Last call

Posted: March 19, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Adventures in art, Adventures in Life, Air, beginnings, Earth, endings, Fire, goals, home, Letting Go, life, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, Spirit, wandering, water, weather, winter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 56 Comments
The end

The end

There are things we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind.  But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.

~ Unattributed

So.  This is it.  My last post here at Life in the Bogs.  From here on out, you will find me at Breezes at Dawn, my new blog home.  Please join me there so we can continue our adventures together.

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341: Wandering

Posted: August 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in Life, Air, beginnings, Earth, endings, goals, home, life, nature, Photography, pond, Spirit, Summer, thinking out loud, Walking, wandering, water, weather | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 39 Comments

Looking forward

Several posts ago (maybe more than several), Kathy, the fabulous woman who inspired me to take on the challenge of getting outside every single day for a year, asked in the comments if I’d given any thought to what I was going to do when this commitment ended.  I’ve gotten behind in answering comments and didn’t answer her question there, but I have been giving it a lot of thought since she asked.  Those of you who have been blogging for a while understand that giving something in the comments a lot of thought often means a blog post because it’s a) just too long to answer in the comments section, and b) too good to pass up when you get an idea for a blog post.  When you are blogging every single blessed day, an idea for a blog post is a gift from the gods.

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86: Introducing…

Posted: December 17, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Autumn, Blog Business, Earth, friends, home, nature, Photography, snow, Spirit, Walking, water, weather | Tags: , , , , , | 7 Comments

(Bundled up for the cold.  Self portrait.)

…  Me.  🙂

I know.  Some of you already know me.  But there are some who may be visiting today who don’t know me or didn’t know me until today.  You see, I was honored to have been asked to do a guest blog post over at Kathy’s blog, Lake Superior Spirit.  If you’ve been a regular visitor to Life in the Bogs you might recognize Kathy as the person who inspired me to commit to stepping outside every single day for a whole year.

Now that we have an appreciable amount of snow and plenty of cold to go with it, I’m not sure if I should thank Kathy for inspiring me to such craziness or not.  I’m kidding.  Of course I am thankful to her.  Each day has been an adventure of some sort and I have now gotten to the point where I look forward to stepping outside, even in the cold.

Go on over to Kathy’s place and Meet Robin! While you’re there, look around.  Meet Kathy, too.   (Take your time.  I’ll wait.)

(Porter Furniture.)

Today’s self portrait was taken at Porter Furniture which is:

Unique is a great word for it.  M and I visited Porter Furniture on our last trip.  The man who owned it spent 65 years collecting all sorts of things and filling up this old cigar factory with the things he collected.  I’m sure he sold much of what he collected over the years which is, obviously, what kept him in business.  Mr. Porter has died and his sons are now trying to get rid of everything (4 floors worth of stuff) by the end of this month.

Porter Furniture is the interesting store I mentioned in this post.  If there isn’t one of everything ever made in that store, I’ll be amazed.  It was packed with all sorts of things from fire place mantels to trunks to wringer washing machines.

Oh, and this:

How cool is that??  There were actually two knights in the store, one guarding an exit door.  I’ll show him to you sometime this weekend.

There was no heat in the store, hence all the bundling up in the self portrait.  The lighting was interesting and I took a bunch of photos.  I’m still sorting through them and hope to bring you more soon.

Today’s walk

Today’s weather has been a mix of clouds, a little sunshine, and snow flurries.  They say the flurries won’t amount to much in terms of accumulation.  Maybe a quarter of an inch or so.  It’s another balmy, 26-degree day.

I did not take the camera with me today.  The snow was flurrying when I went out and it’s best to give the camera a break when it’s like that.  Plus I need to sort through the photos I’ve taken since the trip to San Diego, including some from San Diego.  That’s how far behind I’ve gotten.

There’s not much to say about today’s outdoor experience.  It’s cloudy.  It snowed.  The birds are loving the food I put out.

Life is good.  🙂

59: Wondering

Posted: November 20, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in art, Adventures in Life, Air, Autumn, Earth, Fire, friends, goals, home, NaBloPoMo, nature, Photography, travel, Walking, wandering, water | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

(View from the airplane window.)

I wonder.  I wonder a lot.  I even wondered about the word wonder and had to go look it up just to see if it is all the things I think it is and I was delighted to find it’s true:  Wonder is a wonderful word.

(Looking to see what’s out there.)

To think or speculate curiously

I wonder about blogging and life.  I wonder about the ups and downs of it.  I have a few blog mates that have dropped off the blogosphere for a while.  Some have come back for NaBloPoMo.  Some have made brief appearances for NaNoWriMo.  And others are showing up in comments here and there remarking about how this is the first year they have missed NaNo or NaBlo.

(Looking up while standing inside of a sculpture.  Shelter Island.)

I wonder about some of those folks.  Is life keeping them so busy that they no longer have time to blog?  Did they grow tired of it?  Have they moved on to some other aspect of online life?  Or are they so immersed in life that blogging about it doesn’t even enter their minds anymore?  (I like to think it is the last option because I want to imagine them happily going about life.)

To be filled with admiration, amazement or awe

Some of those I am missing from blogland are people I admire, people who amazed and awed me with their use of words.  I’ve often wished that I could put together letters, string together words, and make sentences and paragraphs the way they do.  I know there is a certain amount of skill involved in writing as with any art, skill that comes from knowing the basics and practicing them, but I also know there is a gift to it as well.

(Balanced rocks.)

I miss their gifts and I hope they are still sharing them somewhere so that others can experience the wonder of their use of words and their ability to draw one in to a story or a poem.

To doubt

I’m committed to this — blogging and the outdoor adventures challenge — for a good long while and I have to tell you, I wondered (a lot!) after making the announcement if I wasn’t making a great mistake.  A whole year???  How crazy is that??  Did I aim too high?

(Becoming part of the sculpture.)

But day after day it has become easier, mainly because it has become part of my daily routine.  I am habit building.  A day without some outdoor time doesn’t seem normal anymore.

I also wonder if I’ll be able to catch up.  I tried to keep up with blogging and my blogging friends while in San Diego but I could only devote so much time to it as my days were filled with enjoying being in San Diego.  So I think I’ll give up on catching up and start from where I am.

Today’s Walk

Today’s walk was filled with wonders, too.  It always is.  Today I admired the silvery sheen of the sunlight and clouds, especially as they were reflected in the water of the pond.

(Today’s view of the pond.)

The sky has been milky today.  Even the blues, when they were showing, looked washed out.  It’s an unseasonably warm day.  Perhaps that is what is causing the haze and milkiness.

(Reflections through the grasses.)

M has been outside using his new toy, a chain saw.  I can’t get quite as excited about it as he is, but I am glad he has a better chain saw than he had in the past.  It should make it easier and quicker to cut up all the wood lying about out there, especially the huge chunks of elm left from when we had to have the dead elm trees cut down.

One of the places I be sure to visit each day is the back of the pond where a big, old maple tree hangs over the water.  We are going to have to remove it sometime soon.  A strong wind could bring it down, roots and all, and that could/would undermine the dam.  I feel awful about it.  It’s a beautiful tree.  I took a few photos but they all came out blurry (sort of how I look at the tree now, feeling teary-eyed about having to cut it down).

I’ll try again tomorrow to get some decent shots of it.  I will be visiting the tree every day until we finally do the dastardly, but necessary, deed.

I also wondered at and admired the browns.  I know most people don’t think of brown as a beautiful or wonderful color.  I like it.  There are so many different shades of brown now that most of the other color has dropped away.  Sometimes I try to see how many of those shades I can get into one photo.

That’s about it from the Bogs for now.  Thanks for stopping by.  🙂