Plumeria

The beautiful, fragrant plumeria is easily one of my favorite flowers. There's something about its soft, tropical scent and vibrant blooms that always lifts my mood. While this particular one isn’t mine, I do have a plumeria plant of my own that I rooted from a small cutting I picked up at the Honolulu Airport. Over the years, it’s grown to be several feet tall, and each summer it rewards me with a handful of stunning blossoms. It's like a little piece of Hawaiʻi blooming right at home.

 

Instax Texas Sage

 I’ve shared photos of my Texas Sage before, but capturing it with my Polaroid or Fujifilm Instax Mini always gives it a new personality. Each camera brings its own unique charm—offering slightly different tones, lighting, and textures. I love the vintage feel these instant cameras create; there's something nostalgic and timeless about the way they frame a moment. It’s not just a photo—it’s a little piece of art with character.

Eyeshadow

 This little anole has made the aloe plant in my backyard its favorite hangout spot. I often see it lounging there year after year, blending in surprisingly well—except for the vivid colors around its eyes. Those bright markings always catch my attention, like it's wearing a touch of makeup. I can't help but wonder if it's getting ready for a party or showing off for a potential date. Whatever the reason, its bold look adds a splash of unexpected charm to my backyard.

Twisted

Decades of storms and relentless winds have shaped this tree into a striking natural masterpiece. Its gnarled branches twist and reach with a weathered elegance, while the deep grooves in its bark form intricate patterns, like nature’s own etchings. The scars left behind by fallen branches tell silent stories of past battles with the elements, adding to its rugged beauty. Each knot and fissure contributes to its unique character, making the tree not just a part of the landscape, but a living sculpture crafted by time itself.

Sunflower

I grew this sunflower from a seed in my little backyard garden.  Now as summer is coming to a close; we will soon be back in winter.  These little memories will bring us back through to spring. 

Sunset

We often avoid endings we are too afraid at what they represent.  However endings can be just as beautiful as the beginnings that are to come. 

Silence

Part of Wordless Wednesday!

Embrace

When can you hope to be one,

When you forget to be a pawn,

You never know what can come to be,

When you finally realize you are free,

It is then that you can find,

The truth that can be so kind,

In the touch of grace can be found,

The loss of despair that once bound,

Out of the darkness you must trudge,

Into the beauty that only you will embrace.

Words Can Fail

Part of the Wordless Wednesday

Mississippi Kudzu

Kudzu was brought to the United States, from Japan, in the twentieth century, as a public solution to erosion. It soon grew into a nuisance that swallows entire fields, and anything that happens to lie in its path. This is the view looking down from a hillside in Meridian Mississippi, the kudzu is enveloping everything… while it is rather pretty to look at, we must remember the danger this vine poses to our natural ecology.

Knowledge

Life fills your mind with many different kinds of information; at times it has no choice but to overflow in beautiful waves of knowledge spilling into the world.

Beautiful Magnolia

Spring, everything begins anew! Trees refresh their leaves, many animal species refresh their populations, and pollen refreshes allergies. It all is a truly marvelous reminder of just how awesome Earth really is, and how lucky we are to be as blessed as we are. However we, as a species need to figure out just how blessed we are before we realize that we were once blessed and all these wonderful gifts have drifted away.

The Southern Magnolia is my favorite plant and flower; it is also the state tree of Mississippi. Imagine my surprise to see these beautiful Japanese Magnolias in bloom at the Mississippi State Capital Building in Jackson, Mississippi.

Stop and Stare at my Ordinary World

My life seems to be focused on new beginnings lately. That is a good thing, by all my standards!!! Last year in Toomsuba I planted a variable garden of sorts, I have always grown up with vegetables growing somewhere… so I am familiar with the breaking of earth and tending of the plants to grow something you can’t really get in a store. Well my venture in Toomsuba would have been successful if not for the under mining of the children, but now I have a chance to grow something that I will hopefully see the fruits of my labor. Three Tomatoes, a pepper plant, three flowering plants, as well as a plethora of Zinna’s that are direct descendants of the ones that I planted a year ago in Toomsuba. I consider it a symbolic representation of my life right now… it is awesome.

But I won't cry for yesterday There's an ordinary world Somehow I have to find And as I try to make my way To the ordinary world I will learn to survive
-Duran Duran