Sunday meditation

Posted: September 30, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Adventures in Life, Air, Autumn, beginnings, Earth, fall, Fire, goals, hiking, home, Letting Go, Local Tourists, Meditation, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, Spirit | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

I’m going deep into the forest

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338: Just in case

Posted: August 27, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in art, Adventures in Life, Earth, goals, hiking, home, nature, Photography, Spirit, Summer, travel, Walking, weather | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 32 Comments

The shy flower

It occurs to me that with all we have going on today, I might end up doing another flash post.  I usually like to keep a post handy for those “just in case” days when I either don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to post.  So I got up early today to do a “just in case” post.  I will schedule it to post and, if I don’t find time to post live and in person later today, we can all visit Colorado Springs in 2010 and assume I met my commitment to get outdoors for the day which I will then tell you all about on Sunday.  Or something.

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325: Sunday signage

Posted: August 14, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in art, Adventures in Life, Earth, family, Fun!, goals, home, Local Tourists, nature, Photography, Spirit, Summer, Walking, water, weather | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 31 Comments

It’s not exactly a sign, but then again, one could take it as a sign.  A positive sign.  I found these (and other words) on the hat of one of the gnomes at the Holden Arboretum.  Want to see the gnome himself?  Of course you do…

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57: Going Home

Posted: November 18, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in Life, Art, Autumn, food, home, NaBloPoMo, Photography, Spirit, travel, Walking, wandering, water, weather | Tags: , , , , , | 11 Comments

(A California rose.)

It’s Tuesday morning as I type this.  I’m sitting on the deck of the condo we’re renting, occasionally getting caught up in watching and listening to the waves of the Pacific as they roll in.  It’s foggy this morning.  They say it will burn off by 10am.

(The Fish Tree.)

This has been a lovely trip with perfect weather.  The only thing missing was a swim in the ocean, something I’ve never done here.  I put my feet in.  I wade.  But I never swim.  I suppose if the weather got hot enough — to counteract the cold of the water — I might.  I love to swim in the sea and play in the waves.

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this on Tuesday if it’s a Thursday post.  We’re heading home.  It’s going to  be a long travel day.  I’m not sure I’ll have the time or energy to post before the day is over.  The solution is a scheduled post.  Gotta love WordPress.

Once again I will have to be up at 2am to get ready to go to the airport.  That makes for a very long day.  It might not be so bad if I could sleep on the plane.  But I have a fear of flying so sleep is out of the question.  I stay awake to keep the plane in the air.  (It’s magic!  lol!)  As I was explaining to someone the other day, the fear doesn’t lessen with each flight.  I never understood the idea (or benefits) of desensitization therapy.  As far as I can tell, it doesn’t work.  Deep breaths, meditation, visualization… tried ’em all.  I still get anxious and afraid.  I spend the first part of the flight in a cold sweat of terror.   Eventually I relax out of sheer exhaustion until the descent and landing.

(Pacific Portal.  Shelter Island.)

I’d give up flying but it’s difficult to travel anywhere if you don’t fly.  It takes longer, for one thing.  A cross-country trip in the car would mean a couple of days travel time to get here, a couple of days travel time to get home, and not much time in between to enjoy actually being here.  So, I get on an airplane and hope for the best.

I don’t want to spend my remaining days here in sunny California dwelling on my fear of flying.  But it does help to sit with the fear using mindfulness techniques for a little while.  I’ve learned that trying to deny or ignore the fear doesn’t work.  Might as well sit with it with mindfulness and compassion for a few minutes.

(Walking the dogs.)

As of this writing, it’s been a great trip.  There has been time to relax as well as see some of the sights.  I’ve taken lots of long walks and had no difficulty at all meeting my outdoor commitment.

(Mission Bay sculpture.)

Home will be good, too.  I miss Izzy and Bella, and wonder how they’re doing.  I’m sure they are fine or I would have heard something from our house-/pet-sitter.  I will also enjoy sleeping in my own bed once again.  The bed here has been comfortable enough and I didn’t have any trouble sleeping, but there’s no place like home when it comes to comfort.

We had breakfast early this morning (that would be Tuesday) at Kono’s, a Pacific Beach institution.  On the weekends the line to get in is out the door and up the street.  A Kono’s breakfast is large, especially if you order a breakfast burrito, delicious, and the price is great.  Going early on a Tuesday, it wasn’t very crowded at all.  In fact, we were able to get a seat on the patio that overlooks the ocean.

Well, I guess that’s about it from San Diego for now.  Next time you hear from me, I’ll be back in the Bogs.

SkyWatch Friday: Colorado

Posted: August 27, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Air, Earth, hiking, NaBloPoMo, nature, Photography, SkyWatch Friday, Summer, travel, Walking, wandering, weather | Tags: , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

(Poudre Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park)

We had some beautiful skies here in the Bogs yesterday.  The clouds cleared out and the color was an autumnal blue — that clear, crisp, gorgeous blue we normally see in late September and October.

I can’t show you those skies, though.  I was busy getting caught up around the house, processing and freezing vegetables, and getting ready for a visit with my granddaughters this weekend.  I did get out to enjoy the lovely weather and beautiful skies, but didn’t bother with the camera.  To be honest, I still haven’t uploaded all of the photos from our Colorado trip and the thought of more photos to sort through is not appealing to me at this time.  I enjoyed the day and gave no thought at all to taking pictures.

The photo above is from our recent trip to Colorado.  The skies in Colorado were beautiful, too.  They seem to almost always have a deep blue clarity to them that we don’t see often here in the Bogs.  Sometimes, when the days were hot (as they frequently are in August), the skies reminded me of the desert.  The skies in Colorado are bigger than our skies here, too.  We have trees and hills and houses and all sorts of things that block clear views of the sky and horizon.  But out there, the skies are wide open (unless you happen to be in a canyon, in between mountains).  It is one of my favorite things about Colorado.  I never feel claustrophobic there.

Rocky Mountain National Park is a wonderful place for watching the skies and for stargazing.  M and I went out there one night to enjoy looking at the night sky and to watch the meteor showers (the Pleides were at their peak that night).  One of the volunteers at the park is an astrologer and he gave a talk about the night sky, including showing us how to find and identify some of the summer constellations.  I found it all fascinating.

The skies in Colorado are almost constantly changing throughout the day.  At least that is how it has been during our two visits.  The mornings frequently start out clear and blue (as in the above photo taken at Grand Lake).  If you look carefully at that photo (click on it — or any of the photos — for a larger view), you’ll see some clouds building on the horizon.  Those clouds slowly moved in throughout the day.  Sometimes they brought rain.  Sometimes they didn’t.

We saw several rainbows while we were in Colorado.  I have no pictures to show, mostly because they would happen when we were driving down the road and my camera happened to be stored in the trunk of the car.  I usually keep it with me but there were a few times — rainbow times — when I would throw my backpack into the trunk, forgetting that my camera was still in it.

(Shadow Mountain Lake)

I have plenty of photos of the  Colorado skies to share with you in the coming weeks.  Perhaps that should be “in the coming months” as I took over 1500 photos during our two week trip.  It’s possible it’s much more than that but I refuse to admit it as it might make me look like a photography addict or something.

To view beautiful skies from around the world, please click on the link below.

In other news…

M and I are celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary today.  It’s a quiet celebration.  He’s at work doing his work thing and I’m at home with a bushel of tomatoes and another peck of peppers to process.  I’m going to make spaghetti sauce today, which can be frozen.  I’ll work on canning the rest of them sometime this weekend.  We’ll have a real celebration sometime next week (dinner out, champagne, etc.).

We’ll be going to the county fair tomorrow with our granddaughters and their parents, something that has become a bit of a tradition with us.  I’m looking forward to it.