Photo a Week Challenge: Just for fun and Spirit Lifters Day 51 of being “Grounded”

https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2020/04/23/a-photo-a-week-challenge-just-for-fun/

OK, Nancy Merrill’s challenge to share photos this week that represent “Just for Fun!” reminded me to get back to the Spirit Lifters series I started.

So here are some photos for Nancy, and then, some uplifting things for you to check out for yourself.

(Like how I am always giving you something to do? Pretty clever distraction, eh?)

Here are 3 photos of what we call around here, Spring Snow!

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Next, I write a lot about the beautiful street I get to live on, but don’t say enough about my really FUN neighbors.

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These folks always have something fun for every holiday, including a small tractor that pulls little kid-filled carts behind it, decorated and driven by Santa for Christmas, and someone scary for Halloween.

Apparently, even the city workers are getting bored though. I came across this fun scene yesterday…

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Either confused, or high, or they are closet Graffiti Artists…

And one of the more uplifting, fun (and reassuring) beings in my household is Lucy, the Woodpile Cat. She is, as are many cats, such a creature of habit. I can count on her every  morning, to take a shower in the kitchen sink…

And to demand her exercise time every afternoon…

But do not be fooled. She is not all sweetness and light. The only place I can have fresh flowers in my house is the bathroom as she does not frequent that room.

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growing wild all over the yard this year! Delightful!

And THIS Blog, by my sweet friend Lisa, is really worth a visit! Look what she found for us! It is wonderful!!!

https://dailymusing57.com/2020/04/24/koolulam-coldplay-across-the-globe/

Lastly, here is Episode 3 of John Krasinski’s SGN. It can take your mind of all bad virus-related things!

PS The photo at the top was fun…or funny, at least to me. I had just committed to fewer eggs in my current campaign to keep my cholesterol levels healthy. Cracked open my one egg and….well, you see it….TWINS!!

Cee’s Flower of the Day photo 3/7/2020

Maybe it’s having grown up in San Diego, but oh, how happy I am when the warmth and light return each year to the Northwest. And baby blossoms popping out everywhere mean the light is coming!!!

I spotted these yesterday and they made me smile bigly…

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And then there is always THIS good sign that Spring has finally arrived.

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FOTD & FF #8- March 7 – Orchid

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge-Autumn Scenes

I’m longing for Spring but today, Cee challenges us to share scenes from our archives. I love her challenges. Helps me appreciate the beautiful things I have seen, and sometimes think to photograph.

My favorite Autumn scene is the “Wonder Wall”. Just a couple miles from my house. It’s a block-long retaining wall across from our local Home Depot. I take pictures of it every year because it is so amazing.

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This wall is such a great place to experiment with your camera…macro vs telephoto, time of day, color adjusting, week by week, individual composition, balancing colors, etc., etc..

Clearly, I never get tired of it. I have snapped so many pictures, I printed them and turned them into a photo card series…even had a poster made of one!

Oh and the featured photo at the top? It’s to remind you Autumn is not just spectacular colors in the Pacific Northwest.

It’s also weird fungi! Lots  of it! Huge! Like from-another-planet strange!!

 

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Autumn Scenes

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #71: Creepy 11/10/19

Creepy, huh? I’ll show you Creepy!

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I’m sorry in advance because I know some disagree, but I find this CREEPY!

 

 

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Definitely not as creepy as THIS however. (3 months absent from our mountain home and look what grows! Gross and CREEPY!)

 

 

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And this one, you might only get if you knew how absolutely sweet and loving my grandson is…

 

Many will find my bugs Creepy but I have fallen in love. I know, quite hypocritical, given my distaste of their distance relative at the top, eh?

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And I have been posting a lot lately about this Fungi Village growing right outside my bedroom window…Freaks me right out!!! I swear they are creeping closer and closer every day!

But today was the creepiest by far!

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I’m starting to see faces on some of them!

CREEPY!

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #71: Creepy

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo a Week Challenge 9/28/19 Changing Seasons

I have been blessed in my life to witness Seasons Changing all over the US…from the West Coast beaches to the expansive Southwest deserts to the Deep South to the East Coast, to Canada and back to the Pacific Northwest!!

But I got completely spoiled a couple of years ago right here in my neighborhood when I accidentally discovered the most glorious Autumn display I have ever seen.

I was simply driving out a different driveway than usual from my Home Depot parking lot…and there it was. So fantastic, I made 5 or 6 trips in the following weeks to try to capture this Color Extravaganza in all its stages. On cold dark days, in the pouring rain, in the blinding sunlight (that’s how we experience sunlight up here…blinding), sunrise, sunset, and always with both my cameras! I even gave it a name and told all my friends and neighbors to go see it.

I’ve posted on it before but here are some photos to enjoy. Believe me, it’s not even close to walking the block-long side walk in front of “The Wonder Wall”!

Not driving by. You have to stand in front of it and feel the thrum of color and growth, right there in front of you! Just pretend…and see if you can hear it….feel the colors.

 

 

 

 

 

https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2019/09/26/a-photo-a-week-challenge-changing-seasons/