Looking Back - 2013

I had a difficult time choosing my favorite post for each month.  Click on the title to see which ones won....

January:  Just an Ordinary Day

February:  Plumb Nilly

March:  Illustrators

April:  Childhood Memories

May:  A Foggy Morning

June:  More Moments Captured

July:  Hungarian Heritage

August: Signs of Things to Come

September:  Changing Seasons - Autumn

October:  My Log Cabin Dream

November:  Sunflowers

December:  Let it SNOW!

In 2014 may you be Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise...

Healthy in body, mind, and spirit

Wealthy in love and gratitude

Wise in truth and eternity!

Out and About - December

♫It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas♫

We did not go as far afield this December.   We got our tree from a nearby tree farm, as usual....

Getting Ready for Christmas

♫It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas♫

Getting ready for Christmas in our family starts with going to a Christmas Tree farm and cutting down our tree.   We started this tradition with our first Christmas in 1969 when it was just the two of us and continued it with our three boys.  Now we are back to just the two of us and I finally get to choose which one we get.   We found the only farm, I think, which offers Hemlocks.  I fell in love with them because they look so delicate....

Let It SNOW! 2013

♫Let it Snow♫

Out and About - November

♫Music♫

We'd been saving our day trip on the back roads to Gettysburg until it was warm enough to put the top down on the Roadster.  The clouds were finally moving on out of the area....

Sunflowers

 ♫I'll Follow the Sun♫

I have a thing for sunflowers.  I love how they'll follow the sun throughout the day.  And on a chilly day like today, I find their sunny faces warm me.  It's rare that I buy myself flowers, but when I do, they're sunflowers like these I bought earlier this week....

....and like I did when we were on Martha's Vineyard last year.  They graced my morning devotional time on the terrace behind the Carriage House we rented for the week....

Out and About - October

♫Halo♫

One reason I keep a Blog is to have an account of what I've been up to.  With that in mind I've decided to have an "Out and About" post every month where I'll collect the photos that don't  make it into another post.  

Even five days before the Hunter's Moon was full it was quite large....

My Log Cabin Dream

♫In God's Hands♫

When I was still dreaming my "Cabin Dream" I set up a folder in my Bookmarks labeled "Cabin Dream".  It included photos like this....

Changing Seasons - Autumn

♫Shenandoah♫

It's beginning to look a lot like Autumn here....at least on the inside.  To celebrate the return of Autumn I'm posting a few photos of this year's Autumn decor along with links to last year's posts about Autumn.  It is too soon here in our part of the country for leaves to be changing but there's a nip in the air promising Autumn leaves will soon start to appear.  In the meantime, I've taken down the summer decor and have once again put up my red curtains along with Harry Richardson's Autumn print of his grandmother's house....

Martha's Vineyard

A year ago this week we were on Martha's Vineyard.  It was such a wonderful experience that I wanted to share it again with you.  Click on the highlighted titles to go to my original post....

Martha's Vineyard Carriage House

Happy Birthday, Tasha Tudor

Tasha Tudor was born on this date in 1915 and passed away in 2008....

Signs of Things to Come

♫Song of the Heart♫

One of the things I love about the change of seasons is that we're treated to signs of things to come.  For instance, my Mums all have tiny buds on them and one even has a few blossoms....

Hungarian Heritage

My heritage is half Hungarian.  My mother's father, Janos Rozgonyi, pictured on the right....

was born in Abauj-Torna, Telkibanya, Hungary, in 1887.  When he emigrated to the United States in 1906 he became known as John Rozgonyi, later Rozgony.  

Lightning Safety Week: June 23-29, 2013

All's quiet now but two hours ago this is what it looked like from my front window....

....and from my front porch....

It turns out I should not have been out on my porch in the middle of a thunderstorm.  My cat knew better.  She was hiding behind the couch in the basement. Lightning safety is not something to be ignored.  You don't have to be outdoors to be harmed.  Did you know these precautions (from the NOAA site) should be taken:

• Stay off corded phones, computers and other electrical equipment that put you in direct contact with electricity.
• Avoid plumbing, including sinks, baths and faucets.
• Stay away from windows and doors, and stay off porches.
• Do not lie on concrete floors, and do not lean against concrete walls.

And if you are caught outside with no safe shelter anywhere nearby you should:

• Immediately get off elevated areas such as hills, mountain ridges or peaks
• Never lie flat on the ground
• Never shelter under an isolated tree
• Never use a cliff or rocky overhang for shelter
• Immediately get out and away from ponds, lakes and other bodies of water
• Stay away from objects that conduct electricity (barbed wire fences, power lines, windmills, etc.)

Since 1982 there have been an average of 53 deaths per year from lightning, which may not seem like very many--except if it's you.

There are other precautions, too, that should be taken to protect your house and belongings which you can find on the NOAA site.  Because we live on a 1,000-foot mountain the first owner of our house installed lightning rods.  We added a whole-house surge protector.  Be sure to check out the myths and facts link.

Lightning can be quite beautiful--if viewed from a safe distance.  You can watch the National Geographic's program on the science of lightning and the effects of a strike here.

Stay safe...

Visitor in the Night

♫Fly With Me♫

The night of the full moon I was graced with the sighting of a Cecropia Moth.  Since they only come out at night and because I am not usually outside at that time, I have never seen one before.  I had my camera with me when I stepped outside with the intent on capturing the full moon, but it had not risen above the trees.  Instead I was able to capture Poetry's intent interest in this elusive moth which has a lifespan of only two weeks.  Besides being the largest moth in North America it is quite beautiful....

Within moments, though, Gabriel, who was outside with me, saw it, too....

....and it fluttered upward over the roof into the night.  

I never did get a photo of the Supermoon.

More Moments Captured

♫Chopin Waltz Op.69 No.2♫

...from our weekend on the Chesapeake Bay....an egret fishing in the pond behind the house....

...the first sunlight reflecting off a loblolly pine....

 ...a bluebird perched on a branch....

...kayaking....a fishing boat in the background....

...the full moon over the Bay our second evening....

photo credit: Benjamin Schultz

...the moon setting the next morning over the pond...

...the sky just before sunrise....

...the last evening a cruise ship approaching the moon....

Feeling Alive

♫Ocean Waves♫

♫Brian Crain - Wind♫

"When I think of the moments I have felt most alive, they all have the quality of joining all-of-what-I-keep-inside with everything-outside-me in a way that makes me forget myself....[like] moments of being immersed in great music or great open spaces." --Mark Nepo

Mark Nepo's statement explains why I could not get enough of this scene this past weekend as I took Gabriel out for his morning walk just before sunrise....

We'd rented a house right on the Chesapeake Bay and the view from the 3rd floor balcony stretched even farther....

And if you stood farther back in the house in the living room you felt you were out to sea on a ship....

Nepo says Joy is the feeling of the Oneness we experience when we get in touch with that inner self...."it is the risk to be fully present that opens us to the Oneness that flows through all things."  

Expansive views have a way of making one fully present!  It is why I also love the views from mountain tops just as much....

Nepo notes that as infants we are one with everything and that in time we learn how to distinguish between ourselves and others, between the world we carry inside and the world we move through.  Then we spend a lifetime trying to get back in touch with that primary state of Oneness.  This makes me think of a quote by Charles Dickens and illustrated by Mary Engelbreit....

May you find ✻Joy✻ in the aliveness of your moments!

Beyond the Garden Gates - 2013

♫Bird Song♫

Every Spring Frederick, Maryland has a weekend-long tour of several private gardens in the downtown area.  This year's tour opened the garden gates to historic townhouses as well as individual homes.  It was a lovely day to be outside despite the overcast skies as we walked through these 11 gardens....

The Lesson of the Bee and the Flower

♫Love Me♫

The flower doesn't dream of the bee.  It blossoms and the bee comes."  --Mark Nepo, "The Book of Awakening"

Mark Nepo goes on to say, "At times in my life, I have wanted love so badly that I have reimagined myself, reinvented who I am, in an attempt to be more desirable or more deserving, only to discover, again and again, that it is the tending of my own soul that invites the natural process of love to begin.....By attending our own inner growth, we uncannily become exactly who we are..." and we attract "a host of loving others more real than all our fantasies."

A Foggy Morning

♫Spring Charm♫

I don my slicker and garden shoes and head out of doors.....the slight mist does not put me off.  With camera in hand I want to capture the moody morning....

What's in Bloom

♫Sounds of Spring♫

You know Spring has indeed arrived once the trees start to bloom!  Here's what's blooming today in my yard and woods--Click on the first photo for a slideshow--First the trees....

Redbud

Wild Cherry

Dogwood

Star Magnolia

Bushes....

Viburnum

Japaconia

Azalea

Does anyone know what this is?

And this one?

Bulbs....

Tulips

Daffodils

Anemone

Grape Hyacinth

Flowers....

Primrose

Bleeding Heart

Periwinkle

Violets and one lone dandelion