So these are the sort of things that happen when I am relaxing over the weekend and let my mind wander.

I decided to try my attempt at a twitter hashtag, #MessagesFromTheFuture, with random thoughts, such as:

Of course, I am no twitter genius.  There are plenty of things I can do that are a lot smarter than this, but at least I’m amusing myself, if no one else.

In the meantime, I am taking pictures.

So this is a close-up of a leaf from our garden.  (No, I do not remember which kind).  Notice the patterning on this leaf.  I’ve been a fan of fractal designs for a couple decades now, and this just kind of blew me away, because it actually matches (or comes very close to) matching one of the fractal designs I used to work with.

I wish I knew where I had put those files– I’d include a matching image here if I had one.  I’m hoping those of you into higher math (you know who you are) will remember this pattern and be able to provide a link to it.  By the way, this is a much smaller version of the photo.  Clicking on it (as with most of these) gets you to a larger version.

Macro work is kind of fascinating for me.  Since I do it outdoors, generally without a tripod, I have to take a great many shots of moving targets to get one just barely in focus. It’s complicated, but fun, and most focal work is manual and takes precision that I tend to lack without the help of an automatic camera.  But still… I sometimes succeed and sometimes come close enough that I’ll go ahead and make it public anyway.   This close up of a jewelweed, which is about the size of my thumb, however, is just kind of perfect:





And I like these Syrphid Flies quite a bit:





These are two of my favorite flowers:





This one came out moderately well:



This bee came out very crisp and clear:





This bug is significantly smaller than the nail on my pinky finger:





And this spider was small enough that I thought it was a speck of dust.  If you are familiar with echinacea flowers, you can get a sense of just how tiny this bug is:

And speaking of spiders…



It’s been a long week.  I’m still learning to live with illness.  I’m doing well, but not great.  There’s a very good chance I’ll need a surgery which will take a month to recover from, but I don’t need it urgently, and can wait until a quieter time.  My vision is mostly good, but not great, and my mood varies.

Though I am finding the vision to be improving, the speech problems I’m experiencing are of extreme frustration to me.  I like to talk.  I get up and talk in front of people comfortably and without hesitation and the vast majority of what I do for a living involves talking to people.

I know that if this is taken from me, I will learn to work with it, but it is, in some ways, more difficult than the double vision, if for no other reason than that it is lingering while the double vision for the most part is not that persistent an issue any longer.

But I will manage, and find a way through.  And the surgery will be brutal and unpleasant, but I will survive it and it will improve things, at least for a time.  

And in the meantime, I find humor in small things, amusing myself on twitter, taking pictures that I kind of love, getting ready for an exhibit next Spring, and just mostly enjoying life despite the moments of fairly extreme frustration.