Wouldn’t you know? As soon as I decide to start participating with HS: MS again the prompt proves to be a difficult one.

Adventure: An unusual, exciting and often hazardous experience or activity.

We spent two weeks this summer in California in the Bay Area where my daughter is now living. Here I am with my son, Matt, hiking the Sunset Trail to the top of Mt. Livermore on Angel Island. So much for the idea of daily practice. I’m not expecting any adventures here today.

Although I check in on this site every day, it’s been months since I participated. It’s time to get going again. There’s lots of inspiration from other photographers, and it’s a way to practice my photography every day.
Today’s prompt:

Leaf: A flattened structure attached to the stem of a plant. Find a leaf in your space today.

I spent Saturday in Ithaca with Matt. It was the perfect fall day, although very few trees have begun to change color. Warm and breezy, blue skies–a perfect day for sightseeing and hiking. I love the Ithaca Farmers’ Market. The produce is almost all organic. There are wonderful pottery stalls and this cute tee shirt stall:

I brought back some pumpkins but would have loved to have brought home flowers as well. Matt and I had never seen Cockscomb Celosia. They were beautiful:

It’s easy to see how they got their name:

And there are always the beautiful sunflowers:

Our favorite apples:

The veggies:

After lunch and window shopping on The Commons we drove out to Taughannock Falls State Park. We hiked back to the falls which were a real disappointment. It’s been so dry there was hardly any water going over at all. So we decided to hike the North Rim Trail. There are beautiful views of Cayuga Lake as well as the gorge.

We walked out to the lake and spent some time in the park and then headed to Ithaca Falls which is right in the city. A lot more water here.

I’m always glad to be able to spend a day with either of my kids, and it’s a rare event that I get a whole day. This was one of the perfect ones. Thanks, Matt!

Stacy Julian’s project for September in her More Fun class is to create a scrapbook dedicated to “present moment” living–that translates to a scrapbook page a day. I’ve actually done it once before this year for a free course at BPS in January. I thought it would motivate me to live up to Paper Source’s motto: Do something creative every day. That didn’t turn out to be possible working full time, but I got a lot done in January and enjoyed it.

Stacy has made it somewhat easier by sending us prompts each day under three categories: Capture, Collect, Record. Some days I use the prompts. On others I have my own agenda. When the computer was gone, I got seriously behind. But yesterday I caught up. It was fun, and it feels good. One thing I’ve had to give up is my perfectionism. I decided that I would use my own handwriting for most of the pages. I REALLY like type better. So sometimes the writing is not exactly straight, and sometimes I’ve had to correct some minor errors, but I did NOT start any page over. It is what it is—and that is a pretty good record of what’s gone on so far in September as well as some “what’s important” pages.

Eventually, I may get all the pages posted to the Scrapbook Layouts page, but for now here are a couple from yesterday as well as the title page. The album uses both 12 X 12 pages and 6 X 12 pages. There’s also a 6 X 6 page thrown in for good measure.

So here are a few as well as the title page.

One of Stacy’s prompts: What’s in your purse?

Another prompt about what is in your nightstand–I was amazed at how much!!!

Prompt: Where are you and what are you doing at 9:15 am? The “record” part of the prompt was to list your favorite blogs and websites.

Elizabeth Dillow had a link to this great website: http://www.howmanyofme.com/. I love the name of the website to start with. Here are how many there are of me:

This is no surprise since there are at least 5-10 women with my name right here in Rochester. At nearly every store where they keep track of purchases I am asked for my phone number or address so they can determine which Karen Walker I am.

As part of More Fun, Stacy sent us off to Wordle which I had seen, but not played with. Here’s my Wordle for our family:

I wasn’t very familiar with the term “futurist” until last night when we had an opportunity to hear Ray Kurzweil speak at RIT. He is an inventor and entrepreneur whose interests range from energy concerns, nutrition and health, genetic engineering, speech recognition programs . . . An amazing mind who has a very positive message about future. A first look at his web site is an indication of all his interests and accomplishments. It was a fascinating look at what the future might hold.

I have a new computer, so I’m slowly getting caught up with all my projects. Yesterday was the way it is supposed to be on retirement. I’m not sure why every day doesn’t work this way, but now there’s been one, so maybe I can work on getting several of these each week.

8:00 Bone density exam—in and out in less than 20 minutes

8:30-11:00 Edited photos and created two layouts for the More Fun class (I am seriously behind.) How does that happen on retirement?

11-11:30 Made & ate lunch; double-checked ingredients needed for dinners, soup for my neighbor, dinner for Stevie and Teresa.

11:30-12:30 Drove to Pittsford and walked along the canal. Walked quickly out and stopped to take photos on the way back in.

12:30-12:50 Stopped at Talbots to look at the sale items; tried on two things, bought nothing.

1:00-1:45 Did the grocery shopping.

2:00-2:15 Talked to two of my neighbors when I went out to get the mail

2:15-3:00 Put away groceries, started dinner prep (stir-fry ingredients all chopped!)

3:00-5:00 Completed two more layouts.

5:00-6:00 Made & ate dinner

6-8:00 Watched the news (local, national, Jim Lehr News Hour) and uploaded photos, checked emails, read blogs

8-10:00 Finished reading Leeway Cottage by Beth Gutcheon. Looked back over my reading lists for the last 18 years to see when I had read her earlier books. This turned out to be a very interesting read, and I noticed several books I’ve read that I never recorded.

Good day—filled with all the things I like to do!

Two pictures from the canal walk:

There was an accident this weekend, and now my new MacBook has been shipped off to the Apple Repair Center. It’s amazing how lost I feel without it. I’ve got an old MacBook to use that we’re planning on listing on Craigslist, and nearly all my files are backed up on Tme Machine, but nothing is just one click away, and I do feel disoriented. I knew that all my hobbies were connected with a computer, but it’s never been more clear than it is today.

Thanks to the prompts for the More Fun class at BPS, I’ve taken the time to take more photos the last few days. Just because photos. No special reason–except for the sunrise which was one of Stacy’s prompts.

Is this another sign of the end of summer? An empty park bench and an empty path.