desktop calendar for august...

may your august be filled with light and peace...

"From within or from behind, 

a light shines through us upon things, 

and makes us aware that we are nothing, 

but the light is all." 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

feel free to use as a calendar on your computer desktop -

just right click on the image, 

select Set as Desktop Background from the drop down menu and

you have a calendar at your fingertips...

i post one every month HERE if you are interested  :)

the lightness of being...

 i am leaving winter behind.

right now.

i need light and color and softness and warmth...

it's not spring yet

but it helps to think ahead...

morning light...

i woke up to a dusting of snow,

just enough to make the whole world beautiful...

 

enhanced with snapseed and a layer of chalkmagic from kim klassen...

sharing with

 Simple Things Sunday.

sunrise, sunset...

sunset over the bay at Cape Cod...

Chapin Beach in Dennis

 october sunset...

 

 

saturday sunrise...

on Nantucket Sound, in South Yarmouth

"Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears..."

a good day :)

the day started early, with a long ride on one of my favorite roads.

i spent time with a co-worker who is a friend too. she lives in another state so we don't get together often. it was great.

i rode home into a spectacular sunset. and again, it was on my favorite road.

it was a very good day :)

 

 

photographed in somers CT; enhanced with kim klassen's 'waterstained' texture and snapseed

summer's end...

where did the summer go?

 

i am sad,

as always,

to see it end. 

 

but i am going after fall

with a sense of urgency

to enjoy and appreciate every minute of it.

 

you might want to stay out of the way of all that :)

picture info - Truro, Cape Cod
                      enhanced with Kim Klassen's textures - jay, canvasback, ToBe, and her brush

double the fun

so this week has been intense...
it started out with the challenge to take self portraits on the beyond layers course with kim klassen.
 

my twin sister and i have done

the hold-the-camera out in front of ourselves

for the past few years

 and have loved having the pics to look back at.

so i thought this would not only be fun,

but a great project to do for a year. 

i called my sister, marilyn, and we decided that

we'd each do it individually for 365 days. 

it was a big commitment for each of us but it felt right.

we're 57 yrs old and looking for what we're calling 'fulfillment over fifty' and this seemed like a great starting point.  who are we, at 57? 

day 1 was a good time - we both liked it alot. we sent images back and forth through the beauty of cell phones.  fun stuff :)

day 2 was still ok -

the project seemed do-able, the pics were still fun...

i created a new blog to keep track of it all. 

and i was looking forward to day 3...

day 3 was a horror story. 
we both started to realize we have gotten older. 
good grief, we may even have gotten freaking old. 
and that f-word is the cleaned-up freaking (again, cleaned-up...) version. 
no amount of blurriness, or over-exposure was going to hide the fact, from myself anyway...
day 3 hurt.
 neither one of us was ready to give up the project but i can say that body parts other than my freaking (yes, again...) face were going to be center stage all year long.

day 4, i was wiser. 

feet do not look old,

when they are covered with shoes...

and i actually love this picture. 

day 5 was Friday. 

Friday the 13th.  i had concerns. 

my self-esteem was shaky.   i didn't want to feel like i looked old anymore. 

on the other hand, i can't take pictures of my feet all year.  and i really wanted the year to be a learning experience, showing me to myself, finding out who i have grown into.  

i had taken more than 100 pictures of myself this week. 

some i liked, some i hated but i did learn stuff. 

i learned like to walk.  and i need to get a haircut. 

and i can hide the belly fat at this time of year.

all good things to know... 

so i went for another walk at the river to find a good picture for how i was feeling... 

i wandered the roads and pathways, looking for something that would speak to me. nothing seemed meaningful. as i turned around to walk back to the car, thinking i would go home and take a picture of my hands with a beer in each one of them, i walked into the fading light of the day.  and all of a sudden, it seemed perfect.  utterly perfect. 

me, from behind, walking into the light...  

it felt like a picture of what i want to get out of this year. 

i loved it. 

i went home and drank the two beers, in honor of my breakthrough :)

and then, one last picture, to finish the week of painful growth...

 enhanced with kim's textures and brush.

thank you for the week of wisdom. i think :)

if not NOW, then when...

on monday, kim's challenge for the beyond layers class was to work on reducing procrastination,

 not only in the artistic side of life but in every other aspect also.  

all week, i thought i embraced the thought thoroughly.

i DID instead of planning on doing.

i shot the 'word of the day' on photo hunt on facebook every day. and i posted them. 

i got a lot done at work that i'd been putting off, including my expense report (!). 

i even took a walk one morning,

instead of depending on pacing when on the phone to get my exercise. 

i was feeling pretty confident that i had put aside procrastinating for the week, at least...

on friday night, i was determined to continue to GET THINGS DONE. 

the photo challenge for the B/L class was 'pastels'.

and the word of the day on fbk was 'simple'. 

in my quest to get things done, i was going to do a simple pastel :) 

multi-tasking was the deal.

i went and bought some flowers, pulled out an antique vase

and set up the picture in the setting sun at the back door. 

the sun was fading fast and timing was critical,

if i was going to get the shot i had planned in my head. 

but pony had a different plan.  

he wanted to participate. 

no amount of holding him with one hand, shooting with the other hand, was going to work. 

he wanted to smell the flowers. 

finally, i had to let him, just to get it over with. 

and there was the shot i needed.

but bigger than that was the lesson that i needed...

i was on a mission to do, do, DO...

it took kim's message of 'if not NOW, then when?'

combined with pony's insistence on 'stop to smell the flowers' to get through to me. 

sometimes it is time to stop.

sometimes doing isn't everything. 

because sometimes its about appreciation, not action.  

life happens in those moments and it's oh-so-easy to miss them...

appreciating the simple pleasures is what gives a life the sweet moments of joy,

and we all (even pony) need some joy right about now
because...

if not now, then when???

picture enhanced with NOW texture from kim klassen, along with multiple adjustment layers

and a framed effect

heading towards the light...



the Beyond Layers assignment was to work with an image on photoshop,

using layers and textures, and give it a painted effect...
used kim klassen's phoebe, waterstained textures, along with multiple layers

this was great fun, all i want to do now is play with some pics i have already taken...

 it is addicting :)

stone beauty...

this statue is in a small cemetery

she sits off in the corner, not in plain sight

in late afternoon, the light hits her face and somehow she comes alive

i love her....

she has been enhanced with contrast, saturation and one layer of kim klassen's awaken texture, very light...

morning light...

keeping it simple...

enhanced with kim klassen's 'simplicity' texture

for texture tuesday

desert dreams...

"the phoenix hope

can wing her way through the desert skies,

and still defying fortune's spite,

revive from ashes and rise..."

miguel de cervantes saavedra

phoenix arizona...

a place of beauty, of nature...

soft and harsh,

side by side...

arizona...

teacher of the cycles of life

the twists and turns along the way...

and the endless lessons to be learned...

this little light of mine...

my goals for this year...
 - light a light
 - keep it simple
 - see the beauty in the moment

Texture Tuesday with kim klassen's Friday texture, at 100% on soft light...

what lies ahead...

today i am making a commitment. 
to myself.

i am going to walk the road i am on.
i am going to look for the light, the joy, the little things.
i am going to measure me myself.
i am going to block out the outside voices,
   so i can hear the inside voice.
i am going to listen to myself
with all of myself.

i am going to choose HAPPY.
even if that choice changes the direction
of the road i am on.

the road back...

around a year ago, i changed my life. i discovered what blogging was, created this blog to feed my spirit and ultimately found the road back to me.

what a year it’s been...

i took pictures every day. i reconnected with old friends and made a lot of new friends. i put work on the back burner. turns out, i also put the blog on the back burner. and even though there were some tough moments, this will go down as one of my favorite years.

i feel like i got back my art. like all that lay dormant came back alive, my own personal springtime. its time now to start writing again. i want to know my soul like i once did. how did i end up living on the surface for so long? what's in there now that i'm 56 years old? what did i learn?

now i look to the road ahead...

color my world

monday march 22

for a gray day, there was a lot of color around...

hello sunshine...

my old friend. good to see you once again.
mister, the one eyed guy, has missed you also.
and a crocus raised its grateful little face to the sunshine

thursday

movement - i have a million pictures of movement and thought about just posting one or two of those. but this is about doing it TODAY, even if i settle just a tad.
and in the end, i surprised myself - i loved this one!
first the cat gang, smelling the spring air.
then the crazy action after i did the fake cough.

then ending the day with painting with light - held the shutter, and moved the camera. i loved doing this. and i will get better at it.