Here, There & Everywhere

As much as I love taking photos of flowers, I really feel like I need to get out and photograph something else. Unfortunately work, the heat and the mosquitos have all limited my shooting.

Whenever I go outside to take some pictures, the mosquitos get me. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it.

Click on this photo so that you can see all the ants. Can’t you just feeling them crawling all over you?

Our very dear friend Julian is going in for surgery on Friday. Because of the complexity of this surgery he will be at Duke–nothing but the best! Please say a prayer for him that everything goes smoothly and he’s on the road to recovery very soon.

I’ve been waiting nearly a year to have sunflowers to photograph again. I love these flowers; they just make me smile. This is the first of what I hope will be many. We ordered about five different varieties and we have some “volunteers” from last year. I can’t wait to see what they all look like.

Now comes all of the follow-up with coaches, players and parents. But, at least for me, no more hot and humid soccer fields. :)

I took a few minutes to go outside with my camera when we got back from our walk this morning. I stayed out for about 15 minutes. When I came back in I was drenched. It was hot, humid and still out there even before 8:00 a.m. Here are a few of the lovelies gracing our yard right now.

Dealing with 7 to 18 year old soccer players and their sometime crazy parents during tryouts has worn me out. Not all players or parents are crazy, grumpy, know-it-alls or “my kid is better than all the others” but all it takes are a few to remind me how glad I am that I retired. On the other hand, I have really enjoyed going down to the office and working with my good friend Sue. She and I have such fun working together.

Yesterday when I got home from the office and had about 15 minutes before I headed out to the fields, I grabbed my camera. Guess what I found??

Yep–another purple cone flower. Ha!

We have Gaillardias:

And we have a Clematis:

And there’s a Southern Magnolia (actually a lot of them) on our street:

 And just because this is my blog and I can, I’m adding a Purple Cone Flower. :)

That’s it for today. Everytime I go out and try to take more pictures the wind starts blowing. It’s really hard to take pictures of flowers when they are swaying in the wind.

I graduated from Wills High School. My cousins Sandy and Robby were there to watch (or make funny faces at the camera). Our class is having its reunion this summer. It should be lots of fun!

Note: not one single gray hair. :)

I love these flowers. I did see some other flowers just starting to bloom so I should be shooting something other than purple cone flowers soon.