An old friend of the family made this music video in memory of my mother and just sent it to me. Frank DeLaMarre is a singer songwriter who wrote this song after John Denver passed away. Thank you Frank for creating this tribute, it’s beautiful! I think I’m going to take a break from blogging. I seem to have lost my writing/blogging/internet browsing mojo. While writing my blog and sharing my angst helped me get through the dark days of my mom’s long illness and passing, I feel like it’s time for me to step back and spend more time building my photography portfolio, actually doing yoga rather than just talking about it, and perhaps trying to rediscover my books and love for reading and writing. Thank you all for your support over the years and for showing an interest in my little life, I’ll still be around and checking in on your blogs from time to time, have a happy and healthy 2010!
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. ~Buddha
We had a lovely Christmas morning watching our new granddaughter open gifts. She was much more interested in the paper and tags than in what was in the boxes, although she did like her toy telephone, girly girl that she is! Brooklyn is such a happy baby and has brought a new sense of happiness and joy to our family this holiday season. Of course, I couldn’t help but think of my mom as I held the great-granddaughter she never got to meet in my arms beside the tree on Christmas morning, it seems we miss those who have crossed over that much more during the holidays. Mr. bookbabie surprised me with a Kindle reader this Christmas and I already have a few books on it. I don’t know that all my reading will be on e-books now, but I must admit that being able to make the font of the books larger is a big advantage for my terribly farsighted old eyes. Hope you all got everything your little hearts desired this Christmas!
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. ~Pericles
Many years ago, my husband and I started a tradition at the small company we own. We give the employees (and ourselves!) a Christopher Radko ornament for Christmas. We all have a nice collection of them now and I decided to take photos of some of them today and do a post for the You Capture blog meme. The theme this week was “Holiday Decor”. I used my little Canon G9, hand-held with no flash, and then filtered the images with Topaz Labs Adjust and Totally Rad Dirty Pictures, two plug-ins for Photoshop. It was a lot of fun just “playing” with these photos, especially since so much of my photography is for Getty and iStock, who have pretty strict criteria for what you can upload. Happy holidays everyone, hope you had a fun, peace filled weekend!
Me, my brother David, and my sister Amy on Christmas morning a few years ago
1. No, we will NOT go on another vacation until we pay down the balance on our charge card!
2. My mom told me and brother about the birds and the bees one afternoon while eating lunch at the old kitchen table. I laughed out loud and didn’t believe her!
3. I watched the steam rising from the hot cup of coffee and thought: I love starting my day with coffee and a newspaper.
4. When I look at my granddaughter I know I’m going to be okay.
5. I’ll take more iStock and Getty photos today, love a job where you can stay in your warm house on these cold, dreary Michigan days!
6. Photoshop CS4 is a lot fun to use, but sometimes the learning curve is somewhat overwhelming, at least from my point of view.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to wrapping presents, tomorrow my plans include holiday dinner out with friends and Sunday, I want to finish shopping and just relax!
Teaser Tuesday asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
Outside, surrounding the plane, was the sense of weather growing vindictive-an accumulating energy with its own agenda. The weather didn’t care that they had connections to make, medication that needed to be taken, appointments that would be missed, vacations that were ruined before they’d even begun. In a Perfect Worldby Laura Kasischke
Sometimes when I board a plane, I look around and wonder if the people I see are the last people I’ll ever see? Or if we’ll go through an unwanted and frightening adventure together like the passengers of the “Miracle on the Hudson” flight. It’s like I’m seeing the characters from a book or a movie and I especially wonder about those sitting near me, what the couple in front of me are whispering about, or why the young father across from me is traveling alone with his baby son, is he divorced or widowed or flying home to his wife after visiting his parents? I watch the cabin crew go about their jobs, some smiling and talkative, while others looked bored and annoyed as they repeat their instructions and answer the same questions over and over again. In some ways flying is isolating, taking us away from the noise and hustle of the world below us. But it also forces an intimacy on us that we have little time for in our normal daily lives, which aside from the fear of crashing part, ain’t all bad!
This is a swine flu concept I did for iStockphoto. My husband and I haven’t gotten the vaccine because we’re pretty sure we had the bug in May during the first big wave of the pandemic. It was a nasty one that took me weeks of steam showers, hot tea, and plenty of rest to totally shake!
I put together a few best book lists so you can copy and paste them and take them along with you to the bookstore. Hope you had a good year in reading, I can see by the lists that I missed way too many good reads and need to hit the books in the coming year!
PW TOP TEN
Cheever: A Life – Blake Bailey
Await Your Reply – Dan Chaon
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon – Neil Sheehan
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders -Daniyal Mueenuddin
Big Machine – Victor LaValle
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science – Richard Holmes
Stitches – David Small
Shop Class as Soulcraft – Matthew B. Crawford
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi - Geoff Dyer
Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon – David Grann
OPRAH’S TOP TEN
The Bolter – Frances Osborne
Dreaming in Hindi – Katherine Russell Rich
Little Bee – Chris Cleave
Blame – Michelle Huneven
Losing Mum and Pup – Christopher Buckley
Zeitoun – Dave Eggers
Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan
Some Things That Meant the World to Me – Joshua Mohr
The Invisible Mountain – Carolina De Robertis
Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness – Tracy Kidder
These are a couple of new Christmas photos I did for iStock and Getty. Still doing some after Thanksgiving chores while I start my holiday shopping. We already have baby Brooklyn’s gifts, it was so much fun to shop for a little one again and we can’t wait to celebrate her 1st Christmas!
Still recovering from a busy week and hosting the Thanksgiving feast. My sister and her family stayed with us this week and brought their chihuahua Lola all the way from Carlsbad, California. It was great to see everyone and fun to have a dog in the house again. One afternoon while everyone was out and I was home doggie sitting, I decided to see if Lola would model for me. I took my time coaxing her into the spare bedroom I use as a studio. I let her sniff the room thoroughly, showed her my camera and fired off several shots so she could hear the sounds and see the flash, and then I held her on my lap for a few minutes before putting her on the white table top. It took a couple of minutes of petting and talking to her before she sat down, relaxed, and began striking a pose!
No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does. ~Christopher Morley
Many years ago, my husband and I started a tradition at the small company we own. We give the employees (and ourselves!) a 
I put together a few best book lists so you can copy and paste them and take them along with you to the bookstore. Hope you had a good year in reading, I can see by the lists that I missed way too many good reads and need to hit the books in the coming year!
Baby Brooklyn’s first visit with Santa!
These are a couple of new Christmas photos I did for 
