Wednesday, December 31, 2014

CREATIVE TUESDAY - Dec. 31, 2014


My entry for Creative Tuesday - January 6th, 2015.  To see more entries please click here

Monday, December 29, 2014

Y IS FOR ........

YESTERDAY...

THE BEATLES

NOW HERE'S MY VERSION..

Yesterday, I was swiftly sailing far away,
Now I guess I'm home to stay.
Our cruise ship fun was yesterday.

Suddenly, I'm staying home where I should be.
Scruffy purrs and plays with me.
But yesterday was fun you see.

Yes, we had to go, 
It was just a holiday,
Lounging in the sun,
Lazy days spent yesterday.

Yesterday we had many happy hours in play
Now our cruising ship has gone away.
We're safely home I'm glad to say.

Now we're here, the place where we're content to be.
We love our home and Scruffy too, 
So we'll sail again another day.....

******

We spent a lovely relaxing cruise from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta for one week over Christmas.  I read three books, drew two pieces of artwork and held long conversations with fellow passengers. The seas were calm and the sun was warm.  The food was, of course, fabulous and way more than we needed. Had a lovely time, but always glad to be home.

This is my submission for ABC Wednesday, efficiently and effectively run by Mrs. Nesbitt and Roger Owen Green -- and their band of helpers.  To see more entries in this popular meme please click HERE.

Friday, December 19, 2014

A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY BLOGGING FRIENDS

                                                                                                                                                      (Copyright Christine A. Jones)
"Glory to God in the highest..."
"The TRUE LIGHT that enlightens every man has come into the world..."
"...and THE LIGHT shines on in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out."

 May you truly have a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

See you after the holidays.
My love to you all.


Tuesday, December 16, 2014

W IS FOR WATER

CREATIVE TUESDAY FRIENDS, please scroll down one page.  Many thanks.
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W is for WATER
You may have heard about California's four years of drought.  In the last couple of months there have been several episodes of rain from Los Angeles and north of there.  But we, down in San Diego, have missed most of these episodes, which is probably to be expected because we are officially a desert climate.  L.A. is typically expected to get more rain than us.  

But we too have suffered less than our usual 10" a year -- only 4"  so far this year-- that is until this past weekend.  Our poor creek had almost dried up but look at it now:
 These photos are taken from the end of of our yard.  The bank is steeper than it looks.

 Our new tree, planted by the park HOA on the bank last week looks a little bedraggled but I think it is still alive.  It took quite a pounding with winds and heavy tropical-type rain.

 Our neighbor's new tree, a pepper tree, so I'm told, looks like it really relished the rain.

 The water was really surging down under the bridge.  What excitement to see and hear the waves rushing along down to the ocean about 2 miles away! 

 I took this shot while sitting up in bed !!  I can actually see the creek, when it's full, without getting out of bed!  Not to worry, though. Within 24 hours the creek is almost back to its normal depth.
A beautiful rainbow appeared later that afternoon.  So beautiful!  In all, we received 1 1/2 inches of rain.  Everything looks so clean and green.

God is good all the time.  All the time God is good.

This is my entry for ABC Wednesday.  Please give a big round of applause to Mrs. Nesbitt and Roger Owen Green and their helpers for keeping this going for so many years.  To view more fascinating and educating entries please click HERE

Saturday, December 13, 2014

CREATIVE TUESDAY- Favorites

MY FAVORITE POSTS OF 2014 -- We had to choose one or two of our own favorite pieces of artwork submitted to Creative Tuesday this year.


I chose this picture of the old barn, because I think it is one of my better pieces this year.  It is a real place located only about a half a mile away.


I chose this second piece because I like the mood of it.  The birds are so typical of what I see around me every day.  I feel like there is some movement in the picture though it may not be the best I've done technically.  We don't have snow here and there should be some background behind the snow, but the birds give me much pleasure.  I love to see them waiting for the feeder to be filled.

 A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY CREATIVE TUESDAY FRIENDS 

Please link HERE to see all the other choices that have been made this session.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

U IS FOR...UNWITTINGLY

All the credit for the first part of this post goes to ALAN BURNETT, a Yorkshireman whose blog is entitled NEWS from NOWHERE.  (Click on this title.)
I am fascinated by this photograph which Alan posted on his blog.  I love the many shades of color and the textures within it.  I like things that are colorful and have shape symmetry and perhaps a purpose to them.  But to me this is beautiful.  I could live with it even if it were a mural. I have been back and visited it a number of times.  He says that he took it with his new camera which he calls his Little Nik.  (for more details on this camera please click on the link to Alan's blog, above. ) Then I read that Alan had UNWITTINGLY produced this wonderful piece of art.  He explains:
"This image was another shot gone wrong. It started as a slightly out of focus shot of some fallen Autumn leaves. I tried to sharpen it up using Photoshop and obviously pressed the wrong button".
Since I have just spent the last hour trying to cut and paste the above quote, I DO KNOW how UNPREDICTABLE technology can be -- (especially if you are using Windows 8!)  But this photo is pure serendipity, (only we are supposed to be using words beginning with U!).

Here is the original photo, beautiful in itself, but I still love the one  it produced.

Since neither of these photos are mine, I do ask you to respect that these photos are the property of Alan Burnett of "News from Nowhere" .  See link above.

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Another U word is UNWILLING. I took the photo of this tree  on Monday.  It is called Liquid Amber and has been gradually developing this color over the past two months going through various shades until it has become this beautiful wine color.  

This tree seems UNWILLING to drop its leaves, even though all the others like it up and down the street have lost at least half of theirs, if not all. 

This is my entry to ABC Wednesday, started by Mrs. Nesbitt, continued by Roger Owen Green and his team of helpers.  We are now about to start our 16th round.  Please click HERE to see other entries and how about considering joining us in the new round?