sharleenstuart30 Minutes in the Life: October 2020
Posted on October 26, 2020
This month I am going to do something just a little different for my 30 minutes. I am going to do 30 minutes of editing because it took me way longer than 30 minutes to capture these little guys.
I love dragonflies. Their mechanics are pure perfection. Have you ever looked closely at their wing formation. The design is fantastic. Along with the back of their heads. I am always amazed at what they look like/ I cropped in an image so that you could get a closer look. Their eyes are so huge and they watch every movement you make. Have you ever watched a dragonfly chew? Oh my, it is so cool. So here are a few dragonfly that I captured over 2 days, plus a few of my favorites. I have tried my best to identify them, but I could be wrong. Don’t hold that against me.
The best thing about dragonflies is that they eat the mosquitos. The sad thing is that in the circle of life, they become food for the birds, and the lizards. Red wing Blackbirds love dragonflies and I have seen them shove an entire dragonfly down a chick’s throat.
It’s either feast of famine for the lizard. He was not having a lot of success while I was watching him.
Please continue to stay safe, wherever you are in the world. Thank you for joining me for 30 Minutes in the Life.
Flowers in Macro: October 2020
Posted on October 13, 2020
I love flowers….period. One way to make me happy is give me flowers. Each week I go to the local store and try to find something I really love. This week it was these. I was sitting looking at the flower center the other day and wondered what they would look like in macro. So I got to play and enjoy the results.
Thanks for stopping by. If you are interested in seeing more of my photography take a look at my Facebook page or my Flickr Page.
Share Six: October 2020: Books
Posted on October 6, 2020
This month I chose the theme {Books} for our challenge. I wanted something that could be done at home. While things seems to be opening up down my side of town, I am still not convinced we are out of the woods. So I am probably going to keep doing what I have been doing.
The definition of books is as follows “a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers”
Books, however, are so much more to me. Book smell so much better than an iPad. They also don’t hurt when they hit your face. I love to turn the pages of a book. I love to escape to lands unknown, to medieval times, to Scotland in the days of the Bruce, to the bravery of men and women during WW2. Most often at night, you will find me on my couch in my office reading a book instead of watching the television.
I have taken a number of images over the past 4 years of books so here are some of those images.
When I thought about books for this theme, I wanted them to be timeless, so black and white was where I went this time around with the {Books} theme.
Books make me smile, they bring me to a happy place. I like to escape into them. I very rarely go to bed without reading. When I thought about what I wanted for this theme, I really wanted to show that books are timeless. Books for me are old friends. Stories of life, pages I can turn. I have some collections, but I have realized that the amount of books I read means I am running out of storage space. So nowdays I am using my Kindle app a lot more. But I do not like to get rid of certain books, my poetry books, my old English books, my Shakespeare, Chaucer, Thomas Hardy books. Classics, I have held onto them. Novels about WW2, favorite authors, they grace my shelves. General novels I will happily pass on.
Thank you for joining me for this month’s Share Six blog post. This is a circle blog. The sneak peaks that are shared are stunning. The challenges always stretch us just a little bit further. I blog with an incredibly talented group of ladies. Please take time to visit my friend and very talented artist who always amazes me with her images Katherine of Cobert Photography to see what she has for you this month. To view her Facebook page click here and her Instagram page here.
Keep following the circle to see what the other photographers have shared this month. Don’t forget to leave a little love on their page as well.
Come and share your images Facebook and Instagram tagging #sharesix_books
Tell Me A Story: September 2020
Posted on September 30, 2020
Can it be that September is almost over. 3 Months and it will be Christmas again. I feel like I just had Christmas the other day. I have officially been working from home for 6 months now. There are days when I live in 4 walls. The cats were keen to get outside and so I picked up my macro and went out into the garden.
While watching the cats, I walked around and took some flowers, weeds and got down into the long grass knowing that later that day the grass was going to be cut.
Thank you for joining me this month as we spend time sharing another day in our lives. This is a quiet month for blogs however, this is a circle blog. Take some time to view what the other artist has for you this month. My friend LUPJI Photography is up next and I can’t wait to read what he has to share.
30 Minutes in the Life: September 2020
Posted on September 28, 2020
This little man means the world to me. He is a rescue cat. He was living on the street and sometimes in Amy’s sun room. She has been feeding him. When Amy went to the Peace Corp she asked me to take him and give him a home. I did not think Richard would buy into it and honestly I worried he may be feral. When I went to bring her and her stuff back home, I took the cat carrier up with us. Since then Simba has transitioned into my heart and I love this boy with just about everything I have.
A routine visit to the vet for dental work has turned into something else. I appears that Simba had fluid and inflammation in his lungs. My local vet asked me to take him to Ft Lauderdale to a specialist vet who looked at the x-rays, concurred with my vet, and treated him for heartworm and gave him an antibiotic. It appeared that we could be dealing with a cat who has asthma, although he is totally asymptomatic. We agreed to wait a few weeks to do another x-ray. The few weeks passed, and I changed out anything that could cause allergies, asthma etc. On my vacation week we did the hour trip back to Ft Lauderdale to the vet. I dropped him off and then found myself at a loose end for a couple of hours. So off I went to the park where the burrowing owls are.
On my way across the heavens opened, and I was not sure what I was going to find when I got there besides wet looking owls or no owls because they may have moved into their holes. I have decided that owls are like cats, when the camera comes out they look away.
I made my way across 3 squishy waterlogged entrances to reach the owls. None of them are really near the edge of the roadway except the first couple of pics. Since I had not planned on rain I was walking in flip flops that quickly became slip flops.
At one point it started to rain a little harder than before and I hung out with my camera under my shirt until I got a little closer. Of course, the next picture is a total fluke. The owl was …shaking to get the water off I guess. You can see the water spray going off of him. It was shaking so hard that it became a little unbalanced
Where ever you find Burrowing Owls there area is cordoned off as they are protected in South Florida. So 4 posts and some rope to stop you going any closer. Quite often you will find them sitting on top of the posts.
The most I managed to see together were two. Sometimes I have seen up to 5 but that is normally in Spring when they are breeding. The owls are less that a standard ruler for the most part. They are the cutest little birds I have seen and they are constantly watching you, watching left and right and up above them for any kind of attack.
Around the time I called it quits, due to the rain, the vet phoned me to say that Sims was ready and I could come and pick him up. The downside was that his lungs were still inflamed. That means we now have to go down the asthma route. I had changed his litter to a wheat litter but I really hate it and so do they, so today we got some 99% dust free litter, that has no fragrances or dyes. In addition he start steriods this past week for 2 weeks, and he is going to be switched to an mask/inhaler combination soon. In a couple of months we will do another x-ray with the hopes that there is some kind of improvement.
Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world. Thank you for joining me for 30 Minutes in the Life. I would encourage you to take some time to visit my very talented friend Janet of Janet Crouch Photography. Check out her Facebook & Instagram page as well.
You can also find me on Facebook, and Instagram.
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Share Six: September 2020: Colors
Posted on September 6, 2020
We are in September and today I sent my boss a reminder about Christmas. Seriously folks, this pandemic has put a huge dent in my life. When it first started out I thought this was going to drag, but I have been so busy with work that I am not noticing the time passing – that is other than saying to Richard, it’s Friday, now it’s Monday and look here is Friday again.
This month Janet Douglas chose the theme {Colors/Colours} I used to write Colours until I moved to the USA and now I write Colors. The dictionary gives us the following definition of colors “the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light.“
Covid has us stuck in our homes. For me, my office that I work out of is also the office that I edit my images in, watch TV in, and read in. It is also Hoo’s spot when I am not working. A lot of my time is spent in those 4 walls. Right now in summer I really do not mind. The weather is hot. Actually it is brutal. Throw a mask into the mix and it is really unpleasant. That aside, there has not been a lot of places to go walking in. A good few parks were closed and the parks that were open did not offer what I was looking for. The one that I could go to, is a park I would rather go with a friend. It is lonely, and the pathways are more like dirt roads and that means there could easily be aligator’s lying on the sides of the roads. I have done the boardwalk at that park as well and it’s not one of my favorite. However, if I want sunsets that is the park I will go to.
The wetlands were closed for restoration over the winter period. Then we went into Covid period and they just did not open. So no walking in the wetlands. Added to all of that my zoom lens had given up the ghost and I probably should have sent my camera to canon for a good cleaning. I got the new lens, but I still think the cleaning will be a good idea at some point in time.
I started vacation on Friday and that also corresponded with the wetlands opening for responsible walking. I decided that I was going to get up early and go and do some walking in the wetlands. Great start, I set my alarm for pm instead of am. However, Ms Moo woke me up at 7am and I flew out of bed, grabbed my clothes, did a quick brush to my hair, brushed my teeth and went downstairs. Cats were fed, hot chocolate was made and I was off.
I figured I was still early. Much to my surprise, I was not. The parking lot at the wetlands was packed up to the third row and I was not too happy about that. The good news is the walk is about 2 miles long and I stopped every so often to take photo’s. I never really felt like I was in too much contact with folks. The down side of the wetland is that there are speed walkers that walk the boardwalk and they don’t really care if you are trying to get a good shot of a bird that happens to be perched on the railing. They are going to keep on walking come hell or high water. Suffice to say the two bird images that I got on the railing were disturbed by these walkers.
It was nice to get out and enjoy the fresh air. To see the vibrant colors of nature. To enjoy seeing the bird life, the butterflies and the bees, and the turtles. I love the feel of the autumn colors even though it is not really autumn in Florida. I hope you enjoy my {Colors} of nature.
Thank you for joining me for this month’s Share Six blog post. This is a circle blog. The sneak peaks that are shared are stunning. The challenges always stretch us just a little bit further. I blog with an incredibly talented group of ladies. Please take time to visit my friend and very talented artist who always amazes me with her images Ceri of Ceri Herd Photography to see what she has for you this month. To view her Facebook page click here and her Instagram page here.
Keep following the circle to see what the other photographers have shared this month. Don’t forget to leave a little love on their page as well.
Come and share your images Facebook and Instagram tagging #sharesix_colors20
tell me a story: August 2020
Posted on August 31, 2020
This does not happen very often but there is the occasional times in the year when both 30 Minutes in the Life and Tell me a Story go live on the same day and at the same time. In the 30 Minutes in the Life I shared Day 1 in Key West. In this blog I will share day 2.
As I said in the other blog we decided to head to Key West for the weekend. At some point you get tired of not seeing anyone, not doing anything other than working at home and not going anywhere. For Rich and I traveling is something we are trying to do more of and so to be stuck at home has been challenging especially for Rich.
We booked into a local hotel overlooking the harbor area and it turned out to have the perfect view. It also had a great swimming pool that we were able t cool down at, given that the summer heat in South Florida is so oppressive. I spent about 2 hours in the pool chatting with the 4 other guests escaping the heat. I love Key West with it’s authentic buildings and quirky well know stories. Key West has so much character and here are a few of them buildings that share it.
Day 2 saw I head into the town area. I was on a mission to find Mango Body Wash. The hotel had it in it’s showers and oh my it was so good. Rich wanted some T-shirts and I was also hoping to find some bath bombs that I had found in the hotel as well. I found the mango bath wash, he got is shirts but I bombed out on the bath bombs.
Roosters, hens and chickens are a common sight wandering around Key West. Six toed cats is another interesting view in Key West. It was sad to see the iconic Sloppy Joe’s closed. However, it did seem that it was temporary.
After doing the necessary shopping, we decided to head to the local Key West First Legal Rum Distillery for a free tour. If you are in Key West check it out. The tour is about 15 minutes and it is just a small warm area that you walk through. It’s awesome that they have ceiling fans to cool you down.
Step 1 tells us that they use Florida sugar cane in crystal form from the juice to create a unique flavor that allows us to drink a clean, clear and flavorful Legal Rum.
Step to the Tanks 1, 2, 3, 4 are where the cooking beings. This is their recipe buried beneath the floor with all the old bottles. The bubbles are the yeast breathing as it eats sugar and turns it into alcohol. The more vibration the more production, so they play music at night to keep the yeast moving.
Step 3 tells us that the brown wash that comes from the fermentation tanks, has the alcohol “stripped ” out of it. It’s like a magic trick, first it’s brown, now it is clear. All alcohol comes out of a still clear
Step 4 tells us that now that they have the stripped alcohol, they will distill it again 6 times. Why? They want the Legal Rum to come out in a lower proof so that it has flavors butterscotch, banana, and hints of vanilla. It says they also don’t want to give us a hangover, so all impurities are taken out.
Step 5 tells us that High Proof Legal Rum goes into the Chefs pot, travels through the copper which is filled with carbon activated charcoal. Rum should be warm in your chest, not burn your tongue.
We had the opportunity to taste raw rum and to do some rum tasting. I tried Coconut Rum and Key Lime Rum and Raw Rum. My favorite even though I typically like Coconut Rum, was the Raw Rum, and we left with a bottle of Raw Rum and some sampler Rums.
If you want something interesting to do on a hot day in Key West definitely check out the Key West First Legal Rum Distillery.
Beyond that we meandered along the wharf taking in the ships and views along with the opportunity to check out a healthy school of tarpon. We stopped for a cooling beer and watch the tiki boats heading out again.
Lastly Key West is always my favorite place for sunsets. Like I said in the other blog that I was disappointed not to be heading out on a boat but at the same time I did not want to be among the crowds. The sunset did not disappoint.
Being Key West refreshed me for the next few months. We have at least one more travel trip this year unless Covid puts a stop to that. I have found a cabin in the woods in Georgia. We are hoping that we will get to see the changing colors in the mountains.
Thank you for joining me this month as we spend time sharing another day in our lives. This is a quiet month for blogs however, this is a circle blog. Take some time to view what the other artist has for you this month. My friend Lupji Photography is up next and I can’t wait to read what he has to share.
30 minutes in the Life: August 2020
Posted on August 31, 2020
And so the year goes on. A few more weeks and we will be back to the birthday months and they run back to back, September, October and November. Who plans like that? Me I guess. Another month of working from home, and seeing so few people. Lots more zoom calls, and relying on the television to show us what is happening in the US. At some point we decided that we needed to get out.
I did some research. Key West is a quick drive for us – 4 hours and we are there. I decided to stay at The Marker Hotel which is situated right on the harbor area and upgraded to a harbor view room for a two nights stay. We very rarely stay in a hotel but it was our anniversary weekend and I felt like staying in something a little more formal. I will give you a heads up – this is going to be a longer post than normal.
It’s good to be back on the road again. We headed down early on Friday morning and to be honest the roads were pretty quiet. We expected a quiet Key West. It’s always good to see familiar landmarks. The first image tells me I am close to Long Key State Park, just north of Marathon. Seven Mile Bridge tells me that Bahia Honda State Park is not too far away. Seeing the boats in the ocean, just remind me that Key West is not far away.
We were early checking in and so we headed off to the beach area. It is not a very big beach and there is a lot of seaweed so not a favorite of mine. However, I love the change colors that we see in the ocean typically caused by the seaweed, depth of water and light. I have been at this beach before when we spotted a shark swimming around. Did I go into the water this time around? Nope but I did work on changing my color again. I am fortunate that I automatically tan. However, I have to be honest, summer is oppressive this year and 2 hours in the sun and I was done. We headed off to eat, and then made our way to the hotel. Air conditioning was on my check off list. Just a side note, one of the things Key West is know for is the Roosters, Hens and chickens wandering around the town. It was quite neat to be able to see the chicks at the beach. Another thing Key West is known for is their polydactyl cats which is a cat with anomaly. The 6 toed cats are also know as Hemmingway cats. Story goes that Ernest Hemmingway was given a 6 toed cat by a ships captain. Apparently while not all of the cats have 6 toes, they carry the gene that will allow them to give birth to a 6 toed cat.
Heading back to the hotel I spotted this tiger. I have never seen it before and I thought it warranted a picture.
Once we cooled down and felt normal again, we ventured out into the heat. It was close to 4pm and we were looking for a place to grab something to eat. We tend to stick to a variety of starters and so finally settled on a restaurant where we could sit outside and enjoy the food. I have to give a shout out to the White Tarpon in key West. Head there for Happy Hour and it is so worth it. We shared calamari and group starter, a mussel starter and peel and eat shrimp starter, along with two glasses of wine and 2 rum and coke. All of that for under $40. The food was good and that probably was the best deal that we got down there. Beyond that we meandered through the wharf are back to the hotel.
Something I have never seen in Key West before, but love that I did, was a pair of manatee. You can read more about them here They are definitely gentle creatures of the water.
Heading back to the hotel, the boats are starting to fill up for the sunset cruises. I was a little disappointed that we did not do a cruise. Sebago is one of our favorite groups to head out on, but to be honest, I am not ready to sit in crowds. While this boat was not crowded, many of the other boats were. I love to be out on the ocean watching the sunset. This time around we were just going to accept that watching the sunset would be from our balcony of our hotel. One of the interesting things we saw was the floating tiki hut. I think it could be cool to do something like this.
And last but no least, we headed out to the balcony to get comfortable and settle in to watch the sunset. No actual sun and the same static pic but the colors were amazing.
I have another blog going live today so look out for Day 2 in Key West. We spent some time visiting a rum distillery, along with walking the town, and taking in the sunset again.
Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world. Thank you for joining me for 30 Minutes in the Life. I would encourage you to take some time to visit my very talented friend Ivana A L’ala who visited the city that I was supposed to be visiting this week – Dubrovnik, Croatia. I cannot wait to see her pics, even if I have to wait a whole year to once again attempt to head to Macedonia, Croatia, and Berlin. Check out her Facebook page as well.
share six: august 2020: refresh
Posted on August 6, 2020
Can you believe it is August already. Seriously this has been a year that has been long but has flown. In a weeks time, I will have been working from home for 5 months. 5 months of really doing very little outside of work .
I want to start out by saying that my heart breaks for the people of Beirut, Lebanon. For families who have lost loved one, for men, women and children who have been seriously injured, for the loss of home, livelihood, and infrastructure. I watched the explosion with horror. My first thought was for my childhood friend, and adopted brother, who lives in Lebanon, just 35km away from Beirut. Thankfully he is safe, but so many are not. My prayer is that the world will step up and lend a helping hand to a struggling country that faces a long and arduous recovery.
This months theme for Share Six is {Refresh}. There are some days that I really need this in my life. I have a couple of ways of refreshing but right now everything is closed. I love to walk in the wetlands, but first they were shut after winter for renovations, and now they are closed for Covid. I am sure those birds have been seriously happy not to have a thousand camera toting spectators visiting the park.
The beaches are open, but I have been too lazy to get up at 6am in the morning to go to the beach to watch the sunrise. Other times Richard will go after the sunrise but before I think it is normal to wake up on a day I can sleep in.
Another {Refresh} thought was to do a 2 day trip to Key West. The down side is that it is hot and there is a mask mandate. I was not overly keen on that. The upside is there is a lot less people down there because of all the restrictions.
Then Richard tested positive for Corona Virus. He had no symptoms. He did a second test 4 days later and tested negative. So now we are not sure whether whether he was positive or negative. Now we are waiting for the results from the antibody test. In the meantime, while neither of us have had any symptoms of the virus, we quarantined as a precaution. For me this is just a good reminder that a lot of people are asymptomatic. We do not know that they are infected. We can take precautions to prevent infection, and if one is infected in your home, the precautions you have to take to prevent the rest of the household being infected are not fun. Wear the mask, wash your hands, disinfect, sanitize. Do you know how many times a person touches a door knob. Seriously, I felt like I was walking behind him cleaning in his wake.
I have another way to {Refresh} and that is to go for a massage. But my massage therapist has been off for surgery and recovery and I am really particular about who my massage therapist is. So that has not happened.
In lieu of a massage there is another way to {Refresh} and that is right at home. An evening in the Jacuzzi tub with the jets on high is definitely a favorite. So here are a few (more than 6) images (past and present) from some refreshing time.
When we are lucky we are treated to some of the most spectacular sunsets. Nothing nicer than refreshing in the Jacuzzi tub and watching the sun set. While not every sunset is awesome, here are a few that were for me. The simple pleasures in life that can be found right at your back door.
The best part about this kind of refreshing evening, there’s not too many dishes to clean up in the morning.
I am grateful that we can relax and refresh. These days are not easy. It is frustrating that we don’t have the freedom to just get up and go do the things we want to do. There is so much going on around the world. Heartbreaking situations. But this is life. Life can make or break us. I choose to rather deal with it than to let it break me. I keep trying to look for those moments of joy and positivity. I hope that you can find ways to refresh during these challenging days.
The key to being Happy is knowing you have the power to choose what to accept and what to let go
~ Dodinsky
Thank you for joining me for this month’s Share Six blog post. This is a circle blog. The sneak peaks that are shared are stunning. The challenges always stretch us just a little bit further. I blog with an incredibly talented group of ladies. Please take time to visit my friend and very talented artist who always amazes me with her images Ceri of Ceri Herd Photography to see what she has for you this month. To view her Facebook page click here and her Instagram page here.
Keep following the circle to see what the other photographers have shared this month. Don’t forget to leave a little love on their page as well.
Come and share your images Facebook and Instagram tagging #sharesix_refresh
Tell me a story: July 2020
Posted on July 31, 2020
It’s nearly August. Time is passing one day at a time. I can’t decide if it is slowly or whether it is just way too fast. It’s hard to believe that I have now been at home 4.5 months. I am still busy working, but time seems in limbo. I wake up, make a protein shake, feed Sim, Moo & Hoo and then I sit down at my computer. My problem is that I do not move. I am trying to force myself to go down the stairs every hour and go on the elliptical machine for a few minutes just to move the old joints around.
Each day seems the same, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays we stay at home, most of the time, unless I absolutely have to go out, or Richard has decided he has had enough of home and needs to go out and eat.
I have been banned from feeding the ducks, the birds and the squirrels so I don’t have a lot of wildlife activity in my garden any more – which I will add I hate. Every so often I will get up and drive to a local park to watch the sunset but even that feels like too much effort some days. Other days I will watch it from home.
An update to this is we are stuck at home. Richard tested positive and we are in quarantine. Happily trying to avoid each other. Just remember if you are asymptomatic, it does not mean that you could not test positive. If you come in contact with someone or you know you may have been in contract for longer than 15 minutes and within the 6ft social distancing, remember that you could get infected. He does not have a single symptom that would indicate that he is sick. Wear the mask, keep the distance.
Last week Wednesdays was one of those days that I watched from home. I happened to move Hoo (the quaker parakeet) into the spare room as I was going to have a conference call (only to find out it was cancelled) and I looked out of the window and watched the clouds come rolling in. Below is a pic take with my old cell phone.
It was a little intimidating to be honest. I grabbed my camera and headed downstairs but the sky did not have the same effect.
The wind picked up, thunder happened at a distance but not a drop of rain fell. Clearly it happened on the east side of town. In fact there was a rainbow just a little later that I saw. However, I decided I would head out back and see what the sunset was like given the weather or lack of weather earlier in the day.
My first thought was this was not going to be that great, but I persevered and sat outside with Sims and waited.
And it did not disappoint. Maybe not as spectacular as some of the other days but it was still a pretty sky overall.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that it doesn’t matter what is going on in the world, the world is still beautiful and we can sit back in our own small space and truly enjoy this incredible creation that we live in.
Tomorrow is back to work, and another week will go by, but remember, there is beauty all around us, we just have to take the time to look for it.
Thank you for joining me this month as we spend time sharing another day in our lives. This is a circle blog. Take some time to view what the other artists have for you this month. My friend Beth from Beth William’s Photo Blog is up next and I can’t wait to read what she has to share
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