February via Instagram

Day 32 – Feb. 1

We have 2 bird feeders and the birds are tearing up the food. Most ends up on the ground but they clean some of it up there. Bird watching has been a source of entertainment for us!

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Day 33 – Feb. 2

Sunday lunch was omelette with bruschetta-type filling and fried grits patties.

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Day 34 – Feb. 3

Beauty on our table. Kroger often has discounted tulips!

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Day 35 – Feb. 4

Watching the Ham-Nye debate with my parents & sister

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Day 36 – Feb. 5

One can of specialty paint cost more than 6 “vases”.  It’s mirror paint and the process deserves a post of its own.

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Day 37 – Feb. 6

After pictures of the vases. Working on decor items for upcoming Widows Banquet.

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Day 39 – Feb. 8

View from my bedroom window. Weekend vacation on Hilton Head, thanks to a really good deal shared with us!!

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Day 40 – Feb. 9

Our condo was 50 feet from the somethingth hole of a golf course. There was a bike path running past the course with a couple of little water holes.

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Day 41 – Feb. 10

A beautiful old church in Beaufort SC. It sits on a bluff overlooking marsh and a river.

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Day 42 – Feb. 11

The craft for the girls at Kids’ Club is themed on Valentine’s Day.

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Day 43 – Feb. 12

I picked up the roses for the banquet and they were exactly what I wanted!

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Day 44 – Feb. 13

A cold, dreary day calls for bright colors. (they look much brighter on my phone! Think fuschia instead of dull rose! 🙂

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It also calls for fortitude (something about locking the keys in my car!)

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Day 45 – Feb. 14

Turning the Ladies Restroom at church into a flower arrangement station

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Day 47 – Feb. 16

Finally had the “redbird” land where I wanted him to. One of many bird pictures on my camera card. Sigh.

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Day 53 – Feb. 22

The doors are open because it’s a beautiful day. Toys are out because we have guests with a cute little man.

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The backdoor, not to be outdone by the front, wanted to be open too!

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Day 55 – Feb. 24

Finally! A day pretty enough to spend on the beach. And with good friends from out-of-town too!!!

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Day 57 – Feb. 26

More tulips!

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 Day 59 – Feb. 28

Tulip trees are usually some of the first to bloom in the south.

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January via Instagram

This year I started a 365 project that’s really more of a 321 or 297 or something other than one-a-day. I make up for it by posting more than some on other days. Well, actually, there are some times that it’s just too hard to narrow it down to one. Like when I’m on vacation! It is a struggle to find a picture when a days is very run-of-the-mill work, eat, sleep. That’s partly why I’m doing this too, to find the unusual in a “normal” day.

I started out in true form by missing Jan. 1. Then again, it might be because I decided on to start this project on Day 2.

 Day 2 – Jan. 2

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Day 3 – Jan. 3

I found this title interesting. I thought the general idea was that women are good communicators. Not?

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Day 4 – Jan. 4

Went shopping in Brunswick with a friend. She treated me to Bonefish Grill. I find it impossible to eat there without some Bang Bang Shrimp.

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Day 5 – Jan. 5

A quiet Sunday evening … perfect for burning candles and enjoying hot chocolate.

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Day 6 – Jan. 6

Just because it’s cold doesn’t mean you can’t have grilled hamburgers. Baby George Foreman grill to the rescue. Served on lettuce in lieu of a bun, with purple onion, tomato, cheese & chipotle sauce. With a side of potato wedges.

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Day 7 – Jan. 7

Pretty winter sunset.

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Day 8 – Jan. 8 

One of the finer things in life. Anne’s Italian Cheese Bread toasted with butter. Ooh la la!

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Day 9 – Jan. 9

Came across this in Job. I totally agree! (Job 6:6)

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Day 10 – Jan. 10

Another Friday at work … getting bills paid and checks in the mail.

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Day 11 – Jan. 11

We had taken all the pictures off the fridge before Christmas when we were doing heavy duty cleaning. We thought it might be a nice break to not have pictures up. Poor fridge looked forsaken. Today I put up the pictures from Christmas mail 2013.

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Day 13 – Jan. 13

Even though our office is along a fairly busy 4-lane highway inside the city limits, the empty lot beside us is a place where wild turkeys come to feed occasionally.

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Day 14 – Jan. 14

These Valentine gifts just crack me up. Why do people spend $ on something this big? I’ll be nice and not call them tacky. 🙂

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Day 15 – Jan. 15

The sunset was beautiful but my phone camera can’t capture it. Bummer I didn’t have my real camera with me.

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Day 16 – Jan. 16

Had the young married ladies over for the evening. My sister made some beautiful and delicious crepes! The rest of the menu was Brazilian Shrimp Stew, Tiropitas & a house salad.

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Day 17 – Jan. 17

One of my S.S. students gave me a mug for Christmas. I’m enjoying it on these cold days! (I need to figure out how to keep it spot-free)

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Day 18 – Jan. 18

College hockey tournament in Savannah. A favorite January event.

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Day 21 – Jan. 21

Finally getting New Year’s Letters out!

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Day 22 – Jan. 22

My sister-in-law, JoAnn had posted White Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cookies on FB so I had a craving for them. Made them at work and my co-workers could enjoy them as well.

Recipe is HERE.

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Day 23 – Jan. 23

Instead of it being dark when I leave work, there’s still light in the sky. Yay for days getting longer!

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Day 24 – Jan. 24

It may be sunny on St. Simons Island today but it’s windy & in the 30s. Not a good day for tourists. I was there to take pictures of several jobsites.

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Day 26 – Jan. 26

Another Saturday in Savannah. This time to see the Les Miserables play that they brought back for 2 weeks.

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And to eat at Lady & Sons

(goofy me!)

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Day 27 – Jan. 27

Took my friend Carmel out for her birthday.

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Day 29 – Jan. 29

The day that we held our breath and hoped and prayed it would snow here. Drinking a caramel machiatto in anticipation. (It didn’t snow. 🙁 )

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Day 30 – Jan. 30

Sewing is therapeutic for me, assuming I’m not trying to do something on a hard deadline.

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Day 31 – Jan 31

Annual Spelling Bee at church. The winners of the youngest category. They’re both in my SS class.

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This one is for the Birds

So after many posts about travel, here is a post from my own backyard. 🙂

We have two bird feeders that have been getting a lot of attention, both from the birds and us. When we have some time to relax and the sun is shining nicely (it didn’t happen very often at the same time this winter), our backyard is a favorite place to do both. From the quantity of pictures, one might think I’m stalking the birds. From the evidence of extreme skittish-ness in the cardinals, I think they’d agree. However, the number of cardinals has risen in the last week or 2 and they’re much less frightened. Guess they’re fattening up before heading north.

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Because I have pictures for so many different days, this could be a lesson in lighting and how it affects the warmth/coolness of the photo.

The finches are bossy little things and are often scolding at each other.

[lighting: late afternoon sun]

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This is a bird flounce if ever I saw one!

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In yo face!

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They eat about 10% of the seed and the rest gets tossed to the ground.

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[lighting: shade]

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I had moved the feeders close to my bedroom window so I could shoot out of it without them seeing me. It worked sometimes.

I’m nowhere near a bird photography expert, but they love to have something to land on. In the next shot, I had raked together some pine needles, pine cones and branches to burn in the fire ring. It made a  nice landing spot. Our grass is not very green yet but it’s greening up fast.

[lighting:overcast]

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See the bird below with a little red color, Lois thinks it’s a finch. This was the only time I saw it. It looked funny, like there was something wrong with it.

[lighting: late afternoon sun]

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We have this post that Lois put the decorative spool thingy on and planted a vine, the name escapes me at the moment, and the land there often. Makes a beautiful picture!

[lighting: female cardinal in shade, late afternoon sun in background]

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[lighting: early afternoon sun]

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[lighting: midday overcast – you can see filtered light hitting the leaves]

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Wow! That’s quite a difference in those last 3 shots!

Same lighting as 2 shots ^^  but the finches barely stand out.

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A birdbath is another place I can occasionally catch them. In this case, they’re here because my presence disturbed them from eating and they’re to wary to back to it.

[lighting: birds in shade, late afternoon sun on background]

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The male looks rather upset. It’s the same male as the shot above this. His feathers fluffed up give him a different look.

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Can you find all of the cardinals. I was this from some distance and only saw the males. Once I zoomed it in, I saw the females as well.

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There are 6 birds in case you’re wondering.

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There’s a little rain falling in the next one.

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Tuesday night I was catching some late evening (overcast) light and noticed a different bird come flying in.

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To the naked eye it looked like a robin but acted rather aggressive.  A couple of seconds later, a second bird flew in and then I thought I knew what they were.

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A pair of Baltimore Orioles migrating north. However, going by pictures here, I’d say they are Orchard Orioles. But, what I thought was the female doesn’t look anything like the female on that sight. It was getting close to dark so it was hard to get a good shot. Plus, they only stuck around a few minutes and we didn’t see them again.

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So what are some hobbies/ways of relaxing you enjoy?

Europe Trip 2012 Links

In case you haven’t read them all and want to start at the beginning, or you’ve been reading since the beginning, but it’s taken me so long to blog that you’ve forgotten most of it, here’s a list of the links to our trip. 🙂

May-June 2012

Part 1 – Scotland

Part 2 – England, Lake District

Part 3 – England; Yorkshire

Part 4 – London

Part 5 – England in a Day

Part 6 – Wales

Part 7 – Ireland A

Part 8 – Ireland B

Part 9 – Ireland C

Part 10 – Ireland D

Part 11 – Poland & Friends

Part 12 – Krakow [FINAL]

Part 12 – Krakow [FINAL]

Krakow is one of the oldest Polish cities and the brick and mortar of the city was largely was untouched by the Nazis during their takeover. The Nazis used this as their headquarters. It also became the site of a very large concentration camp. We ladies took a trip down to visit this area. Lolita came with us and Lavern blessed us by making all of our lodging arrangements for us.

We took an older train south to Krakow leaving very early on Monday morning. It was fairly crowded and did we ever rock on!! Literally. As I said it was an older train but it traveled at the speed of the newer trains so because it wasn’t built for those speeds, it bumped back and forth every time it got over a certain speed. It was quite a bit cheaper but on the way home we knew we’d be tired so we took a better train with private compartments. It worked out well because we really were  pretty much worn out by the trip coming back! 🙂

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[train on return trip]

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[Polish countryside]

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Our first plan for the day was catching a bus to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There are 2 sites to this large camp. The one site has many buildings which had been a military training camp for the Polish army. The Nazis took this over as well as adding a site several miles away where the masses of people were trained into.

I’m not going to add much information on this. This is the second concentration camp I’ve seen and it is hard to put into words, well, actually, it’s hard to even comprehend a smidgen of what happened in these camps. It is just as hard to put into words what visiting a place like this does to you.

You can read more at the Auschwitz website.

[One way in. No way out alive.]

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[latrines]

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[bunk house]

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This next set of pictures are from the site that had been the Polish army compound previous to Nazi takeover.

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[a sign of false promises over the entrance below: works makes free]

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Items from prisoners

[prayer shawls]

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[suitcases & shoes]

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[eyeglasses]

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[prostheses]

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While Jews were the main target, they were not the only ones imprisoned and killed.

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We stayed a cool European apartment in the old town. I forgot to take any pictures of the apartment. Lolita had hoped to have us eat at a restaurant they’ve eaten at before but we couldn’t get in.  We found a Georgian restaurant.

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I had some kind of chicken dish smothered with mushrooms and cheese. It was delicious!

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We wondered around the square for a while, chatting and de-compressing after the nearly overwhelming evil depicted at the camps.

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I went all paparazzi on them (I can’t remember what started it) and even though they aren’t good pictures technically, is a good shot of what is right and good in life.

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The second day we visited some salt mine. In Wales, we descended into the slate mines via a tiny car. In the salt mines we walked down wooden steps. Down, down, down. There were lots of other people touring this day and surprisingly it didn’t feel claustrophobic.

Some of the rooms of the salt mine were huge!

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This mine is around 900 years old.

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Because salt is good and not harmful to the lungs, working down here could be considered therapeutic! In fact, there is a sanatorium for people with asthma & allergy problems 300-400 ft. down.

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This is a small restaurant deep down in the mine.

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Here’s a closeup of the chandelier. All of the “crystal” are made of salt.

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We went into an undground cathedral. See the 3-D Bible scenes carved into the salt walls …..

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Salt Mines 2

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When leaving we went through a large room used for formal occasions including concerts. We were funneled down into a small room. This was probably the most claustrophobic room of all. While we were waiting for our turn to ride the elevator up, they brought a lady through who was having a panic attack. They took her to the front of the line. When we finally made it to our turn, we discovered they “squished” the cages full before sending them. It was so funny! There was us 5 ladies, an older couple, and 2 cute guys who looked Italian. The doors swing in so whoever was in front of them had to squish into the group to close it. Thankfully, it really was cage so we could see out, kinda, and there was plenty of air. We giggled our way to the top and the others in the cage with us were laughing too. When we got to the top, the exit door opened on the opposite side of the cage from the entrance door. The look on Lita’s face was priceless when she realized she would have to “squish” into us for the door to swing open. So squish we did and as we walked out through the groups of people waiting to go down, we were still laughing. I’m sure they were wondering what in the world was so humorous about a salt mine!

There is much more to Krakow than just salt mines and a concentration camp. We didn’t have time to see much else. There is a castle which had been the residence of kings for centuries …

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And we saw the bus of the soccer team from the Netherlands. They were probably doing a little sightseeing before the Euro Cup in Warsaw.

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One of the first days were were in Poland we visited a local market. Peonies were starting to bloom and I was delighted to buy a big bunch for everyone to enjoy at Lavern & Lita’s house. This was taken about 4:30 AM on the Monday when we left to go to Krakow. I think I was still sleeping, even if my eyes are open.

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This is the conclusion of the trip. At long last I’ve gotten it all posted, even though there are many stories and details un-posted. I hope you have enjoyed following along, despite the way it has dragged out!!!