Looking through my archive, I saw this red flower! I don't know what it is called, but it looks like a star to me, and red color is just perfect for today.
We have snow these last two days! My area is covered with a white blanket.
I play around with photoshop for the above picture! I unleash my holiday stresses by doing what I love, and that is manipulating photos. How do you de-stress?
It would be so nice to see flowers and colors at this time of the year when the earth is under a blanket of snow and the sky is so gray. I hope this beautiful red color flower brings a bit of cheer to you.
To see more Ruby Tuesday entries, please visit Mary!
These last few years, I love growing my herbs and flowers in containers. Since I have a small area to grow vegetables, I must resort to garden window boxes for other things. Also, a certain herb such as mint has taken over the entire area in a very short time, and it is very difficult to get rid of it. Growing in containers help keep my herbs and flowers from multiplying too fast.
Images Courtesy of windowboxplanters.com
I have window plant boxes along the driveway on one side of my house. Though these planters are not hanging from the windows, they are directly rested on the ground underneath them. These boxes seem to soften the look of the concrete and the brick wall, plus they add beautiful colors to our house as we drive up.
Images Courtesy of windowboxplanters.com
Free stand planters like the above pictures would be my preferred choices if I could afford to get them. These are wrought iron window boxes, and they would eliminate my constant back pain from bending. Well, I am rushing into Spring already! Winter months are too long and dreary, but I know we still have a long way to go yet. Looking at planters and planning for a new garden excites me! It is something I'm looking forward to.
The shadow you see below is from a huge crab apple tree on the church ground where I pick up my nephew every day.
This tree is beautiful and full of blossom in the Spring, and has plenty of little red crab apples during the Fall.
Crab Apple Tree
This is just a branch of a very beautiful tree on the side of a church's wall. There aren't many days here in my area that has sun light, but when we do get a little sun, I love looking for shadows.
On the Ground
The shadow of this little crab apple tree looks a little spooky, as it's very vivid on the ground by the Kindergarten class.
Basil Plant on the Wall
This is my basil plant that I grew in a pot during the summer. The leaves had been gone for a while, and only the seeds were left.
See more interesting shadows from others by clicking on the image below. Have a great Sunday!
One of most dreaded chores for me is taking my car in for repair. I can testify to the fact that the repair shops treated women with less respect than with men. They automatically assumed that women know nothing about car, and so they gave the run around estimates.
My car, a honda accord, is in needs of repair, and I find myself putting this off for as long as I could. I took it in to a Honda dealer once, and I came out with a list of things that my car supposed must get done. For example, they told me that I need a new battery when my car started right up even after a week of sitting in the freezing cold weather.
Giving this experience, I really don't know if any of these repairmen are sincere or whether I should trust their recommendations to get things fixed in my car. Financially, I have to watch every penny I spent, and I can't afford to be taken for a ride.
I have been on the look out for a trusted mechanic, and searching for more information on the timing belt of my car. I called a few repair shops around my area, but many of these shops are not giving the free estimate unless I commit to their service. They all carried the attitude of "take it or leave it" motto.
Then my sister mentioned about her recent San Francisco auto repair experiences, which she found through RepairPal website. I went on the site to find an estimate for my car problem, and was very impressed. With just a few clicks, I got the cost for labor, parts, and price ranges from different shops.
This website is very helpful to me. It will give me the confident to go into the repair shop know for sure that no one can take advantage of me.
I haven't done the movie review for a while since I really didn't get a chance to sit and watch a full movie. It's one of those rare times that I get to see and pay attention to a movie last night.
I shut down the computer, and turned off the phone to watch "The Julie/Julia Project". I learned so many new things about Julia Child from this movie, such as how long it took her to write her cook book, she didn't have children, she married a wonderful man, and how late in her life she learned to cook.
As much as I learned about Julia Child, I also have questions about her family. Why she talked with a French accent while her family didn't, or at least in the movie. Overall, the movie was very enjoyable, and inspiring.
It proved that you could be successful in whatever you do, and no matter how late in life you began. The inspiring part for me was Julie! She started her blog, with a dead line, to accomplish something worthwhile.
Julie Powell began with a simple blog, and had a dead line of a year to cook 524 recipes in 365 days. She went through the anticipating of waiting for a comment when first began the blog, and got devoured in the pressure of posting to keep up.
Through it all, her blog was discovered by famous and big name agents. She finished her project, and the result is history.
Wouldn't it be nice for us bloggers to be recognized? So keep your dream alive! Watch the movie, I'm sure you will enjoy it.
This beautiful white wooden fence acts as privacy fence for the children from the parking lot. In front of it, there are two trees and a bush at the corner. On a nice sunny day, the shadow of leaves imprinted on the wooden fence this image.
The rectangular sign you see is the Handicapped sign. This is the spot I found for Shadow Shot this week.
As the corner of this wooden fence, the bush gave me this shadow. There were lots of leaves left on the trees and this bush when I took these pictures, but two days later, they were all gone.
To see more Shadow Shot, please click on the image below!
If you have money would you invest in gold? I was raised with the belief that gold is the ultimate investment, and has high return in value than any other commodities.
When my brother got married, I had to take my mother to different jewelry stores to look for gold earrings, bracelet, and necklace. It was our tradition to welcome a new female member to the family, and the gold jewelry also had a hidden meanings.
As told to me, the gold will come in handy to bail out the family if they were in trouble, or used to pass down from generation to generation. They would then become a family heirloom for the same reasons since gold carried a universal understanding. There is no language barrier when a piece of gold is presented.
My mom knows her gold. She can tell which is a 12k, 14k, or 24k by just looking at them. The colors on the gold pieces are different from one another, and usually the higher karat had deeper colors.
I grew up and invested my first two paychecks in this tradition. I bought gold necklace, earrings, and a bracelet thinking that I will pass them down to my children one day. I passed my first earring down to my daughter when she was born. My sister gave her a necklace, and my mother gave her a bracelet.
We still believe in this tradition of giving new baby gold jewelries. I guess it is something that runs deep in our blood.
If any students out there need online tutoring for math problems, here is a site to get math answers. This website is called Tutornext.com.
Math subject was one of my weak points in school, and I always dreaded signing up for them when I had to. Now we have internet so looking for help is much easier. We can find all kind of information with just a click from our fingers.
Tutornext offers Precalculus help, statistics help, and chemistry help for high school and also college students. Just like any other services, you will have to pay a small fee, but you are able to get online math tutoring.
I have forwarded this website to my daughter's college friends, and hopefully it will ease some stresses or find it helpful. I failed my college chemistry and pre-calculus classes, struggled, and had to retake them twice, so I know without help, it could be very discouraging, not to mention the expenses for each class.
Check out this website to see if it is suitable for your situation, and if you need help in any of these areas, then seek help. You might have to pay a fee to get the service, but really, think about it, it will help you pass your class, which in turn can save you hundreds of dollars to retake the course.
Ok, I confess that on a nice sunny day, I purposely created these shadows while raking the leaves. At first, I spotted the shadows by accident when I lifted the rake to pull the leaves, and then I thought why not take a few pictures of this.
I got my camera on one hand, and held the rake up with the other to create opportunity! Voila, these two photos were the result of a mad woman who constantly searches for shadows!
I managed to get half of the backyard leaves bagged and finished! I was like a kid, distracted easily when it comes to pictures. As I moved further back in the yard, I was awestruck by the shining leaf you see below.
The shadow on the leaf was all natural! I didn't re-arrange it in any way or set it up by any mean.
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow - I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.~~~Confucius~~~
