Sunday's Psalm--Feast of the Holy Family

 

Red and Green

Tom gave us the theme of Red and Green for our Headbanger's Challenge. I will be away for Christmas day and not sure when we will return. I will put this poinsettia up when I return for the header, but here it is in case the voting starts before it goes up.

There isn't a lot of green, but it's there.

This poinsettia is not from this year's crop. This was a bad year for poinsettias.

When we were growing up, Dad was the agricultural inspector in North San Diego County. At that time, it was where nearly all commercial poinsettias were grown, and he got to inspect them. You could go down towards Encinitas and see acres and acres of them.

Now many are grown in greenhouses in various parts of the country.

Sunday's Psalm--Fourth Sunday of Advent

Lord, make us turn to you;

let us see your face and we shall be saved.

O shepherd of Israel, hearken,

from your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth.

Rouse your power,

and come to save us.

Lord, make us turn to you; l

et us see your face and we shall be saved.

Once again, O LORD of hosts,

look down from heaven, and see;

take care of this vine,

and protect what your right hand has planted

the son of man whom you yourself made strong.

 Lord, make us turn to you;

let us see your face and we shall be saved.

May your help be with the man of your right hand,

with the son of man whom you yourself made strong.

Then we will no more withdraw from you;

give us new life, and we will call upon your  

         name.    

Lord, make us turn to you;

let us see your face and we shall be saved.

It's ALMOST Christmas

The idea of the theme came to me because it IS almost Christmas. I thought I would find something else that was "almost"--almost tall enough, almost finished, almost anything but Christmas. But the best shot I could come up with was Christmas--Almost Christmas.

In case you didn't figure out how it shows almost Christmas, look again carefully. The creche before the altar at the church is up and ready for Christmas. And since it is almost Christmas instead of already Christmas, the baby Jesus is not present. The figure will be added at the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve.
 



I wonder if the other headbangers will find some other "Almost" or will also find that it is Almost Christmas. You can check from the links in my sidebar any time in the afternoon on Wednesday.

Here are some more shots I almost got:

Third Sunday of Advent--Isaiah instead of a Psalm

Cry out with joy and gladness:

for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.

God indeed is my savior;

I am confident and unafraid.

My strength and my courage is the LORD,

and he has been my savior.

With joy you will draw water

at the fountain of salvation.

 Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.

 

 

 

 

Give thanks

 to the LORD,

acclaim his name;

 

 

among the nations

make known his deeds,

 

proclaim how exalted is his name.

Cry out with joy and gladness:

for among you

is the great

and Holy One

of Israel.

 

 

 

Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement;

let this be known throughout all the earth.

Shout with exultation, O city of Zion,

for great in your midst

is the Holy One of Israel!

 

 Cry out with joy and gladness:

for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.

Headbangers are looking for Holiday Images in the Square

Lew gave us this theme as his first turn at choosing. I really like this theme, but I gave it a bit of a twist. If Lew was thinking of squares like Times Square or Trafalgar Square, I went back to my brief tenure as a math major and thought of the shape. I like my headers to be fitted to a long rectangle, though, so I added one single letter to the theme. Holiday Images in the Squares.

Oh, the rulebreaker in me has escaped.
 

 

My turn to choose next week. What shall we do?

 

BTW, check the other headbangers out on Wednesday afternoon and see how they have interpreted the Holiday Images in the Square.



Sunday's Psalm--Second Sunday of Advent

Headbangers' Theme Straight and curved lines in a Church

Stewart knew I would have something saved up for his Headbanger's Theme of Straight and Curved Lines within a Church or House as we had spent a lovely afternoon exploring Lincoln Cathedral together a couple of years ago. He probably thought I sould use something like this:

or a Lincoln Cathedral view looking out through the portico:

or maybe the vaulted Gothic ceilings.

He might have thought that I would use something from other churches from that trip, such as this simple scene from St. Margaret's Chapel at Edinburgh Castle,

or this shot of the  dome of St. Paul's in London.

 

 And knowing that we had traveled to other more distant lands as well, he might not have been surprised if I had chosen the simple altar at one of the convents of Mother Teresa's sisters in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India,

or a window shot of some of the Kremlin's onion shaped domes (there are five churches on the grounds of the Kremlin, so this was taken from inside one of the outside of another.)

 

I stayed home for my Straight and Curved lines within a Church to take this shot of the Advent Wreath in our local parish church.

 

 

See where the other headbangers found their straight and curved lines from the links on my sidebar.

Sunday's Psalm--First Sunday of Advent

 

Back to the Future

Craver Vii presented us with the theme "Back to the Future" for this week. It caught me prepared but with a stumbling block. I had a picture ready but coming back from our Thanksgiving with family we found the wi-fi in our hotel out last night. Once again, winds in Weed, California, made a trip home interesting. (Last March in the same spot we had high winds and snow. Last night it was wind and rain.)

So, lacking the opportunity to get a shot of Nigel's De Lorean, which he restored as his senior project, I thought about what I might find along the trip that was futuristic. This post came to mind and a shot I tried to get of the two types of windmills in juxtaposition about that same time.

On our way through Oregon we passed several semis hauling portions of the new windmills. Those things are huge. I have no thought of how to contrast their size to anything. Perhaps this old photo of one of the blades being moved to its location gives a good idea. See it in comparison to the vehicles on the road behind it. This was taken in October 2008. The hills in the distance now hold at least forty or fifty of the wind machines.  

 

So I watched for a good chance at a windfarm picture, and this is the one I chose cropped to fit the header. This is part of the windfarm in the desert east of Los Angeles.

 

Sunday's Psalm--Feast of Christ the King

 

Over the River(s)

We set off over the rivers and through the woods, though the song says to Grandmother's house we go, rather we the grandparents go to the Grandkids for Thanksgiving.  You would have thought that having gone over the Yakima, Columbia, Umatilla, Grande Ronde, Malheur, Snake (twice), Boise, Raft, Bear, Sevier,  Virgin (at least five times), Muddy, Colorado,  Big Sandy, Santa Maria,  Hassayampa,  Agua Fria,  New, and the Salt Rivers, we would have had many pictures to choose from for my own choice of theme Over the River. Alas, when you are determined to reach your destination on a deadline, stopping for pictures just doesn't happen.

The plan was to stop and take new pictures of this bridge at over the Snake at Twin Falls.

We could have sidetracked for a fresh view of the  Blue Bridge at Tri-Cities'

But alas, the only picture stop we made was this viewpoint over the Colorado River just after we crossed the bridge (that I had intended to take pictures of) into Arizona.

 

For my header I am choosing to show something of the reason for our wanting to reach Phoenix before Sunday, We came to cheer on our son-in-law Greg as he completed his third Ironman Triathlon. If we had stopped to take pictures of all those rivers we would have arrived about when he crossed the finish line.



On the 112 mile bicycle leg of the Ironman after a 2.4 mile swim.
 

 

 

The header has Greg in his run (marathon after the swim and bike--making a total of 140.6 miles) along the Tempe Town Lake, after crossing the bridge in the background over the lake which is actually part of the riverbed of the Salt River (thus it really is over the river.)

Check my sidebar for links to the other Headbangers and see what they have made of my theme.

Here are some more Over the River pictures from my archives.

Grandfather Turns Loose the Ponies--looking OVER the Columbia River

 

Icicles hang over the Nisqually River

 

Suspended over the river

 

Would you?

 

Sunday's Psalm--33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Orange

Our Headbangers' theme this week, courtesy of Tom, is Orange.

I considered using this
 

or this

 

and I even took this while I was wandering through Hobby Lobby looking for something else. 

 

But the theme is Orange. hmm. Orange.

 

This is ORANGE! 



 

We say good bye for now to Richard and Chris who promise to stop back and say hi once in a while.

We welcome three new Headbangers, well, two new and one returning. Craver Vii is giving us a try. That is what I said last year. "I'll give it a try." Lew has accepted our invitation and posted his challenge header here. Sandy has returned. She may be the Headbanger whose absence made possible my own invitation. Welcome back Sandy.

Sunday's Psalm--32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Shop Window

I had to go back to England for my Shop Window image. It's not that there aren't any shop windows around here, and I certainly should have brought out the camera while we were at the mall the other day, but the more interesting ones would be in the cities--where I don't live--or require my wandering through town on foot--which I'm not currently fit to do as it would set off a coughing spell.

You don't mind wandering back to England with me do you? I thought not.

I actually have a sort of a shop window photo from walking down Steep Street with Stewart, who proposed the theme for today.
 

Shops in centuries old streets don't have such large show windows as we might be seeking.

 

 

 

While in Newcastle upon Tyne we happened upon this shop which held great interest for me as a quilter. The window above the door next showed old sewing machines, but the sign below indicated it was a purveyor of spirits. What combination is this? Is it the same shop? What might we find inside? Alas, we would not find out as we were there on a Sunday and caught an early train the next morning so we could meet up with Stewart and his lovely wife Julie in Lincoln. Perhaps Julie, who is also a quilter, and I can explore this in another trip some day.

While we were in London we stayed in a suburb where we couldn't see much of the shop windows as we walked between our hotel and our train stop each day of sightseeing.  The whole neighborhood was a maze of construction. I hope they are back to normal now.
 

My choice for the header contains a shop window on the ground floor--but in the windows above is the choice view--the steeple of Westminster Cathedral.

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Richard's headbanger post reminded me of these windows in India. I'll keep my cathedral for the header, but thought you might enjoy the variety the chance to travel provides.

 

Sunday's Psalm--31st Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

Chaos!

Well, it isn't exactly chaos, but consider, if that was how things actually looked when you were standing up straight, things would be very chaotic.
 

 

I've been down and out with a cold all week, so had no chance to take a picture better depicting chaos. Hubby suggested pictures from after the floods at Mt. Rainier six years ago next week. Some of the scenes were pretty chaotic--huge trees thrown down the ridge into the Ohanepecosh River. Campsites destroyed. Washouts on several park roads. Roofs blown off fire lookouts and dropped in the valley below.

 

 

It suggests also the chaos after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Look at the trees tossed helter skelter--even thirty years after the big blow.

It's a little too close to what is happening in the Eastern US right now. Looks a lot more interesting and less frightening after six or thirty years.

 

But this picture does it for me. It is as it came from the camera--upside down. That is how I had to hold the camera to take the picture over my shoulder from the Seattle Big Wheel.

 

Which for me is kind of chaotic anyway.

 

This is our headbangers theme this week. Chaos!

Christopher gave it to us. I wonder what chaos he is getting into this week.

He and the others are listed in my sidebar.

 

This picture makes me dizzy. Dizzier than when we rode the wheel.