Sunday Stills - NUTS!

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge is NUTS. It's funny but the NUTS has been following me and popping up all around me in conversations. Anyways, here are some nuts for you.

Walnut nuts contained in a bowl:



And then two got away from all the rest of those nuts:




Mother Nature made the walnut nut to look like a human brain. Did you know that nuts are good for your brain and eating nuts is a good way to keep your mental state stable?


Just one lonely nut...



If you want to see a bunch of Nuts, check out the rest of the gang at Sunday Stills

Sunday Stills - Texture

I'm so behind on my Sunday Stills. The challenge is Texture.

My kitchen rug in a rumple state:


The brim of my straw hat:


The straw flowers on my straw hat:

Playing Around with Photoshop

Abandoned Barn/House? I'm not sure. It was taken in Cambria, May 2009. I played around with the photo in Photoshop and added tint and texture to the photo.

Sunday Stills - Things with Wings

I'm behind in participating on Sunday Stills.
This morning I started out to walk the pups. The corner house has a full front yard of wild flowers that usually attract a lot of bees. As we walked passed, I saw a pretty butterfly -- big colorful wings. I wished I had my camera since this was a good opportunity to participate in the Sunday Stills Challenge. I continued to walk my dogs and about 30 minutes we returned to the corner and there was the same butterfly -- touching softly on all the flowers. I hurried the dogs home, grabbed my camera and returned to the flower bed only to find the butterfly fluttering away across the street and over the roof tops. It left behind a bunch of buzzing bees and one sort of like a butterfly/moth in it's place. I took it's pictures as seen here.







Check out other wings at Sunday Stills

Also Captured on the 4th of July

Happy Birthday America!

The family attended our local 4th of July parade. Sierra Madre is a small city and for the past 4 years we've made it a tradition to attend their little parade. This is the closest thing we have in a big city to a small town. We enjoy it very much.











Happy 4th of July! We live in a nation of freedoms and they should be honored in such a way that makes it an honor to live in America.

Michael Jackson - August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009

In my opinion, there are a lot of people to blame for the way Michael Jackson turned out. First, his father and the way the father raised his family, and then the money music machine grabbers. It’s strange how some of the Jackson family were able to leave their childhood, get away from their past, and live a somewhat normal life. But Michael just wasn’t strong enough to do that. It's very sad that there just were no strong good and positive influences in his life that could steer him away from the demons that he kept inside himself.

The money grabbers sought him for his money making capabilities and while he did turn out some remarkable music and contained some incredible talent, it was lost in all of his bizarreness. His escape into plastic surgery; his make believe world made up of half truths and lies and his need to drug himself in order to get thru the day is a sad way to live. It’s very upsetting that no one was able to break thru all of that and pull him out of it and get him some much needed help.

I’ll probably never see another talent like Michael again in my life time. Hopefully when the next one comes along the people in the music business will put a value on the talent and work in a positive way to keep it alive for the long run and not for the short while that we had with Michael Jackson. Peter Pan, the boy who didn’t want to grow up lived in the Real Neverland and not in a home in California. If only someone had explained that to Michael before it got to be too late.