Flowers | Kanlaon

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: WHITE

November 28, 2019 at 7:39 pm (destinations, Flowers, Holidays, Links, Lists, Relatives, short story collections, Traveling)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, exhibits, London, museums, Redwood City, Thanksgiving, The Philippines, websites

This week, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is WHITE.

Self loves having an excuse to go back through her photo archives. Here are her selections:

Greek antiquities, British Museum
Self’s Iceberg roses, last summer
a shell from the Philippines, in a wooden bowl from the Philippines

Love the prompt. Self doesn’t often think of white as a color.

Stay tuned.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #67: LAYERED

October 20, 2019 at 12:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Filipino Writers, Flowers, Links, Places, Relatives, Sundays, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, birthday, Garden, happiness, Ireland, Tyrone Guthrie Centre

Layered landscape.

“You can include images of buildings, landscapes, seascapes, clouds . . . ”

The prompt was so interesting!

Here are self’s takes on LAYERED.

Worktable in her writing studio at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre: layered in books and papers

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Layered plantings at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre:

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Layers of purple, her daughter-in-law’s favorite color. Bought her this bouquet on her birthday in September.

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Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Tuesday Photo Challenge, Week 176: FALL

September 5, 2019 at 12:35 am (destinations, Family, Filipino Writers, Flowers, Links, Relatives, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: Manila, seasons, The Philippines, transitions

To self, FALL means changing weather and fading summer flowers.

It is rainy season in Manila, which means grey skies:

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Self loves the light:

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As the weather turns, the hydrangeas on self’s front porch are starting to fade:

Hydrangeas on Front Porch, September 2019

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Poetry Tuesday: C. L. Odell

August 27, 2019 at 6:20 pm (Artists and Writers, Flowers, Links)
Tags: Garden, inspiration, poetry, summer, The New Yorker

Self loves C. L. Odell’s poem in the 24 June 2019 New Yorker.

Geraniums, Front Porch, August 2019

PEONY

An excerpt

So let me have this now
before the blossoms
take my absence
from the yard

and I am again only one-sided,
a living thing responsible
to live, finding myself in tall grass,
whispering back.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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A PHOTO A WEEK CHALLENGE: YELLOW

August 19, 2019 at 6:55 am (Eavesdropping, Family, Flowers, Links, Philippine History)
Tags: Garden, photorphy, Sundays

The theme for the week is YELLOW.

Self was cleaning out son’s room when she came upon a box of legos. Was fascinated by the little people and their yellow heads.

The box contains all of son’s Matchbox car collection. There’s a yellow car at the very top.

My Life of the Party Rose has two colors of blooms: pink and yellow

Stay tuned, dear blog reader. Stay tuned.

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Photo A Week Challenge: STILL LIFE

August 18, 2019 at 1:17 am (Flowers, Links)
Tags: California, Fridays, Garden, happiness, memories, photography, Redwood City, summer

Self LOVES still life. Taking pictures of things are a lot of fun.

So happy to join the Photo A Week Challenge this week.

Still Life with Reading Material: Home in Redwood City, August 2019 (Self brought that shell all the way from the Philippines)

More Redwood City: Dining Room, July 2019

And Still More Redwood City: Front Porch, July 2019

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Lens-Artists Challenge # 57: TAKING A BREAK

August 3, 2019 at 10:31 pm (Books, destinations, Flowers, Links, Movies, Places, plans, Recommended, Weather)
Tags: California, Garden, inspiration, psychology, Redwood City, Saturday, summer, summer movies

Self’s current book, Mihaly Czsikszentmihalyi’s FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE is a very, very interesting book.

Her son and daughter-in-law were Psychology majors at Claremont, the school where the author taught. In fact, she read about him in the Claremont Graduate University alumni magazine, The Flame.

She is trying to practice Flow thinking (see graph below). She is trying to achieve “complexity” in her consciousness. This will be her project for the rest of the summer.

She thinks this goal is very much tied in with the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: TAKING A BREAK.

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Today, she walked downtown, which she hadn’t done in two weeks. Courthouse Square was empty. Nevertheless, the trip was not in vain, for she saw a movie: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Is this a ‘Flow’ experience? Self thinks it is. Watching movies is one of self’s most enjoyable activities.

Mid-Afternoon, Courthouse Square, Redwood City, CA

And, she spends A LOT of time in her garden, where her efforts are repaid with gorgeous blooms like this one, on her Sheila’s Perfume rose:

Sheila’s Perfume, last week of July 2019

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 55: DREAMY

July 22, 2019 at 2:26 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Filipino Writers, Flowers, Links, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: fairy tales, flash fiction, Hotel Amerika, inspiration, Literary Magazines, Manila, Mendocino, The Philippines

Thanks once again to viveka for inspiring self to try posting to the current Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: DREAMY.

Self is a short story writer (though some of her stories are over 50 pages!).

This Red Riding Hood Lamp followed her from one childhood home to another; self’s parents gave it to her when she was about five.

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She brought it to the States with her, when she left for grad school. And here it is now, in self’s home in Redwood City, California.

It was the perfect gift — one that nurtured her imagination and encouraged her to dream.

Here’s an image from the cover of Hotel Amerika, a literary magazine (based in Chicago) which published self’s flash, Ghosts. She loves the surreal, and so she loves the image.