A Black Swing

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It’s a warm, sunny, and very windy afternoon here today. Through the open windows of my front door, I can hear the squeak of the rusty-chained playground swings in the park across the street as they oscillate in the wind carrying invisible riders through well-traveled arcs of space. The high-pitched protests of the swings is a familiar sound to me having spent many hours in that park, playing on that playground equipment as a child, and now as an adult living in a house across the street from it. Its familiarity, however, does not make the screeching sound of metal scraping over metal any less annoying. It is just one of the many noises regularly heard reverberating through my neighborhood.

A Mother's Day Camera Critters (#05)

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My Mom has always been a big animal lover too, so in honor of Mother's Day, I've decided to share some photos of a few of my Mom's "critters". Hope you enjoy, and Happy Mother's Day to all the (human and animal) Moms out there!

Mom's female Betta Fish, Lakin

And two of Mom's three cats, Sierra and Tom:

(The third cat is even more camera-shy than these two, so no photo of her today.)

A Few More Spring Flowers

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(slideshow embedded ↑)

Free Week

A Sky Watch Through the Red-Buds

Well, this is what the sky looked like when I woke up this morning (clear, bright, blue), but as the day has progressed it's turning rather gray and cloudy.

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A "Professional" Photo Friday

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(Photo Friday link #144)

A Red Bud Tree

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I know I already did pink/red stuff last week, but I just had to share this:

The view, looking up, during my walk with Willow.

I'm really enjoying all of the blooming trees, shrubs and flowers I've seen around my town this Spring. It seems like there are more than usual (probably because the last few years we've had late freezes which ruined a lot of them). And it makes me want to take my camera with me everywhere I go. I've taken so many flower and tree pictures (especially Red-bud trees) in the last week... Maybe one of these days I'll get around to posting more of my favorites.

A Letter-Themed Thursday Thirteen (#71)

Last week it was suggested that TT participants choose a letter of the alphabet and write thirteen words which describe them that begin with that letter. I already had something planned for last week's list - my monthly recap - but I really liked this theme idea, so I'm going to do it this week. And of course, I have to choose the letter L, I mean, come on... would you really expect someone called L^2 ("L-Squared"), to pick any other letter? LOL

13 "L" words that describe me:

01. Loving 02. List-maker 03. Laconic
04. Listener 05. Loyal
06. Little Sister 07. Loner 08. Learner
09. Lucky (maybe, sometimes?)
10. Lingual (tri) 11. Likable 12. Literate
13. Left-handed (at least for certain tasks)

Happy TT! :-)

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A Sliver Spoon... & Knife, & Fork

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More Wordless Wednesday Participants:

A Purple Iris and a Downside

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One of three dark purple Iris blooms open early this morning

This past weekend I spent more time trying to de-clutter my computer - deleting unneeded files, backing up old photos onto DVDs, etc. While sorting through my picture folders, I was once again smacked in the face by the one downside to digital photography for me: I don’t get photos printed nearly as often as I should. In fact, when I uploaded some images to the website from which I have my photos printed, I noted that I haven’t printed any photos (other than maybe a handful that served as gifts or were displayed in art shows) in over two and a half years. I take photos practically every day. Can you even imagine many pictures that is?! I’ve probably posted most of my favorites here on this blog (which I think is why it made it easier to put off the printing – I could easily see/show them from my computer), but still it kind of seems strange.
I mean, for some reason it just feels weird to me to not have physical copies of my photos. Maybe that’s just because I grew up making/keeping photo albums full of any and all available pictures: Pictures I took, and pictures my family took on every important or not-so-important occasion. I’ll admit that I don’t often look through my photo albums now, but like I said, it just feels odd to not have anything from the last couple of years in them.
I'm not sure how I'll ever be able to catch up, but I guess, I really should start trying to tackle this project one of these days (I think this same thing every time my Sister tells me she had more pictures developed - she's only about a year behind on her photos now). It’s a good thing I thought to include this on my 101 in 1001 project list – because of this foresight, it probably stands a much better chance of actually getting done in the relatively near future (a.k.a. sometime in the next couple of years).

A Chocolate-Brown Monday

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Because it's Monday - and I figured everyone could use some chocolate - my color theme for today is brown...

No, sadly, I didn't have either the cake or the ice cream today.

One of these days I will get back to actually writing something (interesting?) here, because I miss how cathartic it can be. I have a lot on my mind to share, but lately it has just become easier to let the photo-posts take over.

A Relaxed Willow (Camera Critters #04)

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My smiling, happy Leader Dog Willow:
She's relaxing after a hard day of looking after me. :-)