“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower” ~Albert Camus

So...

I actually spent a few days taking photos!!  Yay me!  I'm going to spread them out a little, so I can make myself look better...ha ha.

Since, it seems, the leaves have already turned and fallen, I'm going to post these photos of the little Japanese Maple Tree from the entrance to the condo complex.  I actually GOT OUT OF THE CAR to take these!!  (I could have pulled a muscle or two - you don't know.)  Anyway, they were very pretty...

The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 

“When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” ~Dale Carnegie

Well...

As you can tell, it's been quite a productive week...

Could you imagine working at Lego - full time??!  Maybe I'll look into that....

"Times are gone for honest men..." ~Chris Cornell

So...

The sky's the limit.  Okay...that might be a little too cheesy.  It's 4:30am and I'm exhausted - uh...I mean WORKING LIKE A DOG!!  Well, here they are anyway...

The sky wasn't really that color in the last two.  For some reason, when I use Auto Tone on sky photos in Lightroom, I get this super saturated aquamarine color.  It's kinda cool...but fake looking - like that ugly HDR crap.

(IMO)

_

Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams....

Well...

I read, last year, about one of the new businesses which opened somewhere in Over the Rhine called the Macaron Bar.  And then a couple of months ago, I saw on Facebook where they had opened a kiosk in the Kenwood Towne Centre.  Of course I needed to try them so, while Emily was here, we talked Pappy into an adventure.

Dude...I'm surely not one to turn down a cookie or two, but let's call these guys "Meh-carons".  Holy crap they're expensive and they are way too sugar-y (I cannot even believe I just said that).  But, as they say, nothing ventured - nothing gained.  I now possess the knowledge there ARE some cookies out there I do not fancy...even one apparently made from gold dust and mermaid's tears.

At least they are really pretty...

_

“If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.” ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

So...

Last week, when Emily came home for several days, we had a "Girls Day Out" at the Cincinnati Art Museum.  Even luncheon-ing at the Terrace Cafe (it makes us feel like we almost fit in with the snooty ladies there).  Of course, I visited all of my "girls" to take their portraits.

Oh yeah...I took a couple of my "real" girls, too

There was an exhibition of High Style - which was gorgeous by the way - and for some reason, this is the only photo I took.  Hmm...

And then we happened upon some "performance art"...in the elevator...uh...okay.

You don't have to understand it for it to be Art, right?

And I love this view...

I think I take the same exact photos every time I visit. (That must mean I like it.)  Chihuly and Greek gods...what's NOT to like?

_

"But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” ~William Blake

So...

I have this weird kind of tree fetish.  Really.  Maybe I was a Druid in a former life.  I love photographing trees - so much it's to the point where I have several I visit every couple of months.  They're like my "girls" I collect (in my mind) at the museum and the cemeteries.  No matter how many times I visit them, they're going to get their portraits taken. 

Good news, too.  I am trying to completely ween myself from holding Chuck whilst driving...there are laws about texting and driving - not sure about the photographing and driving.  Although, I need both hands with Chuck...so....

Here are some new trees...to add to my harem...

And for some reason (yet again), I have a little bit of pure gold stuck in my head tonight...and I'm not complaining this time.  I love this song!!

_

"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important." ~Arthur Conan Doyle

So...

More details.  They're there...you just have to "see" them.

Try it.

And....(don't judge...)

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.  What you have caught on film is captured forever...it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.
-Aaron Siskind 

- 

"Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others." ~Orson Welles

So...

When I was dropping Mara off at school the other morning, I caught sight of the power plant on campus.  For some reason it had never occurred to me - or maybe it was the way the early morning sun was making shadows just so - that from the angle where I sat, I could see a page out of a Lynd Ward novel.  Lynd Ward was an artist and storyteller who is known for his series of wordless novels that used woodblock prints.  They are extraordinary.  If you EVER see one of his novels - or one of the books he illustrated - please, please please purchase it for me.  God's Man is my Holy Grail.

Well...here is my tribute to Lynd Ward.  (Maybe I'll make my own woodblock prints from these...I am long overdue for some printmaking.)

"Say Hello to my Little Friend..."

So...

When we first moved to Campbell County in January of 1985, the AA Hwy didn't exist.  I don't remember exactly what year it was completed, but I know I would sometimes take the back way when I worked at Kahn's, so it had to be after 1988. 

Well...the first time I saw a coyote standing on the side of the Highway, I kind of freaked out.  Think about where I grew up...Villa Hills - the 'burbs.  Considering the fact that our subdivision was an old farm - and I spent the majority of my childhood playing in the woods - there wasn't all that much fauna to be seen.  Heck, I had never even seen a wild turkey until I was pregnant with Mara.  Now you see whole flocks of them standing on the side of the road!

I digress.  After I saw my first coyote, I looked up their statistics in an encyclopedia (this was B.G. - Before Google) and it stated that their average weight was 25lbs.  Okay, the one I saw that long ago day was probably close to 25lbs.  He had pretty spindly legs and was really skinny and mangy looking.  But nowadays?  These guys are all over...and I mean ALL over.  I had a problem with them at my house - eating my cats - but I lived in a semi-rural area.  Now?  We live in downtown Cold Spring.  Pappy told me to look out my bedroom window the other morning...and I saw THIS bad-boy...

Yeah...he looks a smidgey more than 25lbs.  And he looks young.  Pappy has been carrying his walking stick now when he and Penny are out for their walk.  Maybe he needs a taser.

Peace for Paris....

©Jean Jullien

What in the hell is wrong with this world??

“Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.” -Vincent van Gogh

Well...

Doesn't it seem that Fall gets shorter and shorter every year? 

Pretty leaves - rain storm - dead branches - 32°

In less than two weeks!  Thanks Mother Nature.

(Don't they look like fish hanging on a stringer?)

"Thank God for this beautiful view..."

So...

Here are some "riding around" photos...from when Pappy and I were - well - riding around.