September 7, 2020 at 8:18 pm (Flowers, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, postaday, Recommended, Weather)
Tags: California, Garden, websites
Inspired by viveka, whose adventures on my guilty pleasures self has been following for years! Though forced to spend 2020 sheltering at home, viveka’s posts make self incredibly thirsty!
Here’s the reason behind the week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge:
- People all over the world honor their workers in a variety of ways. In the U.S., we honor those who labor by setting aside the first Monday of September as Labor Day. But world-wide, people pour themselves into their work — paid or unpaid — with commitment, ingenuity, and a sincere desire to make a difference. For them, work has become more than just work. It has become a labor of love.
Here are a few of self’s own Labors of Love.
Self grew tomatoes, and planted more flowers.
The California fires are still blazing.
Take care of yourselves, fire fighters! Hope you have big pitchers of ice-cold beer waiting at the end of your shifts!
Stay safe.
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May 24, 2020 at 3:17 pm (Flowers, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Lists, postaday, Sundays)
Tags: California, flower photography, Garden
As many countries are opening up a bit from lock-down, and I was inspired by the soft glory of spring nature in my part of the world, I thought we would indulge in some Delicate Colours! They are everywhere in nature, but also to be found anywhere you look, in for example fashion, art and architecture. — Leya
Self is always happy to participate in a Photo Challenge. Anything to distract from Shelter-in-Place, entering the third month here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
First: HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
To everyone who has a loved one in this fight, or has lost a loved one, blessings.
Hydrangeas on Front Porch: May 2020
Iceberg Roses in Front Yard, May 2020
Looking at the Garden from the Kitchen Window, 24 May 2020. The curtains were from World Market, which has since closed.
Look at these beautiful galleries:
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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May 19, 2020 at 7:22 pm (Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Places)
Tags: breakfast, California, Cee Neuner, Christmas, Filipino food, memories, nostalgia, The Philippines
Let’s nose around in our archives or sniff out new photos that are related to the sense of Smelling. Be creative and have fun.
— Cee Neuner
Self found this Foto Challenge more than usually, er, challenging. She’s trying to keep her mind off food — for the first six weeks of the shelter-in-place, that was all she thought about, with disastrous consequences. And her roses don’t give off scent — mebbe it’s the type of soil? Even her Sheila’s Perfume rose has no perfume!
Anyhoo, after some determined hunting, she managed to come up with three photos:
- Fried chorizo for breakfast in the island of Negros, central Philippines:
- A fresh-cut Christmas tree makes all the difference. Self got hers from Wegman’s, a local nursery:
- Just before shelter-in-place, self had her front door and front porch painted. The smell of fresh paint is the memory of singular happiness:
Stay safe, dear blog readers.
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May 6, 2020 at 3:53 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Relatives, Women Writers)
Tags: Cee Neuner, lunch, Manila, Readings, restaurants
Think about what you like to listen to: a voice, the wind, the ocean, music, purr of a cat, birds singing, etc. Be creative and have fun.
— Cee Neuner
Son and his cousin celebrating New Year in the Long Ago
Dearest Mum and the Widow of Dear Departed Dad’s Best Friend, Having a Good Time in Café Romulo, Manila
Michelle Ruiz Keil, reading from her YA, All of Us With Wings, in the Mission, San Francisco
Looking over these pictures, self is overcome with nostalgia. Fun times, there used to be. Thank you, Cee Neuner, for giving self an excuse to reminisce.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 27, 2020 at 9:08 pm (destinations, Holidays, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: blogs, Cee Neuner, New Mexico, photography
Cee Neuner: Pick a topic from this photo.
Possible topics: black and white, tree, sky, road, vanishing point, landscape, horizon, clouds, weather, country side, early morning, or come up with your own topic.
Self picked SKY.
All from her first visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, late December 2019
Museum Hill, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 28 December 2019
On the I-25 from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, 28 December 2019
Still on the I-25, Still 28 December 2019
Check out these other takes:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 8, 2020 at 2:26 pm (destinations, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Places, postaday, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: England, Holidays, London, memorial, Oxford, World War I
Miriam Hurdle: “I am fascinated by the reflection photographs in the lakes, the rivers, the building windows, the sunglasses, the mirrors, and the puddles.”
Self is, too!
Here are three from her archives:
- Two snapshots of the London Eye, taken from the next bridge over, November 2019
- Lily Pond in Front of Christ Church, Oxford, UK, 11 November 2019 (Armistice Day)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 24, 2020 at 2:22 am (Holidays, Links, postaday, Recommended)
Tags: Cee Neuner, parades, Redwood City, seasons, summer
YAY! It’s been too long since self has joined Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge.
Self certainly has a lot of photos of SUMMER! Which used to be her favorite time of year (Lately, she’s more and more appreciative of FALL)
Her favorite pictures of Summers past are parades. Here are a bunch from the annual Redwood City Fourth of July Parade, the oldest and largest Fourth of July Parade on the peninsula.
The pictures are all of one band in particular, the Leland Stanford, Jr. University Marching Band (fondly known as LSJUMB)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 20, 2020 at 8:10 pm (Books, destinations, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: Albuquerque, California, memories, Menlo Park, Mondays, New Mexico, photography, websites
Leading lines carry our eyes through a photograph. They help to tell a story, to place emphasis, and to draw a connection between objects. — Tina R. Schell on the blog Travels and Trifles: Expressing Thought Through Photography
Self loved the quote from Pete Bridgewood:
- Unlike the painter who starts with a blank canvas and builds up his image by the addition of paint, as photographers we work in the other direction.
The photos below are from December 2019, during which, as usual, self did a lot of traveling.
Old Albuquerque, December 2019
On the I-25 from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, 27 December 2019
Kepler’s Books, Downtown Menlo Park, December 2019
Thanks for the interesting prompt, Lens-Artists!
Stay tuned.
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January 2, 2020 at 5:58 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Lists, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Bacolod, Christmas, Cork, Cornwall, Events, Filipino food, Fowey, Ireland, London, memories, Menlo Park, Oxford, Prague, Redwood City, restaurants, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Great theme!
In 2019, self traveled the world. Her life triangulated between home in Redwood City, California, to England and Ireland, to the Philippines. Side trip to Prague with her niece, Irene!
Here goes, all the images that mattered most to self in 2019, arranged from most recent — December 2019 — to the earliest, January 2019: Starting with her home in Redwood City in early December; to London’s Blackfriar station; to Manggapuri Villa in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental, Philippines; to Prague; to Oxford University’s Exam School for Alice Oswald’s first reading as Oxford’s first woman Poet in Residence; to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park; to the Main House of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig; to the fire pit in Manggapuri Villas; to the Daku Balay in Bacolod City, the Philippines; to self’s bedroom; to the Blue Room in Café Paradiso in Cork, Ireland; to Fowey in Cornwall; to Courthouse Square, Redwood City; to the cover of last winter’s issue of Prairie Schooner, which included her story Things She Can Take
Prague, May 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Republic of Ireland, last week of October
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
Self’s headboard in Redwood City, CA: Made in the Philippines
Paradiso, Cork, May 2019: She bought the Converse sneakers in London a few weeks earlier. Now they are scuffed and smudged, everywhere.
Stay tuned.
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January 1, 2020 at 9:47 pm (Artists and Writers, Holidays, Lists, Recommended)
Tags: adaptations, favorites, performances, praise, Redwood City, review
- The casting was so on point! Though self was initially skeptical, she eventually fell in love with Timothée Chalamet as perpetually lost rich boy Laurie. A scene towards the end, with the youngest sister, Amy, was one of the best in the movie.
- Amy was always her favorite sister. Why? Who knows. Was it the fact that she always felt left out, that she had artistic ambitions, that no one ever seemed to take her seriously? The actress who plays her has a doll-like appearance BUT (and this is a good thing) a surprisingly deep voice. Also, she has a sharp practicality. Kudos to the screenplay for highlighting this aspect of her character.
- Loved Laura Dern as Marmee, who has to utter the film’s treacliest lines, but who always brings a dash of spice to her delivery. Even when she says, Girls, we are offering up our Christmas breakfast to a needy family who has nothing, self never thought of saying, You cannot be serious! Dern just brings it.
- Also loved the merging of timelines — Self has read the book many, many times (at least 10 times) so she was waiting for particular scenes. All the scenes she loved most were in the movie. And she did not think this merging of timelines made the film in the least bit choppy. In fact, everything seemed to work better this way.
Self’s only quibble was that Beth the consumptive did not look consumptive, her face was too round.
But the cinematography, the framing of shots, the way the camera would linger on the actors’ faces and then pull back, all the wide angle shots of houses and fields — lovely.
Details of absolutely no importance: Saoirse Ronan has the longest, slenderest fingers self has ever seen. Timothée Chalamet has the longest eyelashes. The actor who plays John Brooke is gorgeous. Emma Watson looked a little mouse-y (perhaps it was the hair color?). A short clip where Laurie does an exuberant dance (while out on a porch with Jo) looked very 2000-modern and was the only jarring thing in the entire movie.
Self never felt the slightest temptation to nod off (which is happening to her more often, even while she is watching the best movies)
Overall: an enthusiastic 5 stars!
Stay tuned.
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