Corgi Love

My little dog — a heartbeat at my feet. ~Edith Wharton

One of the highlights of our trip to Florida in May was visiting a farm where they breed corgis. I've never seen so many corgis in one place. The owner had three separate litters of puppies, plus at least 20 adult corgis roaming the property. It was like walking into a corgi fairy tale land!

We miss our Ruby so much, so to get a corgi fix like this was very heartwarming for all three of us. Corgis here, corgis there, corgis everywhere! Their sweet faces are filled with such kindness and spunk. It was hard to get good photos because they were constantly on the move, but here are a few of my favorites from that day. Once you have a corgi, there's no turning back...they have the most amazing personalities and presence. We hope to one day own another one!

I'm linking up with Kim Klassen's Friday Finds - thanks so much for stopping by.

Summertime, and The Living is Easy

What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade. ~Gertrude Jekyll

Ah, summer...warm temps, lush green surroundings, Virginia humidity, and fruit...lots of yummy, delicious fruit. Here are a few of my iPhone photos from the last week. The fruit photo was edited in Pictapgo, but the other two images were simply cleaned up and cropped in Snapseed, my all-time favorite editing app. Every photo I take with my camera starts out in Snapseed.

I'm linking up today with App Happy Wednesday - thank you for stopping by!

Inhale

INHALE

An inhale is sacred,
an unpeopled quiet,
a mandatory shutdown
of the voice box.
It's a pure prayer,
a holy breath, a
safe wall erected for
the weight of the future
which has nothing
to lean against.
The inhale warms
my cold hands
which are too heavy
with the fear of fear,
too tired with the burden
of earth's dirt and
cracked mirrors.
It instinctively knows
the path to my heart,
following its curves
like a sigh, like
a loving smile
that heals.

©Sherri Brannon 2014

The untrained mind is like a wild horse. It runs away when we try to find it, shies when we try to approach it. If we find a way to ride it, it takes off with the bit in its teeth and finally throws us right into the mud. ~Susan Pivers

Can you tell that I'm in awe of meditation and its possibilities? I simply sit, and I breathe, which sounds so simple. But, oh, how hard it is! Trying to quiet my mind, noisy with thoughts and distraction, is a challenge.

I was surprised to learn we can only speak out loud on the exhale. Maybe the exhale is a state-of-the-heart purge system, a spilling out of our seized-up thoughts to make room for space, and pauses, and peace...all of which come to us on the inhale.

I've barely begun to figure out meditation, but I must say that after sitting quietly for 20 minutes in silence, the difference is noticeable. My body feels so relaxed, and my mind feels calmer despite the busy-ness of my brain. I will keep trying to get better at it, because I think I'm onto something.

My image was taken through the car window while at a stop light...I love that my camera apps allow me to take a very mediocre photo and make it interesting by adding texture and/or layers. I'm sharing my poem at Poets United today - please visit to read more or participate!

Camera App: TangledFX

It's App Happy Wednesday and today I'm sharing an image I edited with an app I often forget about: TangledFX. This app has a dramatic effect on your photos, but sometimes that can be very interesting...I love what the app did to my photo here, especially the storm clouds! I took this during our Florida trip two weeks ago.

After using TangledFX, I moved the image into Mextures and used one of their filters (sorry, I forgot to note which one it was!) to make the sky tones more dramatic.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Wednesday...thanks for stopping by. I'm "sherribrannon" on Instagram.

Poetry: Mirror

MIRROR

My mind and spirit
Can't go to sleep,
Too much time spent
Embracing my bones
And denying my soul.
My lips move but
There is no sound,
My heart wants to move
So there can be
A symphony.

But then
I place a mirror
Against my soul's mouth,
And I watch in wonder
As her breath
Fogs the glass.
My fevered hand writes
her beseeching lines,
Half hers, and
Half mine.

© Sherri Brannon 2014


I shut myself in with my soul, and the shapes come eddying forth. ~Bliss Carman

I think this is the longest I've ever taken to write a poem...this one has been challenging me for a couple of months. It's morphed so many times and I was increasingly dissatisfied. It finally evolved full circle back to where I basically started with it. The first stanza definitely describes where my "writing mind" has been lately. I've felt blocked and distracted...my soul's shapes have been very murky!

I'm linking up with Poetry Pantry today - my image was taken awhile back with my iPhone. This is my kitchen window, and the sun was setting when I captured the shot.

Thank you for stopping by!

Still on Florida Time

It's Friday already and my intention was that I'd have a bunch of photos from Florida edited and ready to post by now...instead, I'm still trying to regroup from our trip and I have barely touched my images. Vacation does that to you - the memories hold on for awhile and you don't want to let go. I'm finding it hard to focus.

So, today I'm posting a few of my Instagram images that represent some major things about Florida, things I most definitely noticed while visiting.

First off, the clouds in Florida are spectacular! I love taking photos of clouds, and I was "oohing and aahing" every day about the different cloud shapes and styles. When we move there permanently, I'll be a very happy girl. :)

Second, I love that almost every single day in the afternoon, rain showers/thunder storms roll in. I guess this might get old after living there awhile, but I found it exciting! Our new home has a lovely covered lanai, and my husband and I enjoy sitting out there while it rains.

Last, but not least, there are lots of alligators in Florida. I haven't actually spotted one yet, but apparently they're lurking everywhere. In our future retirement community, there are stories in the paper quite often of alligators deciding to stroll down neighborhood streets for a visit. Yikes! I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.

Thank you for stopping by - I'm hoping by next week my vacation fog will have passed. I'm linking up today with Kim Klassen's Friday Finds - click below to visit and/or participate!

App Happy Wednesday: iColorama

Today is App Happy Wednesday over at Barb's blog Keeping With the Times - one of my favorite weekly prompts. I'm sharing a photo I took last week while in Florida. I used the iColorama app, which is one of my favorites. I'm embarrassed to say that I've barely begun to understand the incredible capabilities of this app, but I still use it regularly with my very limited knowledge of what it's capable of. If you like making your apps more artistic and/or abstract, this is the app for you. It has tons of brushes and masks and this is the area I haven't forged into yet. For this image, I used one of the Painterly options under the Style section: Van Gogh. There are actually several Van Gogh options and I'm not sure which one I picked, but I did reduce the opacity of it quite a bit to make the effect more subtle. I also put the image in PicTapGo to make it pop a little more.

My daughter and I spent several mornings at this pool while we were down south - the Florida sun felt so good. Don't worry, we were slathered in sunscreen. :)

Flowers are Optimists

Flowers don't worry about how they're going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful. ~Jim Carrey

Hello, blog friends! I'm back from my Florida vacation and we had a wonderful time. It was hard to leave! I took many photos with both my "real" camera and my iPhone, and I look forward to sharing some in the next couple of weeks. We spent time with family and also made a couple of day trips, to Disney and to a farm that had corgi puppies...cuteness overload! My heart about burst open with joy. Nope, we didn't come home with a corgi puppy, for those who were wondering. But, I got some precious photos that I'll share soon!

Most of all, we spent some relaxing hours at our future retirement home and have all sorts of ideas about what we'll do with our house and garden once we're there full time. It's exciting to think about!

Today I'm linking up with Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday, and this week's prompt is "nature". Florida has such pretty flowers and I kept seeing this dainty purple one everywhere. I don't know what it is, but I intend to find out and plant it in my future Florida yard.

Where would we be without flowers? They're nature's cheery optimists, bright with happiness while they're alive and always looking at the sunny side of things. For the above image, I used Kim's "Touch of 2" texture for the background at Soft Light/20%. I also put it through Radlab, and messed with Levels in PSE to give it a little bit of a matte appearance.

Another bit of news is that while I was away on vacation, I was the featured weekly poet over at Poets United (click HERE to visit).



I was very flattered to be asked and enjoyed being interviewed about my poems, photography, art, and writing process. If you want to try your hand at poetry but are hesitant, Poets United is a wonderful place to participate! I've gotten nothing but kind comments from the great group of people who write poetry over there (no critiques, only support and encouragement). Please check it out and join in if it's your thing. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by - have a wonderful week.