Here are some sunny yellow-orange Black-Eyed Susans from last autumn to brighten up your winter day!
Black-Eyed Susan
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One of these books is Creating A Charmed Life by Victoria Moran. I found it in a bookstore. After I’d read a few pages, I found myself wishing I knew someone to buy it for. I really loved it. In a very uncharacteristic move, I decided to buy it for myself. I rarely do things like this. I’m just not an impulse buyer. Each two to three page section has thoughts and tips on creating your own charmed life. I take it down from the bookshelf, and open it randomly to read a section. I find that it really helps me put things in perspective on those days when I seem to have misplaced mine! It’s wonderful as well, for those times you would simply like something uplifting. To give you an example, today when I took it down the section that it opened to was called Retire Your Too-Too. She counsels us to give up any too-too’s that we have. She says, “The only purpose of a too-too is to inflict pain on its possessor.” What a difference it makes if instead of saying, “I’m too heavy” or “It’s too late”, you drop the “too”. This could be your starting point for change instead of an excuse for misery. You can feel the defeat in a statement that contains “too” right away. When you drop that “too”, you then have a choice about where you’ll go from there. Maybe you want begin to enjoy where you are by taking good care of yourself, or decide if you want to make the necessary internal and external changes for your new reality. The choice is yours. She finishes up this chapter with these words:
I’ll be sharing more of my go-to books in future posts. There are several!  Sunset reflected in the windows of a lovely old church.
The name, Consejo de las Rosas, means Council of the Roses in English. I’ve been learning the beautiful Spanish language. It seems to convey the feeling of the mandala so well. I love these roses. They’re the deepest of reds, with petals like fine velvet, and a heady fragrance. Don’t you love it when you’ve been smelling the roses and the scent gets on your nose so that you catch that fragrance again and again as you go about your day? Ahhhh! Each mandala carries a unique energy. This one is a heart centered connection, and calls the many parts of yourself home where they are unified, renewed and empowered, connecting the energy field to all light. This is best of all places to be, and to act from. One of the lovely things about these mandalas, in fact all mandalas, is how they can draw you in to focus and still your mind, allowing you to reconnect to the timeless “you”. They can be healing, balancing, and transforming. They are a visual meditation. Be sure and click on the picture to see a larger version. Thanks for looking! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.
 Always, My Love - Metallic Gallery Wrap I was just thrilled when I was asked to have a gallery wrap made. Ever since I’d seen that White House Custom Colour offered them, I’d wanted to have one of my images put on a canvas so I could see it in person. Let me tell you, WHCC does not disappoint! They did an excellent job – as always! We ordered my image, titled Always, My Love, as a 24 x 16 Metallic Gallery Wrap. It had a matte finish applied to it to protect the canvas. The actual photographic print is created and its emulsion is stripped, bonded to canvas and wrapped around a 1 1/2″ deep wood frame. I absolutely love the Kodak Endura Metallic photographic paper. The colors are amazing and there’s so much depth to the images. Also, you can see just a slight shimmer which I thought looked really great. The canvas itself has a nice subtle texture, and they come to you ready to hang, right out of the box. The wrap arrived in perfect condition. I wish I’d thought to take pictures of the packaging before unpacking it. It was pretty brilliant. I wanted to say a special thanks to talented photographer Jessica Grieves of Hey Girl, Nice Shot for her post on Metallic Gallery Wraps. It was so helpful to see her wonderful pictures and description when I was trying to decide on the details before ordering my own wrap. Thank you so much, Jessica! I’m hoping my post will be helpful to someone searching out information on these too. This pictures in this post are all of the gallery wrap itself, not the computer files used to print it. If you’d like to see some real detail, you can click on any of the pictures below, and they’ll open a very large version of the picture. You can see in this last picture how nicely the back is finished. (You could have an open back with wire if you prefer it.) Someday I’ll have a few of these lovely wraps to hang in our home. I couldn’t have been more pleased with this one!  3/4 front view  front view  back view Japanese television is awesome! Just for fun, today we have the Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show featuring Kiko with their wacky video, Juicy. I laughed so hard that tears were streaming down my face. It’s brilliant! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Laughter really is the best medicine. Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine ShowWe’re all juicy inside! This is the j-pop video that introduced the world to the wacky world of Kiko!
Just drag and drop your jpg or png file onto the camera there, and wait while it develops before your eyes. The program creates high resolution (400 dpi) Polaroid™-like pictures from your digital photos. You can even shake the little picture while you wait. Just right click on the picture that comes out of the camera and click on “I want a sample now!”. This lets you save copies at different stages of development. Then you can choose your favorite(s). The results are random and different each time you try it. You get ten treatments per session, just like the old cartridges. The developers do have a sense of humor! There’s a Flickr group for these if you really get into it. They are cool, and you just want to show them off. So, yes, here are just a few of mine.  Sweet Brownie Camera  Giant Dairy Cow  Love In Bloom  Water Tower Fun? Yes. Enjoy! Purple Shamrock flowers at a bee’s eye view.  When I Was A Bee Wintertime sparkle and shine…  Winter Formal  Quietly Shining It’s been snowy and cold this winter, and that’s when you can see the most incredible blues in the sky. There are particular shades of blue that only seems to appear when the temperatures are very low. These are blues that can stop you in your tracks, so you can take them in and appreciate how amazing they are. The turquoise blue in this first image is one of my favorites.
 Cerulean Intensive
I’ve heard that in photography, the worse the weather, the greater the opportunity. That definitely inspires me to get up and get out there when weather conditions are challenging – at least most of the time! Both of these images were captured on the same day within a half an hour of each other. A storm was just passing and the sky was changing fast! The clouds were breaking up to reveal the stunning blue sky behind them. It was lovely walking in the snow. Everything was a special kind of quiet, especially with snow that was like powder. Even though you can spend an hour getting ready to go out to spend a couple of hours outside, it’s definitely worth doing.  Snowy Creek
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Copyright © 2007-2010 Karen Casey-Smith - All Rights Reserved
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When you cease limiting your possibilities, you can live so that every day brings gifts as welcome as a check in the mail. A too-too is a major limiter. Look for ways to see yourself and situations that arise without the restrictive “too.” This will free you up for discovering alternative routes, gifts in surprising packages and blessings in disguise.
It just seemed like the day to share this one.
This is so much fun, I just have to share it with you! It’s the 
As long as my camera stays dry, it’s all good. With so much variation in color rendering between computer monitors, I’m hoping you see the same blues on your screen as I do on mine. You’re fortunate if you have the chance to see these winter blue skies in person.