Spring cleaning
Posted: February 26, 2013 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, beginnings, Earth, Fire, goals, health, home, Letting Go, Mindfulness, music, nature, Photography, Quotes, renovations, Spirit, Walking, wandering | Tags: Cleanliness, Cleveland Botanical Garden, Clutter, flowers, full moon, Home, MaidinSun Photography, moonrise, music, nature, Outdoors, Photography, quotes, Red-tailed Hawk, spring cleaning, sunrise, Wendell Berry, winter 40 Comments
From the archives. Crocus, Spring 2009.
Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.
~ Wendell Berry, Farming: a hand book
Somewhere, sometime, I read something that suggested one’s outer environment is a reflection of one’s inner state of being. If there is any truth to that, my inner state of being must have been chaotic, cluttered, disorganized, and in need of a good dusting or scrubbing. My inner being was holding on to “fat clothes,” too. Expansion of the inner being is no problem, but my outer being needs to let go of such things. There is no going back.
240: Cleaning machine
Posted: May 21, 2011 Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in Life, Domesticity, Earth, garden, home, nature, Photography, Spirit, Spring, travel, videos, Walking, weather | Tags: Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania, Photography, postaday2011, spring cleaning 21 Comments
(Pergola in the wisteria garden at Longwood Gardens.)
My Spring Cleaning Project may well be the longest spring cleaning in the history of spring cleaning. In my own defense, I’ve been keeping fairly busy with other things (proofreading, traveling, blogging, going on daily outdoor adventures, etc.). Also, I declared 2011 to be The Year of De-Cluttering. I have been sorting, sifting, and making decisions about Stuff. Lots and lots of Stuff. Sorting, sifting, and making decisions about Stuff often takes time.
178: Vernal equinox
Posted: March 20, 2011 Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in art, Adventures in Life, beginnings, Earth, endings, Fire, full moon, goals, home, nature, Photography, Spirit, Spring, Walking, water, weather | Tags: equinox, full moon, Goodyear Blimp, moon, postaday2011, spring cleaning, supermoon 38 Comments
Here we are, another new season beginning. Technically it isn’t spring yet here. Not for a few more hours. But it’s close enough. Happy Spring!
I had fun shooting the moon last night. Most of my shots (including the one I opened this post with) are overexposed. As I noted at Karma’s blog this morning, the moon baffles me. Sometimes two shots in a row, with the camera on the same settings, come out completely different. I’ve learned to take what I can get.
Full moon rising, in sepia.
And then I take what I got and play with it in Photoshop.
I didn’t do much. Just tweaked the sharpness a little and then converted them to sepia tones. Or close to sepia. I decided to make the tone a little more on the brown side. It looked better to me for reasons I can’t explain.
Goodyear Blimp
I promised you some photos of the Goodyear blimp doing the touch-and-go’s. I would like to have done this in a slide show here at WordPress, but you can’t have individual photos in the same post as a slide show. They all end up in the slide show. I hope that’s something WordPress will deal with in the future.
Up in the air
Watching them do take offs and landings is fun and interesting. M and I went out to the air dock a few years ago with a friend and her young son. If you like, you can see the photos from that excursion here. (To be honest, those photos, taken with my old camera, are much better than what I took yesterday. It was not the camera. We were closer to where the blimp was landing and taking off.)
Coming in for a landing
It was a little breezy yesterday. I noticed as the blimp was coming in that it shimmied quite a bit.
Getting closer to the ground
Sometimes I think it might be fun to take a ride in the blimp. Other times, my fear of flying reasserts itself and I come back to reality.
As you see in the above photo, they have quite a few people on the ground to help bring the blimp down.
I wonder how difficult it is to grab the lines. I know it takes a lot of people, working together, to bring the blimp in.
And after putting in all that effort, the blimp takes off again in a seemingly effortless way.
Going up!
Once again up in the air
Today’s Outdoor Adventures
This will be short and sweet. I went back to my spring cleaning project today. My outdoor time has involved taking rugs out to shake them or thump them, hanging bedding and other laundry on the line, and generally working to air out the stale energy of winter and let in the fresh, new energy of spring. I even opened a few windows for a little while although the high is only about 55 today.
As the day goes on, I hope to get out for a little relaxation time, at least by sunset. It’s been a pretty day here in the Bogs so far and it would be nice to just sit and enjoy it for a few minutes or go for a short hike. It’s sunny, clear, and breezy. This is perfect hiking weather, something I’d rather be doing. But once the spring cleaning is finished, I’ll be glad I gave up a day or two of hiking to do it. It feels good to air everything out, toss out (recycle, donate, etc.) the old, and make room for the new.
Life in the Bogs 