Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional."
...Chili Davis

Skywatch Friday - Season 4, Episode 25

Howdy Folks! My hat goes off to the SkyWatch Friday team who does such a good job week after week, month after month and year after year. I appreciate all your efforts. If you are interested in participating or viewing other skies from around the globe click here: http://www.skyley.blogspot.com/.

Snowman made out of bales of hay taken near Jacksonville, FL in December, 2010.

From our house to your house, we would like to wish you a very Happy New Year.

See you next year!

Twist and Turn

On Christmas Eve, my older grandchild, saw a bottle/can opener on the kitchen counter.
He said, "Now I have a question for you grandma, a long pause, what is this?" He was holding the green bottle opener.
I said, "John that is a bottle opener."
This grandchild has been camping out for almost two years to win a Scouting Badge for you guessed it camping.
He responded with, "How do you use it?"
I proceeded to show him by opening a bottle of Sprecher Root Beer.
Oooohhhhh, he replied. " I just twist and turn."
Out of the mouths of babes.
It is such a joy seeing a 13 year old boy so innocent; but it also reminds me that times are changing. Things that were used in my lifetime are disappearing.
Out with the old. In with new.
And so it is.

FYI: I will keep on using my green bottle opener because my hands aren't strong enough to twist and turn. However, my grandchildren will keep on twisting and turning.
I wonder what will come after their generation.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."
...Sydney J. Harris

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Fill our lives with SUNSHINE
and our hearts with Love."
...Author Unknown

Isn't That Something!

I remember when I saw my first email attachment. I was in Cable, Wisconsin with my mother-in-law named Catherine. We were in this tiny restaurant the kind that serves just breakfast and lunch and closes by 3:00 P.M. This elderly man who must have been in his 80s or 90s, was showing us a picture of his newborn grandchild. The picture was printed on just regular copy paper. The thing that made this photograph special was that it came all the way from Japan. I told the stranger whose buttons were almost popping off his shirt, "Isn't that something!"

It reminds me of how it must have felt for our parents to see a plane in a farmer's field or to see that first automobile stuck in mud on a road bound from Illinois to Wisconsin. We don't have to beat our clothes against a rock; we are lucky enough to have a washer and a dryer to do the job.

Folks can take a picture with their phone, download it and instantly be posted on Facebook if they want to. Isn't that something!

12/29 Outdoor Wednesday #103

If you would like to participate or view other blogs who have posted an Outdoor Wednesday theme click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com. Susan you are an amazing person to be so dedicated to this project.

Photograph One: Orlando, FL - December, 2010.

Photograph Two: Graffiti on Window, Orlando, FL area - December, 2010.

Happy New Year from our house to your house.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Give it all you've got because you never know if there's going to be a next time."
...Danielle Ingrum

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Always remember that the future comes one day at a time."
...Dean Acheson

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."
...William Shaespeare

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."
...Linus, A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"It's a 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sun glasses. Hit it!"
...The Blues Brothers

Skywatch Friday - Season 4, Episode 24

Howdy! Thank you Sky Watch Friday team. If you are interested in participating or seeing skies from all over the world click here: www.skyley.blogspot.com.

Skies, barbed wire, farmland, Jacksonville, Florida area, December 2010.

Happy Holidays from our house to your house.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
...Calvin Coolidge

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best."
...Epictetus

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"Every wall is a door."
...Ralph Waldo Emerson

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"The beginning of wisdom is silence. The second step is listening."
...Unknown

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"If we had no winter, the Spring would not be so pleasant."
...Anne Bradstreet

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"The daily distractions of life are some of the most dangerous ways to squander the genius that you were built to be."
...Robin Sharma

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"As one goes through life one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move."
...Katharine Hepburn

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Every human being has a basic nature of goodness."
...Chogyam Trungpa

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Winter is a time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for a touch of a friendly hand, and for a talk beside the fire: It is a time for home."
...Edith Sitwell, British Poet

Goals 350 Days of Quotes

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
...Socrates

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Sometimes it is the smallest decisions that change your life forever."
...Keri Russell

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"If you are going to act on the basis of what you know, you cannot just hold onto your knowledge. You have to translate it into a movement."
...Joseph Campbell

12/01 Outdoor Wednesday #99

If you are interested in seeing Outdoor Wednesday themes click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com. Thank you Susan for being the hostess.

Graffiti on Wall, Evanston, Illinois - 2010.

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

My best friend in the whole wide world, Elisabeth Bacon, gave me a gift. It was a clock in the shape of a present. I displayed this hinged clock on my desk at work for many, many years. Tucked in with the gift was this quote: "Yesterday is History. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That is why we call it the present." ...Babatunde Olatunji

While dining out at Red Lobster, a cousin of ours, Geneva Fox, repeated this quote.

Thank you Elisabeth Bacon and Geneva Fox for reminding me to live in the present moment.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Use the talents you possess---for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best."
...Henry Van Dyke

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

First line in poem:
"I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky."
Third line in poem:
"I circle around God's primordial tower,"
...Rainer Maria Rilke

Primordial definition from Webster's Dictionary: existing at or from the beginning.

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."
...Lao Tzu

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"Joy is prayer---joy is strength---joy is love---joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. She gives most who gives with joy."
...Mother Teresa

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here."
...Desiderata

Thanksgiving Day

Gobble, gobble until you drop!



Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Revelent detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience."
...Dale Carnegie

11/24 Outdoor Wednesday #98

Gobble, gobble until you drop! Did you know that at the First Thanksgiving sugar was scarce so the Pilgrims probably didn't have pumpkin pies, pumpkin cupcakes or pumpkin bars. Can you share a Thanksgiving fact?

Hawk, November 2010.

Two Canada Geese, November 2010.

Two Canada Geese II, November 2010.

Whole Chickens, October 2010.

Thank you for the delicious meal at

Andrew's Open Pit and Spirits

2610 Dempster Street, Park Ridge, IL

(847)824-3800

This time of year turkeys are all running around saying "Eat Chicken! Eat Chicken! Eat Chicken!"

If you would like participate or view other Outdoor Wednesday posts click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.com/.

Thank you Susan for being the hostess.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"There is no love that is not an echo."
...Theodor Adorno

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Fatigue makes cowards of us all."
...Vince Lombardi

Thinking Outside the Box

Fungus on logs, 2010.

I used Picasa 3 to crop this photograph. To zero in on what was interesting to me was the object of this shoot. Then I changed format from color to sepia because the forms began to have movement like the ocean.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you really have."
...Eckhart Tolle

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted---a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul."
...Rabbi Harold Kushner

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"It's good to have an end to journey toward; but it's the journey that matters in the end."
...Ursula K. LeGuin

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 - Episode 19

Click on logo above to see skies from all over the world.

Storm rolling in, Little Lake-Near Windigo Lake, Wisconsin-Autumn, 2010.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"It is hard to live through a day if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand."
...Andre Dubus

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Begin today. Declare out loud to the Universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy."
...Sarah Ban Breathnach

11/17 Outdoor Wednesday - #97

Today it was a chilly fall day. New merchandise was available to purchase for both Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at the Starbuck's counter inside our neighborhood grocery store. The clerk suggested peppermint this and cranberry that. mmmm, it all sounded so sweet, tasty and delicious. I decided to indulge in a Hot White Chocolate. What a treat!

Then I went to the library to obtain books on hold, prepared dinner, started a load of laundry and did the dishes. Finished just in time to watch DEATH OF A HOLLOW MAN, Midsomer Murders. Mystery stories are v-e-r-y interesting to me at this point of my life. I'm not sure why. I also like to read biographies and self help books.

To participate or view blogs who have posted an Outdoor Wednesday theme click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com. Thank you Susan for being the hostess.

Photo: Fernando at Saddlebrook Farms, Grayslake, Illinois, November, 2010.

Photo: Pawprint shot through glass window, Harvard, Illinois-2010.

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"I want to do it because I want to do it."
...Amelia Earhart

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down."
...Natalie Goldberg

Outside the Box Image - Sunday, November 14, 2010

Greyness has enveloped the landscape in the Mid-western part of the United States of America. The image below was taken just before dark in August on Lac Court Oreilles, Hayward Lakes area, Wisconsin. It was a color image changed to a black and white format. The moodiness of it is how I feel. So today, I will go curl up with the TV and do laundry. Tomorrow is another day.

Chair on Dock, Lac Court Orielles, Hayward Lakes Area, Wisconsin - 2010

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught."
...Georgia O'Keeffe

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it is going to rain, it will."
...Clint Eastwood

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"
...Henry David Thoreau

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 Episode 18

Click on SkyWatch Friday logo above if you would like to participate or view other blogs who have posted skies from all over the world. Thanks to the skywatch team; we do appreciate all the work that you do to make this event possible.

I was down at Lake Michigan and saw this tree with just a few leaves left on its branches. Soon snow will cover this sand and these boulders. Until then I am going to enjoy this mild weather. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for rain. We need the rain.

Today is Veteran's Day. I want to thank the men and women who have served this country in peace and in war.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one
but I give myself to it."
...Ranier Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, Love Poems to God, Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Goals-365 Days of Quotes

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."
...Ryunosuke Satoro

11/10 Outdoor Wednesday #96

Click on logo above if you would like to participate or view other blogs who have posted an Outdoor Wednesday theme. Thank you Susan for being our hostess.




Color format was changed to black and white format. Shoe Soles I.

Color format changed to black and white format. Shoe soles II.

Fall colors being reflected on shoe soles.

And that's all folks.....See you next week.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"There are certain mysteries, certain secrets in my own work which even I don't understand, nor do I try to do so."
...Georges Braque

Click here for information about Georges Braque: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Braque

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"The only reward to be expected from the cultivation of literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds."
...Voltaire

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Whatever you do...avoid piles."
...T. S. Eliot

Outside the Box Image-Saturday, November 6, 2010

I am still exploring shapes and different textures. It seems to be a lifetime passion of mine.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"When we practice walking meditation, we arrive in every moment---we arrive at the destination of life. The present moment is a destination."
...Thich Nhat Hanh

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountains and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books."
...John Lubbock

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 Episode 17

Click on logo above to view other skies from around the world. I would like to say thanks to the skywatch team who are: Klaus, Sandy, Wren, and Sylvia.



Storm is brewing.

Black and white format of similar shot. Both photographs were taken down at Lake Michigan. Drop in again sometime to see Midwestern Skies.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage."
...Anais Nin

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I dream my painting and then I paint my dream."
...Vincent van Gogh

11/3 Outdoor Wednesday #95

Welcome back folks! I decided to post this photograph of a bike at Lake Michigan. This image was taken during a very windy, very cloudy day; but I felt somehow peaceful walking in the sand. I was being aware of the awesome beauty surrounding me. This is how I live in the moment.

My husband and I went to Hackney's for a $2.00 burger and their famous onion rings. Burgers were on sale today if you wore a sticker saying I VOTED. Hackney's was packed with guests coming in and guests leaving. Believe it or not the service was quick and pleasant. However, there were long lines to wait for a table. It was worth it! Click here for more information about Hackney's: http://www.hackneys.net/.

If you would like to participate or view blogs who have posted an Outdoor Wednesday theme click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/. Thank you Susan for being our hostess week in and week out. See you next week.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"To love what you do and feel that it matters---how could anything be more fun?"
...Katherine Graham

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies."
...Author Unknown

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension."
...Norman Mailer

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not."
...Thomas Huxley

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"We have no preparation for getting old...we're always young and then suddenly we're not."
...Jennifer Egan

Skywatch Friday - Season 4, Episode 16

Click on logo above if you wish to participate in SkyWatch Friday or view blogs who have posted skies from all over the world. I would like to thank the Skywatch team who are: Klaus, Sandy, Wren, Fishing Guy and Sylvia.



These photos were taken during a wind storm hitting the shores of Lake Michigan. Focus was to determine whether this image looks better in color or in a black and white format. What do you think?

See you next time.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life...It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend."
...Melody Beattie, American Author

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"No time.
Saddest words ever spoken or written."
...Og Mandino

10/27 Outdoor Wednesday #94

It is almost Halloween. There will be goblins, witches, and ghosts knocking at our door saying "Trick or Treat this week-end.



B E W A R E !

Who is that screaming?

These three came to stir up trouble.

Come on Man ... try to ZAP your way out of this plastic sack.

If you would like to participate or view other blogs who have posted Outdoor Wednesday themes then click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com. Thanks Susan you are a great hostess.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Clutter is the poetry of our homes. It is an intimate view that is not always perfect---a few dishes in the sink, books piled next to the bed. Everything is in its place may give a certain satisfaction, but a lived in room exudes comfort and warmth."
...Mary Randolph Carter, Author of a Perfectly Kept House Is the Sign of a Misspent Life.

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Sometimes we are limited by our field of vision at that point we need to jump out of that box into unknown spaces."
...Joyce Meyer

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again."
....Joseph Campbell

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"If you don't like something, change it, if you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."
...Maya Angelou

Goals - 365 Days of Quotes

"The main thing is to immerse ourselves in the material, and reach for the intensity."
...Anne Rice

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 Episode 15

Sometimes the sky is bright blue. Other days storms roll in and then roll out. Sky Watches aren't planned. One needs to show up, have a camera handy and click. Magic happens or it doesn't. And so it is, what it is.



Thanks to the skywatch team who are Klaus, Sandy, Wren, Fishing Guy and Sylvia. Click here http://skyley.blogspot.com to participate or view blogs who have posted skies from all over the world. Looking forward to seeing you next time. Same place. Same subject.

10/20 Outdoor Wednesday #93

Welcome to Eerieville. Halloween is just around the corner so here are more images posted of Fog at Lake Michigan.

Close-up Reflections of Lake Michigan, plus leaves floating in water.

Ships in Wilmette Harbor plus American flag.

Ships in Wilmette Harbor #2.

Thanks Susan for being the hostess. If you are interested in participating or viewing Outdoor Wednesday posts click here: http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com. See you next week. Same time. Same place.

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 Episode #14

Welcome back. This week I am posting a sunset that looks like the sky is on fire. Isn't it amazing how the sky changes from moment to moment? I never seem to tire of simple pleasures like the smell of water, the sound of leaves crunching under my feet as a walk a path, or just listening to my breath. It is great to be alive!

Thanks to the skywatch team who are Klaus, Sandy, Wren, Fishing Guy, Sylvia. Click here http://skyley.blogspot.com if you would like to participate or view other sites who have posted skies from all over the world. See you next week.

10/13 Outdoor Wednesday #92

Fog enveloped Lake Michigan area a few days ago around 4:00 P.M. I had about an hour to shoot. These are four images that were ready to post today. Perhaps more may follow next week. Fog is so eerie.


Solitude A

Solitude B

Two in Pea Soup A

Two in Pea Soup B

Thanks to Susan at http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com for being the hostess.