I love the sunrise
and all that jazz….
an interview with the Honorable Stan Strickland
An Open Letter to Ann Coulter
The following is a guest post in the form of an open letter from Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens to Ann Coulter after this tweet during last night's Presidential debate.
Dear Ann Coulter,
Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside
As usual, I’m busier than a bee. But, I do want to post a picture of this week’s photo challenge. The word is “Inside.”
Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreaming!
The weekly photo challenge for this week is “Dreaming.”
Although I have missed the last 3 photo challenges due to my hectic work schedule (that’s another story for another day – a great story), I want to take a quick moment to provide my interpretation of the word Dreaming!
So, here it is with words by the great dreamer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“MLK and the Yellow Moon” can also be seen here: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/mlk-and-a-yellow-moon-andrea-oconnell.html
MLK and the Yellow Moon, by Andrea O’Connell, 2012
Orchids
I captured this image a while back and recently came across it again when the black space jumped out at me.
I've wanted to learn how to add text to photos for a while now and I realized this image, with the black space, would be a nice template for a quote about flowers. After some trial and error, here is one of my first tries at adding text on an image.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Close
This week the photo challenge word is close. I’ve chosen to use “close” as in close-up, or macro photography. I shot this last week:
This is my cat, Beau. I love his eyes! He’s jet-black with white whiskers! When I can get him to sit still or wake up, he’s a good subject:
Photo by Andrea O’Connell, 2012
Weekly Photo Challenge One Week Late: Friendship
I just realized I used the Macaws for another photo challenge! Here’s the one I was going to use originally, anyway: My niece and her friend seeing how their friendship necklace fits together:
The weekly photo challenge from two weeks ago was to post a photo that speaks about friendship. I chose these two Macaws. They are big buddies and have such fun together…. Such lovely birds, too.
I’m still here!
I know, I know…. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve popped in to blog – I even missed the last two Weekly Photo Challenges…. Horrors! I plan to do those momentarily.
I’m having this battle with myself about taking time to blog. I feel guilty taking the time when I have so much work to do…. I’m working from home now – doing Instructional Design consulting. Yeap. I took the plunge to work for myself!
I’m working on a website and two business blogs right now – it’s a huge task. I have them all set to go as far as how they look and feel, but still developing the content, which is the major task.
I haven’t been following the Casey Anthony goings-on, but have heard that a movie, based on Jeff Ashton’s book, is in the works. Good for him! I’m glad he’s doing so well.
I heard through the grapevine that Jose Baez has a book out, or has one coming out – I’m not sure which it is. I’d venture to say few people will want to read it. What can Jose Baez say other than “I told ya’ so!” (Which no one in their right mind believed was possible at the time.)
It still floors me. We all thought, no way can such an inexperienced trial lawyer win that case! Hah! He did it. We all wore eggs on our face after that, big time.
I’m amazed that the Casey Anthony story continues to generate news! It’s so crazy! I get Google-Alerts on the topic of Casey Anthony and it never fails that EVERY day, somewhere – someone is talking about something related to that trial. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that little Miss Beautiful Life is going to have a perpetual OJ Simpson-like reputation for life.
Well, life goes on, doesn’t it? It doesn’t change much, but it goes on!
Here’s a little gift from me:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Today
The weekly photo challenge word is was “today.”
Lately my “today’s” have been sans camera in favor of the computer and work-projects.
I shot these photos on a today that happened last month!
There’s a “today” certainty and strength in nature, especially in the sea…. it flows through every today …. the waves, so much like music…
Anyway, I love a today with ocean in it.
Click on an image to enlarge it.
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- A Wave Crashing. Photo by Andrea O’Connell 2012
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- Waves on Shore. Photo by Andrea O’Connell
weekly photo challenge: Summer
The weekly photo challenge word is “Summer”.
Holding the string, at the other end of this kite are a couple of boys and their Dad. The kids were thrilled when the kite caught the wind and really took off. It was a beautiful sight; and seemed the epitome of summer.
(Click to enlarge.)
Photo by Andrea O’Connell
Beach Photos
I am still going through the more than 1500 photos I took at the beach over Mother's Day weekend.
I wanted to add these quick ones that I captured the first day. The window with the lamp and the ocean in the background is the one of the windows from the living room area of the hotel. The lamp was kind of a grungy plastic, but looked nice from afar.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Hands
The word this week is: Hands.
This is one of my favorite photos. I captured this at Butterfly World, in Coconut Creek, Florida. The butterflies fly all around you and sometimes, if you’re really really lucky, they’ll land on you. A docent once told me they are attracted to perfumes and to people who stand very still while donning a flowery outfit.
Basically, if you want a better chance to attract a butterfly, smell and dress like a rose!
This butterfly lighted on this little hand and I was delighted to be in the right place at the right time to capture it!
A Butterfly Holds A Child’s Hand. Photo by Andrea O’Connell
Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue
I know, I know…. The “Blue” challenge was last week… suffice it to say, that blue week was a busy one for me – though not at all blue. On the contrary, it was a lovely week because half of it I spent soaking in the sights and sounds of the blue sea.
I met this woman in blue on the beach. She was staying in the same hotel I was in.
(I don’t know how to spell her name, but it sounds like Iah.)
She’s from Somalia and was so friendly, with a great smile even though I didn’t capture it fully in this photo, unfortunately.
Anyway, she saw me taking photographs and asked if I’d come across a key she’d lost – her hotel key. I hadn’t but I offered to help her look for it until I saw how she was looking – picking up the seaweed, shaking it and shuffling the sand that the seaweed had been sitting on.
I’ve seen too many creatures in the seaweed to get too close. So, I found a stick and helped.
We never found her key, but we chatted a bit. She asked me to take a picture of her with a handful of seaweed. I said sure (later I captured more photos of her scooping through the weeds that I was too wimpy to touch).
She asked if she could have copies of the picture and so I gave her my email address to contact me,. but she never has. Maybe she’ll see this post…
A Friend in Blue. Photo by Andrea O’Connell
Man-Oh-Man-Oh-Man-O-War. Photo by Andrea O’Connell
Somewhere In There is a Lost Hotel Key. Photo by Andrea O’Connell
So Blue and Inviting! Photo by Andrea O’Connell
Fear, Racism And The Church Of The Holy Crock Pot
I am a tithing member of the Church of the Holy Crock Pot. Though I dutifully praise the Crock Pot’s glories on a regular basis, take it to all the best potlucks, and actively witness to others about how the power of the Crock Pot has changed my life, it occasionally lets me down. This was the case a few months ago when I was cooking a pot roast in the depths of my early 1990s era Crock Pot.
Rust Tones
Tonight I decided to experiment with rust tones. These are a few random photos that I applied just a tinge of rust to. There is something about these colors that are soothing to me. I hope you like them!
Click on the photos to see the image enlarged.
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