Sylvia Simple Shots

Cold drinks are an absolute must in these temperatures.   We had 30C yesterday which is way too hot for me. 

Just ice balls with soda water in a double walled glass so it will stay as cold as possible!

I created a low key image to have the yellows stand out!

Staying hydrated in this weather is important and I don't need extra sugar so this works well for me.

I had 4 extra glasses of water yesterday. 

My African Violet is blooming!

I have such poor luck with plants so I am stoked to see blooms. As you can see they are a gorgeous deep purple color and there will be many it seems!

Yeah! Yeah!

The north window is working so well.  Now that it is hanging just above the sewing machine, it is great. I have plants in a couple of places in my home!

I believe this is a thistle bloom.   I love the jagged edges of the petals.

It has not rained in about a week here so I generally always carry my spray bottle to give my photos a bit of something extra when needed.

I love this shot!



I found a Lady Bug Hatchery! There was a lot of them in different stages of development.

The bug on the right is a Lady Bug Larvae becoming and developing it's wings.  Very cool!  It is interesting that the body under the hard wings looks very similar to the larvae but we hardly ever see it because it's flying when the body is exposed!

I worked on making more face masks. I tried a fitted one this time.  I like it.  Still hot in these temperatures but less fabric.

The features of this face mask are a draw string tie so you just pull to tighten.  I had found someone on line recommending putting a kleenex on the nose piece to help with glasses fog.  I decided to put a permanent layer of terry cloth which fills in the spaces around the nose and absorbs the moisture from your breath.  Works quite well.

This one also allows me to put a filter on the inside if I want to.  Never know what options I will need before this is all over.

Flickr Macro Monday challenge this week is Chocolate! Well I love this one!  I bought 5 different kinds because I wanted options for a good photo. Photographing chocolate up close is challenging because some of it is not pretty.  Do we really look at it before we put it into our mouths, I would suggest not!  I have Chocolate Chips here and check out my photostream SMDPics for the image I submitted.

I am sharing with Angie who hosts Mosaic Monday #91
and
Mersad who hosts Through My Lens #251           Have a safe week!

Recent Photos

This is the flowers that Dad bought for Mom`s 85th birthday this weekend.  It is an Anthurium and the way to water it is to place 6 ice cubes on the soil once a week.  Place it in bright indirect light. She will have a reminder of this milestone for a while.













We had a terrific day of celebration with family, friends and neighbors. 





My sister picked some Hairy False Goldenaster on the weekend for me. 

I placed them in this great Robert Held Blue Poppy art glass vase.  I diffused the background by hanging sheer drapes on the second rod in the living room window.  I was always setting up something temporary. Now, they will stay up all the time.

This book was recommended by a friend in the Welcome to my Kitchen group.  Kate Quinn is an who writes historical fiction.

This book was a great one.  Covering time during the Second World War and the early 1950s.  The name character is a strong woman who flew airplanes for Russia. A war correspondent who was connected in another way was the other main character. It was a nice change in point of view as I have read many with England as the background.  The end has a interesting twist and excellent ending.  Would highly recommend this book.

Made of Wood was the theme for Flickr Macro Monday.  This a section of wood magnet from Hawaii brought back by a friend a couple years ago.

You can visit my Flickr photo stream to see which photo I submitted.

You can check out the submissions for the theme here.

I am finding the cloves especially beautiful this year.

Top left is white clover.
Top right is a Great Crested Grebe

Bottom left is Perennial Sow Thistle.
Bottom right is a Cinnamon Teal.

I really enjoyed seeing the sides of the highways covered by Yellow Sow Thistles.  It looked like a garden planted along the way.

Sharing with Mosaic Monday #38

Mosaic Monday - My Walk

I've put together a mosaic of photos from my walk yesterday.  
Top left is a chipmunk which is the first time I have photographed one.  It is quite small and with the stripes quite different from a squirrel. 
Top right is a thistle in bloom releasing it's seeds to be planted by the wind who knows where.
Bottom left is a Red Breasted Nuthatch which is quite small bird which a photographed near a bird feeder near my place.
Bottom right is a purple flower which I have not been able to identify. It was quite tall.

Sharing with Maggie at Normandy Life who hosts Mosaic Monday #51.
 

Recent Snapshots

Here's a few photos from my walk this morning.

The white bloom from the sow thistle. 

I found these gorgeous dahlias at the park.  They were very dark pink and the petals were perfect.

The bees were buzzing around the Spiraea in several shades of pink and purple.

The small white purple bloom is some type of clover.  It was very tall rather than the low to the ground I am used to.

These are grasses of some sort but I was not able to identify it.
I used one of my out of focus photos as the background for the mosaic.

This was breakfast this morning.
Featuring nice tomatoes, ham and egg. 

A small dish of fresh raspberries  from a friends patch.  It's great to eat whole food picked by me.

These are my tomato plants.  They are yellow pear plants which I have been warned will grow very tall.  As you can see it had quite a few flowers.  Soon there will be tomatoes. 

I will let it grow to the top of the posts then I will have to cut off the top ends so it can concentrate on fruit.


During my visits to thrift shops, I have been looking for one of these bottles for a while. The prices are usually more than I am willing to pay.  Finally, last week the price was right and the bottle gorgeous.  It is 3.5 inches square with a super round ball stopper.  I am not fussy about the discolored plastic on the stopper.  It may have to go.  I removed the labels which were for Essenza Sweet Pea fragrance diffuser oil.  It was sold with reeds. This is the third in my collection. 

The bottle in the center has a Avon mark on the bottom.  The silver lid is plastic so not quite the same level as the others.  I don't know what it held originally. I loved the swirl pattern on the body of the bottle.

The bottle on the right features alternating clear and frosted bands running vertically along the body.  It has a metal lid with embossed pattern on the top with Doulton embossed on the band.  This was an expensive Eau de Parfum bottle. 

These add some flair to vignettes that I create for photography.

Sharing with Mosaic Monday #48 hosted by Maggie at Normandy Life.

Through my Lens #102 hosted by Mersad.