(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Signs of Spring

The Agarita bushes are blooming all over the place.

And the Texas Mountain Laurels are getting started, too.

We even have some Bluebonnets coming up. These are hiding under a cactus, to escape the hungry deer!

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

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Blue Monday: Springtime Blues

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself, please head on over to her blog.

I've really been neglecting this blog again. No posts in March, and this is the first one in April. Not very happy about that, but STUFF just keeps getting in the way of my blogging. And I've been concentrating on my book blog lately, so Joysweb has had to take a back seat.

But spring is here, and I'm feeling a little surge of blogging energy. And we're having a really spectacular spring around here -- abundant blooms everywhere, and lots of unusually warm sunny days. Soon our condo community's outdoor swimming pool will be open for business, and I always think of that as sort of the unofficial beginning of summer. Last week on one of our walks around the place, M and I stopped off and checked out the pool area and I took a few shots of the pool and the gazebos above it (used for outdoor parties when the pools are open).

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

Not the best of photos -- I'm still learning how to use a new camera. But I loved the two different shades of blue in the pool and sky. Now if it would just stay like this until next fall, I'd be absolutely content.

Birthday Girl

My mother was born on April 11th in 1921.
She would have been ninety years old, today!

1921-2001

She died on Easter Sunday in 2001. She always said she thought she'd die on her birthday, and she only missed it by a few days. She would have hated being 90 - she didn't really care much for old people.

Spring is always a time of very mixed emotions for me.

Outdoor and Wordless Wednesday: Table for Two

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Outdoor Wednesday is hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer. To see many, many more outdoor photos or to post some of your own, please visit her blog.

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Outdoor Wednesday: Carny!

Outdoor Wednesday is hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer. To see many, many more outdoor photos or to post some of your own, please visit her blog.

One of my childhood ambitions was to join a carnival or circus. My ideal job, at the age of seven or eight, would have been sailing through the air on the flying trapeze, handing out the prizes at the shooting gallery, or barking a sideshow. Every spring, one of our local malls turns a section of its parking lot over to a traveling carnival show. M and I have walked around it once or twice in the past, but when it made its appearance this year, we were both attracted by the Ferris wheel. And the weather over the weekend was so glorious, we just couldn't resist. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon, and the place was a little deserted. But by the time we left an hour or so later, it was beginning to fill up very quickly. We rode the Ferris wheel, passed up all the junk food, and took lots of colorful photos. And got to feel like kids again.

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Blue Monday: Cherry Blossom Weekend

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself,
please head on over to her blog.

The Cherry Blossom Festival was going full-blast in Washington DC this weekend, and this year Mother Nature cooperated amazingly well. Most years, we get massive amounts of rain dumped on us all week, or a huge wind storm appears early in April and blows all the blossoms away. But not this year. The weather was gorgeous all weekend.

We didn't attend any of the festivities this year, but one day last week the hubby took some time out of his busy work day to walk over to the Tidal Basin and check out the blooms. These are a couple of the shots he took with his cell phone camera - it takes really great photos, don't you think? Well, I suppose the photographer had something to do with that, too. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Here's a shot of the cherry blossoms with the Jefferson Memorial in the background. Beautiful blue sky and water.

And this one gives you a bit of an idea of the kinds of crowds he met.

Sky Watch Friday: Spring Migration

I liked the pink stripe of the clouds in this shot, and all those migrating birds silhouetted in the branches. I think there's a squirrel or two in there, too, although they're hard to make out. This was taken a couple of weeks ago; by now these trees all have nice little green buds and tiny leaves on them. Hooray!!!

(Click on image to enlarge.)

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Friday Fill-Ins #124

Haven't done any Fill-Ins for a couple of weeks. Actually, I've been neglecting my Joysweb blog quite a bit lately. Shame on me. Real life sneaking in again. This week, all the quotes are supposed to have something to do with spring, but I don't recognize most of them. So I'll have to wing it. And here goes:

1. If we had no winter I'd be happy as a clam. (And just why do we assume clams are happy, I wonder?)

2. Life is a perpetual astonishment. Also – my hubby, this computer, and the fact that a latte now costs over $3 at my favorite coffee place.

3. If I had my life to live over _____. OMG – we really don't want to go there, do we?

4. "In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours." Mark Twain. I always figured he must have been to Texas.

5. If you've never been thrilled to your soul by a flower in bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. Or words to that effect. I don't know who said it originally, but I once read it on a photo caption on Flickr.

6. To be interested in the changing seasons is good. To be able to change them myself would be even better.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching the "Numb3rs" season finale (Amita abducted!), tomorrow my plans include a trip to the library and maybe some grocery shopping and Sunday, I want to watch the Celtics and the Magic in game seven (go, Big Baby!), and also get some reading done!

Happy Easter! Happy Springtime!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Definitely Spring

Well, Memorial Day is over and the outdoor pool is open now. The swallows have been back since the end of April. And we've actually had some nice warm, sunny weather over the weekend and for the last few days. So it finally feels like spring is really here.

I've been noticing how amazing the dogwood trees look right now. And on one of our walks the other day, I managed to remember to take along the camera. Seems everybody else had been noticing, too, because I practically had to stand in line to get a shot of these blossoms!