Thursday, April 25, 2019

Delete, Delete, Delete

Dear faithful readers,

Thank you for your patience as I struggled through my computer problems for far too long. It is my great pleasure to report that I am fully back into the business of regular blogging! Not only does the computer load photos lightening fast, it does the same with deleting which I took advantage of yesterday. Indeed, I deleted 2,000 photographs from my library, vowing to myself to be ruthless in the future. I'm not nearly done with the process, however I've put a dent into the overflow. I began in the here and now, but after several hours grew tired of seeing what I'd most recently taken. Eventually I went to the beginning of my library, such as it is because in my effort to make the computer run faster, I'd put about ten years worth solely on an external hard drive. While going through the months of picture taking, beginning in January 2017, I came across a few gems that I am going to re-post because they may have been buried in the avalanche, but I want to re-remember them.

Indulge me, will you?
Our sweet Baxie in January 2017. Oh how we miss his big brown eyes. As has been mentioned in this space before, according to our son-in-law Tom, he was "the best of dogs."

It goes without saying that I have hundreds, and maybe hundreds more, photographs of that sweet time when the owls were nesting in the cemetery. For some reason they are especially hard to delete. Recalling the day I was fortunate enough to take the photo below was such a sweet memory.
The tree is now, following Hurricane Irene, a shell of its former self, and sadly, the owls are nowhere to be found. I could fill this entire blog post with photos of that wonderful season! If I remember correctly, at the time I wrote that I figured you were growing weary of the owl photos, but as my late Mother would say, "you've got to make hay while the sun shines!"

One bird that is seemingly in no danger of leaving the area are the peacocks off of Lake Margaret Drive. I've not popped over there for a while now because I literally have more photos of peacocks than is good for me. This one really pleased me at the time.
A duck is a duck right? Wrong. Far more interesting than I'd ever imagined. Remembering a day when a young woman with a camera mentioned how she was in search of Wood Ducks, having heard they were in a nearby park, I was puzzled, that is until I found some myself.
Now that I live side by side with Wood Ducks, I can't get enough of them. Those sweet ducklings, pictured in my last post, are sadly, down to three.
Do you remember that crazy huge bee hive I discovered? I wonder if it remains in place? I'll have to ride my bicycle over and check it out soon.
This is a neat photo I discovered during the purge. A Greater Cormorant and companions.
All those Christmases ago, when Bruce gave me my first digital camera and I went wild taking photographs, flowers were my first love, primarily, I suspect, because of their profusion in these parts. Dahlias though, are few and far between. This one was from the gardens at East End Market.
Whenever I am tempted to not like the quilt I made so much, this photograph reminds me of how hard it was to get right. Only with Bruce's help did it happen. Here he is marking the second curves for the quilting.
I suppose I can't be faulted, after all, I had little time to really think through what I wanted our new home to look like. That said, I recall myself thinking that perhaps I should start a new chapter in my life by toning things down a bit. Remember when I painted the third bedroom at our home this color?
No one probably had the guts to tell me it was a crazy choice, but I liked it just fine. With the toning down thinking, I chose such light and neutral colors that I am still trying to get used to them. Our bedroom is so blah, primarily because the wall color is blah. For some folks, it is calm and peaceful, but for this gal, well, I can do better. And probably should, but just not now. All good things come to those who wait, right?

Indeed the tile setters are here and things are moving quickly. When we got the estimate we questioned one of the products and it turns out it is a system that makes quick work of a new shower with pre-made parts. Herbert was here for two days, re-texturing the walls, taking out the toilet, doing the plumbing for the shower and more. While here he mentioned to Bruce that they make a shower niche and I was sent to the tile store so it would be here on install day. Bruce doing some work on the studs to make it work.
You might note the concrete block on is right. According to Bill, that is one of the features that added to the cost when these were built in the late 80's. Very unusual at the time, they have done their job of making our place super quiet which in some complexes is not the case. Hearing neighbors is the norm, rather than the other way around. Occasionally we hear a tiny bit from upstairs, but barely enough to be note worthy.

I took off super early on Tuesday morning following a conversation with Susan who told me she saw some cygnets at Lake Davis. Did not take long to find them, two of whom are pictured although there were four on that day.
Every now and again I like a black and white photograph and for some reason this one just felt right. In my new bathroom color scheme I've decided to replace the artwork for a black and white photo. I spent a stupid amount of time, partly because of the computer issues, searching for something I thought I could love for a while.  Here are a few contenders:
And while I love the above because it says so much about Vancouver, a vertical photo is probably best.
Completely different subject matter?
I am open to discussion on this, so feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Soon after returning from Lake Davis we opened our door to a plumber who was here to replace the kitchen waste disposal. Should have done it when the sink went in, but it worked perfectly at the time with no leaking whatsoever. That changed.
So, as you have gleaned so far, it has been a busy week at the Peck household, however I am carving out time to visit with Ann who I realized the other day was 31 years old when I was born! Amazing to ponder. She is such an interesting woman and I finally looked up Showalter, finding a website with photos. Her husband was Buck Rogers. One thing we discussed this week was the novel that she'd read a while ago. It was one of those binge books that you can't put down. At least for me it was for a while. It seems as if it is universally praised, however, there were sections so unbelievable that I just could not get past them. Too, after finishing the novel, I read a few interviews with the author and just as I suspected she is a great fan of To Kill a Mockingbird. While reading the courtroom scenes, I kept seeing the resemblance. Anyway, the novel is Where the Crawdads Sing. I liked the nature parts the best.

As you have also gleaned I managed to transfer all my data from my old computer to the new one without any help, a first for me. Woo hoo!

Let the regular blogging begin again!

your friend,

Gail

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