I misremembered the theme for this month’s photo blogging challenge. For some reason I thought it was “New and Forward Looking”. Phew! At least that’s pretty close to Nice, New and Looking Ahead. I blame the accountant in me for the “forward looking” piece (as in forward looking financial information, something that has to be qualified six ways from Sunday if you’re a public company). I digress…

Selecting a “final five” set of photos for this post, I realized very few of my photos from this month imbue all three characteristics. Some show looking ahead. Others showcase something nice and/or new. A subset embody two of the three. But few – if any – manifest the theme in its entirety. I wonder how everyone else did with this aspect of the challenge?

1. Nice, New and Forward Looking Boots

I received new winter boots this month (thank you, Mr GeoK). They replaced a worn-out pair that I bought at the start of the winter of 2019-20. I should have replaced them last winter. So my feet sure appreciate the upgrade. My new Keen Revel IV Polar mid-height boots are warm, have clips for gaiters, feature one of my favourite colours (mountain lake turquoise) and have snowflake-rated traction. They are nice, new and forward looking (because boots can’t be worn backwards!). 🙂

2. New Day

This is a long exposure of a sunrise reflection in a thin layer of water running overtop a layer of ice on a side channel of the Bow River. We’ve enjoyed a LOT of beautiful sunrises in Canmore this month. Rather than a big landscape composition, I’ve opted to share a more abstracted interpretation of sunrise-tinted clouds and winter bare shrubs.

3. Nice, New-to-me Breakfast

My go to breakfast is a bowl of oatmeal porridge seasoned with cloves and cinnamon, blended with 1 Tbsp ground flax and 1Tbsp hemp seeds, all topped with blueberries, nuts and a splash of milk. I opted to start almost every day this way after reading How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Gregor several years ago.

For Christmas, a good friend gifted me a jar of her favourite honey (infused with orange zest). It’s amazing! So for a few days running this month, I switched to a bowl of fresh fruit salad accompanied by two slices of toast spread with peanut butter and that very delicious honey. I’m back to oatmeal most days, but bring out the honey at least once/week.

4. Not so Nice, New-to-us Hike

We did one new-to-us hike this month: King Creek Ridge in Kananaskis. Technically it’s not entirely new-to-us, because we started hiking this trail one summer more than 15 years ago, and turned back because it was too steep to do with little kids.

Inspired by Mandy’s glowing review of her New Year’s Day hike with Colin on this trail, we decided to give it try. Winter conditions can make for a very different hiking experience.

The front end of this trail is brutally steep, gaining about 800 meters elevation in a little over 2 km (2600 feet over a mile and a quarter). For that reason alone, I categorize it as “not nice.” Unlike Mandy’s bluebird day, clouds and light snow made for tough lighting for photography. And a biting wind had us heading for the treeline before we had a chance to truly appreciate the views.

I took this 360-degree photo with my phone at our turnaround point. It fits the “looking ahead” part of this month’s theme, since you literally look to every direction when shooting a 360.

Regardless of the “not nice” aspects of this particular hike, we are looking forward to more new-to-us hikes this winter and over the more traditional summer hiking season.

5. Looking Ahead to Adventures with our (nice, new Lego minifig) Family

It took me a while to find our last Lego minifig family portrait. It was for the April 2015 PBC theme: friends and family. This time around, from left to right: our oldest (who works from home, wearing a headset most of the time) and his partner, A. In the center, Mr GeoK (notice the flashy belt) and me (with natural silvery stripes in my hair). And on the right, our youngest young adult, who does a much better job styling hair than I ever did or ever will!

Anyhow, we look forward to all kinds of family adventures in 2023: playing board games, hiking, biking, kayaking, cooking, building Lego and more. And even if the younger generation can’t join us IRL, their minifig counterparts can join us on all kinds of out and about adventures!

So ends the first month of 2023. A month for appreciating nice, new things and looking ahead to how best to achieve our hopes and dreams for the year.

Check the linkup on PJ’s blog to see how everyone else to photographed the idea of Nice, New and Looking Ahead. While you’re there, please consider joining us for February – the theme is Love. All you need are 5 photos to share via the blogging platform of your choice. The amount of accompanying text is entirely up to you.

If you’re not inclined to join our small (but friendly) photo blogging challenge community but want to share something you’re looking forward to, please drop a comment. It’s always interesting to learn about others’ plans for the year.