Sunday Trees

Tags

arboretum, dove tree, Frelinghuysen Arboretum, photograph, Tree Photographs, trees

Last night, after dinner, my husband and I went for a lovely wander around the Frelinghuysen Arboretum. The light was lovely and this first photo is some unidentified (by me – I’m sure the arboretum has tagged them) trees that just looked so warm and beautiful.

This tree is called a dove tree and the moon peaked out from behind.

For more trees see Becca’s Sunday Trees post.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Snow Fountain Cherry Tree Blossom & Bee

Tags

bee, cherry blossom, flowers, photograph

Here is my flower of the day. For more blooms check out Cee’s Photography.

Festive Doors of NYC

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Festive, Festive Doors, Fifth Ave, Holiday decorations, NYC, photograph, photography, Thursday Doors

And a few windows.

Yesterday my husband and I took the train into NYC and walked from Penn Station up 5th Ave. to the Museum of Modern Art. Here are some signs of the season we found along the way.

Saks Fifth Ave and Lord & Taylor had the best displays on our stretch of the avenue.

Looking to Saks from Rockefeller Center was pretty awesome. Having the angles heralding the season and framing the castle on the store was fantastic. The animatronic geese at Lord and Taylor were so fun, too. The geese and the Lego windows were our favorites.

 

And there were lovely doors that were beautiful and interesting just as they are.

If you want to check out more lovely doors see Norm 2.0. This week he has some beautiful picture of Montreal.

 

Neighborhood Walk: Patriot Path

Tags

Cee's Photo Challenge, dam, path, Patriot Path, photograph, ruins, Woods

Today Mike and I explored our neighborhood a little farther than I had walked on my own. I had figured out that one of my morning walks met up with this portion of the Patriot Path. We met up with a lot of other people on the path and had some lovely quiet sections too. Of course I thought of Cee’s Which Way Challenge!

You may see more of this path, both this section and the part that went the other direction. For now I will share some of the lovely views I encountered on our walk.

We had driven past this dam and I knew it would be a nice walk from the house, but I didn’t know it met up with the Patriot Path!

My fellow explorer. I hope you had a beautiful Labor Day.

Flower of the Day: Hibiscus

Tags

Cee's Photo Challenge, Flower of the Day, flowers, hibiscus, photograph, pink, yellow

Another flower from our trip to the Frelinghuysen Arboretum last weekend.

For more lovely flowers check out Cee’s Flower of the Day!

Flower of the Day: Zinnia

Tags

Cee's Photo Challenge, Flower of the Day, flowers, photograph, red, zinnia

To bring more beautiful flowers into your day check out Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Dappled Sunlight

Tags

bench, Hudson River, migraine, Occipital Neurologia, photograph, sunlight, walking, Woods

My migraines/occipital neuralgia make me very sensitive to light in a lot of ways. One that has made me sad is that dappled sunlight makes my migraine and vertigo a lot worse. And I love to walk in the woods. Yesterday I was recovered enough from the move from Wisconsin to New Jersey to go on an adventure with my husband.

We went for a drive to explore what we wanted to see along the Hudson River. There are a lot of possibilities! He wanted to walk across the Hudson and I accompanied him out to this point. Another way light impacts my migraines is that this kind of abundance of sunlight has usually been too intense for me even with sunglasses and a hat. Well, all of my hats are in storage pods, so I tried it with just sunglasses. I was pretty happy to be able to make it this far. Tall bridges and vertigo are not a great mix and when you add heat to the mix, I fade quickly. I walked back to the information booth to gather information (oddly enough). A shaded picnic table was the perfect place read up on what else was possible in the area while enjoying a lovely lemon Italian ice. There are 2 art museums and a specialty glass store/studio that I made note of for another day trip. We also may come back to see the Vanderbilt Mansion. The Walk across the Hudson Bridge is The Poughkeepsie-Highland  Railroad Bridge and we had a mediocre lunch in Poughkeepsie. Next time we might try the Culinary Institute that is just up the road.

We traveled a little further north to the Falling Water Preserve on the west side of the Hudson south of Saugerties. It was a lovely walk and the path along the river was filled with dappled sunlight. I was so grateful to be able to walk along the path with my husband and enjoy the smell and sights of the woods. I didn’t make it as far as the waterfall, but I did get to this lovely bench.

That was a pretty big day for me and really unimaginable before the nerve ablation surgeries. I’m still recovering from the surgeries and was so grateful to be able to be outside to enjoy such a lovely summer day.

What are you grateful for this week?

Silent Sunday: Iris Field

Tags

Cee's Photo Challenge, Flower of the Day, flowers, iris, photograph

Single Flowers (with Cat Cameos)

Tags

cats, Cee's Fun Foto Challenge, Flower of the Day, photograph, photography, tulips

Cee Neuner has lots of fun challenges and also does a flower a day post. I really love flowers (perhaps you already knew that.) Her fun challenge for this week is to post photos of individual flowers. I played around with that off and on all day yesterday and this was one of my final photos. Here was the other.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the process. The cats helped, too.

    

The tulips in their natural environment.

and with cats

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Gratitude Mundane and Miraculous

Tags

Cee's Photo Challenge, Flower of the Day, flowers, gratitude, migraine, Pain, photograph, tulips

I know what you are thinking. Is she saying that flowers are mundane or miraculous? Actually I feel like they can be both. We pass by so many flowers and don’t take note of them and they can become mundane in our busy lives. (Well, your busy lives. I spend a lot of time laying down quietly so I usually find flowers miraculous.) To see more miraculous flowers check out Cee’s Flower of the Day post.

That brings me to the truly miraculous in my life. Yesterday I had a greater and lesser occipital nerve radio frequency ablation done to the nerves on the left side of my head. Can I just say that the pain level of the recovery is actually better than 95% of my days over the last 5 years!!! The process was super fast and not a big deal – it sounds a lot worse than it is! I’m excited to schedule the right side and get on with my life!

This week what mundane and miraculous things are you grateful for in your life? Make a blog post about it and post a link in the comments. Practicing gratitude increases  your happiness and is good for your health so join in on the fun!