Look up....

The question of the day is........  What. Do. I.Wish. For?  Peace, love, good health? More patience and understanding?  Is this what I really wish for or want?   Yes it is.  It's what most people wish for.   I learned a long time ago not to take life for granted.  You never know what is going to happen, whether it be to yourself, or to someone else.  

When you let an inner child live deep inside you, it doesn't matter how old you are or how old you feel.  You are going to act accordingly.  I refuse to let my human host grow up.  She may be old in body, but her soul is still young and full of pee and vinegar.  She grabbed the bull by the horns and is not letting go.

As a child she would often lay down on the cool green grass of summer and stare at the clouds in the sky.  With no air conditioning inside and 90+ degree days with often 100+ plus days, playing outside was the only way to cool off.  Her neighborhood friends would join her and they'd spend hours looking for people or animals in the clouds.  Cloud watching was always a favorite thing to do.  So was searching for four leaf clover in the grass.

I've never forgotten how fun and relaxing laying on the grass and looking up into the sky was.  I still find myself doing that, but now it's on a lounger.  It's too hard to get up off the ground.  I'm fascinated by clouds.  They can be full and puffy, or thin and whispy....

The hubby of my human just shakes his head at times at her, but more often than not, he's showing her the clouds now.

Look up next time you head outside.  You never know what you are going to see.  Even smoke filled clouds can be interesting.  Let the inner child out.  Life is too short to not have some childish play.




Twitter@CotySimon
Instagram/Howunique310

Sit a Spell

The trend in our neighborhood for the last several years is to be in the front yard mingling with your neighbors, sitting on lawn chairs in the evening.  It's not a new concept by all means.  The neighborhood I lived  and grew up in did this, every single night during the warm summer nights.  But back then, air conditioning was not a common thing to have.  You stayed outside until the inside cooled off.   

Air conditioning is a common item to have in a home now, but I like this new old trend again of sitting outside, reading a book, having a glass of wine, or just sitting and enjoying the fresh air and chit chatting with the neighbors.  

I've always had a couple of chairs on my front porch.  I like to sit there when it's dark outside.  I like to listen to the sounds of the night.  It's quiet for the most part.  The crickets seem to have quite the orchestra going, but other than that, it's quiet, peaceful, and serene.  

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that my front porch chairs needed sprucing up.  I was tired of the pale yellow and figured spray painting the chairs a bright, fire engine red would do the trick, then topping them off with lime green pillows........yep, can't miss my front porch now.   

I like flowers.  Lots of flowers.  After a long, cold, and snowy winter, the flowers make me smile.  I hope you have something that makes you smile, too..........

If you're ever in my neighborhood, come on up and sit a spell.  

Twitter@CotySimon

Instagram/Howunique310

Take the back roads

Officially, it's still spring.  Mentally for me it's summer.  Summer time means road trips. Road trips mean going someplace new and exciting.  Road trips are road trips.  You hop in a car, truck, motorhome, start the engine and off you go.   Occasionally my job takes me to out of town places.  Usually rural in nature where people are more laid back, more mellow, and take life slower than big city folk.  I'm a city gal longing for back roads, a quieter life, and certainly a calmer life.  My job is hard physically at times, but when I venture to these out of the way places, it's worth it for me.

I've learned through my travels that all roads lead me back home.  No matter where I am at.  No matter how many highways, state roads, freeway systems I have to be on, sooner or later, they lead me right back to home.  What's fun is how I get back home.  I take back roads, roads less traveled by people.  Dirt roads, paved roads, two lane roads, you know, the kind that has one lane going each way.  They are few and far between anymore.

The sun had just set behind the clouds.  It looked as if a
bomb or explosion of some sort went off.   

Rascal Flats sings it best..Life is a Highway................

Life's like a road that you travel on

When there's one day here and the next day gone

Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand

Sometimes you turn your back to the wind

There's a world outside every darkened door

Where blues won't haunt you anymore

Where the brave are free and lovers soar

Come ride with me to the distant shore

I'm going to venture out on that road of life and enjoy.  No telling what I might find.  I won't know until I try that next turn off to a road that leads me somewhere.....anywhere............

Twitter @CotySimon
Instagram/Howunique310

Run Free, Run Wild

I have a favorite place that I like to go and collect my senses.  Do a spring cleaning of my brain cells.  Rid out the negative thoughts and refresh the gray matter with positive thinking.  A necessity for me.....

I took a little drive to my favorite place.  I never get tired of looking at this body of water.  The water color changes constantly.  It can go from deep royal blue, to carribean turquoise, to a wicked gray with white caps.......

Like the beaches hugging the Pacific ocean, this body of water has my heart and my soul.  I am at peace here.

Nothing special at all with this picture visually.  I took this because its showing me what I didn't hear.  No cars.  No trucks.  No people talking.  No chaotic sounds.  Just the rustling of the grasses swaying in the breeze.  An occasional Meadow Lark announcing itself.  It was the sounds of peaceful, nature filled music.  The old wooden fence leaning over, it's telling me I won't fence you in.......run free, run wild.....................




Twitter@CotySimon
Instagram/Howunique310

Please & Thank You...

My human dabbles with social media.   She has friends that follow her, tweet her, and are just there in the background, keeping an eye on her.  She has friends she socializes with.  She has school friends, neighborly friends.  Like most people, she has friends.........

Several months ago, one of her "facebook friends" put out a challenge.  This challenge was to do a random act of kindness.  If you wanted to be included in this "game" you simply gave your name and address.  This random act didn't have to be done in a certain time frame.  You could do it anytime you wanted as long as it was kept simple.  Nothing expensive or extravagant.  A card, a photo, a dried flower from your garden.......anything to bring a smile to that persons face.   It's been fun.  My human printed out a favorite quote that described her "friend", put it in the mail and sent it off.  On another, it was decals of dogs and paw prints.  She's does animal rescues. it's been a fun way to get to know people you've never seen up close and most likely never will........

When my human went out and retrieved the mail last week, there was an envelope addressed to her with a return address of "Random Act of Kindness"............her heart skipped a beat.  She could hardly get inside the house and cut the envelope open.  Inside was a beautiful "Thank You" card.  Included in the card was a "camera" charm and a dangle that reads ""find joy in the journey"......This beautiful lady knows her  well.   They've never met, never spoken to each other on the phone.  They met on Twitter, followed each other on Facebook, and have supported each other in their endeavors....

I am putting out there another call for doing a "random act of kindness" to anyone.  Next time you are in a "drive thru" picking up your Dunkin' Donuts coffee, or Starbucks, or Mickey D's mocha latte, pay for the order behind you.  Pick up a bouquet of flowers and give them to your neighbor.  Buy a hamburger, give it to the man on the street corner holding up a sign asking for money to buy food.  Do something.  Do anything.  Simply holding the door open for someone is a random act of kindness.  Saying "please" and "thank you"...that's not a hard one.   Most importantly, do it more than once......make it a part of your life each and every day.  It will put a smile on your face, warm your soul and make your heart giggle with delight......if you know someone in your social media circle that is under the weather, or having health issues, be there as a friend.....

*************************

I'm working on a project of capturing images of old buildings that I remember from my youth.  My youth disappeared a long time ago and with the tumbling down of some of these buildings, my memories are going with it.  The older I get, the harder it is to remember what that street corner used to look like, or the city block...........the old style architecture is crumbling to the ground.  Once I gather my pixels together, I'll share...............

My human lives in an old house that she recently did a remodel on the inside.  Now that warmer weather is here, or when Mother Nature quits throwing hormonal tantrums,  her contractor is redoing the garage.  It was high time.  It needed a hundred coats of paint on it again.  Something she was not willing to tackle......so the hubs and her decided it was time to side it. They chose to copy their next door neighbors and do a product called Hardy board.  It's a great product to cover up something that you don't want to paint.  At least for the next 25 years.  That number made my human do the happy dance!!!

So...........since I am in the mood to capture "old" buildings, I decided to start with the garage.  Yes, it did have huge spots of peeling paint, old ugly rain gutters, and windows that had seen better days, but it made some nice black and white photos and helped fill my humans memory bank of times when life consisted of her boys playing in the back yard, climbing trees & playing in the dirt.   It also has given her another round of prints to frame and add to her "old" collage hanging in the house.   Old house, old human, old pictures, old things.............

Black & White
vs
Sepia tones

I'm thinking I like the Sepia better.
The black and white detail is not showing up as well,
even with manipulation.....
Rats!!!!

Oh, the stories I could tell.....

if I could remember them.

That quote is why I take pictures.  My brain is full & my memory bank over flowing.  I don't want to forget the good times, the good places, the good people I meet.  They by far out weigh all the bad or sad things that happen in life.  

Another sunset from my neighbors naked tree.  It's
beginning to clothe itself with buds that will
soon turn to a full outfit of leaves and pods that dangle like
jewelry.  Come this fall......I'll be back to hating this
tree when it drops the pods at my back door.

Twitter@CotySimon

Instagram/Howunique310

It's Spring

It's spring.....finally, but not finally for others.  Winter still has a hold on them.  I know the wicked Mother  Nature is not through for me either.  Just when I rid the winter clothes and put them in hibernation for the summer, Mother Nature throws a fit and lays down a blanket of snow.  Knock on wood, it hasn't happened yet, but I also haven't done the clothes switch either!!!!

April showers bring May flowers.  The cloud remnants also produce some pretty sunsets.  The leaves on my neighbors tree hasn't budded yet.  It's always the last to get leaves and the last to shed.  It's one of those trees that seems to give and give and give......all to me, during the fall.  It has these pods on them that look like boomerangs.  Hate them!!!!  The leaves are no big deal.  It's these boomerang seed pods that seem to make there way to my yard, up the driveway, and pile high by my back porch.  We always get a south wind blowing when an approaching winter storm is making it's way to Utah.  This is how the last of the stupid leaves that remain on the trees fall, blow all over, and the seed pods march up the driveway and plant themselves at my door.  You have to use a shovel to get them into the garbage can.  I kid you not...........

My love/hate tree.  I love my neighbors, but
this tree...........not so much 

This tree does have its plus side.  It's beautifully shaped with and without it's leaves.  It's during this naked time of the tree that the sunsets to the west filter through the limbs.  During the summer, the sun settles in the leaves as it sets.  

Not clouds, but smoke from a rather large fire......

I'm getting in the mood to take pictures of old buildings, windows,  peeling paint..........I'm finding my life as I knew it growing up, is being torn down and replaced.  Before it's too late, I'm a day late and a dollar short, I'd better capture some of these places for future memories....

A picture is worth a thousand words

The memories are priceless

Happy Easter my twitter friends and family.  Happy Easter to everyone on Instagram.  Capture those memories.  Shoot from your heart, capture them with your soul................

Love you all..............

Twitter@CotySimon

Instagram/Howunique310

Eyes on Spring...

There is a bush in the back of our yard that the birds use as shelter from the weather elements.  During the winter months, they congregate back there, 20 or more of them.  You can't see them, but you can hear them.  I'd give a bag of bird seed to know what they are chattering about.  It's the neighborhood gossip bush.

Growing up, Moms didn't work.  They stayed home and raised their kids, cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  They wiped runny noses and bottoms, and put bandaids on our boo-boos.  They told us to go back outside and play. They were the Mrs. Clevers and the Lucy's of the world.....  Back then, a mothers escape from all the sanity we kids gave them, was to sit around a kitchen table and gossip.  When I hear the birds chattering in this bush, it reminds me of all the ladies in the neighborhood, sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea or coffee, cackling about so and so's kid and what they did, or didn't do.  Listening to them say "did you hear about"........and then they would all lean in and listen with intent.........I was not fond of our neighborhood gossip choir.......I  always thought I was an angel......my mother heard differently!!!!

This bush in the back of my yard gives me the first sign that spring is here.  The leaves are budding and the birds still congregate in it.   Now the chorus of Quail calling for their mates has been added to the birds gossip mix.    Signs of life are sprouting up all over the place.  Mother Nature seems to be trying to let go of Old Man Winters grasp and give us some color to enjoy.  Old Man Winter did dust us again with white fluff, I hope for the last time, last week.  Thank heavens tulips are a hardy flower.  The snow bent them over and laid them on the ground, but once the snow melted, they stood right back up and spread their petals for everyone to see.

Everything looked like it was dusted with
powdered sugar....

The lilac bushes are budding.  Soon they will
give me beautiful blossoms, itchy eyes,
and a snotty nose.   Awwww...spring time
allergies.......HATE IT!!!!

I dusted off the camera, cleaned the lenses off of my sticky finger prints and headed out on a couple of trips.  The latest being to Phoenix again.

Above the snowcapped Oquirrh Mountains with
Utah Lake in the background.  I'm headed for
warmer air!!!!

Flying to Arizona, you get a gorgeous sampling
of what the Grand Canyon looks like with Lake
Powell...Stunning, beautiful, and
breath taking.  As many time as I have flown over and been
to this area by car,  I will never get tired of
looking at it.  

I love Palm trees.  They remind me of
feather dusters tickling the sky.  I liked these
because they are.... l.  Palm Trees, but also
because 2.  They are covered in "bling".  If I
had palm trees in my yard, I'd put lights
on them, too!!!  Why? Because I could.
That's why!!!!!

No matter where I go,  I always look up.  Sunsets in
Arizona never disappoint me. 

I know I'm almost home when I see the
outline of Utah Lake again.....

"OUR DAYS ARE HAPPIER WHEN

WE GIVE PEOPLE A BIT

OF OUR HEART

RATHER THAN A PIECE OF OUR MIND"

I don't know who said this quote, but it's the truth................and it's me............

Twitter@CotySimon

Instagram/Howunique310