Moved~Sort Of

Hello, if you still visit this blog at www.sandytrefger.wordpress.com, please note that it has been redirected since 2/10/2010 to my permanent blog home for “From the Heart of Texas.”   Visit my blog now at

http://www.sandyfromtheheartoftexas.com/

Thanks!

Sandy

Taken With My Cell Phone Thursday ~ Cat Burglar!

Week # 3

Sitting at my desk, minding my own business, thinking of blogging or posting on Facebook or actually working when suddenly….a cat burglar stole my pen right from under my eyes.  I caught it on camera too with my iPhone!

Bad kitty, Grayson!  I caught up with him and found my pen on the kitchen floor.  Guess I need to chain it to my desk!

Post your cell phone photo to your blog each Thursday and join me for “Taken With My Cell Phone Thursday.”  Just post a direct link to your blog post that features your photo in the comments of this post and be sure to share my link in your blog post.

Thanks!

Monday Photo Shoot ~ Peaceful Place

“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.”

~C. Austin Miles

This week on the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot the subject is “Peaceful Place.”  For me besides just being at home, one of my favorite peaceful places is a rose garden.  Not my own, as I don’t have one though I’ve thought about how lovely it would be to have one in my own front yard and then I  think about all the work it takes and decide to just enjoy the ones I can go visit.  There are many beautiful rose gardens in the North Texas area.   It is so peaceful to sit on a bench among the fragrant roses listening to the gentle breezes and thinking about….nothing.

These rose garden photos were taken last April at The Fort Worth Botanic Gardens.  Today is February 1st.  That means that in a few months I can visit rose gardens again! Until then enjoy these photos from a peaceful rose garden…

Here’s hoping you find your peaceful place today, even if it’s only  in photographs!  Be sure to visit the Ellipsis blog to find links to more “Peaceful Place” photos.

Sunday Stills ~ Textures

Texture, noun:

1. A structure of interwoven fibers or other elements.
2. The distinctive physical composition or structure of something, especially with respect to the size, shape, and arrangement of its parts
3. 1. The appearance and feel of a surface:
   2. A rough or grainy surface quality
      

Those are some of the definitions of texture, which is this weeks Sunday Stills photo challenge. There’s lots of unique textures out there to be photographed.  It wasn’t until I started taking photos of things other than people and animals that I began to really notice how beautifully such “textures” showed up in photographs.  Here are a few of my favorite texture photos, taken at the hauntingly beautiful Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas which many hope will one day be restored to it’s originally beauty.

And one last photo, the texture of the street.  While walking around taking photos, I saw this Lego block lying in a parking space.  Guess some kiddo lost it.  I thought it made an interesting texture photo.

Well that’s it for my Sunday Stills today, hope you’ve had a wonderful Sunday.  And don’t forget to go on over to the Sunday Stills blog and check out other “Texture” images!

The Round Robin Photo Challenge ~ Water

“The Brook”

~Alfred Lord Tennyson

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip’s farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks  I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel 
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Water is the challenge for today’s Round Robin Photo Challenge.   I took this photo in the summer last year.  That’s why there are leaves on the trees.  I’m looking forward to warmer days and taking more photos of babbling brooks!

Be sure to visit The Round Robin Photo Challenge blog to view  more water photos.

The Brenda Photo Challenge ~ Best of 2009

The first challenge for 2010 over on The Brenda Photo Challenge is to share some of our “Best of 2009″  photos.  For me,  my “best” are actually some of my favorite which means they may not be the best technically but I still love them.  I found it hard to narrow these down to just a few but anyway….here they are!

Sandy’s “Best” of 2009:

Thanks for visiting and taking a look at my “Best of 2009″.   I hope you have a great  Saturday! It’s really cold here today, so if it’s cold where you are–stay warm.  I’ll be spending the rest of my Saturday scrapbooking at my favorite scrapbook store in Mineral Wells–Cat’s Creations Scrapbooks.

Be sure to go over to the blog for The Brenda Photo Challenge and check out the other blog posts  for “Best of 2009.”

Taken With My Cell Phone Thursday ~ My Desk

The best laid plans……I thought this was scheduled to post last night or this morning after midnight.  But when I just looked it was stuck in computer la-la land.  {Sigh}  Oh well, since this is just my second “Taken With My Cell Phone Thursday” post, I’m probably the only one looking for it.  But just in case someone else tried to find it to share their  cell phone photo–I’m sorry.  Hopefully I can figure out what went wrong and avoid that in the future.  Anyway….

Week #2

This is my “Taken With My Cell Phone Thursday” photo for this week.  My desk. Surprisingly, when I took this earlier in the day it was pretty clean. There are days when it does not look like this.  (And no, I did not tidy up–honest.)   I’m also surprised there is no cat lying on the keyboard!

Taken inside my office with my iPhone.

Now yours…..if you’ve posted a cell phone photo on your blog, post a direct link in the comments below.   Please be sure to share a link back to my blog so others can find “Taken With My Cell Phone Thursday.”

Thanks!

Monday Photo Shoot ~ Houses of Worship

“What if it should turn out eternity was but the steeple

on our house of life that made our house of life a house of worship?”

~ Robert Frost

A few miles from our house is a community called Zion Hill.   It consists of a cemetery, community center building and this small church.  According to a historical sign at the cemetery, the church was established in 1871. I’m not sure if that’s when this church building was built but I do know it is pretty old.  Anyway, it sits atop Zion Hill and overlooks the cemetery and the community.  In this photo  storm clouds were building up and the church is back lit by the sun as it shines through the  gathering clouds.

This is my first post for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot and I hope to be able to join in on a regular basis from now on.  If you’d like to join in on these weekly photo shoots hosted by Ellipsis or to view  photos posted by others, just click on this link or the badge below.

Happy Monday to you!

Sunday Stills ~ Sports

Okay, as photo challenges go this is another tough one for me.  I don’t do sports.  I don’t play sports though I did play basketball way back in high school.  I don’t watch sports on t.v.   I don’t go to many sporting events (just an occasional grandkids’ game  once or twice a year).  So what does a non-sports person take a photo of for a “sports” photo challenge.   Well, while I may not do sports, I’m not immune to hearing about sports and this past week in my neck of the woods (North Texas near Dallas/Fort Worth) there has been a lot of lamenting and complaining and discussion about the Cowboys losing that playoff game last Sunday.  And so in honor of all those who are so very sad that the Cowboys will not be playing in the Super Bowl yet again this year, I staged this photo…Dry your tears Cowboys fans, there is always next year.

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!  The sun is out and shining today and guess where I’m going this afternoon?  A sporting goods store!  I need some new walking tennis shoes.

Be sure to visit the Sunday Stills blog and check out other “Sports” entries for today’s challenge.

Celebrating My Blogiversary!

That’s right!  Today is the 2 year “blogiversary” of my photo blog “From the Heart of Texas!”  Really?  Two years?  Ok so I didn’t mark this milestone last year because well, I hadn’t really come out of my comfort zone to share with others that I did indeed have a blog.  It was pretty much my own personal secret blog.  But that’s changed now.  I’m on facebook and I share my blog and posts with friends and family.  Some who probably don’t pay any attention at all to the fact that I’ve posted and to some who are faithful followers.  But you know what?  It’s doesn’t matter.  I’ll continue to post and share that I’ve posted because in the end all of this is really just for me and if you want to see what I’ve done, that’s great.  It’s a place where I can share my photos and my thoughts and journal about the places, people and events I’ve photographed. I’ve also started participating in several blog photo challenges which are a lot of fun.  Not just to have people from around the world to visit my blog but for the challenges and to find reasons for me to use my camera more.  However, it’s really great to meet other people and visit their blogs as well. So here it is…Happy Blogiversary to myself and my blog… “From the Heart of Texas”!  May you continue to exist and showcase the images I capture in my everyday life.

Here’s a collage of some of my favorite photos that I shared on my blog in 2009.  It was a great year and 2010 is going to be even better!

Time to go out and take some photos for next weeks challenges.  Have a totally awesome weekend!

P.S.  Happy Birthday to my son-in-law Brandon!