Return From Vacation...

I've been home from vacation for a week and I finally feel nearly caught up with unpacking, washing laundry, paying bills, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and editing pictures...Our Caribbean interlude was very restorative...Four couples chartered a 43 foot catamaran in St Maarten and sailed to St Barts, St Kitts, and Nevis...Every day was sunny and in the 80's...The food was delicious whether we cooked on board or went to a restaurant...The water was warm and clear...We swam every day...What more could I ask for in the middle of winter?

Caribbean water is just a different color and consistency than waters in New England...

Chartered boats seem to have silly names...This was at least better than the name of the last catamaran we chartered...Cat Sass...try saying that over the radio three times...

We sailed under the French flag...

I'm not a sailor but Mr O and my friends are...

I took lots of photographs...

and relaxed...

A Winter Interlude...

When you open a fortune cookie and get a fortune like this you really need to start packing...I will not have access to a computer for the next 10 days but I will be bringing two cameras, my handy-dandy iphone, a very fat novel, a month's worth of  New Yorker magazines, snorkel gear, sunscreen, floating tubes, Mr O, and 6 other friends so I shouldn't miss it...Will be back with lots of photos...

First Try...

One reason that I haven't been posting much recently is because I have been spending so much time with new toys equipment...Not only have I been experimenting with my new iPhone but since December I have received Photoshop Elements 8 and a new camera.  I don't have any basic technical knowledge so it is a very long, slow learning curve...Slow enough that many of these cold, windy days have found me in my nice warm library experimenting at the computer rather than, say, cleaning the house...

One thing I wanted to try was to enhance a photo with a texture and this is my first attempt...

The original already had an amazing sky...

  ...I cropped the picture and layered  on two free textures, FallinApart by SkeletalMess and WornLove  from CoffeeShop...It may not look it but it took me hours to do this!  I'm thinking I may prefer the original but it was fun! 

Kitchen Help...

What do you do on a cold, snowy day?

You find some helping hands...

...and mix up a batch of muffins...

It warms up the kitchen...

...and it warms up the tummy...

A New Toy...

Mr O and I just bought  iPhones and you would think we were two kids the day after Christmas...I have been playing with camera functions of course...These photos were taken with the ShakeItPhoto app which processes your photos to look like an old time Polaroid print...it even sounds like a Polaroid camera as it "develops the film"...and yes you can shake your phone to speed the developing...

Oh I've been having fun!

A Few Simple Things...

Planning on participating with Christina of Soul Aperture in her celebration of simple things, I noted the simple things that I was grateful for from the time I woke this morning ...

• the cool side of the pillow
• seeing blue sky through the skylight
• a new warm green puffy down bathrobe
• old Ugg slippers
• the sound of a new toilet flushing so well:)
• listening to the news from a steamy shower
• Strong Colombian coffee
• eggs over easy with avocado on a toasted English muffin
• being at goal at a Weight Watchers meeting
• a cheerful checkout person at the grocery store
• my silver Subaru
• getting a clean bill of health at my annual physical
• having a good cry
• getting an H1N1 flu shot
• beautiful cut flowers in a white McCoy vase
• my new iphone in its pink and purple case
• Leonard Cohen on the car CD player
• browsing in a bookstore
• Better Homes and Garden magazine
• the many different shades of gray in January
• red wine
• baked potato chips
• broccoli rabe
• President Obama
• soft warm lap blankets
• a sleeping cat sharing a chair

A long list and this doesn't even include the people in my life...I am very fortunate indeed...

Christina and her family are planning on donating $1 to Doctors Without Borders for every blog that participates...

A Little Color...

I have been trying to photograph color this week...and I've been having a hard time finding any...Everything is drab and gray...So I decided to make something colorful...

...Roasted Beet and Orange and Avocado Salad...

...There really isn't any recipe...I just wrapped three beets in foil and roasted them in the oven until tender...about an hour at 400 degrees...then mixed sliced beets, navel orange segments, and avocado slices with salad greens....The beets and the oranges are seasonal right now...and maybe the avocado is too...

  The dressing was made with 1/4 cup of  orange juice, 2 Tbsps of olive oil, 1 Tbsp of red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper combined and shaken in an old mustard jar...

Just eating these beautiful colors made me feel good...

Ice Abstractions...

We have been having some rain and warmish weather...I would rather have the snow...

Just Because...

...Sometimes you just need a little pink...

"The Sixth of January"...

 

The Sixth of January

The cat sits on the back of the sofa looking
out the window through the softly falling snow
at the last bit of gray light.

I can't say the sun is going down.
We haven't seen the sun for two months.
Who cares?

I am sitting in the blue chair listening to this stillness.
The only sound: the occasional gurgle of tea
coming out of the pot and into the cup.

How can this be?
Such calm, such peace, such solitude
in this world of woe.

"The Sixth of January," by David Budbill, from Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse (Copper Canyon Press).

 

I love it when I find a poem that I wish I had written ...one that describes exactly what I would like to say...of course my chair isn't blue but gold...and the sun is shining thru the window...but still...

I found this and many other of my favorite poems at The Writer's Almanac...What I am not sure of is if I need permission to put a found poem here...

Mother's Cold Remedy...

When I was a child my mother made cough syrup for me with honey, lemon juice, and a little whiskey...when I grew older tea was added...Strong hot tea with a shot of whiskey, a squeeze of lemon, and a good spoonful of honey not only relieves  coughs and congestion but it also helps one sleep like a baby...

A New Year's Day Walk Around the Pond...

...and the  first time I felt like taking photos in a long time...Join me...

...the sky looks as grey as the land...

Kaja joins us but hates the camera...

The trail goes over several bridges...

And crosses a dam...

The brook is incredibly loud ...

The beech tree leaves remain golden on the branches...

I find hearts...

Halfway around...

Looking back towards the dam...

Your life is in your own hands...

The north side of the tree...

and back where I started...

My favorite walk doesn't take very long...but it does restore me...

My word for 2010 is Restore...

Goodbye 2009...

So much has happened in this month of December...I have not taken many pictures or felt like blogging...in fact I have felt like the world has continued on as my world turned in upon itself...This month I lived through caring for my sister in her last weeks...This month I became closer to her and her children than I ever could imagine...This month I have become closer to my own children and husband as they support me...This month I turned 59 three days before my sister's death and received a card with her last words to me...This month I watched "White Christmas" with my sister and sang our theme song, "Sisters", for the last time...This month our family and friends got together not for a Christmas party but for a memorial service...This month our families started new traditions for the holidays...This month I tried to do shopping, and wrapping, and cooking to keep myself busy and to keep the family together...This month I took joy in receiving this beautiful "gingerbread" house made by my grandson so painstakingly...

The Meaning of it All...

Today being the first anniversary of this blog I have been giving some thought about it and it's existence.  Also, about a month ago, I made a commitment to Ruth of  synch-ro-ni-zing to write about the name of this blog. ..

I started it with a few thoughts in mind...

Perhaps the initial reason for starting this blog was to encourage myself to take more photos and to improve my photography skills...I had a new camera and a renewed interest in photography.  I took a photography class and enjoyed challenging myself through DPS assignments, Canon forum mini-challenges, and Shutter Sisters.  I enjoyed looking at  photographs online and realized that most of my favorites were of everyday objects and activities.

Somehow  I hoped to incorporate this into a photo journal and a kind of almanac of the year.   I have always been enamored of artists' journals and old fashioned almanac style books but I'm not artistically inclined and the few times I did start I wrote and drew only about three entries before quitting.  This developed into an idea of a simple photo  journal that I could document the little things that happened in a year that one tends to forget.  Later I also thought I might use this photo journal to start writing down some family and personal memories that I would like to save and pass down...it seemed that as I read other blogs it would often trigger a memory that I hadn't thought of in years...I should write it down!   Other reasons for saving a memory developed...I wanted to remember some favorite recipes and reviews of books I've read and movies I've seen.  I also started saving poems I enjoyed and quotes that touched me...

All in all I put very little thought into the name of the blog...just expressed my goal really and hoped that the title wasn't already taken...

So how do I think I did?  I do think I never would have taken so many photos of  my everyday life if it weren't for this blog...so that goal was definitely accomplished.  During the year I took two photography classes which I enjoyed too.  In the future I would like to learn more about Photoshop and processing my digital photos...and I still have to make a decision about whether or not I need a better camera than my nice lightweight point and shoot.  What I was pained to discover through this blog was how terrible a writer I am...how difficult I find it to express myself with the written word.   To think that as a child I wanted to be a writer and a poet!  So many memories I started to write about but gave up when I couldn't find the words...so many opinions that I couldn't communicate...I felt that my blog was best if I kept my writing simple although my favorite blogs to read incorporate both beautiful images with well written, descriptive words...like synch-ro-ni-zing and ramblins and Soul Aperture  among many others.  I guess my goal for this part of my blog would be to just keep on trying...

A Thank-you Song...

Celebrating Thanksgiving dinner in the kitchen may include lots of noise, commotion, and dishes in the sink...but Mr J's Thanksgiving song just needed to be shared...   I think I need to practice filming video though...

"Thank you for the sun so bright, thank you for the moon at night, thank you for my family, thanks for friends who play with me, thanks for every thing I see, I am thankful yes sir eee."

Thanksgiving...

...Each year, at Thanksgiving, we go around the table  taking  turns stating alphabetically what we are thankful for ...This year I will start with being thankful for Assistance... from farmers and cooks, from family and friends, from health care workers...from all involved with making this meal possible at my sister's home.  After Thanksgiving I hope to return with what we came up with for the rest of the alphabet!