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

One travels to escape from it all, but that is the great illusion: It cannot be done, since one travels with one’s mind. ~Ella Maillart

That quotation may be true, but the truth is, that far away sun drenched beach sure looks good to me right now!

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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

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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, and Happy Hanukkah!

Cartoon from the talented hand of animator and illustrator R.O. Blechman.

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!

Posted in blogging, my life, photo-manipulation, photography Tagged: blogging, Christmas, holidays, memes, photography, photos, photoshop, plug-ins ]]> http://bookbabie.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/rad-radkos/feed/ 11 bookbabie youcapture4 http://bookbabie.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/holiday-flashback/ http://bookbabie.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/holiday-flashback/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:18:30 +0000 bookbabie http://bookbabie.wordpress.com/?p=4095 ]]>

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!

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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 World by 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!

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Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas reflected in the eyes of a child.~William Saroyan

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