Leafy greens are good for you.

Six-Word Saturday 2.2.23

Monday walk…fall into color

One of the things I always do when visiting in Illinois is to walk in the park I enjoyed regularly when living there. As ti was early November, most plants weren’t at their best yet I managed to find color in a variety of place:

in the dawn sky,

in the sun hitting the trees and the leaves that remained,

in some vivid leaves still hanging on…literally,

in the still-leafy bushes,

and in the fallen leaves along a back trail.

Jo’s Monday Walk…sometime

Look closely!

My theory is that when you’re out and about taking photos, you have three areas you can look: up, out, and down. I guess some people add a fourth: at their phones. What a waste that is! You can also look at the big picture or zoom in (literally or figuratively.) I love a grand view as much as the next person but one of what I think of as “my things” is finding beauty in things that other people might miss and that often means looking closely. Often we’re too busy seeing everything that we miss a number of interesting somethings. Here are some somethings I enjoyed while back in “my” park in Illinois in early November.

My husband saw me cropping this photo and said how much he liked it. There weren’t lots of edible things left, and maybe these weren’t, but they looked as if they were waiting for a bird to come and enjoy the feast.

Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful. ~A. R. Ammons

Pokeweed

These always remind me of some sort of coins.

“Almost nothing need be said when you have eyes.”
― Tarjei Vesaas, The Boat in the Evening

Beauty can be found in even in things that are getting wrinkly. Isn’t that comforting as we age? 🙂

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

I absolutely love milkweed, especially when the seeds are trying to escape. There’s something about the contrast between the hard shell and the ethereal, feathery seeds that is unfailingly beautiful.

“In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.” Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Color me dumbfounded! I never knew that this is the winter look of wild bergamot which when flowering, is what I call a Dr. Seuss flower, one with sort of a wild and crazy shape with things sticking out in all directions. I just love all the little sections that are seen when the flowering part dies.

“…we must never lose sight of that gaze with which we look at things.” ~László Krasznahorkai, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming

Wordless Wednesday…sit

Temperature

One Word Sunday: temperature

Ebony and ivory in perfect harmony

Six-Word Saturday 12.10.22

This would make a difficult puzzle!

Six-Word Saturday 12.3.22

Never go out without a cap.

Six-Word Saturday 10.15.22

Wordless Wednesday…morning

Thursday doors…odd and more in Illinois

Let’s start out with an odd door for Becky’s SquareOdds, although I don’t think Dan, our host for Thursday Doors will find it odd. This is the back door of one of the BNSF trains taking passengers into and out of Chicago, in this case to and from Aurora, Illinois while stopping in Naperville where we lived. The trains before 8:30 am came from Aurora, stopped in Naperville, and then went directly to Union Station, taking about half an hour. Catch one later and you’d see every stop between Aurora and the city and believe me, there were lots of them, making your trip somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. It was well worth it to board early, then have coffee or take photos while waiting for the stores or attractions in the city to open!

Moving on to non-square doors, I want to remind you that it’s not always about the doors themselves.

Although this Naperville house was directly across the street from a ridiculously enormous mansion, it was much more attractive and livable in my eyes and I loved everything about it, from the round window, to the enormous porch, to the attractive door. This house felt like a home; the other looked like an expanded ego in building form.