The Missing Years

Not missing but eleven years well lived since I last posted on this blog. In the interim, I have been posting life passages, photographs, paintings, family events and news, travels, holiday celebrations, inspirations, and the like on Facebook. The world has turned topsy turvy with this pandemic. I recorded the breathing of the tide, waves, and wind at the outermost beach on Captiva Island a few days before I left Florida to return to Colorado for the summer.  The beaches had only recently been opened. I wanted a video so that I could remember the sounds of the sea while I was away.

Fall Favorites

Fall is the season for mums in the beautiful colors of autumn. I like the way the sunlight on everything has a golden sort of glow. The grasses have lovely purples and reds in them. While I was away a grandpuppy who shall not be named had a field day in part of my garden, destroying about half of it. We just filled it up with lots of mums.

Palisade peaches and Olathe corn are in season. We try to have corn just about every night. I get the peaches from the local farmer's market. The tomatoes I have been growing all summer are just starting to turn red. I hope they make it before the cold sets in.

Last but not least, the US Open started this week so the recorder is working overtime to catch all of the excitement. We traveled to New York with friends to watch the qualifying rounds last Thursday. My husband took all the photographs so will have to get them from him and post later.

Barely Breathing

Not just a great song I downloaded today but also describes my current physical state attributable to allergies. We have had record rainfall this summer which has turned our normally dry mountains into a verdant wonderland. Lots of tall grass, flowers......beautiful but you get the idea. This is a picture of some purple coneflowers in my garden. Purple coneflowers are my second favorite flower after pansies. Speaking of pictures, back up your computers people! I lost five years worth of digital photographs in a computer crash. I thought I would be able to recover them but the media had been wiped off the damaged hard drive. A thousand tears later, I am trying to rebuild my photograph library. Summer has sped by so quickly. I am getting the itch to pick up my knitting even though it has been about 90 degrees the last couple of days. The nights are quite cool. I noticed some trees up in Fort Collins turning yellow already when I moved my daughter up there to go to school.

Catching Up on a Summer's Evening

Long time, no blog. The tennis fever lasted for over two months. We had lots of fun, a winning season.....couldn't ask for more. Second session starts next week but I'm ready to start adding other favorite activities back into my life. Just went on a book reading spree which I haven't done in a long time. Had the good fortune to read three really good books in a row. Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Moonflower Vine, billed as a rediscovered classic, and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a great story full of little known WWII facts. Summer was long in arriving to our mountain town. After a rainy cool spring and early summer, we are finally having some really hot summer weather. My garden is voluptuous. The white and blue delphinium are getting about as tall as I am, the purple clematis are in full bloom, and my russian sage finally grew to the size I was hoping for....full of happy bees. Events of note since I last posted: my son graduated from college and my daughter graduated from high school. Oh, and I have a new grandpuppy, Sargent, a very handsome young German shorthair retriever who is growing by leaps and bounds. Will post some photographs later.

Tennis Fever

Tennis league starts today and I am looking forward to a fun and hopefully winning season. I will work on getting some photographs of my team's road to nationals. It promises to be a beautiful day in the Rocky Mountains, perfect weather for a tennis match.

Moving on to Spring

The promised acrylic version of the aspen stand. It is framed and hanging in my husband's home office. I love it and think for now I am done with aspen painting. Time to move on to more springtime topics, although aspens also look pretty in the springtime! I am working on an acrylic of some flowers I photographed in Cabo. Also intend to start a full sheet watercolor of the columbine. This is a photograph I took of the columbine growing in my garden last summer before they succumbed to some tiny black bugs.

Everywhere I've Been

About ten minutes after I took this photograph the clouds passed through and the sun was shining. Life seems to be moving as quickly these days. I have fifty good years behind me. Where do I go next after everywhere I've been? The education I pursued, the home I have created, the books I've read, the children I've raised, the paintings I've done, the places I have traveled, the photographs I've taken, the husband I've loved, the friends and family I've cherished; all these combine to form the very large canvas that is my life's work. I cannot see the next brushstroke but know that even as I write this the image on the canvas is shifting.