“The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul.” ~Wyland
Can’t you just feel all this quote has to say? Is your heart stirred, your imagination inspired and your soul filled with joy when you’re near the ocean? I know mine is!
“Your dream doesn’t have an expiration date. Take a deep breath and try again.” ~unknown
How many times have you felt bound by circumstances out of your control where it seemed as though that dream would never come true? How many times have you said “it’s too late,” “I’m too old?”
I say don’t give up on that dream (or goal) you have plenty of examples where individuals pursued their dreams long after others thought it was too late.
To name a few:, -Harley David Sanders 65 years old when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken;
-Julia Child wrote her first cookbook at 50 -launching her career as a celebrity chef;
-Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses, began her prolific painting career at 78. In 2006, one of her paintings sold for $1.2 million. Previously, she was a housekeeper and farm laborer.
The list goes on and on including athletes as well.
What dream or passion have you shelved away because you told yourself it was too late? This week I encourage you to spend a few minutes revisiting those dreams and take action. You never know what you may accomplish.
Just when you think you’ve outsmarted them, they eventually find a way to reach the food. I guess he was tired of picking up the scraps from the ground!
Oh well, there’s a lot to be said for being resourceful!
Winter forms our character and brings out our best.” ~Tim Allen
I don’t know about you, but it’s about this time of year when I begin to long for warmer, sunnier days of winter. But, like life as I push through the damp, cold days I come out stronger as the seasons begin to change.
How about you? Do you find the “winter days” help build your character?
“Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.” This photo doesn’t do the morning sky justice, but I couldn’t resist trying to capture the moment. BTW, see that big tower in the background? That’s soon to be the new North American Headquarters for Thyssenkrupp Elevator Company. It’s over 400 feet tall and is located next to the Braves Stadium. Michael has literally watched this come out of the ground when there was nothing more than a pile of dirt. Take a close look, you’ll be seeing more of this when it’s complete. 😉 Happy Thursday! #redskyinthemorning#sunrise#atlanta#thyssenkrupp#daybreak#morning#wintermornings#photography#photoops#viewfrommywindow#donnarobinsonphotography
“Be an encourager. The world has plenty of critics.” ~DaveWillis,org
This week I challenge you to be the encourager and not the critic, including with yourself😉! Just one positive word of encouragement can go a long, long way.
Such a simple statement about how beautiful true friendship can be! You don’t need to have a lot of friends and sometimes the friends may not live close by. But the best of friends do make the world beautiful!
A while ago I started posting inspirational/motivational quotes on my Instagram Account. I typically post these on Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursdays. They’re my way of inspiring and encouraging others through my photography and inspirational quotes. With the New Year in full swing, I thought it would be helpful to share these posts here. Sometimes I add my own thoughts about the quote and others times I find it more appropriate to let the quote and photography speak for themselves.
Below is this week’s quote. I hope you find it inspiring!
Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year. There is something so wonderful and special about the cooler weather and changing colors of the leaves. In the Fall, Mother Nature has a way of nudging us to slow down and pause.
And so, with Mother Nature nudging me to pause last week, I couldn’t help but combine a little bit of exercise with a photography outing. Even though we live in the city we are surrounded by several county and federal parks with the Chattahoochee River meandering through and alongside most of them.
For my exercise/photography outing I was hoping to capture some of the wild birds camping out on the river. But, it was high that day and the rocks where they normally rest were completely submerged. So I had to settle for some landscape opportunities instead.
This particular park is loaded with several little creeks which the deer and other wildlife feed from. This stream is about a mile into the park.
A small creek just off the main path.
I was just making the final turn of the path and had to go back because the path was flooded. It wasn’t deep and I’ve used the stepping stones before (with Michael’s help, of course), but since I had my camera with me I didn’t want to risk being thrown off balance.
I’m actually glad I had to turn around, because I was able to get this great shot of the inside path loop. Don’t you just love how the trees frame the path?
It may not have been a good “bird siting” day, but I did manage to get a little bit of wildlife into my photos. This little, fuzzy caterpillar was just hanging out on the ragweed (at least I think it’s ragweed).
As I mentioned earlier, there are several creeks running through this particular park.
As for the exercise portion of my outing, the path is a 3.52 miles around and my Fitbit tracked me with 4.5 miles. I’ll take it!
For those of you who have been following me for a while, you may remember a post from a few years back titled For the Love of Photography “The Accidental Sunflower Garden” . The post was about two (2) beautiful sunflowers growing wild in our backyard thanks to a few leftovers from our backyard critters. They were so much fun to photograph that summer. One photo even managed to make its way into my Etsy Shop as both a greeting card and matted print.
So, you can image my delight when the same thing happened this year! Lucky for me, this time they were growing on the lower section of our yard and within easy reach of my macro lens.
When I discovered them, there were three (3) scraggly little stalks each growing at different heights. From a distance they weren’t much to look at except for a few buds and one (1) bright yellow flower standing tall with its face pointing towards the morning sun.
As I moved closer to the tallest stalk, I noticed the brightest flower was surrounded by a few other buds each waiting for their chance to shine.
Macro photography of a sunflower
Macro photography of a Sunflower
Rain droplets on the Sunflower petals
Clearly, the sunflowers had another purpose in their short lives. The garden insects quickly found them and began to nourish on their sweet nectar and delicate petals.
Green bug devouring the Sunflower petals
Fortunately for me, the bees didn’t seem to mind my camera lens snooping around them.
Bumble Bees gathering nectar
But my favorite shot is the one below with the detail of the disk florets beginning to take shape. Don’t you just love the geometric shape growing from the middle outward?
Disk Florets beginning to take shape
It’s been a few weeks now and the flowers are beginning to shrivel up and the stalks are slowly drooping towards the ground. I’ll miss my little sunflower garden once the blooms have all faded away. Hopefully, if they’re left undisturbed, they’ll dissolve into the earth and will come back bigger, stronger and brighter next year!