Thursday, January 31, 2008

Indian Illustration

I received a wonderful belated Christmas gift the other day. A former colleague and good friend of mine spent the holidays in India with her family. I find all things Indian rich and beautiful and, knowing my favourite colour is blue, she brought back a scarf for me. I adore it and am so pleased that she thought of me when she saw it. The first photo shows its true colour, but I feel that the pattern is more easily appreciated in the B&W photo that follows.


Wednesday, January 30, 2008

5-minute Sunrise

I had decided that I wasn't going to post any more photos of the sky for a while since I've been doing a lot of that lately but I couldn't help myself this time. Like much of Ontario and the rest of Canada, we had miserable weather yesterday; we experienced rain, freezing rain, snow...you name it we saw it! But before all that started I woke up to this; it only lasted for about 5 minutes and I'm so thankful the dogs (I'm also dog-sitting this week) dragged my sleepy butt out of bed to see it. This is straight out of my camera with absolutely no editing at all....Mother Nature really does provide the best inspiration :)


Monday, January 28, 2008

Icicle or twigcicle??

I'm always amazed when I come across blades of grass or twigs that are supporting ice that's obviously so much heavier than they are!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Ruins at Merrickville

I went for a drive to Merrickville yesterday; it's about 45 minutes from where I live in Ottawa and is also yet another stop on the Rideau Canal. These industrial ruins sit right on the edge of the canal. It's a popular spot for wedding photography actually :)
I spent some time 'googling' the area to find out some more info about the ruins and, to my surprise, there is next-to-nothing to be found on the net so I can't even tell you what time period they date back to...






As for Miss Flo, she continues to be upset and, for now, is hiding behind a wall of boxes in our laundry room. Not even treats will coax her to come out. She's been there so long now that my cats don't even realize she's still here. Cross your fingers for us that she'll come out!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Unhappy House Guest

We are cat-sitting for Brigittte and Craig this week while they attend a wedding in Punta Cana (must be nice!!). We were concerned with how our 2 kitties would welcome Miss Flo; turns out she has scared the life out of our cats - and us too, for that matter (if you couldn't see her you would think she was a mountain lion based on the noises she can make!). She's pretty upset to have been taken out of her home and away from her parents. I'm hoping she'll come around shortly. The first photo is of Flo peeking out from behind a box to check us out; the next one shows you how she addresses us whenever we dare come near her. We're still happy to have her :)


Friday, January 25, 2008

Sciurus griseus

Don't be impressed (in case you were!); I had to look up the Latin name of this little fella who hangs out in the tree in front of our house most mornings. It's easy to distinguish him because all the others are black! I love that his little face is covered in snow from playing.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Aberdeen Pavillion

I asked Brannon to quickly stop by the Aberdeen Pavilion (a Victorian heritage building) today on our way home. He had something in the oven and literally told me I had 1 minute to take photos so I wasn't able to find great angles but oh well! I just love how the sun enhances the colour of the building in the first shot; yet does very little in the second. This is where the Ottawa Ex (Central Canada Exhibition) is held each year. I also managed to catch a quick shot of the sun setting as we got closer to home.



Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Rush-Hour Sky

Brannon drove me to the lab today so I was able to photograph this morning's magnificent sky. It was such a welcome sight after yesterday's snow!


Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Getting My Beauty Sleep

Certainly not exciting for you but VERY exciting for us! Brannon and I have never had a good mattress and we finally bought one; it's the Simmons Beautyrest with a pillowtop (how luxurious!); I had better be gorgeous tomorrow!
It was delivered today but unfortunately the boxspring wouldn't quite fit up our narrow staircase so we've had to re-order a split boxspring. Annoying certainly, but not the end of the world. So, for now we'll be sleeping on our new bed on the floor and our cats love this arrangement. Hopefully there will be a little more wiggle room in this bed than in our last. I couldn't bare to kick the cats out of bed but I contemplated giving my hubby the boot :)
This also means we finally get to use some of the bed linens we received as wedding gifts way back in June!


I couldn't help but post a photo of Blue. I just missed a big yawn which would have made an adorable shot. Maybe next time!

In other wonderful news, I *seem* to have fixed my camera issues so hopefully I'll get back out soon to get some newer photos.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Nature

Since my Nikon is not happy these days I've had to resort mostly to using photos I've taken in the past several months. I've had trouble deciding which photo to post for the weekly contest and this made the short-list but, alas, is not what I'm entering but I thought it made a good entry for today. I took this on a gorgeous afternoon in November.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Bearing Fruit

It is the end of January and this tree is still bearing fruit (I'm pretty sure it's a crab-apple tree); mushy and over-ripe to be sure but it's still there!
Pardon the angle, I had a really tough time getting close to it as it was hanging on the other side of a deep ditch!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Beautiful Blue

You've met our other cat Bailie, now it's time for you to meet Blue. We adopted her from the Lanark Animal Welfare Society shortly after Christmas in 2002. Blue is nothing but a sweet-heart and is never very far away from me; I can't sit down for half a second without her jumping into my lap. She'd do it to you too, if you'd let her :)

Friday, January 18, 2008

Subject: sky (again)

I'm very much looking forward to getting my camera back.....

Thursday, January 17, 2008

My Gina

I am finally making arrangements to put my wedding dress up for sale (wedding was in June). I wore Justina McCaffrey's Gina and could not have been happier with my choice. I am so sad to sell her but I know it's the right decision in terms of closet space and money :)
I hope I can find someone who will be as pleased to wear her as I was!



Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Summer Sunset

Brigitte and Craig are coming over tonight; with everything that's been going on in our lives we haven't been able to get-together since before the holidays (this is odd for us!). We'll be having a dinner of munchies and probably drinking some wine too.....
The point of this story is that it's unlikely I'll find the time to post any photos today after work so I've gone through my very small collection of personal shots on my computer in the lab and I came across these. I took these photos with my P&S on June 30, 2006; just days after my parents moved into a new home on the Lower Rideau Lake. After 2 full summers of visiting my parents there and seeing such sunsets I still can't get enough of them and it makes me so sad when they "go away" at the end of August.

This makes me wish I was going on a trip down south...hope you're having a great time Pam!





Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Arranged Shadow

It was that time of day on the lake.....

Monday, January 14, 2008

Purple Haze

With no real inspiration for today and only the use of my P&S I decided to take some ordinary photos and play with the hue. It seems I like purple :)




Sunday, January 13, 2008

Puddles in January

The snow has literally all melted in Rideau Ferry but it's back to being cold again so I'm expecting some more snow to fall shortly. For now though, we have puddles everywhere and flooded fields, etc. As I drove to my parents' home I stopped and took this picture from the road of the reflection of the broken-off cornstalks in the flooded field.

**Please note, this is from my point-and-shoot, at quite a distance.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Tyler's Flower

Another flower - I know, it's getting old - but that's my best inspiration these days. Not only do I love these flowers (but I haven't a clue what it's called) but this one is especially special because it came from the arrangement sent by the driver of the other car that was involved in my grandfather's accident. The accident was in no way his fault and my family is wishing for him a very speedy recovery.


I'm back to using my point-and-shoot since my Nikon is currently out-of-commision so the quality isn't great. Hopefully I can get my other one back soon :)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Curled

This new leaf is un-curling in one of the floral arrangements my parents have received; in fact, Aunt Heather, this is from your arrangement (thanks!). I made one minor adjustment (I changed the D-lighting) and ended up with what I think is a really interesting photo.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Wild Weather

It was so windy today a person could barely walk outside without being blown away. I heard stories of cars being moved by the wind, transports being turned over (on bridges, no less!), and of shingles flying through the air. My mother went out to pick up her newspaper this morning to find the boxes laying on the ground and the papers in a flooded ditch. I also came across some other local paper boxes hadn't been able to withstand the wind either. When my mother and I were on our way to visit my grandmother today we heard and felt a large thump on the car and we looked up through the sunroof to see a huge branch had fallen on the roof! We were glad we weren't walking.



But the worse came when I popped by Brannon's brother's house. A large pine snapped and landed on his neighbour's roof. There was extensive damage but thankfully no one was injured. We're expecting some more rain so they had to do some emergency patching.

Skies

The sky underwent a number of transformations today; I wish I'd been able to capture them all on film.

Moments of illustrious brightness!

I particularly like this one because it appeared like the sun was shining only on this one branch.



In memory

As most of you will realize, I lost my paternal grandfather unexpectedly on Monday in a car accident. We've been quite busy as you might imagine, making plans, etc., but today was actually a pretty good day. I spent the morning searching through what seems like a million photos, starting from when my parents were first married and, in some ways, it was fun to reminisce.
We also had some wild weather today, which I'll get to in a new post, and I found some time to get away and take some pictures. After a visit with my grandmother I decided to take some pictures in memory of my grandfather.

In the above photo is the house in which I grew up and it is directly next to my grandparents' home; my parents moved last year and my aunt lives there now. Seeing those trees always makes me laugh because my grandfather had poor vision and when those trees were first planted (there were 6 then, lining the driveway; now there are 3) my grandfather would continually run over them with his big lawn tractor, some of them many times over. I'll never understand how any of them ever made it, especially to that size, and that they aren't distorted in shape. I was a bit late taking the picture so it was almost too dark to get anything.

My grandfather was a mason. He was long retired but he kept some of his equipment outside at the back of his shed. He was very good at his trade and couldn't drive down a street in my home town without pointing out the houses he'd bricked over the years - which were many.

This is what my grandfather always called "the park". It's at the edge of his property and was once a forested area. Over the years he cleared a lot of it and spent a great deal of time maintaining this area. Apparently he even had a "pet" grouse who would visit him here. I do hope that, in his absence, someone will be able to keep it up the way he did.
Oh, and the tops of the trees are cut off because I only had my zoom lens and I literally couldn't get far enough away to capture their complete height.

He burned wood almost exclusively to heat his house. I found this interesting specimen on the top of his wood pile in "the park".

Lastly, some flowers in one of the many arrangements we've received. I think this is waxflower and it's a flower I had really wanted in my bridal bouquet, however, it was too purple for my pink peonies so omitted it but I think they're gorgeous.