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FOTD – January 7 – Clematis

Cee’s photo challenge today has us looking back into the sun filled days of summer.

https://ceenphotography.com/flower-of-the-day-fotd-challenge/

The trailing vines with bursts of colour reaching for the sky, the Clematis stretches itself out to bask in the summer sun.

Weekly Prompts Colour Challenge – Orange

I spy with my little eye…..something Orange

Cell Pic Sunday – Lady in Distress

I have traveled this highway my entire life, north and south as State Route 23 runs from my hometown in southern Ohio to our capital in Columbus, but I never paid her much attention until today.

Just south of the bypass she stands in repose. As I looked out over the baron corn fields and across the railroad tracks, she called to me to take a closer look.

Once she was a grand home, standing with grace and endurance. Built in the early 1800’s, she was home to the Fryback family who came to tame the land a make a living farming the surrounding area as far as you can see.

The land is still farmed today. In fact just a couple of days after these photos were taken, I saw the tractors and other equipment sitting out in front of her getting ready for planting. The land is still worked and is still growing, as she stands now in distress watching with weary eyes.

So many stories she must have to tell….I wish she could have been preserved and it pains me to see her in such despair. Progress? I don’t know but it seems like such a shame.

Old Houses

Doors and windows, gates and gables

Luring me in with their untold fables

Shadows on stairwells, echoing walls

Hinting of stories yet to be told

Remnants of footprints, ghostly remains

Distant reminders of those who have came

Standing in mystery in need of repair

Key holes and door knobs to those who would dare

Full of old memories of lives they have shared

@Sherry’s Lens

Thank you for coming along on this Cell Pic Sunday and as always please keep something wonderful focused in your lens 🙂

Daily Note 📝

In response to #SoCS May 4, 2024

Your prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “note.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

https://lindaghill.com/2024/05/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-4-2024/

Voting = Freedom

Do you vote in political elections?

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes!!!

It is our greatest privilege to be able to have our voices heard! People who cannot vote are enslaved to those in power. Never let another person take away your voice because when you do you will lose your freedom!

Monochrome Monday

Me & my PT

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

After I ended my second marriage, I lost my job of 10 years. My four children were then grown and on their own, so for the first time in my entire life I was alone.

I cashed in my 401k, life insurance and sold everything that didn’t fit into my convertible PT Cruiser headed out of Ohio to the land of sunshine!!

It was the best 5 years of my life! Learning to live alone and not be lonely was definitely worth the risk!

Inspired

I haven’t been involved here on WordPress much lately or any other avenues as far as creativity goes. After losing my dad last year, my husband going through throat cancer and taking care of my mother, my creativity flow has been only a trickle at best.

However, I ran across a post on Facebook from my hometown museum that they were inviting local artists to submit three works of art. At the last minute, I decided to throw in three of my framed photos in to be judged for acceptance into the “Cream of the Crop” show for 2024.

Much to my delight two of the three are going to be entered into the show! They will be on display from the end of this month until the end of May.

I am very delighted that they were chosen out of so many entries, and it has given me a spark of inspiration to keep going, to keep posting to keep writing and so to that end, I wanted to add those photos here.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do and thank you for still being here with me ~

The first two photos are the ones that were accepted into the show. The third one, The Point, was not accepted but I’m still partial and I think she’s beautiful anyway!

As always, and a big reminder to myself….always keep something wonderful focused in your Lens 🙂

Thursday Doors

An impromptu visit to downtown Detroit, did not disappoint, so many unexpected discoveries!

Before It’s Too Late

This year, let alone this beatiful season has flown by for me, and mercifully so at times. As some of you may remember, from my blog Black and White, I moved my parents in with us on the first of March this year.

Both of my parents are 82, my mother with crippling arthritis and my dad with kidney failure, one leg and all the rest that comes along with those conditions. By June a hospital stay caused dad to be too weak for us to properly take care of him safely at home and he went to stay in a nearby nursing facility.

My days were spent visiting, reassuring, feeling guilty and watching my dad wither away in front of me.

In May, my husband was sent to see a ENT specialist two hours from home for a mass that was showing up on an xray. He had nagging breathing problems since September of last year when he came down with Covid. In and out of the hospital a couple times with bronchitis and complaining of something stuck in his throat.

August found us at the James Center, stage 4 throat cancer with only 6 months to a year to live without surgery. On August 31st my loud boisterous beautiful husband lost voice. They removed his voicebox and all lyphnodes in his neck and forever changed his way of life and who he had thought himself to be.

By September, Dad had taken a turn for the worst and on the evening of the 29th, under the Hunters full moon, surrounded by family, my father took his last breath. Thirty-five years to the day that he had lost his own father and at the same age as his mother was when she passed. I like to think they came back and guided Daddy home.

Now Autumn is almost over, the rain is setting in and the trees are all but bare. Yet somehow I made my way outside to try to catch the beauty of fall before it too could slip through my hands.

I find such a comfort in nature, it heals me. It is constant, steady and alive in world of it’s own that sometimes we barely notice. It goes on inspite of us and all around us. The cycles of death and birth like nature goes on regardless of us, with a mind of it’s own. We cannot control it ourselves but if we can try to tune into it…breath into the completeness of it, there is a nurturing power and a steady comfort to be found. Everything and everyone only has a season before it passes away and a new one begins.

The end of November finds us busy with daily radiation treatments. Wrapping up six weeks of them just after Thanksgiving. There will be no big family get together this year as we usually do. No celebration, just quite graditude, reflection and thankfulness. None of us has the strength for it just now.

My days are spent now inadequately consoling my grieving mother. After 60 years together it is unbelievable to her that she will never in this lifetime see his face or hear his voice again. There are no words for loss….

And so, before its too late I wanted to share my pictures of this season and my heart, and to say Thank you for sharing this with me.

Before It’s Too Late, share yourself with the people you love, live fully and always try to keep something wonderful focused in your lens~