| November 17, 2019
I\'m sure that many of you are wondering the same thing, if you live in the USA or Canada. A lot of us got plastered with unexpected snow. A lot of us got hit with freezing January like temperatures. Many of us got both.
This is the story of "CRAZY AUTUMN WEATHER 2019" from a Michigan Perspective. Well, a lower peninsula Michigan perspective. Mine.
(I cannot honestly say that I was in love with this weird weather, but it did make for some great wallpapers... lol)
Sunday, November 3, 2019
What a beautiful Autumn Day! I\'m glad I\'m not driving... now I can take plenty of Fall photos! 
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Oh my goodness... the weather forecast was right! It\'s so early for snow! Oh well... there isn\'t that much of it and it is pretty against the Autumn leaves...  I\'d better stop shooting photos and go to work though.
Wednesday, November 6 2019 9:30am
Hmmm... the snow\'s already started melting some, but it sure makes the foliage pretty! I guess I\'d better get some more photos before it all melts away.
Wednesday, November 6 2019 9:35am
Wow, I love the way that the big golden leafed tree towers over the snowy landscape! But I\'ll go in and start my work day now. It\'s chilly out here!
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Brrrr... is it cold! I\'ve got to find my Winter gloves tonight. I\'m glad that I stopped at this park on my way home from work though. The trees look wonderful! Yep... it\'s Fall after all!
Monday, November 11, 2019
YEEEPS! Look at all of this snow! This can\'t be happening! It\'s only November 11th! We\'ve barely begun to rake leaves yet. Now all of the leaves that fell are BURIED! What kind of crazy weather is this anyway? Four inches of snow already and it\'s supposed to snow all day...!
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
I\'m so glad I agreed to drop my daughter off at her friend\'s house. What a beautiful neighborhood she lives in... all kinds of large lovely trees. It\'s awfully cold out, but I don\'t care... I\'ve just got to get some pictures.
Oh wow... that big evergreen tree surrounded by trees that haven\'t dropped their leaves yet. It will make a lovely photo... that evergreen would make a nice Christmas tree. Reminds me of that old song, "It\'s beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." Hey... wait a minute! It\'s way too early for Christmas! I mean, gee, I like Christmas as well as the next person, but we haven\'t even had Thanksgiving yet!
Sunday, November 17, 2019
I took these traffic photos back on the 11th, but I could have taken them yesterday. So many traffic lights are still plastered with snow. It seems like Autumn has vanished into thin air. Frigid, cold air!
I wonder how long it will take for Autumn to dig itself out?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As I close this journal entry, we still have plenty of snow around here. We also have trees that have crumpled green leaves that didn\'t get a chance to turn colors. Other trees have crumpled golden leaves, while still others look like half plucked chickens. I think the trees are as bewildered as I am! I am wondering what kind of weather will come down the pike next. No doubt it will be something nice and.... unpredictable!
�
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Friday November 1, 2019
What a week...  It was such an exhausting one... and a sad one too.
Most Halloweens are fairly normal for me. I get home, my husband and I eat a quick dinner, and we pass out candy to the trick or treaters. We visit with the neighbors a bit, and swap a bit of candy around. If the weather is good enough, we bring Katie out on a leash for a short time so she can greet the trick or treaters also.
It\'s fun to see the different kids in their costumes... and I love remembering when I used to go trick or treating. One of my grandmothers sewed us costumes to play dress up with, and on Halloween they came in very handy. Some of the characters my sisters and I got to be over the years were Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Fairies with magic wands, Little Red Riding Hood, gypsies and witches.
I have had a couple of unusual Halloweens over the years. One year I was upset with Katie, who was only about 6 months old at the time. I headed for her to give her a correction, but Katie started dancing around thinking that I wanted to play. I ended up tripping over her and crashed to the floor hitting our entertainment center on the way down. About 300 music CDs rained down on me. That year my daughter ended up passing out candy to the trick or treaters while I lay groaning on the couch.
I had one other crazy & unbelievable Halloween in 2013 that involved an even more painful injury. I actually made a wallpaper to commemorate that particular Halloween, and wrote about it in my journal also. Here\'s the link if you want to read about that one...
https://my.desktopnexus.com/CollieSmile/journal/my-crazy-painful-unbelievable-halloween...
What happened this year was more sad than anything else. Last Saturday, the 26th, my uncle passed away after a short illness. We didn\'t find out about that until the next day. Since both of my sisters live out of state, my husband and I got the job of informing my mother. My uncle is Mom\'s only sibling.
Of course she took it pretty hard. My aunt and uncle live in Wisconsin, so we couldn\'t go to the funeral. My Mom probably wasn\'t up to that anyway.
Normally I spend the week before Halloween creating one or two Halloween wallpapers from scratch. But John and I were needed to spend time with my Mom. because she was so sad and upset. We played games and watched DVD\'s with her and of course we talked quite a bit. I didn\'t mind doing that at all. She needed us, and I also was very sad about my uncle. As the week wore on, however, I slowly realized that I wasn\'t getting any Halloween wallpapers done or commenting on wallpapers from some of my groups or anything! I hoped against hope that I could get at least one Halloween wallpaper done and wish everybody on DN a happy Halloween. Well, it didn\'t happen.
To all of you who are in my Cow, Sheep, and Balloons Groups, I apologize. To all of you that I always greet on holidays, I also apologize. I even apologies to myself, for being unable to get at least one wallpaper made. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I did the right thing. We likely will be continuing to see her a lot as she grieves. As for me, I have a hollow but continual aching inside myself. He was a wonderful uncle, and we had a lot of fun together. We understood each other very well.
It was a dreary and wet holiday this year. John stayed at work late, to make up some of the work hours he had spent with Mom. I passed out candy by myself except for Katie. I stayed in the house instead of sitting on the porch like I/we usually do. I wistfully thought about 3 very unfinished Halloween wallpaper projects as the rain continued to come down.
After I gave up on getting anymore kids at the door (it was still raining profusely) I went to my computer and tried to create a wallpaper. Then I realized the time on Desktop Nexus had already began a new day. No October 31st wallpaper for me this year. Oh well.
My husband got home, we ate and watch some TV, and then he went to bed while once again, I tried to make a Halloween themed wallpaper. The one that I finally came up with is below. It\'s not at all what I had planned to create for this year, but at least it\'s something.
Happy Belated Halloween, everybody...
Elaine
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| 10/26/2019
....Well, this isn\'t exactly a reprint yet, but the link below will take you to the actual post, I promise!
I originally posted these "How To" instructions back in 2012. I re-did the directions back in December of 2014, so I figure I\'m way overdue to post them again.
For now, I\'m going to post the journal entry you can go to that actually has the "How to" directions. Here it is!
Elaine
https://my.desktopnexus.com/CollieSmile/journal/how-to-post-a-desktop-nexus-wallpaper-p... |
| Wednesday, October 23, 2019
I\'m pretty tired tonight, so I\'m just going to put my basic profile greetings in here I think. I\'ve been doing that a lot lately... oh well. If you\'re one of my fans or friends you probably saw this already.
Hi Everyone,
I\'ve been longing to get outside & get Autumn on camera. During the past few days, I finally got my chance. It\'s been a feast for my eyes! There are so many wonderfully colored trees in my area right now!
I hope the trees are this beautiful in your neck of the woods! (Or that when your part of the world experiences Autumn, you\'ll have great colors to see also!)
Have a beautiful rest of the week!
Elaine
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| Friday August 30, 2019
Yep, I know that today is September 1st- - - but I meant to post this on August 30th, and I forgot. If you are a fan and/or friend of mine, you have probably read this already, since it\'s what I posted on your profile. But if I missed you for some reason, read on!
PS. There is a story behind these rainbow photos that I was so excited to get. I almost made it another journal entry in itself. The main story is in "A Double Birthday Rainbow" and in my "Robin & Rainbow" wallpapers.
Rainbow & Robin
Greetings to all of my friends on Desktop Nexus!
I\'ve spent a lot of my life chasing rainbows. I finally caught a good double bow in July --- several times --- with my camera. Can you use a rainbow in your life? Search for them after a rainstorm; if there is one it will be directly opposite the sun. In the meantime, here are 5 you can choose from.
Besides chasing rainbows, I\'ve been busy with work & watching my 2 young granddaughters grow. It\'s been an interesting, happy summer for me. I\'m not quite sure I\'m ready for it to end. (I bet that any of you from Australia or other places in the Southern Hemisphere are ready to trade off seasons though. lol)
I never realized that the seasons are opposites in the northern and southern parts of the world until I joined Desktop Nexus. I think that GreenFroggy/Di from Australia was the first person to enlighten me. (I got curious when she was busy uploading Spring wallpapers in the Fall, I think.) That seasonal fact still fascinates me!
For those of you in the USA and Canada who celebrate Labor Day this Monday, I hope you have a great one! As for everyone else on DN, I hear that many of you celebrate Labour Day on May 1st. Don\'t worry... your turn is coming!
In any case, have a great weekend!
Elaine
A Double Birthday Rainbow
The Whole (Double) Rainbow
The Other Side of the Rainbow
A Rainbow Close Up
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| 
If you\'re a fan or a friend of mine, you probably have this posted on your profile already.
June 25, 2019
Hello everyone,
I\'ve been behind in all things DN, especially visiting around. I\'ve been dealing with everything from a very painful tooth to taking a short 3 day vacation. Unfortunately, I had to take the painful tooth with me! Finally, towards the middle of the 2nd day, the tooth began to calm down as the antibiotics I was taking started to work. When my husband and I drove home on the third day, we felt refreshed and rejuvenated. Sooner or later, I\'ll be uploading some vacation photos. We stayed in Michigan and went to Mackinaw Island and then to the Soo Locks in the Upper Peninsula.
Something funny happened to me just before we came home. We were eating at an old fashioned diner. After we had hamburgers, we decided to order soft serve Sundaes for dessert. (I was all for anything soft & easy to eat.) When the waitress brought them out, her hand hit my tall glass of ice cubes and water. Ice and water cascaded into my lap and onto the floor. The poor waitress was very dismayed... but I just burst out laughing. I told her not to worry; she had picked the right person to spill ice water on. I had an extra set of clothing in our suitcase. After John and I ate our desserts, he went out and got me a denim skirt and a green tee shirt. I changed out of my soaked clothing in the bathroom, and then we started our drive home.
I took loads of photos while we were on vacation, but all of the walls here are ones I tried to upload before we left. I simply ran out of time. (2 emergency dental appointments just before we left didn\'t help!)
Anyway, I hope you like these. The "church geese" and the wallpaper with the moon in it were all photographed at my church. The other three photos are ones I took near my home.
Have a great week, everybody. May you experience lots of blue sky and sunshine!
Elaine
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| If you are reading this... you\'ve probably seen it already on your profile...
April 19, 2019
I\'ve been playing with colors...
...keeping my eye out for color loving rabbits...
and being thankful for what Easter is all about.
Have a beautiful & meaningful holiday! And don\'t eat too many chocolate marshmallow eggs!
Elaine
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| March 31, 2019 Sunday
If you\'re a fan of mine you\'ve likely already read this....
I did some unexpected & unusual cloud watching the other day. I\'ve got some striped wallpapers to prove it!
Have you ever seen cloud formations like these? If you have, I\'d love to know about it. They\'re sure new to me.
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| Sunday, March 17, 2019
I have decided to make a journal entry to commemorate the fact that I stayed up waaaaaay.... too late last night struggling with my Irish Abstract Shamrock wallpaper design. (It\'s below.) I am truly glad that I have a wallpaper to show for my efforts, but believe me, before I was finished with it, I felt like this, several times over!
My dream for next St. Patricks Day is to have my Irish wallpapers ready to go several weeks ahead of time. I\'m not holding my breath for it though. I\'ve been on DN for 7 Saint Patricks Days now, (missed #8 by one month) and I have not been ready for it yet...
Happy Saint Patricks Day, Everybody!
Elaine
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| 
(If you are one of my fans, you\'ve probably read this already... on your own profile)
February 1, 2019
I\'ve been a bit out of touch with most of you, because my back decided to go out once again. So up until now I\'ve had to limit my computer time because of back pain. I finally feel better, however, so I\'ll be able to start spending more time on DN.
Have you ever seen sundogs? I got to see some on January 6th. I couldn\'t photograph both of them at the same time, or I might have ruined my camera. (I would have had to point it directly at the sun.) I was able to photograph one sundog at a time though, and I\'ve uploaded 3 of my favorite shots.
I hope you will read the description under one of the sun dog walls, especially if you would like to see sundogs in person. Each description gives the best times of day and the best season for spotting them. I like the way they came out in my photos, but everybody should have the joy of seeing them in person. They are more common that you might realize!
There is one more wallpaper description of mine I hope you\'ll read. The colorful abstract above is a sort of journal entry for me, about the deep polar vortex cold that so many of us in the USA & Canada are experiencing. Michigan residents were asked to do something last night that I\'m sure will go into the history books. Hope you read it and add your own comments!
Take care of yourselves everybody, and stay warm!
Elaine
 |
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I\'d better stop shooting photos and go to work though.
This can\'t be happening! It\'s only November 11th! We\'ve barely begun to rake leaves yet. Now all of the leaves that fell are BURIED! What kind of crazy weather is this anyway? Four inches of snow already and it\'s supposed to snow all day...!
It was such an exhausting one... and a sad one too.
