Spring Sneak Peek.

This isn't the time of year yet that I can post brilliantly colored flowers and blooming trees. It's that in-between time of seasons, like early winter where the leaves are gone but it hasn't snowed yet. But this time, we get to have summer to look forward to!
The last week in New England has been "driving with the top down" weather...not that I have a convertible, but, I would if I did. So I do the next best thing and open my sunroof.

Even with temps in the high 60's, the flowers are still not blooming this early in the season...just peeks of little daffodil leaves here and there, no yellow yet. So we're left with the simple beauty of sunlight and nature..and feet in the sand at the beach...

Aaaand the birds are out. I'm hearing the babies are already being hatched, too. There is a nest of sparrows right next to where I park my car but I can't get a photo without really disturbing the babies.

Robins...always easy to spot, cheerfully chirping, and seem to like posing for photos, too.

At dawn the sunlight hits the budding branches just perfectly. My house is four floors high so this is my view every morning. Well, presuming I wake up at dawn.

House sparrow, above, on the right. These are the birds that are nesting near my house and next to my car. They are very cute but their loud chirping does remind me that I am NOT a morning person.

Hope you are all enjoying the rising temps in the U.S.... and I do have some friends who are now enjoying the colors of Autumn, so it's always great to see those photos filling my reader and facebook, too.  :)
Mary

Florida...and the Gifts from the Sea

In January, I vacationed in Florida with my mother for a relaxing end to a long semester taking classes and a hectic holiday.  In the winter, the colors here soften and the air is cooler, but it's perfect photography and exploring weather. I'll never get tired of walking on the sand and listening to the surf in this quiet part of the state, called the Treasure Coast.

The view from where we stay is practically hanging over the water. From the living room, it looks like you're on a cruise ship. I took some of these photos from that balcony.

Above, we took a tour of the Jupiter Lighthouse, which is on the easternmost part of Florida's Atlantic coast.

The beach was the first place I headed to after getting my DSLR camera two years ago. Somehow, it never becomes cliche to take photos there.  Sometimes, though, the best part is discovering something like an Osprey nest, or a Pelican flying overhead, a living starfish enjoying a shallow bath, or a row of beach fencing covered in early Spring blossoms. Those are like the little "gifts" that you get from exploring the same place over and over, that only those who take the time to look will really see.

8 New Free Textures!

I've been having a lot of fun making these and I'm happy to share them! To download, you can click on each texture below you want, and it will open in a new window. Click the + sign on the image to get the highest resolution size, then right click and save on your computer. You can then layer and play around with them in Photoshop.Another option is to visit my Flickr texture page...there are lots more textures there, too. Enjoy!

Sunny Lavender field

Underwater Bokeh

Speckled Sky

Wet Rocks

Coffee Milk bokeh

Grungy Sky

Maine Beach bokeh

Candy Buoys

My perfect day in Newport.....

I would start my day by drinking my Iced Coffee in one of these chairs and browsing through the latest issue of Somerset Life...

Then I would walk over to the Cliff Walk, which would be in my front yard, of course..

then..I'd head over to the beach and do some tidepooling and swimming..

Next...a little peaceful kayaking...

Watching the colorful boats make their way out to sea...

And ending the day in yet another Adirondack chair with a friend as the sun goes down. :)

I may be adding some of these as prints to my shop when I re-open...I've been soooo busy!! I hope to come back and get it up and running any day now! Maybe the first day we have that is not beautiful and sunny?  Hope your summers are going as wonderful as mine.. :)
Oh and P.S. I have created my own little blog button (see the right sidebar!) and if you grab it for your site or blog, please let me know so I can link back to you or advertise your button, too! :)))

A Celebration of my Computer Crash....Rhode Island style

Yes, that's right. My beloved laptop crashed last week, due to repercussions from a particularly horrifying virus that tricked me into believing Windows was telling me to do things to fix some sort of "critical error" on my hard drive. A family member thinks they might be able to salvage some of the files on it, but alas, there were more files than I wanted there to be as I had not been up to date in backing them up...yikes.

This setback, however, lent me the excuse I needed to buy another laptop, which is when I decided my beloved was not so beloved afterall. My new laptop is sleeker, lighter, prettier and does not leave first degree burns on my leg. So, in celebration of the crash of '11, here are some crashing wave photos I took a few weeks ago...that I had on my memory card (one of the few saving graces for me is that I am terrified of cleaning off my memory cards!)

Above, the beautiful waters off coastal Route 1, southern Rhode Island, near Black Point, Narragansett. Below: this awesome heart-shaped rock was buried beneath waves and I waited for them to subside to capture the full shape. So cool!

Below is the heart-shaped rock again. I could have stood here all day, listening to the crashing waves and just watching the patterns of the water and foam in between the rocks. Total nature immersion.

Sparkly foam in the sun looks like little diamonds in the water.

So, I will try to look on the bright side of this computer crash..but I do want to pass this on...I put off backing up my pictures and music for ages because I thought I had plenty of time....not really! I am very careful about my computer and keep my anti-virus software up to date and everything, but this virus just came out of nowhere..so save yourself time and money, go backup your files right now! ;))
P.S. I am now using Avast anti-virus software. It has a wonderful free option that has been working great so far.
P.P.S. I also learned that your Ipod doesn't quite function as a hard drive when it comes to all those music CD's you've loaded onto it. Itunes keeps the music you've purchased through its service, but you will lose all the other music uploaded onto your 'pod unless you back it up beforehand...with blank CD's.  You then have to reload them all into your new computer.

More Daylight = Yay! My after-work adventure...

As I sat at work today pondering the fact that I haven't taken any new photos recently, it struck me that I had an extra hour of sun today. (and have since Sunday, but it was, in fact, sunny today.) And warm! So off I went, after work, to see what I could see with my last precious hour or so of good light. I headed south for about 20 minutes until I ended up near Misquamicut beach in Westerly. I looooved just being outside and soaking up the sunshine and fresh early Spring air. And the birds were out....so many, their songs and chirps all melted together in a cacophonous melody and I wasn't quite sure where to look first...

This chubby American Robin was chirping so loud I had to take his photo. He was totally posing for me, too. It's the same one in both shots. I just love their clownish faces and fat bellies. heh.

These two swans swam and dived around together for a while before swimming off into the sunset.

There were about a thousand red-winged blackbirds. Twittering and chirping and making noises that sounded like songs but not quite. They were in every treetrop as I looked back over the landscape, like little black inkblots sitting on the trees and branches. I caught this one in "mid-sing."

Reflections from an old building in the calm inlets off Misquamicut beach.

I really kind of wanted to jump into the water until I remembered it wasn't going to be nice enough for swimming until mid summer. Whoops! 

Objects in mirror may be larger than they appear...um, yes! Gigundo seaside mansions! Drool. :)

The sun went down and the tide went out....

And I thought the moon looked huge in the early dusk sky...and these eight foot- high reeds seemed to be almost touching the moon. 

Happy Friday! It is supposed to be beautiful here today, early summer weather...Enjoy!