Pairs of bananas hanging at almost every stoplight, Batman! I’ve been seeing this all over the Asheville, NC area. It’s so funny and random! What does it mean?
Tag Archives: photography
Breaking out the flip flops.
It was so warm today I put these on when I got home. 🙂
The progression of spring: March 15th
I love watching everything come back to life starting around this time of year. I’ve never appreciated these changes so much until this year, however.
Because last Sunday (March 8th) I decided to post a few photos of some trees in my neighborhood that were starting to show the “fall” colors of early spring in their buds and branches before the chlorophyll kicks in (see my post “Winter Into Spring”), I decided to make “The Progression of Spring” a regular weekly feature until things look like summer again, probably around the end of May.
The first photo shows the exact same location as last week but there are a few changes: the grass is a LOT greener than last week (this happened almost overnight), and the trees look fuller and a few are beginning to bloom. The second photo was taken right by my house.
Both these photos make it hard to believe it’s technically still winter.
Winter into Spring
I love very late winter, because it’s when suddenly nature returns from the dead and gloom of that season. Even though the trees are still pretty bare and it’s still pretty cold, the lengthening and slightly warmer days have cause the buds to begin to open, showing their true (fall) colors before the chlorophyll starts kicking in.
I snapped these photos this morning in my neighborhood, after church. If you look closely, some of the trees have a yellowish tint and others, a reddish one. It really doesn’t look much like winter anymore. Birds were chirping everywhere and I heard children playing outdoors in the distance.
Experiencing this simple moment was the perfect gift just after having attended mass during the third week of Lent. Late winter/spring and the Easter season is all about resurrection and rebirth.
I decided to post the Youtube link to George Winston’s piano music, “Winter into Spring” here. It’s the whole album. Listen to it while sitting outside or appreciating the rapid changes nature is undergoing even if only from your window. No matter how poor, sick or beaten down by life we are, we are all blessed to have these gifts that cost nothing.
Alright, snow, you’re pretty. Satisfied now?
As much as I hate cold weather and snow, I have to admit this scene when I looked out my window today is beautiful. Sure, it means another day of not being able to get to work (and my water pipes still haven’t been fixed) but it’s a good day to sleep in and blog.
I might even take a walk in it later or let my dog Dexter run around in it (he loves the snow).
So much snow is unusual here in western North Carolina, but the weather’s been weird this year.
Snow and sky.
I took some photos around Asheville, North Carolina yesterday and today. Yesterday’s photos are the sunny ones. Today’s are the ones with the trippy looking sky. It’s warmed up quite a bit, with temperatures above freezing for the first time in a week.
If you click this photo to make it larger and look closely at the left hand side where the land meets the sky, you can see the top of Mount Mitchell, part of the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge, and the highest peak on the East Coast. It’s covered with snow.
Other snowy photos from yesterday:
The sky is on hallucinogens! (these photos are from today)
These photos don’t quite capture the almost otherworldly weirdness of the sky today. These are not storm clouds. I don’t know the name of these wavy clouds but they are shaped by wind currents.
Click the photos to enlarge.
I was so much older then…
This photo was taken of me in 2012, while I was still living with and being gaslighted to death by my narc. At the time he used my daughter as one of his flying monkeys. They had me convinced I was the self centered narcissist and Michael would always set things up so he looked like the victim. A combination of triangulation, projection and gaslighting turned me into this sad, blah looking person you see here. As you can tell, I wasn’t taking care of myself–I was about 30 pounds heavier and wore just any old rag I could find around the house. I never wore makeup. My expression here looks depressed. I hid in my room with the door locked most of the time against my personal wicked demon and his flying monkeys trying to distort my reality and doubt my own perceptions.
Me during the time I was being mentally and emotionally tormented and suffering from severe PTSD, depression, and debilitating anxiety and paranoid ideation (some of which was based in reality) Although my health hadn’t started to go yet, it would have soon. If I’d stayed in this hellish mindfucking environment, I think I would have eventually become very ill, and maybe even died. I thought about suicide a lot.
Here is me after separating from my narc (April 2014). I look a lot happier!
These next two photos were taken by me about a month ago. Even in the nonsmiling, pensive one, I look a lot better and a lot younger. I think I look much more relaxed too in both the photos.
I’m in good shape now and managed to lose about 30 lbs. so I am a healthy weight now. My hair also looks better and I have no idea why since I haven’t really done anything different with it. It just seems fuller and, well, happier?
A year ago, I didn’t want anyone to take my picture (because I thought I looked so fat and ugly); now I’m actually taking selfies!
Improvement in appearance and a more youthful look overall is a wonderful fringe benefit of separating from your abuser. When you start feeling more attractive you actually look more attractive, and will take much better care of your appearance and your health. I’m just naturally eating healthier foods and indulging in things like alcohol less. I’m also drawn to nicer looking clothes and even accessories, something I didn’t bother with for years.
I still haven’t managed to quit smoking yet. Maybe for Lent.
On the drive home today
A mile away, the snow was blowing so hard there was practically no visibility and I thought my car would blow off the road. But here, I caught a couple of photos of the French Broad River on the way home from work just before the snow and wind began to hit. There was still a little patchy sun.
Fun with selfies.
I’m still feeling under the weather today and was bored, so I decided to take some selfies, then do a little photo manipulation with them.
Please put in the comments which one should be my next gravatar/FB image (if I change it at all). I think I like the first one best.
That’s me rolling my tongue. It’s an inherited ability, like wiggling your ears.
I can’t believe how narcissistic this is, but it sure is fun!
My lucky bamboo plant’s new home.
I first wrote about my lucky bamboo plant nearly 2 months ago in this post.
I’m the worst procrastinator you ever met, but yesterday I finally got around to going to Home Depot to look for a larger home for my plant, because it was starting to become rootbound (though as healthy looking as ever).
Because it’s not spring yet, it was hard to find anything I liked in the gardening section. But I finally came across this grass green resin pot which matches my kitchen walls (I gravitate to anything green, it seems).
Mr. Bamboo appears to be enjoying his upgraded home!
Lucky Otters Haven 