A New Blog Banner

I've been trying to figure out what pictures I wanted to use in my blog banner. (I used Picasa to make my blog banner).   
 Really, it shouldn't be so difficult but my mind goes a mile a minute in all kinds of directions. I finally decided to use pictures from two of my most favorite places to be. Oregon and Alaska. Evergreens. It's the Pacific Northwest girl in me. Having grown up in Oregon it's in my blood I guess.

The middle picture is Juneau, Alaska and the four end pictures are at Icy Strait Point, Alaska. The name Icy Strait Point doesn't bring to mind anything as enchanting as what it looks like there. I fell in love with the beauty of that area.

 The other two pictures are pictures of my playground as a child. The railroad tracks bordered our backyard and provided hours of entertainment for us kids. Many a penny was flattened on those tracks and the nearby trestle was a place where we would so bravely walk until we heard the ever familiar train whistle. That whistle was enough to quicken your heartbeat and make you run like you didn't know what bravery was! 

The gravel road picture was taken above the house I grew up in. The road was not there when we were growing up. It was an orchard. A prune orchard along with filberts and walnuts further up. My brothers and sisters and I spent countless hours running through these orchards. We would rub dirt on our faces, play army, build forts or spy on the old man who owned the orchards. In high school I would often sit down by the trestle (close to that grove of evergreens in the gravel road picture ) to write my creative writing assignments. It was a peaceful place to sit and dream as the wind rustled through the trees and canyon below. The canyon is called Hells Canyon which goes against how very beautiful that place is.

Well, I best get busy. I need to go bake some valentine sugar cookies for tonights family dinner. Sunday night is the one night we make it a point to eat together since the girls moved out.

My boss was going to throw these crates away at work unless someone wanted them. You know me, I snatched them up in a hurry! They need some new life painted into them. My art studio is their new home and I think they are begging to be painted Behr's Marina Isle ~ a pretty blue green. I'll share their makeover soon :)

~JanMarie