Adorable

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I saw this cute 'puppy' in the carpool line at pick-up time at the boys' school yesterday.  After missing my first side-by-side chance to take his picture, when we got beside him a second time I was fast with the window down and the camera out assuring his owner that she was not in the shot.  6 months old and some sort of Maltese mix.  Absolutely adorable!

I thought I'd share something besides a flower for my daily although I spotted these gorgeous lilies in a neighbor's yard.  Must have been 25 stems with 4 flowers each.  Looks like some sort of amaryllis to me.

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At Madi's house, the tufted titmouse chick was thinking about fledging.  Mom was doing all she could to encourage, and the baby just was not sure.  How adorable too!

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Meanwhile, Sienna was playing with Madi's dog, Salvo.  Salvo is such a good boy with the kids.  Gentle, fun, and handsome.  That's Salvo.

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I don't get to take pictures at Joey's Little League game because I'm very busy being the dugout mom.  It was good to be back in the dugout last night after missing Tuesday's game.  The Lugnuts lost 10-5 but had a 3 up 3 down defensive inning and some good hits and we were proud of them.  I think Joey walked twice but never scored.

Mountain Laurel

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You guys know that I always have good things to say about Donnie, and today's post is no exception. Keeping me safe, comfortable, and happy while I'm recuperating is no easy job, but Donnie is definitely the man for the task. Yesterday, and this morning too, I asked him to stop by the creek on the way home from the morning school drop-off and let me get out and shoot some Mountain Laurel pictures. With a smile on his face, he stopped the van, got out with me, carried my equipment, and made sure I held onto him while I went up and down the embankments necessary to get over to the flowers. He had a patient smile on his face as I took an abundant number of pictures to hopefully get THE one. He listened to the waterfall off in the distance with me, and I even got a kiss. What a guy!

I'm feeling a bit better today.  Adding in some ibuprofen to the standard pain meds seemed to help a lot.

Today's post is a mix of shots from the last two mornings. Let me also add that getting the focus just right on these flowers is hard! One bush has lighter toned red spots than the other too, and it wasn't just a matter of older vs. newer blooms. One bush is just really darker.

See if you can spot the spider in my daily:-)

The wheat is looking good in the nearby field.

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The waterfall which sounds more impressive than it looks.

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See the lack of red in the flowers on this bush.

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These flowers are just as pretty and unique closed as open.

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Even the Skipper butterflies like these flowers.

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See the darker red splotches here!

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I hope you guys enjoyed sharing my yearly Mountain Laurel fix...

In Little League news...  Johnny got his first base hit and RBI last night.  Way to go Johnny!

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Purple on Red

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I'm having a bit more pain then I expected from the surgery, and I didn't get to take any new pics yesterday. I pp'ed this iris shot with PicMonkey this morning and hope you enjoy it.  It's from a week or so ago.

Clyde

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Since I post a lot of flower pictures, it makes sense that my 'stranger' picture would have flowers as a back-drop.  Meet Clyde.  A nice semi retired guy with a NY accent working at the local Home Depot in Fuquay-Varina, NC.  He joked with me that I was taking flower pictures so that I could hand a 'list' to my sweetie of what I wanted.  Not quite;-)  He was shy about having his picture made, but he did know that I took the picture of him.  Hopefully if he were to see it he'd like it!

My surgery went OK.  No problems.  Moving a bit slow this AM but doing well.

The Flowers of Home Depot

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Dahlia's are the daily photo and many other flowers for sale at Home Depot too.  Taken Saturday.  Ah...spring!

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Today is surgery day.  Hopefully I'll be done and back on my way home this afternoon in no time  No caffeine this AM...grrrrrr....

Wet Peach

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Donnie and I were good about exercising yesterday.  Mostly it was Donnie doing his nearly daily 3 mile run and me deciding to get on my bike and ride while he ran.  It was 55 and misting on and off the whole time.  Just a tad cool for me but perfect for Donnie running.  On my first pass through all the neighborhood streets, I scoped out a few flowers to stop and take pics of on a second pass.  The beautiful white clematis and dripping wet peach iris in particular caught my eye.

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Saturday night dinner:-)

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Fly!

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Donnie and I checked on the progress of the bluebirds that are nesting in his yard/box yesterday.  We saw 3 healthy chicks.  You might remember on 4/15 I saw 3 brand new babies and one unhatched egg.  I guess the 4th egg never hatched.  Too bad but at least the 3 are doing well.  From the deck near the box which is at the 2nd story level, I took some shots of the mom and dad in the tree that's next to the box.  Such beautiful birds and a joy to watch.  I caught the dad taking off one time right as I went to take his portrait, and that's the picture that I pp'ed and posted as my daily.  Here's the original.

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Notice that I had to fix the whited out branch.  I pulled it from another shot where it wasn't overexposed and added it into the daily shot as a new layer.  The shot was pp'ed in Color Efex Pro and then PhotoFrame for the texture.  It was already not sharp, and I wanted to smooth it out and blend it in and then texture it up some.  Donnie picked the one with the texture vs. the one just pp'ed in Color Efex Pro which is here.

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