Girl meets boy. Girl woos boy with her Star Trek knowledge. Girl falls on ice, and boy catches her. Boy asks girl to marry him, and girl loses her voice. History. Made. Memories made. Love made.
Love: Small word. Big concept.
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
This is what happens when you connect with a tree:
Our first family sledding trip was somewhat more eventful than expected. We took them out to the lake, got the sleds all set up, and watched with bated breath as the kids took off down the hill. But then Thumper’s sled veered right.
He was flying down the hill and headed right for a stand of trees.
I love shooting the sky:
I have more pictures of the sky than you can shake a stick at, and I love them all equally. Well, I love most of them equally. Narrowing it down to eighteen was hard work, especially as I’d intended to narrow it down to ten…
What’s your favorite thing to photograph?
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
As I said before, I love the wild places. The lonely places. Places where man’s influence is hard to feel. That kind of solitude can leave a person feeling tiny, insignificant even. Or it can leave you feeling huge, too big for the space you’re in.
Waiting for the bus…
Foggy days, though dreary, leave me a little claustrophobic. I often liken it to a curtain or shroud in poetry, and for me, it’s a fitting description. When you’re driving down the road and the fog is so thick you can barely see the front end of your car, it can feel suffocating. Of course, if I’m at home when the fog rolls in and I don’t have to leave the house, then I feel more cozy than trapped.
On the other hand, when you can see for miles, it’s very easy to feel very small. A leaf on the wind. And yet, that can be an amazing feeling, to know that you’re a part of something so big and that, though small, your actions can profoundly impact the world around you.
Take the man – men – who built this bridge. They probably expected it would be used forever, or at least for a very long time. They built it to last, and last it has.
But the trains don’t run through here no more.
It’s a picturesque little spot on the river, though, and I’d love to go back one day with my camera and my sense of adventure. There’s something about the wild, lonely places that draws me in every time…
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
My bliss lies in writing. I love it – I can’t get enough of it.
So many irons in the fire…
No, really. When I haven’t written in a while, I start getting really cranky. Ask my family.
Of course, that also extends to times where I’m not writing as much as I’d like, or times where extracting the story from my brain is like extracting a particularly difficult wisdom tooth, or times where editing is kicking my butt six ways from Sunday…
Still, writing (and editing, I suppose) is my bliss. What’s yours?
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
Today’s Photo 101 prompt involves water. I have lots of pictures of water – trying to choose just one was not easy!
But there was an added challenge for this post, and it involved orientation. Vertical or horizontal – which one’s better?
In this case, I like the vertical one best:
These are some old pictures; Bubbles was only three when these were taken. This was his first-ever fishing trip, and it spoiled him a little bit because he caught a fish just about every time he dropped his line in the water. They bit quickly, too – none of that waiting business that so often goes along with fishing.
If only every fishing trip could be like this one… 🙂
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
When I saw this prompt, I knew exactly which picture to share:
It may not be new, but it’s one of my absolute favorite pictures. I shot this on our family vacation last summer. It took us fourteen hours to get to the Black Hills, and there were plenty of streets and roads along the way. Roads crammed with cars eager to leave the city behind, streets full of pedestrians out enjoying the summer sun.
But this one?
This one captured my imagination from the moment I laid eyes on it. I love images like this, where man’s influence is minimal at best. Where the only evidence another person has ever trekked across these hills is a lonely road and a dream. Places like this seem to be growing fewer and farther between.
Sure, this photo isn’t perfect. It’s a little pixellated because I had to zoom in from across the road to get the image I wanted. It was the middle of the afternoon when I took this picture, and we were all exhausted after driving all day the day before. It was quiet in the car; the kids were too busy pressing their noses to the windows to bicker. But that only lasted while we were in motion – once we stopped, all bets were off. If I’d had more time, I could have crossed the road, but that wasn’t an option. This photograph is like us – imperfect, but beautiful. Despite its – our – flaws.
Because of them, even.
Every time I look at this picture, I feel peaceful. The storm has not yet broken, and the road calls to me, its twists and turns promising adventure just beyond that hill. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other. As in pictures, so it is in life.
Sometimes all you have to do is just keep swimming/walking/writing/photographing.
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
That’s me on the bottom right. Thank goodness high-water pants haven’t made a comeback.
Home is where your story begins.
My story began in a modest red house on a quiet corner in a small town. But nothing stays the same for long, and when my little sister arrived a couple years later, that quiet corner became considerably less quiet.
And so it goes.
Many years (and even more plot twists) later, I left that modest red house with its white garage and its yard full of trees behind me as I ventured out into the world. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to go back to that little red house on the corner, but it was too late. I was too grown up.
Maybe you can’t go home again, but you can always take it with you.
You can’t go home again.
So I made my own home. Several times over, in fact. And while I think it’s true that you can’t go home again, that’s only because I believe that home is something we carry with us wherever we go. Home is in our memories. Home is in the way we look at the world. Home is the way we treat others.
Home is a state of mind, a way of being, a feeling that can’t be taken away.
When I think of home, I think of the warmth of my grandma’s kitchen. I think of the hustle and bustle that went into family get-togethers. I remember the after-dinner tea and cookies, and how all of those things came together the morning after my second wedding as we all congregated in the kitchen of my new home.
Home is family. Home is friends.
Tadpole and Bubbles like to get up to all sorts of shenanigans.
Home is where your heart is.
It may be a sappy cliché, but that’s only because it’s true. Home is where your heart is because, without heart, there can be no home.
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
A beautiful sunrise is a great way to get the day off to an optimistic start.
What keeps you optimistic?
(c) 2016. All rights reserved.
…Happiness and cheer,
Fun for all
That children call
Their favorite time of year…
It’s beginning to look a bit more like Christmas round these parts:
But it’s been warmish and rainy here the last two days. Last night while we were decorating our tree, we had a thunderstorm. That made it feel rather more like Christmas in July.
The kids had their annual 4-H cookie walk yesterday morning and then went Christmas shopping at a local church. We listened to Christmas music all day, decorated last night, and watched Home Alone 2 after the boys went to bed. It was a little bittersweet, though – we always decorate as a family, and this year Seymour wasn’t home to help out. Miss Tadpole took it pretty hard, and I agree – it’s just not the same without him.
Still, I’m feeling pretty cheery after all that Christmasy fun yesterday, and I’m looking forward to working on Christmas cards this afternoon. 🙂
Have you decorated yet? Do you go all out, or do you keep it to a few treasured things? What kind of Christmas traditions do you have in your family?
(c) 2015. All rights reserved.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 