Two Geese on Silvery Ice

Sharing with The Weekend in Black and White

and Weekend Reflections

Red Cardinal (and a Friend)

Junco and Northern Cardinal

Cardinals don't seem to like clinging to wire-style feeders but they sometimes manage to do it long enough to grab a few morsels.

This brilliantly red bird seems to fit in with Valentine's Day, and I can share him with The Bird D'Pot and Camera Critters.

We celebrated Valentine's Day with a mid-afternoon lunch at Outback Steakhouse. That way we avoided the heaviest crowds and, as a bonus, got home before the winds got really strong. It was snowing by the time we got home, but not too heavily. Right now the winds sound ferocious, and I hope our electricity stays on because it's very cold outside!

Stalking Cat

Mosby is a feral cat but he comes through our yard every day. Since winter has robbed our grass of it's color, the first image was just about monochromatic so I went ahead and made it look like a sepia print.

I'm including a slightly different picture so that you can see that the ducks and geese aren't perturbed by him. That image benefits by having color so that your eye is drawn to the duck in the water.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday and Saturday's Critters

A Strasburg Sunset

In Strasburg, VA

Sharing with Skywatch Friday
and Orange You Glad It's Friday

A Ranch-Style Gate in Shenandoah County

Yesterday I decided to drive part of the way home on Palmyra Church Road. This fence and western-style entrance caught my eye.

That's the Massanutten Mountain Range in the background.

Stallion Station

Sharing with Signs, Signs and Good Fences

My Laptop is Back Home

Late last night the Apple Store sent me an email saying my Macbook was ready to be picked up. So today I drove to Fairfax and bailed it out. The display looks great and I'm delighted to have it back!

Since I was in the mall, I also shopped at Sears a little and bought a Lands End cotton sweater. I really like cotton because it doesn't produce static like synthetic fabrics. By the time I left, traffic had already gotten thick. That's one of the things I don't miss about Northern Virginia, although in most respects it was a good place to live.

Sharing with Little Things Thursday

Barn at the Mint House

Sharing with The Barn Collective and Wordless Wednesday

Just a Bird on a Bush

Sharing with Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday

My Pet Computer is in the Shop

After several days of struggling with blogging on the iPad, I am now using my old laptop. I would have used it sooner but the power supply/battery charger was hiding in the bottom of a box on the bottom shelf of my office, and I neglected to look in that box the first couple of times I searched for the device.

As I mentioned on Friday, I broke the retina screen on my newer Macbook by letting it slip off my lap when I slipped off to sleep on the sofa. The computer part still worked by the bottom half of the display was blank.

I seriously considered not having it fixed. Why spend hundreds of dollars fixing a computer that is over two years old? But getting a new Macbook with a retina display is quite expensive, and that's what I want because I've gotten spoiled by having one!

First I took my beloved computer to the "Geek Squad" at a store in Winchester. They could send it out for an estimate, which would take two and a half to three weeks. Oh, no! And a new screen could cost as much as $700! I cradled my laptop in my arms and brought it back home, hoping to find a better solution.

One possibility was to hook it to a separate monitor, but then it would not be a laptop in function; it would be a cobbled-together desktop. I decided to make an appointment with the "Genius Bar" at the Apple Store. The closest one is an hour's drive away and I'd have to brave the traffic around Fairfax, but you do what you have to do. So yesterday we drove to Fair Oaks Mall.

The technician confirmed that the screen needs to be replaced. They can do it there in 3 to 5 days. The price was several hundred dollars less than I feared, so I left my baby in their capable hands. I felt something close to separation anxiety as I left the store!

Rain had started to fall as we drove away.

The mall is a short drive from Fair Lakes, which has an office park where I once worked as a tech writer. It also has a Whole Foods Store, so I stopped there and picked up a few grocery items before heading home. It was 3:30 and rush hour traffic had already begun, but there were two of us so we were able to use the HOV lane and it moved along well. Once we passed Gainesville the traffic thinned out and we were in the country again.

Sharing with Our World Tuesday

Mural at Royal Oak Books

Front Royal, VA

I'm sharing this with Monday Murals. Now let's take a quick look at other signs on this store.

Posted with Blogsy

Meeting House at Happy Creek

Methodist Meeting House near Front Royal, VA.

Sharing with Inspired Sunday

Posted with Blogsy

Canada Geese Aloft

Sharing with The Bird D'pot and Saturday Critters

Dogs Coming Home from a Walk

This is my first picture made with Photoshop Mix on the iPad. I tried to convert to sepia-colored. Some years ago, I learned how to tone a black and white print with a sepia solution in the darkroom. The idea was to make it last longer. Unfortunately there were toxic chemicals involved, so I prefer using the digital darkroom.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday and Camera Critters

Cloudy Winter Evening

The first two images are realistic views of clouds obscuring part of the mountains.

The third image is altered in Photoshop. Obviously I cropped it to make it narrow, but I also added a bit of a vignette, duplicated the layer, used Auto Tone, and then used Multiply as the layer mode. The only problem is that once you look at the third image, the other skies look pale in comparison!

I'm having problems with my laptop tonight so I published this post in two stages. I can't see the bottom of the screen so I was unable to finish inserting the photos. I decided to email them to the blog, which posted them but not in the format I wanted. Now I'm fixing that using the online Blogger editor.

The display problem is my own fault! Last night I was using the Macbook on my lap and I dozed off. I woke up when I heard a thump as the laptop landed on the carpet. Now I can only see the top half of the screen! The bottom half is black. (It was gray at first and even vibrated, but at least that stopped.)

The folks at the "Geek Squad" told me that it may cost $700 to get it repaired. I need to decide whether to just replace it with a new one, but first I'll inquire at another place. Meanwhile, everything is a work-around as important things don't show up on my screen, such as any button that's on the second half of a screen.

Sharing with Skywatch Friday and Orange You Glad It's Friday

Cold Cloudy Sky

It's been so cold! Except for yesterday, when the afternoon was sunny and warm enough to do a little work outside repairing wind damage.

This picture shows a tree near Middletown (Virginia). I'm sharing it with Good Fences on TexWisGirl's blog.

Paisley Painted Horse

Stephens City, Virginia

The letters have faded on Wild Bill's sign but the horse looks fresh!

Sharing with Signs, Signs

Gray Bird in Grayscale

The junco is not colorful so I went ahead and made these in black and white. They seem like sweet little birds and they are often the first brave birds to return to the feeder after an interruption.

Sharing with Wild Bird Wednesday

and Black and White Wednesday

Evening on Winchester Road

Sharing with Wordless Wednesday and Wednesday around the World 

Winter Views from Rivermont

Farm on the South Fork near Front Royal

Looking Toward Skyline Drive

Sharing with The Barn Collective and Our World Tuesday

Blog Post #4800

Blogging since 2005 and I'm still here.

My Childhood Home

Both the City Daily Photo Theme Day and a local group's photo challenge are dealing with a topic of Hometown. This got me thinking of my original hometown, Alexandria, Virginia. I was raised near there and lived there for much of my adult life.  It's a great town, filled with cultural opportunities and an appreciation of history.  Sometimes I miss it, but not enough to brave the traffic to visit it very often.

George Washington Birthday Parade, 1962

I raised my daughters in Alexandria, first in the Rosemont neighborhood and then in Del Ray. When they were teens (and after I was divorced from their father) we moved to Taft Avenue in the western part of town. By that time I was taking classes at NVCC and volunteering with Alexandria Archaeology, as well as working full-time.

Eventually I decided to move out into the country to escape the air pollution that plagued the DC Metropolitan Area in the summertime. In the late 1990's there were all too many days when weather forecasters warned people to avoid exercising outdoors because of the air pollution. I think this improved after the coal-burning power plant closed down.

Even though I enjoy the beautiful area where I live now, there are times when I miss downtown Alexandria. It's a vibrant town, quite walkable, with a scenic riverfront area and interesting shops. No doubt many of my readers have been there. It's between Washington DC and Mount Vernon, and it's popular with tourists.