The Retiring Sort

Capture the Colour…

Posted on August 26, 2012 by The Retiring Sort

TravelSupermaket.com has posted a Photo Challenge, with a deadline of August 29th. The challenge is called Capture the Colour. Entrants are to post travel photos showing Blue, Green, Yellow, White and Red, following the rules at: http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/capture-the-colour/

Entrants are also asked to invite five other bloggers. Since I’m joining this so late, I’ve picked five who I hope will be able to meet the challenge in time – and they are listed at the bottom of this post.

Here are my color entries:

Blue – Tower Bridge and Blue Skies over London – Taken May, 2010. We’d had many grey skies, but as we crossed another bridge in the top of a bus, this lovely sight greeted us!

Green: Foliage at a lookout point on the Pali Highway, Oahu, Hawaii taken November, 2011 – We’d been talking about this trip for 35 years, and my husband always wanted to drive the Pali Highway. The views didn’t disappoint!

Yellow: Black-eyed Susans in a Connecticut garden. Taken June, 2012 in our front yard. These happy faces greet us every day in the Summer.

White: Queen Victoria Statue in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Taken May, 2010. St. Paul’s has an austere elegance, not only inside the sanctuary, but also outside. This statue echoes the pristine white image of the Cathedral. I just love all of it, including the lovely gold elements that offset the white.

Red: Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace. Taken May, 2010. I’ve wanted to see this since as a child I first heard A. A. Milne’s poem “Buckingham Palace.” I’ve been to London several times before, but this trip marked my first time seeing the Changing of the Guard – I was just thrilled!

My nominees to also take up this challenge follow. I do hope they will have time to do this, as they all have stunning photos to share!

For additional info, see:

https://www.facebook.com/travelsupermarket

Posted in Photo Challenges | Tagged photography, Travel | 30 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban

Posted on August 25, 2012 by The Retiring Sort

The WordPress Weekly Photo challenge is Urban. I usually don’t snap city shots, except to capture landmarks, but I found a few images that show a sense of urban life… just click on a photo to see it larger.

A favorite of mine from San Francisco’s Chinatown.. .

…and two from Beijing showing very different shopping districts:…

And here are some from Paris – not great photos, but definitely city shots. The first two were taken from our tour bus – one showing a Metro subway station entrance, and the other through the front bus window down the Champs Elysees – in heavy traffic.

The last was taken from the Eiffel Tower, showing Paris rooftops and urban sprawl built over centuries!

To see other bloggers’ urban adventures, click here.

Posted in Photo Challenges | Tagged Beijing, Chinatown San Francisco, Cities, Paris, Photo Challenges, photography, photos, postaday, postaweek, San Francisco, Urban | 54 Comments

Travel Theme: Silhouette

Posted on August 24, 2012 by The Retiring Sort

This week’s Travel Theme from Ailsa at wheresmybackpack is Silhouette.

There’s something romantic about a silhouette – the recognizable outlined shape of something, or someone, familiar. A shadow with form. The play of dark against light is always so dramatic and striking.

In Edinburgh, the Walter Scott monument is one of several iconic landmarks with a wonderful silhouette. This shot was taken near dusk on a cloudy evening.

In London, Big Ben and the Parliament building are parts of the skyline nobody should miss. I took this shot in the early afternoon from the Westminster Bridge:

In Hawaii, my husband was struck by the artifacts made from the wood of the Koa (Acacia koa) trees – I was fascinated by the lacy structure of the branches and leaves of the mature trees:

And travelling a little closer to home, in my daughter’s kitchen I caught this silhouette of her cat, on a favorite perch:

Those are some of my favorites… To see Ailsa’s challenge and other bloggers’ silhouettes, click here.

Posted in Photo Challenges | Tagged Big Ben, Hawaii, photography, photos, Silhouette, Weekly Travel Theme | 32 Comments

The Call of the Free Weights – Can You Hear the Voices?

Posted on August 23, 2012 by The Retiring Sort

Two purple hand weights sit beside me on my end table. They are being scrupulously ignored as they wait for me to pick them up.

They should be enjoying happy lifts into the air over my head, feeling the sweep of the air around them as I swing them in circles at my sides. They should have daily exercise, and I should probably take them on a nice walk.

I’m not obliging them. I drove for four hours yesterday, home from a visit to my sister, and now I have other chores to do. I’m not doing those either, but they aren’t in my face, goading me as the weights are. I can hear my little weights whining, “You’d rather spend time with your laptop than with us,” and they’re right.

I’m researching some future posts, catching up on e-mails, and sending photos to my granddaughter via Facebook Messaging. Of course, none of this is gratifying for the free-weights, or helpful to my weight loss and toning plan.

So, as soon as I post this, I will give my weights twenty minutes of undivided attention. Or maybe I’ll watch the evening news as I exercise. I think they’ll understand.

_______________________________________

This post is a response to a WordPress Daily Post Writing Challenge on the topic of active and passive voices in writing, “Listen to the Voices in Your Head.”

To hear the voices of other bloggers’ subjects, click here.

Posted in Blogging, Writing Challenges | Tagged DPchallenge, Free Weights, Grammar, lifestyle, Passive Voice, Physical exercise, Senior Health | 17 Comments

Send the Bat(wing) Signal! Time for Toning!

Posted on August 21, 2012 by The Retiring Sort

I’m getting older, and like many Americans, I weigh more than I should. My hubby is in this boat with me. We didn’t get this way all at once, but if you gain even one or two pounds each year for thirty or forty years, well, the results aren’t pretty! Adding insult to injury, as we age our metabolisms slow down. I myself seem to hit a new wall every decade or so.

Back in May, my beloved and I undertook the 24 Day Challenge to reset our dietary habits and jump-start some serious weight loss. We did very well on two fronts. We each lost about 12% of our total body weight during that month or so, and we established some new permanent habits that have kept us there.

We’ve seen quite a few benefits. We feel better and sleep better. Ailments like gout, arthritis, and asthma have abated. Our skin is clearer. We have learned that dairy products, wheat products, and numerous inflammatory foods really do affect us. (Re-adding the culprits to our diets has an almost immediate impact.) We also need to buy some new clothes!

However, we have “plateaued” and are no longer losing additional weight. Since we still have some distance to go, we are working on that two ways – the first is we are developing a more conscientious exercise plan to go with the diet. The second is rebooting the challenge itself (which coincidentally should include exercise.)

On the exercise front, although we walk and have a treadmill and exercise bike, we are now ramping up resistance and weight training. The reasons for this center around the need to do some serious toning. At our ages, we end up with loose skin and muscles where we’ve lost pounds (can you say bat wings?), and at any age, toning tummy muscles requires some specific concentrated effort!

For me, this means lifting hand weights in various directions (to the front, side, up, down, in circular motions, etc.) in increasing numbers of repetitions – and using resistance bands to pull up, down, forward or backward.

The resistance bands are a nice variation. I have three different band thicknesses for different levels of resistance, and my beloved has made me a station to use them. He added a 1×4″strip of wood to a corner of our basement wall, which we painted to match the wall color, and then added large screw eyes at various heights. We move the bands to those heights using D-rings. Any Target or Wal-Mart store has all the pieces except the wood strip. (click the photo to enlarge it.)

So, we have restarted the challenge, which includes a 10-day cleanse followed by a 14-day food burning regimen, all supported by supplements and a balanced diet of multiple small meals. I am determined to do the toning as well as regular exercise, so that my new clothes will look right on my new frame.

Look out, Gotham City, we’re gonna be stunning!

For more info on toning exercises and the 24 Day Challenge, see:

Posted in Health Issues, Health-Diet, Information | Tagged arthritis, asthma, body toning, Diet, lifestyle, Physical exercise, resistance training, Weight loss, weight training | 31 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

Posted on August 19, 2012 by The Retiring Sort

Photos sometimes merge two or more things that don’t normally belong together, yet sometimes, oddly, they fit. Our WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is to find merged images.

On a walk today, my hubby and I passed this dead tree, which appeared to have fresh growth coming out of the end. Actually, the new growth is a separate plant growing up between the dead tree’s branches:

And then there is the merger of Chinese and American cultures in San Francisco’s Chinatown:

And the merger of I. M. Pei’s modern glass pyramids with the building and grounds of the more classical Musee du Louvre:

Or the juxtaposition of the ancient military watchtowers of China’s Great Wall to the adjacent tourist station and gift shop that sit at the entry to the wall at Badaling: