The photohunt theme this week is free. At first I was stumped so I went to the dictionary. That gave me the idea of the free end of a rope. Looking through old photographs I found this old shot of my daughter helping her grandparents trim their Christmas tree. Here you see her with the free end of the garland trailing behind. I was reminded while looking through old photographs of how freely my daughter used to dance through the house. She even felt free to lose her dress and dance in her slip. In the shot below you can see how free her hair was as it whipped around while she twirled.In the next shot she has one foot firmly on the ground and the free leg is extended. In the next shot she's a little older but she felt free to wear my boots and scarf , and her Dad's old bicycle pants while she freely danced in the snow in our back yard. My daughter turns 23 in a few weeks and is in law school. She is interested in human rights and international law. Perusing her flickr site, I was pleased to see that she still on occasion has some fun time and continues to feel free to dance. I hope everyone has a great weekend and feels free to have some fun, whether it's dancing, sleeping late, or whatever it is that makes you freely content. For those of you who work on the weekend, I hope you have some free time soon.
Photohunters post on Saturday (home of the hunt and where you can find information about participating), here:PhotoHunt
Early birds can be found on technorati here:photohunt
In honor of Valentine's day, the text for most of this post is exerted from the Cole Porter song, Let's Fall in Love. The song lyrics are in italics. I start with a photograph of a cardinal scouting the territory, a few days ago, in advance of spring. The other photographs were taken last spring and summer.When the little bluebird -Who has never said a word - Starts to sing, Spring - When the little bluebell - At the bottom of the dell - Starts to ring, Ding dong Ding dong - When the little blue clerk - In the middle of his work - Starts a tune to the moon up above - It is nature that is all - Simply telling us to fall in love -And that's why birds do it, bees do it -Even educated fleas do it -Let's do it, let's fall in love Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it - Even lazy jellyfish do it - Let's do it, let's fall in love - I've heard that lizards and frogs do it - Layin' on a rock - - - They say that roosters do it - With a doodle and cock . . . I hear even Boston beans do it -Let's do it, let's fall in love When the little bluebird - Who has never said a word - starts to sing, Spring spring spring - When the little bluebell - At the bottom of the dell - Starts to ring, Ding ding ding - When the little blue clerk - In the middle of his work - Starts a tune -The most refined lady bugs do it - When a gentleman calls - Moths in your rugs they do it - What's the use of moth balls The chimpanzees in the zoos do it, Some courageous kangaroos do it - Let's do it, let's fall in love - I'm sure sometimes on the sly you do it - . . . Let's do it, let's fall in love.
Below is a version of the song Let's Fall in Love done with clips from the Avengers (1960s). Cole Porter wrote the song in 1928.
I'm going to attempt to cover a lot of ground and sky in this post as work has been busier than usual. The days and nights and weekends are blending a bit but that's ok, I've also had slack time leading up to a busier time. I'm very lucky to be able to work from my computer at home but the trade off is when it's busy I tend to make up for slower time. I don't want to let too much time pass without thanking and mentioning some of my blogging friends. Yolanda who blogs at Perfectly Imperfect was so kind to pass on the Blessings Award to me in this post. I was very touched by Yolanda thinking of me. Her blog is so heart felt and I enjoy her posts and photography. Some of you may have noticed my earth hour banner which I am keeping up until after the 29th of March which will be an international earth hour. People are being asked to turn off their lights at 8 pm for an hour to call attention to global warming. You can click on the video and links I have at the top of my blog to learn more about it. I found out about earth hour on Yolanda's blog when she posted the video about the first earth hour which started in Sydney. I count Yolanda and all my blogging friends as blessings. I also want to mention the people I have gotten to know through the Melanoma Patients Information Page . That community was my first experience with getting to know people through the internet and I value the friends I've made through that group. I want to thank Hootin Anni for giving me a valentine in this post. I found Anni's blog through the photohunters and always enjoy her imaginative and interesting posts. Anni has a great sense of humor and a big heart which is a wonderful combination. Thank you so much for the sweet valentine, Anni. Next I want to mention my fear of landing in Mimi's Dungeon (she threatened dungeon time for procrastinators like me who ignored the Queen of the Memes) so if I totally disappear please come spring me. Seriously Mimi Writes is one of the bloggers who is a blessing and who I'm glad that I discovered, initially through her Blogblast for peace. The reason I may land in her dungeon is back in January she tagged me for the Band Meme which looked like a lot of fun. Simple, easy, didn't require a lot of thought. Did I do it, noooooooooo, slacker that I am. I did want to mention Mimi and how much I enjoy her creative writing. She has a style all her own, which I like. Liz at A simple Lifetagged me for New Years traditions. That was another one that should have been easy but again, just call me Ms. Procrastinator. I do want to apologize to Liz for not getting around to that and mention that I enjoy visiting her blog during the photohunt and weekend snapshot and at other times too. I think this brings me to the last tag I haven't done yet, unless my brain has gone on vacation and my filing system is remiss. Sabine at Days of My Life in Gozo recently tagged me for a birth month tag or that's what I'll call it. Just in case I don't get to this one I did want to thank Sabine for thinking of me. She is another blogger I discovered through photohunters and I'm so glad I did. Her photography blows me away as does the beauty of Gozo where she lives. I also enjoy reading her posts. If I am not around as much it's either work or I've landed in Mimi's dungeon. I hope someone can break me out if I land in a dungeon. Cheers!
I thought I'd feature bicycles for my weekend snapshot. Since I'm combining a post about bicycles and WS, feel free to flip through the photos and skip the long post. I know there are a lot of WS to visit for participants. I may not get to many weekend snapshot posts until later as work is starting to interfere with my blogging. Imagine that. Bikes are a great way to conserve fuel, and also fun for recreation. I have family members who use bikes for their main form of transportation. I will admit that I haven't ridden a bike in three years but I do try to walk to stores that are close by, and am going to try to do more and more of that.I have mixed feeling about what is the safest way for someone to ride a bike on a major road, like the bicyclist I photographed above while Bill was driving. On the one hand, I feel like if a bike is on a road without a bike lane, the bike should take up a full lane like a car does. That way, cars would have to pass when it's safe in the passing lane and the bike could pass a car the same way, if they had that much steam. If I don't feel like it's safe to share a lane with a bike, I stay behind them and wait until I have room to pass. However, in this particular case, the bike passed us staying near the shoulder as we slowed for the stoplight, and then when the traffic moved again, Bill safely passed the bike staying near the center lane (both our car and the bike were sharing a mutual lane). To my mind, a regular size lane is barely wide enough for that and my concern is the unexpected. The town where I live has rather extensive bike lanes and recreational bike paths. The map above shows those lanes. All the dark lines indicate special lanes for bikes, although the green ones are off the road and are part of the recreational paths so the cyclist and pedestrian share lanes. The state where I live has a division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation and in my city alone there are 150 miles of signed bicycle routes, according to the site. I was surprised to find that as part of the highway bike lanes, NC has nine different routes with 3,000 miles of bike lanes. The mountains to sea bike lanes which go from one side of the state to the other is 700 miles. As impressive as that sounds, most of the roads where I live don't have bike lanes. Sometimes to get from one place to another, it's necessary for a bicyclist to ride on roads where they share the lane with cars. Yesterday when Bill and I went on a walk, bikers of all sizes and shapes were out on the recreational trails full force. It was an unseasonably warm day and perfect for a walk or a bike ride. I related to the man jogging with the children on their bikes because I used to jog behind my daughter when she was a small child on a bike. One combination that always makes me nervous is when there is a parent with a toddler in a seat behind them on a bike. It's sort of hard to see but in the photograph below, that pink blob in the small of the bikers back is actually a bike helmet on his toddler who is riding with him. I think it's great as long as he doesn't wipe out. Having seen a few bike accidents on the trails I always get a little nervous about the toddler seats. There was another cyclist with an infant in a pack on his back but I wasn't quick enough to get that shot. I was very nervous seeing someone with a baby on their back while they rode a bike.When I decided to feature bikes on my weekend snapshot I knew I was going to talk about bike lanes. I think bike lanes are a great way to make it easier for people who want to safely use bikes for transportation. Something I didn't know, until I found the site which had the information about what is available to encourage safe bicycle routes where I live, was that there is a program to encourage children to ride bikes and walk to school. I was pleased to find that there was a safe routes to school program. There is both a program in my home state as well as a federal initiative to encourage programs throughout the U.S. where there are initiatives for children to walk and ride bikes to school, safely. When I was in junior high and high school, I road my bike to school. The only school my daughter attended which was close enough for her to ride her bike was second grade through fifth grade. When she decided she wanted to ride her bike in third grade, I walked or jogged behind her because I didn't think she was old enough to go by herself. I did let her go the long way by herself in fifth grade but she had to promise me not to take the more direct route on a busy street. I'm glad my city is trying to encourage safe routes for children to walk or ride their bikes to school. In terms of bike safety in general, I think it's like everything else. If we would all be considerate and pay attention there would be less accidents. I've seen people in cars speeding by a bike when there was barely enough room and every time it makes me want to scream. I have had trouble on the recreational paths which are shared by walkers and bikers. Occasionally I've been walking along staying all the way to the right when bikers 3 across have come speeding up and I've ended up jumping off the path. A few times I've thought I was going to get run over by someone on a bike. It's mostly a matter of everyone using their head. The NHTSA site (U.S.) has some basic information about bicycle safety. I found a good article about a study showing that bike lanes prevent over correction by drivers. I am sure that I'm guilty of over correction because I'm so fearful of hitting someone on a bike that I pull as far away from them as I can get. The danger there is if another car isn't aware that I'm pulling over and they come zipping by me. I haven't had a bike related accident but I understood that over correction can be a risk. Since I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I haven't ridden a bike in three years you may wonder why I've written this long post about this topic. At a personal level I have a sister who uses her bikes as her main form of transportation. My daughter lives in the midwest now and hasn't been riding her bike during the bitter cold winter, but she used a bike for one of her main forms of transportation during the warmer months. I have many friends and family members who do a lot of recreational bike riding (my friend Guess Who comes to mind). But even without the personal connections, I see people on bikes all the time where I live. Some are riding safely, some aren't. Some of the cars are considerate, some aren't. It's a no brainer to me that with rising fuel costs, people should be encouraged to ride bikes to work and school but the safety issues have to be tackled.I have been insecure about riding my bike in recent years because of my physical issues. However, when I was thinking about doing a weekend snapshot post about bikes, I thought I'd take a picture of my bike. If I do build my confidence up, I will inflate the tires to an appropriate level with the tire pump. I will wear my red helmet which makes it easy to spot me. I will fill up the thermos with water and stay hydrated. If I'm sharing a recreational trail with a walker, I'll holler passing on your left and I will pass leaving the pedestrian enough room to stay on the trail.
Happy riding to the cyclists who read my blog. I hope I've at least covered the basics.
When I saw that the photohunter theme this week was heavy, my first thought was to post a recent picture of myself. I decided against going with my first thought. Also, I'm a ton lighter after getting word that the impression line on my annual full body scan said: "no evidence of metastatic or recurrent disease". My next thought was my hand truck which is useful for moving heavy objects around.Since I had to move my recycling down to the bottom of the driveway, I thought I'd use the hand truck and take a picture of it. I don't ordinarily use a hand truck to move my recycling but a stack of newspapers is heavy, and I wanted to put something on the hand truck before I took the photograph. Unfortunately, I had the recycling bin turned the wrong way for balancing on the hand truck. The bin flipped over and my newspapers and milk jugs were dumped out all over the driveway. If first you don't succeed, turn the bin the other way round on the hand truck. My second attempt was successful. I got my heavy newspapers to the bottom of my drive way for the recycling pick up, and I got some heavy photographs for the photohunt. PhotoHunt (home of photohunter, Saturday is when you see who has posted at the photohunt home; you can also learn how to participate there)
photohunt (technorati- you can browse here for the early birds)
The photohunt theme this week is free. At first I was stumped so I went to the dictionary. That gave me the idea of the free end of a rope. Looking through old photographs I found this old shot of my daughter helping her grandparents trim their Christmas tree. Here you see her with the free end of the garland trailing behind.
I was reminded while looking through old photographs of how freely my daughter used to dance through the house. She even felt free to lose her dress and dance in her slip. In the shot below you can see how free her hair was as it whipped around while she twirled.
In the next shot she has one foot firmly on the ground and the free leg is extended.
In the next shot she's a little older but she felt free to wear my boots and scarf , and her Dad's old bicycle pants while she freely danced in the snow in our back yard.
My daughter turns 23 in a few weeks and is in law school. She is interested in human rights and international law. Perusing her flickr site, I was pleased to see that she still on occasion has some fun time and continues to feel free to dance.
I hope everyone has a great weekend and feels free to have some fun, whether it's dancing, sleeping late, or whatever it is that makes you freely content. For those of you who work on the weekend, I hope you have some free time soon.
photohunt
Weekend Snapshot
