Oh Mammatus!

Short and sweet: Last night we had a small storm cell go through. My favorite clouds, the mammatus, were spectacular!!! And we saw and heard some big bullfrogs and were graced by many red winged blackbirds and swallows! Glory Be!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective (ii)

This might be a little stretch for the word “perspective”. The place is the same, the view is the same (for the most part). The part that changed is the time. The sunset was just last Sunday evening, then the roller stratus were Monday, and finally the contrail fiesta was Tuesday, last night. Three different variations taken at the same spot, three nights in a row. I am one lucky lady.

Winter Passion

Looking out my window, almost ALL the snow is gone. 😦 Boo. I really love winter, the quiet solitude, the unusual beauty. We didn’t get any snow here in Ohio last year at all. This year we got a lot! It was really great, even though most people (especially the weathermen) complained about how “awful” winter was. Our weatherman always rates the day’s weather, and even if it is beautifully sunny, he gives winter days under a 4, on a scale of 1-10. What is up with that? Winter haters. It was a great winter! Full of snow and ice and cold and just the way a winter should be. I will miss you winter! I will take a day under freezing over a day over 80 any day of the week!!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition: One of my all time favorite words. I think I learned this word while studying art. A word that makes a visual oxymoron have meaning, purpose, delightful complexity. I like the contrast of many things. To find images that show juxtaposition is a bit daunting, at least with how I feel about the word. I feel like a juxtaposition of things is deliberate, whereas these images reveal things that happened on their own, only to be frozen in time by my camera. For example, my kitchen combines an aqua colored glass tile backsplash, clean and cool, like a pool, next to the natural mossy greens of my formica counter that almost resembles polished cement. I had a friend think this combination was absurd. But her kitchen is beige, tan, off white, and a big explosion of less than dull to me. So, to each his own, but I choose juxtaposition any day of the week! Viva la expression!

Below Zero

This was taken out my bedroom window the day before yesterday. It was probably a beautiful sunset, but it was below zero by 10 or so and with the crazy wind, it was technically assfreakinfreezing. I’ve been out in way colder (-35;-85 wind chill, this was in Minnesota, not Ohio, and it seems more normal there), and I could hack it easily by dressing well. I actually delivered 100 newspapers that day. Ahh, memories. But, I digress. So this cold spell, we stayed home, played in the house, and I took a few photos out the window. You know it’s cold when the doggies have to make 2 trips to finish their business because their feet start freezing before they can accomplish both. The house made large cracking noises. But today it was back in the above zero temperatures, and all is well. No loss of power, which would have been not fun at all. I am grateful that didn’t happen. This photo looks foggy because I was having fun breathing really hard on the window making fake fog. 😉 I hope you didn’t lose power, or live somewhere with gleeful weather.

Being Brave… Easier said than Done

So, I entered a photo contest that looks very exciting. People can vote for you, but as we all know in art, it isn’t what you do, it’s who you know. At least that is how it seems a lot of the time. Right? So, I am trying to be brave and solicit help from all of my dear WordPress friends and ask you to vote for me. I entered a lot of my favorite sky/cloud/sunset photos, because they are the images that truly make me happy. Maybe they are a tad cliché, but hey, that is ok by me.

So here is the link, and you can see the photos there, or down below. You might recognize some of them. 😉

https://christiebea.see.me/onelife2013

Thank you for your time! Sorry for the “shameless” self promotion!

Grocery Shopping

As we were heading to the grocery store for dinner and food, a storm swept in. So, we took a drive and saw the beauty of the sky instead of the produce in the isles. Rainbows are better than concrete. Then we got a pizza at a stop and ate it in the car. Good times. Good times!

After the Storm

The other night, July 10th, another big storm line swept through Ohio. In it’s wake, we have been enjoying wonderful temperatures, low humidity, and perfect breezes. This sunset was a fine beauty giving us the rare “anti-crepuscular” rays. Opposite the sunset in the sky they are the result opposite of the phenomenon of crepuscular rays (the ones that look like something holy reigning down on us through the clouds. (To super simplify: Basically clouds can make shadows or carry light in their moisture). Love it!

Yesterday’s Storm

Some storms came through yesterday evening. It was unfortunate I was tethered to my house during the beginning. But I still had fun driving around looking for the excitement after I was free!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves

The super cool curvy cloud was on the edge of tornado producing storms that occurred about 60 miles north of my house on June 12th, 2013 . The edge came right to the edge of my neighborhood. It was pretty cool. It felt like an enormous spaceship floating above. The photos do not do it justice. The 3rd photo is from yesterday, glass by Dale Chihuly, at the Franklin Park Conservatory. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.