Back to Normal

 Well, it was nice to be away, but now it's back to normal. I went for my walk. It was chilly but sunny. Then I picked up MIL and we went over to Jane's. It's not our normal day, but we had arranged to meet one of Jane's genealogy friends so she could go through Jane's books and see what local groups could use. It was nice to distribute a few more of Jane's things to someone who would appreciate them. We aren't going the rest of the week. We're supposed to get another storm on Thursday, and I don't want to drive in the snow. We're hoping next week the weather will be better and we can get back to our normal Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We have a sort-of plan going forward and we need to keep going so we can get it done. 

Tomorrow will be a walk, lots of housework and catching up with things I've been falling behind on. I did go get the things we needed for meals for the week today, so I am back on track with that. I feel better knowing that meals are planned, and ingredients are purchased. It makes me feel a little more in control of things and it helps that I don't wake up trying to think of what's for dinner!

The photos today are catching up on my Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile. I have been taking them each day but have now organised the catch-up ones on my phone and so am placing on my blog. There were lots of things that made me smile over the weekend it was tough to pick just one!

42/365 - Friday 11th 

Off on a road trip! The Mackinac Bridge. It wasn't sunny when we arrived close to sunset, but it was lovely all the same and definitely made me smile!

43/365 Saturday 12th 

Getting out for a sunrise even if it was ultra cold! This is a huge ice sculpture that is usually by the lake each winter. I wanted to get have a sunrise view. Made me smile even more as just when we were watching a fox ran right along the lake shore! I don't get to see those very often. 

44/365 Sunday 13th 

We had a lovely day on Sunday. One of the highlights was seeing Tahquamenon Falls in Winter. It was so stunning. There was ice and steam and sunshine. Oh wow. 

45/365 Monday 14th

 Our last sunrise at the lake. Oh my. It was a frigid morning. I was the only (crazy) one out there. I stood on the ice watching the sun rise. I am standing in the lake. The ice was solid all the way across but this is pretty close to the shore. You can see where the ice was formed. 

46/365 Tuesday 15th

I love this tree on my morning walk. It is beautiful in all seasons. It was so peaceful at the park this morning. I only saw one regular couple. The birds were singing and I watched as the robins and finches were eating the last of the berries. Beautiful

Catch-up - Weekend Away

 I had a much-needed weekend away. We went up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was really, really cold - our high temperatures were barely above 0f/-18C but it was sunny and we had a great time! I did do three sunrises, two sunsets with temperatures that froze my hands and feet and face (at that time it was -5F/-21C). We got to see some ice that made me just keep saying oh wow. I hope to share photos later. I just wanted to check in before I go catch up on some blogs.  BTW I was thinking how my adventures would have made Mum laugh or shudder at the temperatures and our antics. 

This is me in an ice cave that we found. I am standing in what is Lake Michigan. It was completely frozen here. 

And husband standing in front of an ice pile in Lake Michigan. I could not believe this when I saw it!

Now it's back to normal life lol

Thursday

Today was cloudy and a little snowy. I went to the store but no walk this morning. I really didn't feel like it. I was out for quite a while yesterday and took a lot of photos that I need to sort through, so I thought I'd have a day home. I got some housework done, some photos sorted and got involved in a book. Nothing exciting lol. 

Yesterday while I was out and the sky was nice and blue I tried some abstract photography. I really like how some of them turned out. This is created using ICM - Intentional Camera Movement. I really like the way the blue and the brown of the trees interact with one another. I don't do this sort of photography very often but I find it quite beautiful sometimes - other times mine just look like a mess! There are some people who are really good at it and create spectacular images.  

I hope everyone had a good day. I'm off to bed and will check on blogs in the morning. I was going to do it tonight after I wrote this, but I'm suddenly quite tired and am going to try to sleep while I can!

Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile 41/365

I put together the other two Lego Mini-figure photographers that I have. They make me smile! I'm going to try to use them in some photographer pretty soon if the snow isn't too deep!

Mid-week again. Not been a productive week. I haven't been sleeping too well. Last night I ended up on the sofa. Hubby was snoring so bad I could hear him through the earplugs. I tried several times to get him to roll over - and he did - but he was still snoring. I gave up and went to the sofa. Sigh.

Went for nice long walks yesterday and today. It was quite sunny. There were lots of robins around today. I was really excited to see this leucistic Robin. It was quite easy to spot against the lovely blue sky. 

There were lots of birds around today enjoying the last of the crab apples and berries. Early in the morning a couple of deer were underneath the crab apple tree enjoying what the birds had dropped to the ground. 

It's supposed to snow overnight and maybe tomorrow. If it looks dull I might skip the walk and try to get some things done around here. I have been keeping up with the basics but that's about it. 

Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile 39/365

Not the best photo but this definitely made me smile! Nothing coming down this slide except snow! :)

Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile 40/365

The sky made me smile today. It was blue and there were lovely fluffy clouds in it. My kind of cloud day. 

Monday Again

Ack. It was such beautiful day today. Monday dawns and it's all change! After a rough sleeping night I got up to get ready to go for a walk, go outside to warm up my car so I can go for a walk and feel it drizzling on me. No, not just drizzling, but I look at the car and it is frozen drizzle! My car has a layer of ice on it! I went back into the house and finished the fun book I was reading. It finally stopped the freezing drizzle around 9am and I have to be at MIL's to pick her up so we can go to Jane's house at 10am. I go for a quick walk. I was the only one at the park and it was really quiet. I think that even the birds had decided to stay in the trees! I saw a few squirrels and one deer. 

I got to MIL's to find that her driveway was covered in ice! Yikes. Not fun. When I walk at the park I wear Yaktrax on my boots as it's quite icy, but I took them off before I got to MIL's. I put them back on so that when we got to Jane's I could get out of the car safely and get some driveway salt from the garage to put down before MIL went in the house. 

We worked on Jane's kitchen. We have gone through all the cupboards and countertops and have sorted out anything we want and threw out any rubbish. The rest we left in the cupboards for the sale. Over here people have what are called Estate Sales. They are held in houses and the belongings are sold from the house. As Jane had a lot of collectibles we are planning on holding one of these. We are getting to the point where we will soon have to talk to someone about having an estate sale. We are going to pick out a couple of people who organise these and have them come over and talk to us about what they do, how they manage things and that sort of thing. There is such a lot of stuff. It really is still quite overwhelming!

It was snowing a little bit when I took MIL back home and we've had snow showers most of the afternoon. The weather forecast calls for sunshine tomorrow but I am not holding my breath!

Phone Photo - Things That Make Me Smile 

38/365

This book was a fun, easy read. It made me smile as does the bookmark!

Sunday Adventure

 Thanks for all the lovely comments regarding the photos. I had a fun time creating them.

Must say that today the weather actually cooperated! It was beautiful and sunny. We decided to try again for the state park we had been planning on yesterday. We got there about half an hour after it was to be open only to find that there were locked gates across the entrance! Ack! We had planned on another stop after that - Michigan City, Indiana. There are two lighthouses there and we were interested to see how the ice was building up. It's not somewhere we tend to go - maybe once in the springtime as there are usually lots of daffodils there. It's funny because it was somewhere I was thinking we should go to today (normally we go further north but the weather there did not look good). When I got up this morning husband asked where we should go and I kind of shrugged and he said how about Michigan City and Warren Dunes? We were both thinking the same thing!

Anyway, we headed down towards Michigan City and got a little sidetracked by a view we could see through some streets as we drove along. We decided to take a detour and ended up on a new-to-us beach that had some gorgeous ice build-up. It was stunningly beautiful, like some sort of foreign land of ice and snow. 

The beach at Michigan City was beautiful too. In Indiana the time is an hour earlier than ours, so it was still quite early when we got there, and the beach was deserted. There were beautiful patterns in the sand and ice hills. If it wasn't so cold, I could have spent hours there just wandering along. 

On our way back we decided to see if Warren Dunes State Park was open. It was! We got out there, took another walk along the beach and saw more ice. There were quite a few people about. There are huge sand dunes close to the beach and in the winter people sled down them. 

All-in-all it was a beautiful day. Lot of sunshine. Lots of walking. Lots of photography.  It's difficult to pick a scene that made me smile today as I smiled quite a bit, but I decided on this one. 

37/365 Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile

Here are a couple more phone photos from Michigan City

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Saturday Adventure

 Well, today didn't quite turn out how I planned. We had decided we were going to take a drive down to Warren Dunes State Park and see how the ice was building up along the shore there. Usually there are really lovely views of ice there in winter. We got almost to where our son lives (which is about 20 miles from the park) and it started to snow. Big, fat flakes of snow. It was pretty but not to drive in. The road was quite covered, so we decided not to go. I checked the weather radar on my phone, and it looked as though as snowstorm was just sitting over that area! We got off the motorway and took a really snow- covered road up the shoreline to where it looked like things were clear. I did get out there - same place as last week lol - took some photos and the sun promptly came out. 

As today was the first Saturday of the month I participated in the A Year with my Camera #1Day12pics. You are supposed to take one photo per hour on your day. Usually, I try to do a theme or a portrait of my day, not necessarily one an hour. Today I took my macro lens and my Lego photographer out on our journey and then took some more macro photos when I came home. Here's my twelve. 

The big photo on the bottom is a close-up of these absolutely tiny little figures (you can see them in my hand in another photo) and I had them working on a chocolate Hero Creme Egg Twisted. Thought that was fun. 

Hope everyone had a good day! I had a lot of fun. 

36/365 Phone Photo - Things That Make Me Smile 

It had to be a phone photo of my Lego set-up outside. Made me smile to take these photos today - it was fun!

End of Week

 So glad the snow is done! Well, we're expecting a dusting tonight but nothing more at least until the middle of next week. I managed to get out of the drive and braved the drive to the park on Thursday, but the roads were really slippery and icy as it was too cold for the salt to work. On the way back I slid past our road and had to turn down the next one. I decided after that just to stay home. I didn't go out today either lol. It was enough to put me off! 

Today it was really cold in the morning. I think it was about 6f/-14C in the morning. At that temperature nothing on the roads was melting. What to do what it's that cold? Freeze bubbles, of course. I'll try to share some photos over the weekend. 

The online camera club I'm in is going over aperture again this month as part of the A Year With My Camera Year 2. One of the things we're talking about is different lenses and how it's important to learn what your lens is capable of, how it works, what its 'sweet spot' is and more. I decided to pull out my little used 105mm macro lens that I like but I don't know a lot about. I decided to pull out one of my miniature Lego photographers and give it a go while I was out there.  Here's one. 

It was quite fun. I did have to keep coming indoors to warm up as it was so cold!!!

Not sure what we're doing this weekend. We'll go out somewhere. It is supposed to be sunny so we'd better make the most of it!

Photo a day - Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile 34/365

My MIL and FIL surprised husband with a new snowblower! Made me smile - and him too! It will make things a lot easier when he has to remove all the snow. 

35/365

Smile today - me, my camera, some bubbles and a straw. Lol. Was fun. Cold, but fun!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

2/2/2022 Groundhog Day

It's 2 2 22 today. My son was the one to mention it. The date would have entirely gone by me lol. It's also Groundhog Day here in the US. Weird superstition/tradition. I knew nothing about it before I came here so I thought I'd share. 

Disclaimer - this is how I understand Groundhog Day. 

Every year on February 2nd in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania a special festival is held for their famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. The festival starts before sunrise. Folklore says that if it is cloudy when Phil emerges from his hole, he will leave his burrow and there will be an early spring. If it is sunny and the groundhog sees his shadow, he will go back into his burrow and there will be six more weeks of winter. Once Phil has made his decision it is said he will tell the president of the Groundhog Club in a secret language called 'Groundhogese'. The president will then let the gathering crowd know. 

It is said that Groundhog Day began as a German custom during the 18th and 19th century and is believed to be influenced by European lore where a badger or bear was used to forecast the coming spring instead of a groundhog. 

This is a photo of Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog President. 

Well, did Phil see his shadow? Will there be six more weeks of winter? 

He saw his shadow, so we are in for six more weeks of winter. That's not a surprise to those of us who live in Michigan. 

We had quite the snowstorm today. It's still snowing, and we have about 8-9 inches of snow. I stayed indoors except to go outside and put birdseed out for the poor birds who were eating like crazy. Four deer stopped by several times during the day to eat some birdseed. There were two lying down in the snow when I got up this morning. There are several trees at the back of our garden, and I think they were hunkering down back there. 

Husband and son went off to work as usual. When they came home they both worked hard to clear the driveway, pavements in front of our house (as we are required to do) and rake the roof - this is so the snow doesn't build up too much, melt and drip and cause really bad icicles. It took quite a while and - as I said - it's still snowing but hopefully it's winding down. 

33/365 Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile 

One of our old Christmas Trees buried in snow. The birds love hiding underneath the bottom of this tree. Made me smile to see such lovely snow and know that I don't have to go out in it!

A New Month

 February 1st. Seems this last month has gone by quite quickly.

 Looking back there are some things to mark in the 'I did it' column and more than a few to enter in to the 'failed it'. One of the most positive things this month was the low spend. I didn't do as well as I could have on the food spending. There were several reasons for this. I had thought about cooking mostly from what we had but with the way the food shelves in the shops near us have been recently I thought it was better to keep some things on hand. Also, during winter I hate driving in the snow so I want to make sure I have things on hand so that I don't make myself too anxious. I didn't hoard or go overboard on the food spending but I feel comfortable enough that we items on hand if needed. 

I feel pretty good about leisure spending this month. We didn't eat out at all. I can't remember if MIL and I went to craft stores this month or not but I didn't go alone at all and I spent no money in one or one online (despite having some items in various shopping carts). I do admit to having a book failure. I purchased three books and the magazines I showed. I'm going to try to continue on for this month - perhaps do better. Money is still quite tight so that's an incentive lol. 

 I got all my neglected housework done today. I did go for a really long walk, partly with my friend and partly by myself. It was such a beautiful day I couldn't stay inside. The sun was shining, the skies were blue and it was above freezing!!! We are going to be under a Winter Storm Warning in a few hours. Because it is above freezing it is raining outside. That is going to turn to snow as the temperatures fall. It is supposed to snow most of the day tomorrow. We are in the line to get between 7-12 inches when this is all done. Of course, that's just a prediction. We could end up with very little lol. 

I did go through a few photos today. I thought I'd share one of the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (try saying that fast a few times!) that got me sidetracked yesterday. Isn't it beautiful?

My phone did an update and now I find it really difficult to manage my phone photos. Sigh. I have two of my photo-a-day to share. 

31/365 Phone Photos. Things That Make Me Smile. 

A nice walk in the park. Made me smile because even though this park is even further in the middle of town it was filled with birdlife and wildlife! 

32/365 Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile. 

The calm before the storm. The beautiful day made me smile. It was warm (well, warm for Michigan!), sunny and the birds were singing.