Weekly Photo Challenge: Opportunity

The challenge for this week is all about being prepared
to take advantage of every photo opportunity.

It brings to mind something I read one time on
TexWisGirl’s blog –
“Every time I step outside, I either have my camera or wish I had my camera… “

These are some photos that I’ve posted before,
but I decided to group them together for the challenge
because each of them was an unexpected photo-op,
and I’m glad I had some kind of camera with me to capture the moment!

For the first one, I happened to have my little Olympus Stylus in my purse.
The egret escorted me along the sidewalk to my dentist’s office,
parading in front of me just begging to be photographed!

These next two photos were taken at a Cock of the Walk Restaurant in Alabama
several years ago with one of those really old-fashioned cell phones.
The peacock strutted around and put on a show,
so I was happy even to be able to get these low-resolution snapshots!

This last one was taken with another cell phone –
a little better resolution than the peacock pics.
To read more about the surprising opportunity with this beautiful doe,
you might like to click on the photo of her,
which will take you to the original post.

Even though these aren’t the best quality for posting on the Internet,
they all remind me of special moments…
so I’m happy I went ahead and snapped the pictures!

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
Mark Twain

My advice (from personal experience):
If you’re in doubt about whether to shoot or not,
go ahead and snap the picture without hesitation!!
You can always delete later,
but I predict most of the time you’ll be glad you captured the moment.
Even if it’s not a professional-looking shot,
you’ll probably be glad you preserved the memory!

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful,
for beauty is God’s handwriting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thank y’all for stopping by to visit Little Things.
May your life be filled with little blessings, little chuckles,
and little deeds of kindness (both given and received)…
…and may you be prepared to respond in just the right way
to every opportunity life brings you!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Weekly Photo Challenge: Textured

As I was going through my pictures to choose something for the “textured” theme,
I realized that each of these was photographed on a brick wall.
The brick-and-mortar background itself is a good example of “textured,”
so it was easy to narrow down my selection to the following five:
♦

DRAGONFLY

♦

ANOLE

♦

CICADA SHELL

♦

FROG

♦

SNAIL SHELL

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thank y’all for stopping by to visit Little Things.
May your life be filled with little blessings, little chuckles,
and little deeds of kindness (both given and received).

In our journey through life, we’ve all had rough patches in our background.
If we strive to make the best of them,
then the texture of our lives can be as strikingly beautiful as the creatures pictured above!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Froggie Frolics

These pictures are for my little friend Stacey, who is studying frogs in school this week.

If any of you wish, you may download these photos for educational or other non-commercial purposes.

We have a pretty good “crop” of tree frogs in our back yard.
Much of the time, they prefer our back porch to the trees.
I’m glad, because that way we can get a closer look at them!

I must admit that I do NOT like them nearly as much
when they get past the open door and into the house.
They’re very friendly neighbors and aren’t harmful in the least,
but I just really don’t like anything in the house
that moves as fast and unexpectedly as they do!

If you’ve ever had one indoors, you know how fast and F-A-R they can leap –
for instance, from the counter top all the way across the kitchen and onto the stove top(!)
“PLOP!!!”

FYI –
If you ever have one in the house that you’d like to ‘invite back to the outdoors,’
I have a tried and true method of catchin’ him!!
Find a plastic bowl or some other lightweight container that you can easily turn upside down over the frog;
then slide a manila file folder or some other thin, stiff paper product under the edge of the container;
hold everything together tightly…
and take outdoors to release the frog back into his home territory!

Whew!!
I can almost feel the relief as I write this suggestion right now!
I know it sounds silly, because I’m not at all afraid of the little creatures outside –
and my husband always says they’re MUCH more afraid of me than I am of them!

Here are some more photos of froggie OUTside the house(!)
In the first three, he’s sunning himself on an irrigation pipe.
(Credits to my husband for taking these three. )

The discs on tree frogs’ finger and toe tips are tiny little sticky-pads!
 

In this snapshot, he’s climbing out of the shade of a black flower-pot.

In this last one, he was climbing up the brick wall by the back door.
I reached as high as I could, held the camera against the brick above him – and clicked several times.
When I looked at the pictures, I was amazed to see this one that turned out really clear when enlarged!

“Here’s lookin’ at you, little green friend!”

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wildlife

One Saturday afternoon a couple of summers ago,
this beautiful doe strolled through our neighborhood, into our yard,
and walked right up on our front porch
to admire her reflection in the glass door.

We happened to be working in the yard at the time,
and I captured her with my cell phone camera.

We live in an urban area.
Even though there are wooded areas in town where deer are often observed,
we had never seen one on our street, much less at our front door!

When she turned away from the door, she came straight toward me,
stopped in front of me, and looked up into my eyes!
At that point, I was too captivated by her wide-eyed stare to take a picture,
and she was probably too close for me to have gotten a clear shot, anyway.

Then she leisurely sauntered across the yard and down the street,
followed by a group of unusually hushed teenagers with their cell-phone video cameras rolling!

It was an awesome moment!

  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thank y’all for stopping by to visit Little Things.
May your life be filled with little blessings, little chuckles,
and little deeds of kindness (both given and received)!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bo’s Birthday!

Yesterday we celebrated our family dog’s sixth birthday — Actually, Bo belongs to our daughter and her husband, but we all claim him as a valuable member of our family!

These pictures are several years old, but they are some of my favorites.  I have to say up front that he doesn’t like wearing bandanas from the groomer.  Bo is NOT a sissy dog, and he doesn’t go in for any fru-fru attire!  But I still like these photos. 

Bo is happy hangin’ out at home with his family, just being a part of whatever is going on — but he does like to be on the go, too — whether it’s a long road trip or just a brief outing to the gas station!  He’s a good traveler, either in the back seat in his crate, snuggled in somebody’s lap (probably his favorite spot), or riding high in his car seat where he can take in all the sights.  He’s very observant and often ’speaks’ to people or other animals he sees through the car window.  Mostly, he’s just happy when he gets to travel with the family and doesn’t get left behind! 

The other day I read this statement by Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer — and, of course, it made me think of Bo! 

You can keep up with more of Bo’s adventures here:

from Friday…

My Friday began with thoughts of the Bennett family in Japan.  I blogged about them earlier:

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE BLOG

…and now it seems they are somewhere on their 700-mile journey across Japan…

“Our leadership has officially asked us to evacuate to Fukuoka today. They are asking us to drive, and that is a very long drive,1129 KM (701 miles).  This is not interstate roads like we’re used to in America, especially in the southwest. It will be quite a challenge…” 

Read more about their evacuation below:

EVACUATION

Next on the agenda for Friday was a water-heater repair project for my husband the engineer and “handyman extraordinaire.”  The project was completed without complications (which sometimes DO happen at our house where plumbing repairs are concerned!).  The work did, however, involve one trip to the hardware department of our local home improvement store.  We hardly ever do a plumbing project without having to make at least one run to the store for extra parts!  As you probably have guessed by now, I’m just the gofer, but I have learned a lot of interesting and helpful info through the years. 

Would you believe, when we walked in the door and headed for the plumbing aisle – this is what we saw??  Mr. Hydro was ready to greet us; he looked a lot spiffier than our old water heater in the attic, but at least we knew we were headed in the direction of the parts we needed!

Two more items I want to mention before signing off for now…

If you are a dog-lover, or like animals of any kind, you might enjoy looking through these pictures from the recent annual dog show in Birmingham, England.  I don’t know how long this slide show will be archived, but you can check the link below if you’re interested.  It has some great behind-the-scenes shots of the animals AND their humans:

CRUFTS DOG SHOW

The other thing I want to mention is the BIG moon rising in a few hours — the best time to view it will be at sunset — which is much better than those ‘in the wee hour’ times that are usually optimal for moon viewing.  Check out this link for further info:

Tonight’s super perigee moon a rare treat

I’m sorry I didn’t get this posted earlier.  Most of you are probably already aware of the moon view.  If you miss it, you can check out tomorrow’s viewing.  Perhaps it will be almost as good!

I hope you all are having an enjoyable weekend and getting in a little rest along with whatever projects are on your agenda.  If I don’t get too bogged down with income taxes, I will see you next week!    Here’s a preview of one of our neighbors I hope to feature sometime soon: