Winter Sunrise
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills: #Early to Rise

The word “early” invokes a variety of quotes, phrases, and conditions. Let your mind run wild with these concepts of early:

  • Are you an early-bird, an early riser, or just love being early to events?
  • Were you highly intelligent at an early age or naïve in your early years?
  • Perhaps you are a “later-in-the-day” person and dread the early morning hours.

This week’s Sunday Stills photo challenge theme is EARLY.

If you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late.

Vince Lombardi, American Football Coach

Being a very time-conscious person, in most cases I tend to be early to appointments. Ironically, every Friday morning I rush out the door at 7:45am to get to my 8:00 am yoga class. Sort of defeats the purpose! Although I am only a few blocks away from my gym, I do try to arrive by 10 minutes before the hour to get a good spot and unfurl my yoga mat.

Arriving early to something gives me time to relax a bit and breathe if I’ve had to rush to get somewhere. I am always early to get to my campus office hours and classes. I like that 10 minutes of classroom prep time to gather my thoughts and get media ready for the lecture.

University classroom
Early to arrive in the classroom

Although I don’t claim to be a morning person, I have never complained when I am up early to see these sunrises!

This lovely winter sunrise was taken earlier this month while I was visiting in Spokane, Washington. I got up earlier than everyone, started the coffee and saw THIS out the kitchen window. Despite the COLD temps, I rushed out into the street in my PJs to capture the dramatic textures and colors.

Winter Sunrise

This image was from a few years ago in Baja, Mexico on the Sea of Cortez. Always strange to see the sunrise over the water. We west-coasters are used to seeing sunsets over the water!

Baja Sunrise
Early Baja Sunrise

Back in January, I complained about the gray foggy days typical in Northern California. February tends to be a cool, rainy month, but as of today, we have had NO rain in this area. These warm sunny days are ushering in an early, dry spring which translates into early flowers.

Here is a pic of my neighbor’s poppy.

California Poppies

These California poppies normally pop out in March, but with all this sunshine, I have already seen them along the side of the highways earlier this month. The other day I went to buy some birdseed for a new feeder and found these lovely Icelandic poppies in the garden section. They provide some beautiful color to my front porch.

The poppies are submitted for Cee’s Flower of the Day

Get an early start for March photo challenges! March themes are already posted on the Sunday Stills Photo Challenge page.

What does EARLY mean to you? Show us your take on early with photos, poems, stories or music! Remember, my blog posts early Sunday mornings at 7:00 am (Pacific Time)!

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61 comments

  6. These are all gorgeous!
    I’m of the ‘get there early’ people, as you are, and I think that it is in part because it is less stressful that way. There is enough that’s stressful and out of our control in this life … that to leave a few more minutes for Murphy’s hiccups feels preferable to me.
    Here’s mine, from a trip to Florida some time ago. It is still one of my favorite photos and always gives me the space for a deep breath. The shore, in general, does that.

    Early Light


    Na’ama

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  17. I am one of those people who always shows up early for meetings and appointments. I hate to be stressed out so I give myself plenty of time. I do have a problem getting up early though (so never schedule an early appointment 🙂 ). But, the times I’ve purposely gotten myself out of bed early, I’m never disappointed… I always enjoy the quiet and the unique light of of the early morning. Your poppies are lovely!

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  20. Sadly I am definitely NOT a morning person so sunrises are the least frequent images among my archives 😊. But my husband has turned me into an early arriver as he loathes being late. One of those things that can kill a marriage if someone refuses to adjust. In this case it was a good habit to adopt😊

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  22. Gorgeous pictures, Terri–especially the sunrise. There’s nothing comparable. I’ve taken ‘early’ to an extreme when traveling. I get to the airport about 3 hours early because I won’t forget that time it took almost that long to get through. My kids roll their eyes.

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  23. I’ve always been a morning person, Terri. And I’m always super early at arriving at appointments or events.
    I love the picture of the California poppies. They grow in the wild in certain parts of Wales. We see them every September on our evening walk with the dogs. Not a lot of them, but enough to see how splendid they look. I had no idea they were California poppies, but as my partner is a keen gardener, he informed me.

    Here’s an early morning shot I took on the morning of the winter solstice a few years ago.

    We get such lovely sunrises and sunsets during the winter months. I’m going to miss them. No signs of spring here, but the chocolate Easter eggs have been on the shelves for weeks.

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  26. Love your wintery sunrise photo. I have similar shots and sometimes I look at them at don’t even believe myself when I say I didn’t use a filter. As for yoga, I spent years just getting out of work on time to race down the highway to my favorite yoga class. Sometimes the traffic gods favored me and I was able to take the class. And sometimes they didn’t and I just turned around and went home. And yes, it always struck me as hysterical that I was driving in a mad panic to a class where I could focus on relaxing. Here’es my contribution this week. https://www.unfoldandbegin.com/the-early-morning-sunrise-fills-my-heart/

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  33. I am NOT an early morning person, but I do remember spectacular sunrises when “on watch” during long ocean passages. My shift was from midnight to 6am, so sunrise usually meant I could finally go to bed again. 🙂

    I had to snicker about your comment of rushing somewhere and then being happy to have ten extra minutes to relax and breathe. I would just take my time to get there – not rush and not relax. Haha.

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  35. I love photos of sunrises and sunsets! It’s a secret passion of mine — to view them myself in real life and also enjoy the photos that others have taken. Every sunrise and sunset each day offers new surprises and perspectives in colors and textures. Suffice to say, they are never boring; plus they are our signals to charge up or down!

    I tend to have most of my energy in the morning and do like waking up early even in my retirement life. But there’s one thing that I need to do in order to avoid anxiety: and that is get to the airport early ha ha.

    Loved this post and your photos! I’m also passionate about flowers too!

    Susan Grace

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