Libraries

I love libraries. And particularly this one, with its openness and soaring beautiful ceiling. It's not the biggest library in the area, but I'm thankful that I can reserve books online and visit this beautiful space to pick them up.

Leaving early

On the last work day before a holiday, we get to leave work early. I'm grateful for that one extra hour off!

365 Grateful

I recently ran across a project called 365 Grateful (http://365grateful.com/). The idea is that every day, you record something for which you are grateful. You can  do it in a variety of ways, but as with the creator, photography was the medium that spoke to me so I decided to try it on this blog.

I'd actually been thinking about this concept since I listened to Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson while I was traveling with Karis in California. In one section of the book, he talked about the British capacity for making the best of things. I think of this concept as "Ooh tea! Lovely!". (That might not mean much to you if you haven't read the book.)

So in no particular order, here goes.

I'm grateful for a freshly groomed Bravo, with his gorgeous fluffy tail and wide smile, and what Russ refers to as his "ascot".

New camera!

So yesterday I got a new camera. My old one that was small and traveled with me most of the time had developed an issue where every time I turned it on, it wanted me to set the date. Perhaps I could have gotten around that, but I used it as an excuse to replace that camera. I spent some time thinking about what to get - DSLR? Small camera with longer zoom than the 5x I had? In the end, I decided that I might not carry a DSLR often enough.

So I got a Canon Powershot G12. It's small, but has a larger sensor than many point-and-shoot cameras. Still only a 5x zoom, but with 10MP, I can crop on the computer for a closer shot and not lose too much. And it has tons of features. Hopefully I will take a lot more pictures and get better at going beyond the basics.

Here's an example of the "Color Accent" feature:

Snow and Ice

This is for Karis, enjoying the heat and humidity in Queensland. See what you are missing?

Seems to me we have more snow this year than we have for several years. Of course, the bottom layer here came before you left, but it just keeps piling up. Snowed from Sunday night until Tuesday midday. Very light snow, so not really that bad. I think we got maybe 14 inches total. But on top of what was already there...

Anyway, this is the back deck, before I walked on it to get the closeup of the icicles below. I thought ours was in bad shape, but I looked over at our neighbors, and saw it had collapsed. Oops!



I'm a bit worried about ice damming. Once many years ago, we had drips coming down the wall in the family room during the thaw. Hope this melts slowly and doesn't cause a problem!







This is the front from the street. All the snow from the driveway had to go somewhere!













Thought this picture would best show the depth.

Walking today was not so much fun. The city had plowed the nearby walking path yesterday morning (after I slogged through it). But that wasn't as much help as it might have been since the road plow came by later and threw chunks back on the path. Which of course was more difficult to navigate than the fresh, light snow had been. Sigh. Thanks so much for pulling the path closer to the street when they redesigned it a couple of years ago!

Then when I tried to cross the street at a low point in the plowed-up snow, I sank in past my knee and fell. And got a cramp in my left calf so that I couldn't immediately get up again. Fortunately, it was soft snow where I fell, I wasn't quite in the street, and the cramp passed fairly quickly (though Bravo standing on that foot didn't help).

Also, it was only 2 degrees on my walk. I made Bravo wear his booties:

In a Sunburned Country

I've been in Australia for 3 days now - this is day 4. I'm borrowing Karis' computer for a quick update. We've climbed the Harbour Bridge, toured the Opera House, seen tons of flying foxes in the Royal Botanical Gardens, and took the ferry to Manly to hit the beach. Karis has blogged about all of it at karisdownunder.blogspot.com. And I have some pictures up on Picasa online. I'll add yesterday' pictures later. Now I have to cede the computer to Karis.

Off for another day of adventure!

Snow Sparkles

Light snow - that's what Intellicast says about the current conditions. But the "flakes" are so small they are really just sparkles. Really beautiful in the light of the street lamps.

It's 4 degrees this morning - much colder and I wouldn't take my morning walk. Hard to believe that in just a few days, I'll be experiencing summer in Sydney. It's 79 there now. And Intellicast must be confused because under "Current Conditions" it says Thunderstorm, but the Hourly Forecast and the Observations for the last 48 hours indicate it's clear. Scattered Clouds at the most. Wonder if I should believe the temperature, then?