Up to my proverbial eyeballs

Our house of 24 years is now officially up for sale! We're packing up and moving downtown, ready for new adventures. I've spent the past month purging, packing, scrubbing and cleaning the house to within an inch of its life in order to make it presentable. I haven't had much time for taking photos, or anything else for that matter. However, this weekend we all drove up to the lake, and spent some time reading and swimming and lounging about like giant slugs. I managed to haul my camera out of storage and snap a few shots of the flowers and odd bits around the cottage and it felt good to be back in the Nikon saddle again.

It's been brutally hot this year, so I missed the peonies, but even as they droop and drop their petals and twist into interesting shapes I think they're worth photographing. I know some prefer flowers that are in full bloom but there is something so poignant about a flower gently fading away. Not sure what that says about me and my time of life, but there it is.

You'll notice a photo of Kicia tucked away in there. She is curled up under a shrub, nestled in the cedar chips in our front garden at home. She prefers that spot over all others, despite the high heat and humidity, and will sleep there quite happily all day long. The fellow that put in our kitchen floor found her delightful as she stretched and slept, oblivious to everyone and everything outside. Odd little duck.(The cat, not the fellow who put in the floor who was quite nice and not odd at all.)

I noticed a lot of "noise" in the photos. I think that's because I had the ISO pumped up to 1600 but I'm not entirely sure that's the reason. Any photographers with more experience and know-how want to chime in and tell me why?