A Rose is a Rose
Tag Archives: photography
Wordless Wednesday: Literary Love in the Denver Airport
Photo credit: MKane
I’m linking up to parties at 5 Minutes for Mom, Create With Joy, and A Room With a View for Two. Please stop by to visit these inspiring bloggers and check out some of the links on their party today!
Wordless Wednesday: Climbing Honeysuckle
If you build it, they will come.
I built this trellis specifically to hold the New Dawn Rose and the climbing honeysuckle that were already in my hedgerow when we moved in. They are happy campers this year with the weather we’ve been having here in Chicagoland! I have more blossoms on both plants than I’ve ever had.
The individual petals on the honeysuckle are just gorgeous and oh, that pink…
I’m linking up to parties at 5 Minutes for Mom, Create With Joy, and A Room With a View for Two. Please stop by to visit these inspiring bloggers and check out some of the links on their party today!
Revisit to a popular Fourth of July Tablescape
I have to blame it on the lightning.
Tuesday night, we experienced a strong thunderstorm that brought lightning and over four inches of rain in a short time. We were already awake from the storm, and suddenly we both saw and heard a massive bolt of light hit VERY close to our house. Our electricity immediately went off and that started my day at 4:45 AM.
I had no intention of creating a patriotic tablescape this week; in fact, I didn’t even think I had enough in my stash to make one. Then I remembered the box of decorations I had put away in the garage. I had too much time on my hands this morning while I waited “patiently” for ComEd to get the power back on, so I started designing this tablescape in my head.
When I got home from my errands (really an avoidance measure to stay in the air-conditioned car instead of my hot house), I started with a crazy foil starburst decoration that I must have bought for a 4th of July party along the way. I pulled out my ironstone pitcher and it made a nice firecracker effect; I was hooked.
I checked for flowers — what would go with the firecracker? More roses, of course. I knew that my climbing rose was on its last legs after the storm, so I cut a big bunch from the bush. I had to fight with a bumblebee who was determined to get the last bit of nourishment from my roses. 🙂
And what to put on the table? My red tablecloth was not bright red enough for the placemats I made years ago, so I grabbed the blue and white quilt that usually hangs on my upper hallway bannister. Perfect! We actually eat at the table after I create the tablescapes each week, so I wanted to give the quilt more protection than the little placemats provided. One of the elements of the placemats’ patchwork effect is a blue and white striped ticking, so I got out my everyday dishtowels which also had a similar stripe. Voila! — as the French say; I had a layered linen base for my dishes.
After that it was easy. I pulled out the navy napkins, rolled them up and put them in the Pfaltzgraff Filigree cups that match my plates. I layered blue glass plates and tumblers, followed by the stoneware with a blue rim. Finally, I added my super-special shrimp cocktail glasses and filled them with delicious cherries. My table was just screaming July by this point!
Remember that I had no electricity during all of this? I pulled the curtains wide open and took the photos with my trusty Canon Rebel T3i using the afternoon sun streaming in through the window. For someone who had no plans to do a patriotic tablescape, I think this turned out darned good.
Image Credit: KSF
The power came back on just as I was finishing up the photo editing on my laptop and I was a happy girl. We’ve got a lot to celebrate in the upcoming week. The United States has its faults, but I’m proud to be an American today.
I’m resharing this patriotic tablescape from last year for Christine’s Table It party at Rustic and Refined. Hopefully I’ll have another new ‘scape later on this week — stay tuned!
Wordless Wednesday: The Rose
I’ve been looking everywhere for a Wordless Wednesday linky — doesn’t anyone do this anymore?
I’ve also been working in my garden and on my photography, so today’s post is a combo of my two obsessions. Did I ever tell you I have an obsessive streak — just a tiny one? Both of these roses were already in my garden when we moved here ten years ago, and I’ve spent a lot of hours taking care of them in those years. This year, they are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen them — a combination of a wet and cool spring has made them very happy.
While not quite a wordless post, I have no reservations about showing and telling about my gorgeous roses. I also talked about them last year — here. They make my heart sing.
Happy Wednesday!
P.S. Thanks to a tip from Jessie at Vanderbilt Wife, I’m linking up to Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom. Better late than never!
Why I Always Take A Window Seat
It’s kind of a pain to sit in the window seat during an international flight.
There are pros and cons to having an aisle seat, the most important being that you don’t have to wake up your seatmate or crawl over someone to get up to use the necessary. The negative, of course, of the aisle seat is that one is constantly being bumped all night — by other passengers and by the well-meaning flight attendants.
The window seat, on the other hand, has a little more room. It also tends to be cold and unless you’ve got your pillow configuration just right, it can be difficult to actually sleep. And then there’s the noise of the engines…
But if I didn’t sit in the window seat during all these years of flying, I would have missed many beautiful sights. There’s something magical about looking out the window while landing and imagining the new place you are about to encounter. That was the case this year as I encountered Nice through the window of the airplane.
Aerial view of a neighborhood in Nice, France.
The perfectly manicured and planned neighborhood. The foothills coming practically up next to the water. The majestic mountains in the background. And to think I would have missed this if I had been sitting in the aisle seat.
Of course, I owe it all to my traveling partner of thirty-some years. He lets me have the window and I love him for it.
Sunset at JFK
Welcome back! Well, maybe you were already here, but I wasn’t.
We just returned from a two-week trip to France and I’ve been busy renegotiating life in the Windy City. Life does go on, doesn’t it, after one returns from a highly anticipated vacation?
I’ve been writing about our trip in detail on a vacation blog, France Frolic 2013, which is linked up in my sidebar. If you want all France, all the time, go there for the goods on our trip.
Meanwhile, over here on Got My Reservations, I’m going to be showcasing some photos from the trip that don’t really fit into the travelogue concept. This photo was taken with my point and shoot out the window as I saw our plane silhouetted against the fading sun.
As for me, it’s welcome to Reality 101 and I REALLY need to get to the gym!
Paris Shopping
Our World Tuesday: Salzburg’s Mirabell Palace and Gardens
Travel plus movies. Fun and funner.
As soon as we planned our trip to Austria, I knew I wanted to take the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg. Yes, I was the subject of ridicule among my friends, and Music Man barely tolerated the idea. But how could I go to Austria without seeing where Julie Andrews made cinematic history?
Today’s photo tour takes us to the Mirabell Palace and Gardens where some of the Do Re Mi sequences were filmed.
Remember these steps? I was there, too.
Remember when the children run around the garden and mimic the attitudes of the dwarves? You can do that too!
The Dwarf Garden has a bunch of interesting creatures made of white marble and they date back to the time of Archbishop Franz Anton Harrach in the early 1700s. I think I took photos of every darn dwarf — I knew I would use them someday and here we are.
We also went to Schloss Hellbrunn where the gazebo in which Liesl and Rolf sing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” has been moved to protect it from trespassers. The interior shots were actually done on a set in Hollywood, but you can get your picture taken from the outside, as I did on a rainy day.
I enjoy seeing the movie locations when I am touring; it makes the fake world of movies seem a little bit more real. If you’re going to Salzburg, don’t let anyone talk you out of the Sound of Music tour. You’ll love it!
I’m linked up today with Our World Tuesday. Please stop by to see the travel stories of other bloggers and share the comment love!
Travel Diary: Vienna 2003
I just sent in my passport for renewal. I can’t believe it’s been ten years.
I got a new passport photo taken, of course. My contact lenses are long gone, replaced by my sassy hipster frames or my sparkly dress-up glasses. My hair’s still brown, albeit a little redder and a lot shorter because it’s easier to care for. I’m working on getting my weight down, but let’s just say my sturdy German girl frame fit right in among the Austrians — and I had a lot of layers on under that coat because it was March and it was cold in Austria.
We visited a family friend who was studying in Vienna while we were there.
The world was a lot different in 2003.
The United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland had joined with the United States to invade Iraq just before we were scheduled to visit in March 2003 during my spring break. The rest of the world was not as supportive and we were warned not to take any clothing displaying American flags or blatant patriotic sayings. We were supposed to blend in. Apparently the Viennese were not happy with our choice, as we found out with this display on a museum plaza. I think we were successful at blending in, as we were sometimes asked for directions by other tourists…
Both of my children had been to Europe three times by the time I actually got there myself.
For a woman who had visited almost every state in the Union, as well as Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Canada, I was woefully under-traveled when it came to Europe. As a small-town girl from Ohio with a modest upbringing by my educator parents, I didn’t get to take the school trip with the band. There wasn’t one. I didn’t do junior year abroad, although some people at Miami University were able to study abroad at the University Center in Luxembourg. Not me. I needed to get my degree finished so that I could get on with life and my parents could not have afforded it anyway.
That first trip through Heathrow was a revelation. The center lounge with rows and rows of armchairs where travelers of every persuasion melded together in a huge melting pot was amazing to me. Going from shop to shop, comparing magazines, books, travel items, and even candy, took the sting out of our long layover. I was actually waiting to change planes in London, England!
Our visit to Vienna was the beginning of a travel odyssey that I hope we will continue for many years.
As I walked up to the post office today, I was thinking that in another ten years, I’ll be ten years older, too. We’ll still be traveling, unless something dreadful happens to us, but we will be different travelers by then. We probably won’t stride into the Vienna train station, confident that we can drag our own bags onto public transportation and get to the airport. We’ll probably take more cruises and do less driving.
But we’ll still be traveling.
A Viking River Cruise will someday take us back to Vienna; there are five cruises for us to choose from. We could even go during the Christmas markets in December.
The charming Hotel Beethoven is still alive and well and helping tourists to learn about Vienna. They still offer a comprehensive breakfast buffet and small-hotel ambiance and service.
Some things change and some things don’t.
I’m sure Vienna isn’t the city that we visited ten years ago; most likely, it is a better city. Globalization has changed the way we eat — I’m sure there are even more interesting restaurants to try. The fabulous museums are probably even more fabulous, as curatorial processes and styles have grown along with the advancement of digital imaging and modern historical preservation techniques.
Yet, I imagine that much about Vienna is the same. I’m sure that people still honor crosswalks and are polite. The Viennese probably still speak enough English to be helpful to tourists (unlike us who only know how to use cognates to read signs). The vitality of this centuries-old city is most likely still there, waiting to be discovered by another visitor.
When are you going to Vienna?
Contact me at jennie@gotmyreservations dot com if you would like me to help you plan a trip to this marvelous city!
