in earnest. And it begins early.

Today, I took down all the holiday decorations, but I couldn’t bear to remove the little tree in the living room, so I left it up for just a few more days.

I just love seeing the lights.



We usually always leave the camera by either the kitchen or breakfast nook window, and today I saw this little marauder out by the row of feeders that line the patio.

The little scamp.

I used a free texture and a tutorial that I found over at Shadowhouse Creations.

Canvas Paper Texture and Tutorial



And I found this leaf during an afternoon walk. I think that it looks like lace.

I did end up seeing a movie this week with a friend (hi, Margie!). We were in the mood for something light, so we saw ‘How Do You Know’ with Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, and Jack Nicholson.

We both agreed that it was okay. For me, a highlight was the trailer for a movie that I would love to see, although it won’t be out until the spring. And if you’ve read Water for Elephants, you might want to see it too.



Welcome to all the new faces I’ve been seeing here. Hope you all have a great week in this new year.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

By jove, I think I’ve got it

Last year, for Christmas, I got a nice little Sony Handycam from my husband. I pretended to like it for about two or three weeks but it was soon apparent to him that I wasn’t thrilled. I was frustrated after a multitude of attempts to edit the clips as well as convert the movie files for use in Windows Movie Maker. And besides, I much preferred my camera and the still images.

And so, the little video recorder sat here all year. And no one played with it.

I’m not a person who makes many resolutions. But after seeing a movie over at the Blue Ridge Gal, I wrote her and asked what equipment she had. She was very helpful, even going as far as sending me a link to a tutorial on YouTube that would help me to convert my video into the right format for Windows Live Movie Maker.

And so I resolved that this month, I was going to finally figure out how to use the little Sony Handycam and how to incorporate footage into the little videos that I love to create for this site. Surprisingly, my new Dell laptop, which has Windows 7 on it, converted the clips automatically. The only thing I have to figure out now is how to edit them, but one thing at a time.

This is only a first attempt, and although it’s apparent that I’m a hundred times more adept with my Nikon than I am holding a tiny video recorder, I think I’ve done it. By jove – I think I’ve got it!


.
The video is only two minutes long. I took all the photos and footage early this morning during a walk with George which I then set to some music that I already had in my computer. Thank you so much for your support over the past year, for your encouraging comments, for your laughter, for all of it. Here’s to another good one for all of us.

And now, I’m rewarding myself with a mimosa. Cheers ~

Love,