Theme Tuesday: Rose

For today’s theme, I decided to show off some of the roses I’ve taken over the years.  Some of them are from my own garden.  However, the majority of them are from Heirloom Rose Gardens located in St. Paul, Oregon.  A small town about half hour from where I live.  Hope you enjoy the show!

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Blessings and hugs

Cee

I’m Dog Tired Tonight!

I know I’ve not blogged yet today and I still don’t have any idea what I want to blog about.   Since our trip last week to Astoria, I’ve been exhausted.  I had a blast.  I had two huge camera and lens wrapped around my neck.  Every time a ship would pass or the fog would lift a little bit I was hopping out onto our balcony taking more photographs.  Between my three cameras, I took a total of 722 photos.  Most of which were in one afternoon when the weather finally cleared.

Now I’m just dog tired.  Here are a few photos I took around the hotel.  I’m also ending today’s blog with my pugs.  They were exhausted too!   As usual scroll down for enlarged photos.  Hope you ENJOY the show!

Huge vase in Check-in Area. That vase is actually made out of wood.

This sign was posted everywhere, even in our room, at the hotel. Note the unusual use of capitalization.

I love old cars. This hotel has two 1950s Cadillacs for it customers. I particularly like the reflection of the hotel in the front chrome bumper.

Close up of the lower part of the vase. I thought it makes for an intersting abstract.

Door handle outside our room. Even though the river is fresh water, notice the salt damage from the Pacific being so close. There is usually a difference of 10-12 feet during highlow tide.

Shadow exhausted as well. You can see MacKenzie on the top of the photo. I was the only one still awake with cameras in hand!

MacKenzie exhausted after a long trip to the coast and lots of exciting new smells. She’s napping with Chris.

A Small Act: Documentary Review

Reblogged from Inside Out Cafe:

I watched a documentary this past weekend titled, A Small Act. It’s a story about a woman who donated $15 on a quarterly basis to a young Kenyan boy named Chris Mburu.  That money helped to pay for Chris to attend grammar and secondary school, eventually leave his village and attend Harvard Law. His role as a human rights advocate brought him full circle as he began a foundation to help others.

Read more… 431 more words

This is a lovely story of one person helping another. We all can make a difference.

Share Your World: Week 8

Here are the four Share Your World questions for this week.  I hope you have some fun playing along.  I’m so thrilled some of you participated last week few weeks.  It sure was fun learning about all of us.

1. What is one of your quirky traits?
2. If you could be given ANY gift what would it be?
3. What chore do you absolutely hate doing?
4. If you could play any sport professionally what would it be?

See my answers below.

NOTE:  Click link to easily find Other Share Your World Week blog entries.

I will be putting out four different questions each week for you to answer.  There are two ways which you can participate

1. Create a  Share Your World  post.  Then post the link to your blog in my comment box or leave your answers in the comments box of my blog.
2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Share Your World” tag.
3. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly reminders.

 

I will state the questions first and then post my answers in the bottom part of my blog.  I’ve also created a banner if you would like one for your blog.

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Here are my answers:

I've Opened Pandora's Box

Reblogged from Chris Donner, Mystery Writer:

I recently discovered Pandora, the internet music radio station.  I haven’t bothered with internet radio before.  For some reason I quit listening to music for many, many years but it’s time to put it back into my life.

Pandora only exists in the United States for now. I don’t know if there are similar things in other countries yet.  I am starting to really like it because it lets me hear old favorites that I haven’t heard in ages and find new artists similar to my likes. 

Read more… 611 more words

Great article about a cool website.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Hope

When I told Chris that Hope was the weekly photo challenge, she instantly said I had to put in more photos from when I was in the hospital.   I agreed.  Yesterday I talked about water and how healing it is for me.  Another symbol, again related to water, of hope and strength is lighthouses.

Here is a photo of my shadow and Chris making a labyrinth of a Northern California beach. (camera used was one of the original digital Sony)

Me standing in the Pacific Ocean in Northern California.

Chris took this photo on day 3 of my 40 day coma and 5 month hospitalization.

To read more please scroll down and enlarged photos.

Video Friday: Wedding Entrance Dance

Reblogged from DiDi-licious:

The best wedding entrance ever! I’m smiling every time while watching this amazing dance.

This is the way wedding entrances should be. FUN ad full of ENERGY. I loved every second of it. ENJOY!

Water is so Healing to Me

When I first walked into our hotel room this past weekend, I nearly started to cry.  I love water so and can stare at it and meditate all day long.  Our hotel was built on a pier over the Columbia River in Astoria (see We Finally Made it to Astoria blog).  I’ve had a love of water ever since I’ve been a little child.   I was fortunate enough to always live by huge bodies of water like Lake Superior and and the Pacific Ocean.  My grandparents also lived on a lake in Northern Minnesota.  Water has always been so healing for me.  I can be depressed and spend some time near moving water, and all the stress within me just disappears.

When I first saw the view out our hotel window, my first thought was I’ve come full circle since I first got sick in 2001 (see my Living with Lyme Disease page).  The weekend before I was rushed to the hospital was one of the most loving and memorable weekends of my life.  Chris and I knew something was going on with me.  I was tired and we even discussed if I was “truly” ill.  And I had no symptoms that anyone could pin-point.  We were living on the sandy dry plains of Colorado near Colorado Springs.  Chris drove me to Pueblo and found a reservoir that was we could drive down to the water.  It was freezing cold (mid March) and I just had to get my feet in the water.   Then she bought me a 150 gallon fountain that we could set up in our huge house.  She set it up and put it in my office area which was open to the living room, kitchen and family room.  I so loved the sound of that fountain.  I’d get up at nights and just rinse my face with the water.

Four days later, I was in the hospital and near death.  It was the beginning of a nightmare for the both of us.  For the next 40 days while I was in a coma, Chris did not know if I would live or die.  The doctors had no idea why I was so ill and in organ failure.  So for me to feel like I have come full circle from that weekend means so very much to me.  I can’t put it into words.  Chris just loved to see me sit and watch the water, and then run out to take photographs of all the big and small boats on the river with at least two cameras in hand.

Here are a few photos of the Columbia River that I shot.  Hope you enjoy the show.  As always please scroll down to view them larger.  Thanks.

My Entry for A-Z Archive: D Challenge

For Frizz Text’s A-Z Archive: D Challenge, I decided to enter different types of D.  I know the obvious two for me would be dahlias or dogs, but I decided to try my hand at different types of D’s too.  Hope you enjoy the show.  Please scroll down for enlarged versions.

Dragon head. Photo taken at W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory in Spokane, Washington, USA.

Reflections of Astoria-Megler Bridge in door at the Maritime Museum.

Dragon fountain found at Hughes Water Gardens in Tualatine, Oregon, USA.

Macro of a daffodil. Photo taken at a local nursery in Woodburn, Oregon.

Desert Storm Dahlia, from Swan Island Dahlias in Canby, Oregon.

Shadow being excited. OK I had to put in one dog (pug).

Rainy Duck found in Canby, Oregon, USA.

 

 

We Finally made it to Astoria, Oregon

We finally made it to Astoria, Oregon for our anniversary this past weekend.  The day we left, Chris was a little quiet in the morning, I later found out she was watching the weather on her computer because it was snowing on the Coastal Range Mountains that we had to drive through to get to the Astoria.

So at 10 in the morning we packed up our car and two pugs and started out for our two hour drive to Astoria.  Once I started to see obviously old plowed snow on the side of the roads, Chris said that it might be snowing at the highest points on the mountain pass.  I have always been terrified to drive in snow, which was not always convenient when we lived in Denver, Colorado where it does snow a lot in the winter.  So I wasn’t too thrilled about driving in snow again.

The rain did turn to snow at one point.  The Douglas Fir trees were absolutely gorgeous.  Sorry we didn’t stop and get photos, but it was wet and cold and our cameras were in the trunk.  Driving conditions weren’t bad at all.  It was only about 20 minutes of slow driving in the snow and then I was back on wet rainy roads.

When we got to Astoria we went to our favorite BRIDGEwater Bistro and just watched the rain came down in waves.  The following photos are just a few I took once we got into our hotel.  We stayed at Cannery Pier Hotel, which is built out on a pier on the Columbia River, immediately to the northern of the 4.1 mile (6.6 meter) Astoria Megler bridge.  So we had front row seats to all the large cargo ships that go to Portland down the Columbia River.   I’ll post more later in future blogs.

The first photo I’ve posted before and and it shows our hotel and a large cargo ship.  Please scroll down for enlarged photos.

View as you walk into our room.

View from the bathroom of the claw foot tub. There was also a separate shower. Talk about elegant.

This hotel is pet friendly. They provided a dog bed (which was huge and scared our little pugs), they also had the a dog toy for each of our girls, chewies and treats and three dog bowls. Amazing!

View of the bridge outside our room. Sneak peak of other photos to come in later posts.

Photograph taken from the Bistro we just adore dining at.