the view from my kitchen sink!

Pam and I fell into one another's circles fairly recently, I think it was around Thanksgiving or so, through mutual blogs we both follow ... and I'm so glad we stumbled upon one another because it turns out we have an awful lot in common.  We're both fellow Bay State residents (and coastal no less!), have a 'tween-age daughter almost the same age, and share a passion for photography and all things leopard.  We've emailed back and forth about everything from our crazy winter weather, to footwear trends for 12-year-olds, to full-on blog tutorials (Pam was the teacher and I was the very appreciative apprentice - have you noticed my larger 'XL' photos?  I owe that all to Pam - thanks, Pam!)  In short, I think she's great and I've really enjoyed getting to know her!

Her beautiful (and I do mean beautiful - oh, her photos!) blog is endearingly titled "Views From My Kitchen Sink" and for her recent one-year blogiversary, she thought it would be fun for her readers to post their own views from their kitchen sinks.  Fun indeed!

So, first, here's my kitchen sink ...

Now about the "view" ... I feel I owe an explanation here.  My house is literally carved into a tiny little nook of land that used to belong to part of a much larger property back in the day.  The land was divided up several ways over time and our cozy cottage-style house was eventually built in 1951 in what used to be the back half of the 'walking gardens' on the property.  The upside?  We have some gigantic crawling rose bushes and an amazing American Dogwood tree that are all older than the house - gorgeous!  The downside?  no backyard: the house was built into a hill, so the backside sits just 7 feet from a giant 8-foot retaining wall that holds back a hill that leads up to our neighbor's gigantic backyard (as in: where they hosted their daughter's huge wedding reception last Fall) ... thus, the first floor of the rear side of the house has no real "view" at all - just the wall and the hill of open space rising above it.  In the summertime, the wall is covered with giant grapevine leaves and ivy all over it, so it's quite pretty ... but in the wintertime ... well, you can see through the window that the stripped vines appear more like tangled ropes covering the wall.  Blech.  But the snow-covered hill sure beats the color of grass in February!

That said, here's the view from my kitchen sink as you look upward ...

looking up the hill from the inside out

do you recognize the "giving tree" that I recently posted about?  It sits atop the wall right in front of the sink

looking straight out the window, but on a cloudier day

looking to the right from the sink - I love that great big tree in the distance, imagine the stories it could tell!

little forest friends like to search through the vines on the wall for treats!

So that's my view!  Thanks, Pam, for inspiring your readers to join in a fun post like this!  I've really enjoyed your blog and getting to know you this winter ... and thanks again for all of your help with my technical questions these last couple of weeks - don't the larger photos look great?!  You're my hero!