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The sun is setting in my garden.

I think the world needs to appreciate sunflowers just a little more. Sure, roses are beautiful and delicate and pretty smelling–I agree. But there is something about the sunflower that is just as enchanting. Maybe it is my secret love affair with the color yellow, particularily rich, bright, gold-like shades of it. Or maybe because in a secret past life I was some sort of sun worshipper with a garden full of them. Either way, I think sunflowers rock.

My mother in-law planted two of the giant monsterously huge sunflowers smack daub in the middle of our garden. They grew remarkably fast and bloomed as speedy as they grew. I am sad, however. It seems like as fast as they bloom, turning their little yellow cheery petals to the sun, they begin to whither and wilt.

One of the two is already stuck half way in permanent, cordial half bow to the rising sun, as if saying his good-byes at his final curtain call.

Color me Obsessed.

I have always held a deep affection for bright or rich colors. My husband sees in blue, red, or green while I see in royal blue, rose red and forest greens. I say there are thousands of different greens, he says green is green is green, some light, some dark.

It’s funny how men and women generally see or consider color so differently. Some of us women folk have four color receptors in our eyes instead of the standard three, so we really do see things differently!

I do believe that color influences, subtly, our moods. I always think of yellow as daisies, dandelions and summer sun, thus the color always brings me happier memories. Blue carried with it the smell of Nova Scotia sea-salt, endless waves, reflection on sun warmed rocks while the water crested on the shore and yes, on occasion, sadness.

Brown is warm things; worn out old boots and homespun sweaters, maybe floppy slippers and the color of earth. Comfort.

I love red too! Bold, bright, vivid, passionate, anger–and then the softer side of red has become my favorite later in life: pink. Pink reminds me of innocence, little girls, cliche-but-happy-princess and soft, soft things.

What are your favorite colors? What emotions do they evoke in you? Do you surround yourself in a soothing color, or happy color, or comforting color where you spend the most time?

Kumwhats? Kumquats!

You may remember my recent posts asking which camera I should choose. Shawn decided on the EOS Digital Rebel XTi.

Well, it arrived on Monday and since then, I have been taking pictures of the most random crap around our house, evar!

The cat. The cat eating. The cat sleeping. The cat washing herself and eating and sleeping, and of course, licking her butt fastidiously. Cats are, after all, dainty and polite little creatures. Pictures of my garden, of the basil growing in it, of the dill just flowering, pictures of the cat in the garden through the just flowering dill. I took a few pictures of the sad and lonely single red cayenne pepper growing in the garden as well as one of Shawn’s feet, my feet, cement on the porch, the dog, the kitchen floor the–well. You get the point.

Out of all of them, however, I think one photo may have actually turned out better than all of the rest so far. This shot of our neighbors kumquat tree came out pretty awesome for me. I did use a circular polarizing filter to take it and I did, of course, adjust layers and sharpness in adobe photoshop. But to me, this image holds so much greater quality as well as promise than most of the images I’ve been taking with the S700.

This image represents a whole new level to my brand new love affair with my camera. More and more lately, I have been looking at things…I have been really looking. The color of something, the shape of it, the way the light frames around it or across it–the expressions on faces, the curve of hands, even the dirt on the carpet becomes a potential picture in the ‘camera’ inside my head. I’ve begun to look at things in my mind as what I think it would appear as if in a photo.

I’ve gotta finally admit it. My messy, amazing, wonderful life turns into something absolutely amazing and beautiful. Even the worn spots on my desk could, if taken right, make an amazing texture photo.

I hope some day that I’ll be able to show the world this and I hope that they’ll feel the same way too.

Camera gurus, geeks, freaks, artists and lovers: I need your help.

First Question, Pretend time with me. The backdrop:

Your minimum spending price is 550$, your maximum (including tax) you can afford is 800$. And, you can ONLY buy it from Dell–which camera do you purchase from them and why?

Second question: The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT Silver 8. Does anyone own one? What’s it like? What’s the response time? The LCD? How’s it feel in the hand? What’s your impression of it? Was it worth buying for you?

EDIT: We’re looking at the EVOLT E-510 Black 10 MP Digital SLR Camera by Olympus as well. Anyone want to share their experiences with that as well?

EDIT 2: And we’re also looking at the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi SLR Camera. Thoughts? Opinions?

Third Question: All restrictions aside but the above price range, would you recommend something different than your answer for question number one? If so, what would that be?

The reason I ask is because Shawn’s the most magnificent man alive and is willing to spend this much on me and a camera and I really haven’t a clue what to purchase next after the FujiFilm S700.

Halp.

(God I am so excited!)

Morning Magic.

During most early Florida mornings, dew forms on the sleepy shapes all around us. Our chilli pepper red Saturn and the two-tone gray rocks of our front garden, on the door and across still blades of vibrant green grass.

Most often at this early, you’ve no doubt just left your sheets for bed, showered and are readied for work. The linens on your bed still warm from deep sleep, the pillows still indented with your slumber-filled head. It’s when you’re in between your front door and car door, maybe your coffee is in hand or your keys and you’re still forcing bleary eyes open–the zinging of bustling cars hurrying off to work the grind behind you–that you notice it.

Despite all the jangling noise of car horns, engines revved, brakes squealing? There’s this invisible blanket that still remains over the earth this early in the morning, a covering for a world still half-dreaming, and perhaps that blanket is the very dew you see shivering on the hood of your car.

Getting into your car in these dewy Florida mornings can be like stepping into another world. When you shut the door, you leave the harsh cadence of sunrise rush hour traffic behind you. It becomes muted, background static to the mini-world of the inside of your car. All the windows have been covered by condensation. Little droplets splattered all over glass which reflect to you the glorious colors of the sun behind miniature palm trees. Maybe you press your brow to the glass for a split second just to watch all the hundreds of small mirror worlds reflected to you in the morning dew.

Maybe, for just a moment, magic exists for you before the hustle of everyday muscles through.

The World Reflected

My garden is filled with basil once again, the cherry tomatoes are taking over one corner, the oregano has created a thick bed of itself all along it’s single row, like a guardian of dirt and everywhere there are lady bugs. I caught through our bedroom window, a bright orange butterfly flitting off to do whatever butterflies do yesterday morning.

As I watch my garden sometimes, my cat, Flora, enjoys watching the squirrels. She also enjoys watching the finches, blue jays and mourning doves landing on the bird bath and chirupping to them. I don’t think the chirrups are very convincing; none of them have tried hopping into her mouth through the window, but she’s very earnest in her attempts at hypnotizing.

I swear someday I will have a clear few snippets of video showing her churring at the birds.

Simple Nature

There’s a park that’s a fifteen, twenty minute drive (or there abouts) from where we live. It’s also a wild life sanctuary, so you follow along the board walks they’ve constructed to stay off nature as much as possible while still enjoying it.

Along the boardwalks, most of which have turned weather beaten brown/gray, are little messages. Some of them are to lovers, grandparents, parents, teachers and classes. Even a few of them were for beloved cats and pets.

I like going there because of the hardwood hammocks. A little spot of forest that smells different than the usual collection of Florida palm trees and ferns. There, oaks and pines grow. I can smell traces of my childhood in between the hot sunshine that warms everything it touches. I can almost remember spending hours dancing in between trunks my little arms and hands could never circle, the feel of bark crumbling beneath my hands and pine sap under my finger nails.

Along the board walks are sturdy benches built within the railings themselves, or monstrous sized creations of metal and super-hard plastic for park goers to settle in and watch nature.

Near the Turkey Creek there was a little sheltered spot that overlooked the creek and bank. They’d built a roof over it to shade you from the sun, but its wide open so that the wind (surprisingly a rare thing in Florida where it gets so hot and still you can hear a roach fart) comes right through you and over you.

It was a windy day last weekend. The breeze was enthusiastic and rushed through all the green leaves to make them shake together. Branches creaked and rubbed against one another until the forest was filled with the rattling laughter of pine, oak, and palm. I can’t really describe the sort of sound a good wind hop-scotching through a forest makes, and that’s maybe a failing on my part as a so-called writer. It hisses, but it isn’t a foreboding sound, especially when the sun is out and reflecting off clean green foliage. It hisses like hair on satin pillows or maybe the rough of an adult’s thumb across the softest of baby’s cheek.

It made me miss the wind through the trees in my grandmother’s back yard. It made me miss summer in Nova Scotia (it’s a dry heat) but stranger still, it made me happy.

Shawn and I sat on the bench and we listened to the wind through the trees. I kept taking these deep gulps of air, smelling the air which didn’t smell like cars or restaurants or some girl who bathed in cheap perfume—it smelled like…Outside. Like green things. Like my grandmothers backyard and a time when I thought I’d live forever and laughter would follow me to the end of it all.

Some times I forget how easy it is to remember things of a much simpler nature.

YAPB

So, last night I decided to install Yet Another Photoblog to our word press. This post is pretty much just to test it out, see how it does and take a gander at how everything turns out.

Though, if I don’t want the thumbnail to overlap, it seems I have to write a little bit than just a line or two. Luckily for me and for all of you, I tend to write a lot. Isn’t that awesome? Okay, if you haven’t guess by now, this is fille, yeah.

Frankly, I’m really liking wordpress and what we can do with it. If only I could wrap my head around making Shawn and I a custom theme.

Eat Nature

Shawn and I visited Turkey Creek Sanctuary a second time this weekend, we went last weekend. Last weekend, I forgot to put the card in my camera (oi) so I wasn’t able to take hardly any pictures. Internal memory of most digital cameras suck so hard.

This weekend, I went back with my digital camera and card and took a lot of pictures. It’s a very nice little park/nature preserve with board walks that seem to go on forever. There are moments within the park that Shawn and I felt as if we had walked into a time where we’d see a brontosaurus wandering by; carpets of ferns and tall, tall untouched jungle.

On the board walks, there are dedications carved into the wooden planks beneath feet. Some of them are dedicated to people passed, some of them are just ’shout-outs,’ some declaring unending love, and I saw several of them dedicated to beloved pets. Names and dates of families and people, I felt a little warmed and a tiny bit odd walking over them.

The only complaint I had was the width of the entry to the board walk. These shoulder-high rails to either side of us were terribly narrow, and we are terribly fat people. This prompted this question:

Me: “Why are these paths so thin?”
Shawn: Without a seconds worth of hesitation he replies, “Because thin people enjoy nature. Fat people eat it.”

Everyday with my husband is like a day with the learning channel!

A Taste of No Fatties

Hand picked by =EpicureanPoetry on deviantART

We went to a Taste of India Festival at Wickam Pavilion earlier this morning. The day was cool, but the sun was such a happy yellow that it made the sky that triple blue–where it was deep in the middle and lighter near the earth and sun.

A small breeze carried the perfect smell of spice and sung-prayers. Of course, I didn’t understand half of all that was being sung about or said, but the colors! Clothing, paintings, statues and Indian people moved about from stall to stall, like little tributes to the rainbow. Men and women dressed in boldness; one woman walked by me in the deepest blue and most golden yellow, pips and designs that sparkled metallic in fabric.

I wanted very much to have perhaps, a nice Salwar, but none of them came in gigantically fat sized. There was one Salwar, V necked and trimmed in palest pink with tiny embroidered pink flowers against a cream base. The pants were the same pink and made of material that was so breathable.

When I went to try it on, I wasn’t able to pull over my boobs.

The jewelry was hand made and over the top–which made me love it even more and I ended up snapping several shots of it. The only one that surprised me is the shot above in this post, so I kept it.

I am endeavoring to get over the fact my tits were, apparently, too godzilla for a Salwar by having a nice cup of kukicha tea and enjoying the rest of my day. How was your weekend? What are you planning on doing tomorrow?