While working my way through one of the hundreds of new emails in my inbox today, I noticed this at the bottom of a long note.
It made me pause.
Then it made me smile.
A morsel of wisdom from my inbox.
Month: March 2012
Good morning.
I have been coming to Raleigh on business for many years. I’m staying in the same hotel that I usually do, right around the corner from the office. In all that time this hotel property has changed ownership at least 3 times. This time it’s a newly refurbished Hilton Garden Inn. It has that “new hotel” smell, even though it’s the same old building. They are doing their best to offer perks to make the stay more pleasant… a brand new hairdryer to replace the one that died on me yesterday…warm cookies in the lobby…a little store downstairs where you can buy drinks and snacks… a lovely breakfast buffet….and a great view of this morning’s sunrise from my room. 🙂
Bad hair day.
Today is off to a great start. Got up early to do email. Made one of those micro-pots of coffee in the hotel room. Quick shower. I’m rushing to get to my meeting on time, so I’d have to blow dry my hair. Hotel room hair dryers are typically wimpy. But it doesn’t seem worth it to stuff my big, bazillion watt ceramic, ionic, bionic hair dryer into my roll-a-board when I travel. So, I dug out the hotel dryer. And…I’m drying my hair… and halfway through, the hair dryer up and dies. Not just one of those overheating…wait 15 min interruptions. Just died.
Great. Now the left side of my hair is dry and straight. And the right side is wet… and when my hair dries naturally it has tons of curl/body in it. So… I’ll be sporting a new, split-personality, ying/yang look today… *sigh*
Is it Friday yet?
On the road again.
I’m off to Raleigh for the week. I flew through Chicago, and took this shot during my layover. You can see the Chicago skyline way off in the distance.
Spring ahead!
Don’t forget that daylight savings time begins today!
We’ve had a few days of slow, light rain, which is fantastic. We need lots more of it if the lake is going to recover. It’s at about 631.5′ – up less than a foot this weekend. About 50 more feet would be better.
I took a stroll around the yard after the dry line blew through this afternoon. The way-back has lots of this incredibly tiny pink flowers. I like this shot with a little bit of water droplet on the petal… and some bokeh effect.
SizzlyGIF.
I made crepes for breakfast. Always delicious! As I was getting the pan ready, I flicked water into it to see if it was at the right temperature. As the water danced and sizzled, I thought I would try to capture some of that later in a picture.
So after breakfast I set up my camera on a tripod next to the stovetop and gave it a try. The water was moving too fast for my little camera to get a good shot. I tried several different things. I have an ISO 3200 setting, so I tried that and was able to capture a few clearer images. I had quite a bit of water in the pan by this time, but it still looked cool.
A single image didn’t show much, so I looked on the web for a tool to create animated GIFs quickly and found Picasion.com. It is a web-based tool that will upload up to 10 images, convert them to a GIF, and then give you the URL to the resulting file. The animation above is the result.
So. There ya go. A creative way to waste a half hour or so. 🙂
Well, it wasn’t completely wasted. Now I know how to display animated gifs on my wordpress.com-hosted blog. The trick was to upload and insert it into my post without scaling it down, not display it at less than full size. So, before I created the gif, I reduced the size of the images to make each one smaller. Then I made the gif. Then uploaded and attached it. Voila.
Mystery volunteer.
Last weekend we spent all afternoon in the yard, weeding flower beds, trimming shrubs, and WEEDING the poor excuse of a lawn that we are left with after last year’s drought. Monte and I have divvied up the one bed along the fenceline that gets good sun all day. Monte plants basil, tomatoes, thyme, chives and zinnias in his half. In my half I plant flowers, many of which are perennials which come back every year. I fill in with other flowers each spring.
Sometimes I get “volunteers” that grow from seeds that make their way to my flower bed one way or the other. Two years ago, I had planted a really pretty red geranium in this same bed, but it kicked the bucket after the first year during the very cold winter we had in early 2011. As I was weeding last weekend, I saw this little guy. It’s actually not too little, it’s probably about 9 inches high. I think (hope) it is a volunteer geranium. I’m not sure though, could be a melon or veggie seedling. Last time I had a mystery volunteer, I nurtured it until it had grown into a good size shrub. Only to eventually find out that it was a poisonous weed called nightshade, which I quickly disposed of.
Between rain showers today, i went outside and snapped this picture, so that I could look at it as I compared it to geranium seedling images on the web, and this *could* be one. It has the fuzzy stalks and leaves that geraniums do, too. It has the big oval nurse leaves. I even tore a little bit of the leaf on the left off to smell it, to see if it had that pungent smell that geraniums do. But I couldn’t smell anything. Maybe it’s too little? Or maybe it’s not a geranium.
What do you think?
I’ll let you know when I find out, either way. 🙂
Happy 2nd Blogoversary to me!
Two years ago today sheila365 came to be. As I did last year, today I’m posting a collage out of the photos from the last year’s posts. In year 2, I didn’t actually post every day, but most days. I’m still enjoying it. And I’m looking forward to capturing and posting more moments in the year ahead
If the years really must fly by so quickly, I’m very happy to be able to look back through these images to enjoy some of the moments that flew by — all over again.
Think pink.
Busy day. Marty dropped this rose off with some other post-BVI-trip items the other day for us. It’s a very pretty color of pink. I don’t think this shot does it justice.
But there you have it.
More signs of spring.
We spent much of yesterday in the yard – weeding, whacking and watering. Our lawn is in bad shape (unless you count the johnson grass). But the shrubs and flowers are starting to pop.
I love this time of year.
Baby red oak leaves.
Spring has sprung in Austin! Every year the red oak tree leafs out with the tiniest of leaves. They sure grow fast.
They’re pretty when they are full size, but after they fall to the ground and cover the entire front lawn, I wish they were this small again.
Sheila365 