Beautiful Sky

The sky has been absolutely stunning lately; so I had to share some of the photos.

I have yet to figure out how to take a good picture of the moon. I've read all about it on the Digital Photography School blog, and I still can't seem to do it. One of these days I'm going to tackle this! If any of my readers have any pointers I'd be open to reading them.

Hyperbole

We were under a blizzard warning last night, which my phone kept reminding me of. This is what I awoke to this morning.

This is less snow than we got last Wednesday which was supposed to be a non-event. In defense of the meteorologists though, had the rain we got last night turned to snow earlier, we would have been buried. It sounds like south and east of the metro area got hit harder, but my disappointed son has to go to school today!

I realize that my posts have been few and far between lately. We've just been so busy lately. This weekend we attended a bridal shower for a young woman my husband taught in fourth grade (which is making me feel old). We also headed down south to celebrate my nephew's 6th birthday.

The new job has been going really well and I'm really enjoying being so much closer to home. I haven't yet figured out the most efficient way to get there and back home yet, so I'll keep working on that.

We had a beautiful sunrise yesterday morning in advance of the winter storm that moved in throughout the day.

Flowers and No News

I realize I haven't posted in a couple of days. It's another case of nothing really going on, so I just don't have anything to write about.

We had a nice, sunny morning so I got outside and did some much needed weeding in the yard. With all of the extra moisture we've been getting, the weeds are flourishing right now. The inevitable afternoon storm is moving in now, which made for excellent lighting to get a few shots of some of my flowers.

I took the shot below the other evening. This is basically what it looks like every evening right now since the clouds and storms show up nearly every afternoon.

Tomorrow morning my daughter is taking me out to breakfast, then we're going to go hiking and have a picnic lunch together. It's my mother's day present, just a bit delayed. My husband is taking my son and one of his friends to see Ant Man at the theater while we're off hiking. My weekly progress report will come a little later in the day than usual with the morning activities. Although I think I'll just be breaking even this week. I didn't do such a great job with the My Fitness Pal app every day. But I have been doing more intense workouts again, so at least I feel healthy, even with the excess weight. I really better get it figured out though, or I won't be able to see Crimson Peak in the theater!

Living Dangerously

My daughter had piano lessons again this evening, and like every other recent evening, we were in the midst of a heavy rain and thunderstorm. But there was no way I was sitting in the car through a lesson again tonight. Safe or not (and it really wasn't since lighting was less than a tenth of mile away), I was going for a walk.

I'm glad I went. I heard train whistles, bird songs, and thunder, which thankfully became more distant as the walk went on. The sun actually was out for most of the day, but it was while I was in my office at work, so I didn't really get to see it. It did start peeking out around the clouds again towards the end of my walk.

I've been doing a decent, though not perfect job with my food this week. I'm eating more slightly calories than I should be, but I'm not throwing my hands up and just pigging out either. If I can keep this up and just make some slight adjustments, I really think I might be on the right path this time.

Dreary

The meteorologists don't always get it right. We've had another gray, rainy day. I think I might be suffering from seasonal affective disorder. In Denver. In July.

We saw more sun when we were in Ireland, sheesh!

Brief Sunshine

Look what I saw today: Sunshine!

It's been a few days since we've seen the sun, and it's gone behind the clouds again this afternoon, but at least it hasn't been overcast all day. I was starting to wonder, and not for the first time this summer, if I'd been transported to the Northwest without my knowledge.

I saw a wonderful little quote today when I was reading the comments on one of the blogs I follow.
"The plural of anecdote is not data." I wish I'd had such a clever come-back for one particular instance when someone tried to "prove" a point by telling me about one anecdote.

I didn't do as well with my food today, but instead of just deciding that the whole day was shot once I'd made one bad choice and totally pigging out, I stopped and ate right for the rest of the day. If I can get this down, I think I might really have a chance at making some progress.

Ireland Weather Preview

Nature is currently giving us a preview of our Ireland trip. We've had overcast skies and rain on and off for several days now. The sound has been lovely and everything smells so clean and fresh. The creek is running right now, and everything is turning very green.

This is the most I've seen of the sun in about three days.

The mountains were finally visible again today. On Monday morning I could see a vague outline of the southern front-range, but the northern front-range was completely concealed behind towering clouds. I'm listening to the soothing sounds of rain and far-off thunder as I type this tonight.

Because Denver gets a high amount of sunny days each year (we're one of the sunniest places in the continental U.S.), it's kind of nice to have a change in the weather. Although I am going to be glad to see the sun again when the weather pattern is finally supposed to change next week.

Interesting Clouds

I'm too exhausted to write tonight, but I had to share this picture of the captivating cloud formation outside my office window this morning.

I intend to go to bed as early as possible tonight so that I won't be this tired tomorrow!

Old Dogs and New Tricks

I’m going to be 41 years old in less than one month. I graduated from high school in 1992. We had a computer at home the entire time I was growing up since my dad worked as an aerospace engineer. My elementary school had a computer lab filled with Apple IIe computers. I took a class in computer programming while I was in junior high (yes, this was before it was called middle school). Yet despite all of this, I still learned how to type on a typewriter at the same school where I learned computer programming.

All of this is to set up the background for what I’m about to say. I’ve been typing incorrectly since I learned how to type back when I was 12 or 13. Remember how I said I learned to type on a typewriter? Well the convention then was to double space at the end of a sentence. So that is how I learned it, and that is how I’ve been doing it out of habit for about 28 years. I’ve read the articles that say it’s important to teach oneself to stop double-spacing because it can lead to age discrimination. But I just thought, meh, it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. Plus, I’ve got a fairly full schedule and being able to type quickly helps. I would actually have to slow down my typing in order to retrain myself to use a single space. Then I read this article: If you type two spaces after a period, you're doing it wrong.

I tend to want to follow style manuals because they provide consistency. So if most style guides today recommend a single space following a period, then I guess it’s time to slow myself down and type properly. In typing this, I’ve realized that it’s actually not too hard and doesn’t slow me down too much if I just pay attention. Hopefully it will quickly become a new habit and I can stop thinking about it though, because I definitely feel myself wanting to hit that space bar a second time. Now we'll have to see how many times I have to use the find and replace function to fix a period with 2 spaces (or a question mark or exclamation mark.)

When I was a teenager I used to think that older adults were so whiny and melodramatic about how much things had changed since they were young. Now I understand that when you’ve spent most of your life doing something a certain way, it really is difficult to change it. It’s official now; I’ve become just like my mother and her friends!

I had to share some photos of the winter clouds this morning as they were simply beautiful.

Just before sunrise

Just after sunrise

Crazy Day

Today was another especially busy day at work and I'm fried this evening.  I think I might need to take a bath tonight for relaxation because my shoulders are so tense.  So not much of a post on this rainy, dreary (but perfect) autumn evening.  I'm just going to share a couple of pictures from today and one that I took last evening that I rather like.  Enjoy!

The fall colors out my back window

Rainy evening

Clouds last evening