Travel Words’ 2020 Photo Challenge theme for September is “point of view” and for this final week, the subject is shoot from above.








Travel Words’ 2020 Photo Challenge theme for September is “point of view” and for this final week, the subject is shoot from above.
This isn’t really a flower, but it’s an autumnal plant growing along the shore of our West Lake, where plants are just left to grow wild. I don’t know the name of it either, but when I spotted it, I stopped to examine it, and finding it interesting, I photographed it! It has a seed pod that resembles a pine cone growing on it.
Closer:
Close-up of its seeds:
If anyone can tell me the name of this plant, I’d appreciate it!
Posted for Cee’s FOTD 10/1/20.
This is Bushboys World‘s monthly challenge, Last Photo: September to post the last photo of the month on your camera or cellphone (or both!). This is a fun and easy challenge to participate in. Don’t forget to click on the link to see others’ contributions!
I did a bit of editing to this photo of a katydid. It’s a rare insect to spot – at least for me. But I feel an affinity for this katydid, since we share a name! 🙂
I have now added this photo, because I downloaded the photos on my memory card for my Sony camera today. This is the last photo I took with my camera in September at a kitschy Egyptian-ripoff place in Wadsworth, IL (near Gurnee). At this place, they supposedly sell a special bottled water called “Gold Pyramid Natural Mineral Water” but the place was closed and the gold pyramid (which is a house) is no longer gold because they had a fire. So we took pictures at the entrance and through the gate.
Marilyn Armstrong of Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth has taken over a monthly challenge called The Changing Seasons.
The Changing Seasons is a monthly challenge where bloggers around the world share what’s been happening in their month. To join in, you can either:
 1. post 5-20 photos in a gallery that you feel represent your month. Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.Â
or
2.  post a photo, recipe, painting, drawing, video, whatever that you feel says something about your month. Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
In either case, tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so others can find them. One thing that won’t change though. Include a ping-back to Marilyn’s post, and she will update it with links to everyone else’s.
Marilyn says, “For those of us who have participating in this challenge for years … since the first years when Baron Guzman ran the challenge, I think we have our own style on how to make this work. I could never use a single picture. I’m too indecisive. Especially given the rapidly changing climate we are experiencing, I think this is an important challenge.” Ditto for me about indecisiveness! So here’s my September photo gallery: Visits to kitschy or pretty places in our area (because we can’t travel), flowers, and season changes were the things that characterized September 2020.
Recycling styrofoam at Dart Co. in Aurora; sculpture called “Solitude”; Mr. Eggwards (Humpty Dumpty doppelganger); sunflowers at Cantigny estate in Wheaton; Tribune magnate McCormick’s house at Cantigny; outdoor BBQ stove at my niece’s house in Evanston; 4 silos surrounding Inverness Town Hall; Black Lives Matter billboard (a little bit of sanity in an area full of Trump signs on lawns); all that’s left of a factory in Grayslake, now in the middle of a park; kitschy Egyptian copies of statues & pyramid in Wadsworth, officially known as “Gold Pyramid House” (the pyramid isn’t gold right now because they had a fire); hibiscus flower after rain; rare red flower called “cardinal flower” (it disappeared within a day or two); zinnias in my garden; mini petunias in my garden; tree branches on the campus of our community; katydid (I feel an affinity – we share a name!); sunset in a nearby suburb; another sunset in a nearby suburb; West Lake (pond on the campus here) with its many ducks – most of them young adults (a few months ago most of them were ducklings).
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge continues with her theme “all about buildings” and this week’s topic is colorful buildings.
In Amsterdam, Holland:
the red light district
De Pijp neighborhood (across from our Airbnb)
Miltenberg, Germany:
storefront
the Town Hall (Rathaus)
Wurzburg’s colorful cathedral:
Budapest, Hungary:
Todos Santos, Baja California, Mexico:
Costa Rica:
Sports stadium in Aswan, Egypt:
Tucumcari, New Mexico, USA on Route 66:
Shamrock, Texas (Route 66):
Cuba, Missouri (Route 66):
Uranus, Missouri (Route 66):
Fandango’s provocative question #88 is this:
To what degree have you been able to control the course that your life has taken? Or is being in control of your life just an illusion?
I watched a science program the other day that discussed unanswered questions posed by quantum physics, such as the possibility that everything that happens in the universe was predestined at the time of the Big Bang. Other people see it in religious terms, that God has control over us and sees our past, present and future, that God can decide whether to make something happen or not. I don’t believe God controls my life and quantum physics is too confusing for me.
We as human beings don’t have total control over our lives. We might be born in a wealthy, powerful country or in a poor, underprivileged country. Within that country, we are born into a particular race and class, both of which have repercussions in a society – culturally, politically, socially, economically. Within that race and class, we are born into a family that is loving and supportive, one in which there is abuse and violence, one which values education, or one that does not. Then there are individual limitations: inherited or nurtured. We have talent for something but our limitations hold us back. Within all these parameters, we have choice, or a modicum of control. Will we choose to develop our natural talent or pursue a more difficult course? Will we let our physical or mental limitations hold us back or will we overcome them or at least find coping mechanisms?
So yes, I do believe I have had SOME control over my life but a lot has been given to me by being born white, upper middle class, in the United States of America, which in spite of its faults, has provided me with privileges unavailable elsewhere. My parents had the money for me and my siblings to go to college and in our family we never fought over money because we had enough (not an excessive amount, but enough). I have been able to travel due to this. My parents encouraged all of us to pursue careers: whether we were girls or boys, they had the same expectations for us. They did what they could in terms of love and support to make us happy. I was also given intelligence, which is probably largely inherited, although it took motivation to develop and use it to my advantage, something I have not always done. I am lucky to be reasonably healthy, and I can control whether I stay that way – by eating healthy and staying fit – but I can’t control the fact that I have a heart problem inherited from my father. However, having the knowledge of this problem gives me control over how I deal with it. The more education we have, the more knowledge we acquire, the more we can control our lives. I was able to get a master’s degree in teaching and also have acquired knowledge in the ways of the world.
BUT, I did have limitations and caused disappointment for my parents because some of the choices I made were because I was afraid to challenge those limitations. I have often been afraid of decision-making because I have trouble making decisions, so sometimes I made NO decision (which was a decision in itself). I didn’t have to marry my first husband, for example, I shouldn’t have – that was a disappointment; but the second time around I chose a much better match. I chose to have a child with that first husband, who inherited mental illness as well as abuse from his father, which has greatly impeded his life. I chose to change careers in my late 40s, and decided to go into teaching, which in the end was probably not the wisest choice but I did the best I could. Many of the hurdles were beyond my control – discovering I have ADHD, trying to complete as a 50-year-old woman with a master’s degree with 25-year-olds with a undergraduate degree, the emphasis on high stakes testing, bad administrators who weren’t held accountable, the low esteem that our society seems to hold in general for teachers, the negative view of bilingual education (which was my field), etc.
Besides choices, there is attitude. I have always been a more or less optimistic person, believing in positive outcomes, but I am also skeptical by nature because I analyze everything. I try to figure out the “why” of mistakes I’ve made. Not everyone can or will do this. I want to fix problems but within the limitations of my own life, I do control what I choose to do about problems that plague a wider world. I try to get people in my community here to recycle, for example. I can’t control if they actually do it, but I can make myself heard to encourage it. I write letters to people to encourage them to vote. I may be demonstrating in the streets if Trump tries to undermine the results of the election. But I could choose to do none of those things and just live my life doing the things I prefer doing – reading, writing, drawing, etc. Within my own patch of the world, I do have some control.
All alternative paths in life I could have chosen maybe play out somewhere in the universe. But here in 3 dimensions on planet Earth, I look back on my life with some disappointment but mostly with gratitude.
Right now we are living in a very scary time – in the middle of a pandemic with a president who is threatening to overthrow democratic norms in order to make himself dictator or king, as well as all the other things happening – strained race relations, climate change as evidenced by out of control wildfires out west and hurricanes down south (I am fortunate, I guess, to live in the Midwest where neither of these things are happening or are likely to happen), the numbers of people dying from Covid-19 increasing at an alarming rate, etc. It’s easy to think we have very little control over our lives right now. Yet I admit I am pretty secure in my life. But I don’t kid myself that I have total control – it’s only a matter of attitude and choice in how I respond to things that are beyond my control that I have control. Self-control, that’s about it.
I used to know the name of this flower in the community garden, but I can’t recall it now! Feel free to remind me of it if you know it!
Update: A few different people have informed me that it is a “malva” which is commonly known as “mallow” in English. I looked it up and it is the correct name. Thanks, Bruce and Alison!
I’m combining Dr. Tanya’s 5 Things and PC Guy IV’s Truthful Tuesday, both of which are about one of my favorite subjects: EATING! This is possibly the first time I’m participating in Truthful Tuesday but I like PC Guy’s questions so probably will again.
And now Dr. Tanya’s Five Things: 5 Favourite Ways To Enjoy Potatoes
This is a hard one, because I love potatoes any way they are prepared – when it comes to potatoes, I can’t go wrong whatever I decide to order or cook. But I do have favorites. Here they are in no particular order.
2. Mashed potatoes – definitely with butter, never gravy. The picture below shows how I like them best.
I once bought online a tool to make potato chips at home. You cut the potato (raw or slightly cooked) in thin slices, and insert them into the little slots on this potato chip maker, then bake them at a hot temperature. They turned out well but I lost the thing to put them in so I never did it again!
Potatoes are one of the foods I find hard to resist, no matter how disciplined I am about not gaining weight.
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