technical difficulties

in the nine-plus year of doing STILL i have had my share of technical snafus. in every case, i have been able to resolve them before the next day’s image needed to get posted. but today’s (or rather tonight’s, as i post these right before bed the night before) caught me surprisingly off guard. my adobe photoshop application stopped working (due to an failed routine update).  without photoshop, i couldn’t prepare my image i shot this afternoon for uploading, etc. etc, etc.  i was stymied.  i thought, really? after 10 years and 5 trans-atlantic relocations, you are going to miss your first daily post because of a failed adobe update? seriously?  well, when i calmed down, i was able to find a work-around for adobe. there is always a work around–i had just gotten stuck in my ways and momentarily couldn’t imagine another way to prepare my image file for wordpress. and in the morning i will fix my adobe problem. because right now i need to got bed. it was a long day.

drop your seeds before it’s too late

my husband steve and i got married when we were 25, but didn’t decide to have kids until we were 35. the first one was easy. but by the time we were trying for the second kid, i was already 37 years old. and i had never seen the chart that shows what happens to female fertility after age 35 (google it, it’s crazy how fast it drops off). needless to say, we had difficulty getting and staying pregnant. i have always wished that some kind-hearted gynecologist would have shown me that chart 10 years earlier. i had no idea. and we could have easily started sooner. we were just kicking around, travelling and having fun, before we started a family. so, this is my warning to all the young women out there…don’t wait until your in your late thirties or forties to start a family if you have a choice. biology doesn’t understand your good intentions.

prairie garsses 

mondrian inspired fall colors

i spent the day taking my 85 year old mom down to the Mayo Clinic for some blood work. we are lucky here in the Twin Cities to live so close to such a world class medical hospital. while the Mayo is only about an hour and twenty minutes from us, it takes the better part of a day to do these visits. but STILL blog never sleeps, so after dropping off my mom at her house, i grabbed these ivy leaves from the vines that cover three quarters of her house. this hurried composition turned out better than i expected. and got me thinking what a Mondrian painting might look with colors other than flat blocks of primary colors. what if each block was instead a richly hued gradient? it makes one wonder.

climbing boston ivy leaves in fall

going pale

these are silver maple leaves. when people think of fall colors in the north, much of what they pull up in their mind’s eye are the brilliant oranges and reds of sugar maples. silver maples, on the other hand, turn yellow. in a typical year, that looks like a richly hued golden yellow, or even an orangey yellow. but this year, the weirdest year ever for fall colors, our silver maple that hangs over our driveway decided to make a half effort at turning yellow, and then pretty much gave up and let the rest of the color drain from it’s leaves.  it looks like this image is maybe altered–perhaps desaturated, or over brightened. but look closely, the branch is perfectly exposed–the leaves really are this pale.  it is unusual and it is super pretty, those soft yellow leaves catching the slanted autumn light.

silver maples leaves in autumn

what the what?

these are peony seed seed pods! have you ever noticed them before? me neither. i am dumbfounded. look how beautiful! all that texture, and drama, right there in every midwestern suburban yard from minnesota down to texas. how in the world have i missed this autumn event. too blinded by colorful leaves i suppose. like scrolling through instagram while strolling right past a louise bourgeois sculpture. shame me for never noticing them. lesson learned: turn off the phone, and look past the leaves.

peony seed pods