adapt!

My dear friend Michelle gave me a great idea in her comment 

on yesterday's moon post.

She said the photos kind of took on a painted look.

So, I took one of the images to Photoshop and

applied "Filters." Several of them, as a matter of fact.

One of the best things I have learned in my life is

how to adapt.  (Got lemons?  Photoshop them!   ;o} )

Photoshop mystifies me.  I like fooling around with "Filters"

but basically have no idea what I am doing.

I just fiddle until I like what I see better than I liked the original.

If you asked me to take the original and re-do what I made above,

I couldn't do it if my life depended on it.

I have seen someone work with 'Layers' and I really aim

to learn how to use them.

Some day when I have a few hours of uninterrupted time, that is.

That kind of time doesn't come easy around here.

So, what do you think, good people?

How have you adapted when things didn't go as you planned??

magic moon

Gosh, the moon was pretty tonight.

As close as it's going to get for the next 30 years.

So hard to capture with my simple camera

as it rose tonight just after sunset.

:     :     :

simple camera

grainy photos

...magic moon.

sunshine, shadows and reflections

Today we came back to our parked car and it was warm inside!

(A definite turning point in our neck of the woods.)

As Equinox approaches, I have been looking at light

and its many effects.

puddle

 fan light

 mackerel  sky

embrace

Small miracles, every one.

pausing for a moment

I'm having trouble thinking about much else today.

                                                                                                                                                                              Matt Dunham / AP

                                Survivors keep warm under covers in a school gymnasium being used as a shelter in Ofunato, Japan                                                                                                                       

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42034875

                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                           

Can we share ideas about what people can do to help?

 

watching the river flow

The ice is breaking up.

As people say around here, "Winter's back is broken."

There is still plenty of snow, but it's disappearing more and more every day.  

We will probably see it snow again, maybe several times--

But the sun and the air will make sure it won't stay long.

As the river rises above its banks a little,

it shows beautiful reflections and makes lace with ice.

~*       *~*      *~

The water looks different depending on where you look.

                    

 Here it piles ice chunks together.

You can see the river bottom once more in some quiet places in the shallows.

 I like how the ice is thick in spots, and thin in others.

       

                                                              

(This guy stopped off for a drink before heading home for the night.)

~*       *~*        *~

Under the bridge, the water seems calm--

 but it's not. 

These whirlpools hint at just how fast the water is moving.

As winter releases its grip, the river comes alive.  

Don't you feel more alive, too?

river fog: March

Yesterday when the rain stopped, the river was mysterious and beautiful.

Ice on the water combined with the still, moist 45º air.  

Mist rose from the surface and hung above it

in gauzy wisps and clumps.

*~*~*~*

There was a crack in the ice that went from shore to shore

in a meandering kind of way.

I would have loved to hear the boom it made when that happened!

This is how it looked up close.

There was water on top of the ice from the rain.  

I was loving the reflections it made of the trees on the shore.

"Ice out" won't be too far from now.

The newly-arrived birds told me.

  

;o)

a poem for today

We are having a soaking rain today, and I am enjoying the peace

and the hibernation it affords.

I have been thinking about the freedom I feel I have acquired to 

be myself and do what I want, now that I have 

achieved middle age.  

To me, this poem says it all.

                                  

  Boat

Wind off the small pond where I set my rubber

boat down and climbed in, my child-sized paddle

barely long enough to push off or feather

a rudderless craft. Easier to drift in circles

across the late-March waters, my dogs

wild at the idea of spring's first cold immersions.

Still, they swam out to try to climb aboard,

swamping my little boat until, soaked through,

I paddled back, spilled roaring in the shallows.

Onshore two mothers watched, and their

young children who neither waved nor smiled,

nor I. Distance forgave us, and the babies,

who stood on guard, sticks in their little

hands raised to the pack shaking dry,

running headlong in their direction.

The mothers swept children onto hips

and turned, barely maneuvering behind them

strollers tipping a wreck of bright bottle bags,

toys, blankets, perhaps extra clothes.

Once they looked back to show me myself at fifty,

frightening to them, not yet recognizable, the self-

same, almost, in an old nightmare obsolete,

who might have called out to reassure

as I buried my freezing legs in the sun-warmed

sand and lay back, flanked by three dogs

and a rubber boat. O brilliant, trivial unmooring.

                                  Deborah Digges 

                                                                from her collection  Trapeze