First Photo Challenge for 2013: Resolved

Happy New Year!

now, if you could hear me say this to you from behind my stuffed nose it would sound more like “Habby Dew Year.”

I have yet to have a healthy day in 2013.

Before I can start on this year’s goals: decluttering and cleaning my home to get it ready to sell, going to the gym at least three times per week, I resolve to get HEALTHY!

That’s why my answer to this photo challenge is this:

This is a bowl of eucalyptus leaves I pulled off a bouquet recently purchased at Trader Joes. I mixed it with some dried lavender from this year’s garden, plus some Kosher salt. I poured boiling water over it and voila! A home spa remedy that will hopefully relieve my misery.

Before I do anything else this year, I resolve to get healthy again!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wrong

As the Commercial goes, everyone loves Marineland.

Everyone but me. I think it’s WRONG.

This blog post was inspired by the blog Platform 9 3/4 after the blogger’s visit to the very sad and neglected animals in “The Guindy National Park” in Chennai, India. The blogger was outraged at the sorry conditions where the animals lived, the weak looking monkeys and birds kept in small cages, unable to fly.

I felt the same sad way when I visited Niagara Falls’ biggest attraction, Marineland.

Marineland, famed for its 450 foot Skyscreamer ride, can’t decide whether it is a zoo, an aquarium, or an amusement park. Maybe it should skip the first two and stick to the rides.

The park has a lot of marine life but clearly they are exploited for the entertainment and not an educational value. When we visited the beluga tank, for example, it was small and bare inside, with one small ball for the belugas to play with. There was no visible literature about how beluga populations have been hurt by whaling, fishing, and motor boats.

That is why I posted this picture in the photo challenge: wrong.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

This week’s photo challenge was an easy one.

These are sunflowers in my spot in the Brighton Community Garden. Just 10 weeks ago, they were seeds in a packet.

Hiding in all this growth is my youngest child, my baby. I know every parent says this, but  I can’t believe how much he’s grown, and how much he  will grow and change after his first summer at sleep-away camp.

Photo Challenge: Today

In answer to today’s Photo Challenge: Today, I snapped this on my iTouch: a long-overdue wet day in Rochester. Umbrella dripping, some items left out to dry in vain. Soaked barbecue cover. Green shade garden in the background.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Hands

Okay, I’ve got to get my hands back in the soil of my garden, but I’ve got to respond to this week’s photo Challenge: Hands.

When I think of hands, I think generations. And nothing depicts generation-to-generation as young hands next to older ones.

Here is a photo of my mom holding my youngest when he was just nine days old:

Photo Challenge of the Week: Distorted

My husband and I joke that our kids are pretty warped. But at the Museum of Glass in Corning, they had fun distorting and twisting their images, like this:

and then, my son grabbed my iTouch and used the CamWow feature to do this:

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See, they truly are warped, and I love them for it!