A Beautiful Picture by Kim Ayres

One day quite some time ago, I was bored. So, I went hunting up some more good blogs to read. I found Ramblings of the Bearded One through Blogs of Note.

I loved his photography (pictures). I liked his style of writing. I loved how I would get a hint of what the blogger's life is like. I liked the fact that he's not in the same country as I am. And, I loved the fact that he had a beard. (Confession: I love beards -- Dan himself has one. I haven't seen his nekkid face since before we got married). So, I added this blog to Google Reader and have been reading it ever since.

Here's one example of why I like his blog: I never heard of The Wickerman Festival until he mentioned it recently -- very fascinating tradition/history. And, it's amazing how they take the time to build a 30 ft structure only to have it burn up in flames in mere minutes. I found it all fascinating.

Here are the links to the blog posts about Wickerman with pictures if you're interested...

Building Wickerman
Burning Wickerman

Anyway, I'm not big on commenting on blogs. But recently, I realized that if I like to see comments on my own posts even if it's only a "hey!", then I'm sure that others would probably like to see comments from me. So, I try to be brave and comment with my honest opinions. However, there are quite a few blogs that I read regularly that intimidate me for some odd reason; so, I rarely comment on those. His is one of them.

This man has been blogging for five years. Wow. Five years! That's amazing! He offered a giveaway for his fifth anniversary -- a high resolution image of any of the photos he has taken that are either on his blog or in one his photo accounts. All we had to do was tell him what we'd like to see him blog about.

Heh. I had no ideas whatsoever. Plus, I liked what he's been doing so far. As far as I was concerned, he didn't need to change or blog about things he thought others would be interested in. So, I basically just told him to continue doing what he's been doing all along. I also told him that I didn't want my comment to be considered an entry because I didn't know what I'd do with the print if I won because I currently live in a rental and we don't have very many things hanging on the walls (don't want to put holes in the walls of a house that we don't own). He did comment back saying that I could use it as a desktop background. I never even thought about that until he mentioned it. But, I still didn't have a clue (idea) to what he could blog about.

Anyway, I found out yesterday that I was a winner. In fact, I think every person that commented on his post was a winner. He mentioned that he was a big sucker for flattery. I had to laugh when I read that. I thought it was mighty generous of him to do this.

I picked out his Aquilegia print. I thought it'd be perfect to hang up in my future dream kitchen, which will be painted in a subtle green and accessorized with a few pigs (My Gram had pigs on top of her fridge in her kitchen once upon a time and it's stuck with me ever since). Before you think, "ugh!" about how I want to do my kitchen, I need to say that not all the accessories will be pigs -- it will be just a main accent if you will. Anyhow, since pigs are generally pink, I thought this print would be perfect because it had shades of green with the pink flowers. And, it helps that I absolutely love wildflowers (or flowers that look like they could be wild).

I received the print and my goodness, it's absolutely gorgeous. I plan to view it often and can hardly wait for us to find our dream home.

I thank him from the bottom of my heart for giving away this picture. He didn't have to; but, I'm glad he did.