SkyWatch Friday: "Light up the Darkness"

I've been away from blogging for over a month and absent from SkyWatch Friday much longer than that. I mostly blame a lack of inspiration in both cases. Our usually flamboyant skies have just been "meh" for much of the winter, with no pretty sunsets, dramatic storms, or interesting clouds. And while I can almost always count on our sunrises, this one from Jan 22 was the only one that motivated me to grab my mothballed camera...

Pretty, but compared to our typical sunrises not deemed worthy of a SkyWatch post!

But when I got up this morning and looked outside, I finally saw potential. Lots of great clouds and some golden light on the horizon. If more colors appeared, we'd be in business!

But for a long time, the sky and clouds just kept turning yellow. Till finally… 

Not bad, but still short of its potential (I expect a lot from our skies, don't I?) :-) But at last, it lived up to its promise...

I took this one a little over a minute later, just before the colors began to fade...

It was a sunrise that took Bob Marley's advice on what would have been his 70th birthday:

And it was a sky finally worthy of SkyWatch Friday!

The Capricorn Kid

"Old people are scary and I have to face it -- 

I am old and I am scary and I am very sorry about it, but I don't know what you do." 

~Dame Maggie Smith :-)

Well, I have a few years to go yet before I plan to consider myself "old," but today I advanced a year closer... and I'm definitely scary since I woke up in the wee hours with a sore throat and that "oh no, I'm coming down with some sort of pestilence" feeling. Fortunately it's very wintery outside and so we're all snugged in cozy-like, enjoying a quiet day of puzzles, movies, and football. My kinda day, despite the creeping crud.

Anyway, to mark the turning of another digit on my body's odometer, here's a photo of me taken just before my first birthday...

The Capricorn Kid

I don't remember ever seeing it before finding it a few months ago, tucked in an unfinished album of my Mom's, but it became an instant favorite. It may be ancient history (I mean really, look at that vintage Nov 1962 issue of Good Housekeeping in the magazine rack!), but some things never change: the hair has gray in it now but is still every bit as feral, that chip-on-the-shoulder body language looks awfully familiar, and I wear the same expression on the rare occasions I have to dress up. :-)

And since no birthday blog post of mine would ever be complete without a Capricornian homage to one of my favorite critters, here are some of the lucky rescued goats of Someday Farm B&B, where we spent an idyllic week during our trip to the Pacific Northwest in 2013...

Scuffy, who became my immediate BFF, nuzzling her buddy.

(I nicknamed her Scuffy because of the bald scuff mark on her throat, 

which she got from spending so much of her time doing this!)

Scratching Scuffy's sweet little nubbin head, so happy among the critters!

Bill was my other favorite among the goats, and I love this photo I took of him

Well, I'm all partied out now, and must return to my spot on the sofa with its handy box of tissues and bag of herbal throat lozenges, to watch the NFL playoffs as BW puts the finishing touches on this year's yummy birthday cake! Washed down, no doubt, with homemade elderberry syrup. Cheers!