Dogwood Photography Challenge Week 1 Self Portrait without Showing Your Face

I'm going to try a new photo challenge this year; The Official Dogwood Photography Challenge. 

Week 1-Self Portrait Without Showing Your Face

Here is my description:

Week 1 Self Portrait 

I decided to shoot a collection of items that represent me.

The bike shoes represent my goal for this year-increasing the number of rides I participate in, since I recently retired from over 30 years of teaching. So far I have 10 rides planned. 5 of them are near and dear to my heart-The Ride for Missing Children-the main one being in my home town the other four spread out across NY. That leads into the photo card. For my fundraising the past two years I have sold cards with my photos on them. My most popular cards are the ones picturing snowflakes. This in turn leads to my macro lens-my absolute favorite lens. The snowflake card and the snowman show my love of winter as well as my occasional crafty side. The dried flower represents my love of gardening as well as my quest to find beauty in objects past their prime. I’ve been married for 38 years and all but just a few of of those years we’ve had a Springer Spaniel in our home. I love kid’s books and did well to only bring home a 100 or so of the thousands that I had bought for my classroom. I particularly love books that feature photography. And finally, I collect vintage cameras and flower frogs oh and old suitcases.

I’m looking forward to the challenges this year and the growth I’m sure I’ll experience. I’m already wowed by a few of the photos I peaked at.

One Word for 2019-Strength

As a newly retired teacher my goal for this year is to make it a year of cycling challenges, I have 10 in mind so far, all over 40 miles, most over 80.  Not working is going to allow me to get more time on my bike...I hope. Our fall was rainy and the winter has not been to pretty...hopefully we'll have a good spring and summer! Anyway, for these challenges I need to be strong so... strength is my word. My mom is 93 and watching her deteriorate over the years plus watching a video recently that stated the number one reason people need assisted living is due to the fact that people lose strength and can't do basic tasks like using the bathroom, also motivates me to keep increasing my strength! 

What's your word for the year? 

Haiku 90/365 Macro Mondays Shot

It's been awhile since I took my Macro Monday shot early. I'm not thrilled with this shot so now I have time to come up with some new ideas. 

Haiku 89/365 Peek Behind the Bark

Favorite Pictures from 2018

I've seen other posts like this so I decided to give it a try. Here's a favorite photo from each month of 2018. One thing I learned is I need to take more pictures of family with my good camera.

January

February

March

April

May-My daughter is the third from the left.

June

July

August-my son on the left

September

October

November

December

Haiku 88/365 Knock Knock. Who's There?

Knock knock. Who's there?

An elusive bird often heard

but hard to capture.

And of course I mean capture with my camera. :)

Haiku 87/365 Really? Yip, yippee!

Really? Yip, yippee!

Tomorrow is a new year!

Let's run like crazy!

I took this crazy dog for a walk in our local town park New Year's Eve day. We were alone so I let her run. She loves that-a dog that won't walk around the block lol. I knew by today the snow would be gone and it'd be a muddy mess. We both enjoyed our adventure.

The picture below is at the end of the hike. She knew we had passed the car but I wanted to make sure I hit the 3 mile mark. I'm sure she did close to 6 miles!