simplify . .

for a retired girl, i have been way busier than i thought i'd be, this 2 0 1 4

but it has been a productive time, so i am going to cling to the glass-half-full mindset.

the condo is on the market, 

all the cats have settled in to the cape house, 

i am making huge progress on the preparations for the HyArt Artist Shanties

 (http://hyartsdistrict.com/visual-arts/art-shanties )

that i'm doing in june, 

and the gardens in both houses have been worked on (a little bit, at least).

i keep taking pictures, posting on facebook and for the word-of-the-day photo hunt challenge.  

but the blog, my flickr and housecleaning all keep falling off the to-do list.

i hope to S I M P L I F Y this summer.

until then, i added another to-do for my list - 

i started taking a class from Kim Klassen (http://www.kimklassencafe.com/) 

called Be Still and i am very excited about it.  

i know that the first few weeks will be hectic, but the class is for a full year so i will catch up.  

i am longing for the feeling of Be Still.  

and i know i will learn a lot of things, and be inspired. 

it is going to be exactly what i need...

 

meantime May/June will be a little bit crazy.  

i am multi-tasking.  

my head is muddled. 

but a word-of-the-day was CUP this week and i am going with the 

half-full glass mindset 

as i simplify.

so with no textures, no enhancements at all -

here is a simple half full cup.

which i totally love.

be still my heart :)

frozen in time...

the polar vortex...

here in united states,

our world was frozen for a few days.

it left it's mark.

waves at the ocean were stopped, mid wave...

bubbles froze as they landed...

i am grateful it has warmed up.

but i will miss the frozen beauty...

the colors of winter...

i am not a fan of being cold but i absolutely love the beauty of winter...

the world changes from one day to the next.

and instead of just the winter whites (which i LOVE), 

there are 50 shades of gray...

soft muted greens...

pastel sunrises...

browns and blues and 

feathers and seed pods...

there isn't enough time in a day to see it all.

and tomorrow,

it's going to be different :)

 it truly is a winter wonderland out there

   

  

where fairies live :)

 

i remember spending rain storms with my sisters, in our backyard,

looking for fairies under the toadstools.

these flowers brought back those wonderful memories...

 

how i longed to really see them, float and twirl and dance...

glistening with water drops...

 

sweet fairy land, even if it was only in my mind :)



taking pictures...

in march 2010, i started a picture project with my sister where each day i picked a word for us to photograph that day. i thought we'd do it for a few weeks and then move on to something new.  i ended up photographing a word-of-the-day for a year. i posted the word on facebook in the morning, shot the pics throughout the day and posted the images on facebook at the end of the day.

it changed my life.

i've been a photographer since i was a teenager - that's about 40 years now. i started getting paid for it in my twenties, in retail portraiture and have done that for over thirty years. but i don't think i thought of myself as a 'photographer' until i did my photo hunt word of the day.

i always thought of myself as a visual person. but i saw the entire world with new eyes. every day. 

if i drove the same roads day after day,

i saw different things because there was a different word-of-the-day.

i grew as a photographer and it felt like i learned new things daily.

 

many facebook friends joined in, well over 100 people joined the photo hunt page.

we supported each other, kept ourselves going and had a ball.

then it ended.

i was lost for a while.

i think i wandered for a year, growing, but nowhere near as much as i had with the daily quest to take a good picture. in that wandering year, i followed different blogs and was fascinated by the amount of sharing that was happening online. it was a whole new world and i was addicted.

one blog leads to another and i spent hours following them all.

i was inspired!

but i wasn't shooting as much. i was bored with the same places, tired of photographing birds and squirrels, flowers and sunsets. i didn't know what to do to get back the joy that i'd found in the word-of-the-day.

finally, i signed on for kim klassen's 'beyond layers' online class. 

it has been a blessing.

i am learning so much about photoshop, which has been great fun.

but i'm also learning things photographically and that has been fantastic. 

and this week, the challenge involved a color of the day. 

omg, i felt like me again. 

 

go green :) on monday

tuesday's mellow yellow...

 pretty in pink on wednesday...

thursday is blue day :)

 

and coincidentally, the facebook photo hunt group came back to life this week too!

we had a word of the day again. and it was making me see things again. i was actually overwhelmed with it all, and didn't get to post all the assignments.

but i shot them :)

it was great to be inspired AND then to do something with the inspiration!

thank you, kim klassen and xanthe

and all the photo hunt friends! 

tuesday - window

wednesday - peace

 

thursday - spring

today's word is RED -

both the color of the day and the word of the day.

i am looking forward to a day of SEEING RED...

in a good way :)