Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal, and transformation in our lives. ~ M. A. Brussat
See other Wordless Wednesday participants here…
Category Archives: photography
skywatch friday
Last week a posted a photo from a past January trip to Cancun, this week a photo of why I wish I was in Cancun again right now. As lovely as winter can be here in Michigan, it was -9 when I got up today and when it’s that cold you just don’t want to leave the house. I did step out to take my SkyWatch photo though, now I think I’m going to go drink a pot of hot coffee and defrost my toes by the fire!
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. ~Edith Sitwell
skywatch friday
They’ll be no vacations this year to escape the cold and snow (8 more inches this weekend!) but here’s a pic for Skywatch from a past foray to the land of sun and sand. Of course, I’m actually in the sky looking down on the clouds instead of up, hope it still counts. That’s a bird’s eye view of Cancun Mexico, ahhh:)
The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn’t it be? – it is the same the angels breathe. ~Mark Twain
skywatch friday
Winter Sky
It finally feels like the holidays are over today and a new year has begun. Over the past couple of weeks, as 2008 wound down, I started to feel that big bad cloud of sadness and regret gathering over my shoulders and at first I let it, I figured I deserved it, didn’t I? A little wallowing, a few what-ifs? I mean, this has been one helluva year of stress and loss and heartache around here. But after a few days of it (and a few sleepless nights too) I realized that I was going to have to make a conscious effort to choose between sorrow and happiness, between gloom and optimism. And I knew that there might even be days when I would have to fake it to make it, but that’s okay, I can do that. Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to feel sad and only remember the bad days every time I look at a photograph of my mom, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to believe anything other than the fact that come July 1st I will be holding a healthy little grandbaby up to my face and breathing in the sweetness of a new life, a new beginning.
happy new year!
This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life. ~Anonymous
(almost) wordless wednesday
When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it. ~ Charles de Lint
sunday rerun
I was thinking about Julie today and her husband’s sudden death and I remembered a post I did on my old blog. I had a tattered copy laying around and it being a lazy Sunday afternoon and all I decided to rerun it. I did the neat old movie animation on Mr. bookbabie’s photo at LunaPic.com, a fun online photo editor and animator…
On our way home from Whole Foods today, my husband and I saw an accident just minutes after it happened. A large SUV had run off the road, hit a ditch, and smashed into some trees. Several cars had already stopped to help but the police hadn’t yet arrived and we saw that someone had opened the driver-side door. Inside, a woman lay slumped and unmoving over the steering wheel. She had short blond hair like me and she was wearing a red coat with a fur collar. Maybe she was out running errands we said, or maybe she was on her way home from a holiday lunch. We tried to convince one another that she was “just” knocked out from the force of the airbag, that the front end of the car really didn’t look that bad.
As we drove, one, two, three police cars sped past us, lights flashing and sirens screaming. Then two ambulances and another police car passed us and we suddenly realized that she probably wasn’t alone in that big SUV, maybe she had a car full of friends – or children. As we opened the trunk at our house we could still hear the wail of sirens in the distance and I turned to my husband and said, “Every day when I hear you…” and that’s all I got out before the tears started and the words caught in my throat. But what I wanted to say was this, “Every day when I hear the door open and I hear your footsteps coming into the house, and I hear your tired voice call out ‘hello’, that’s the best part of my day, that’s the moment I would choose to have back one more time if anything ever happened to you.”
weathering the storms
We went to my sister’s for Father’s Day on Sunday. They all spent a rather hellish week at a children’s hospital with my niece’s one-year-old daughter who became very ill with Type 1 Diabetes that came on suddenly after a virus. We had no idea this could happen, it was very scary and quite a shock. After my son and daughter-in-law lost their unborn baby girl, my family could still count my parent’s great-grandchild blessings when they thought of our healthy, happy little Aryielle. Ha, said the Universe, not so fast! While googling Aryielle’s illness I came across a surprising fact, apparently the same rogue gene region that can trigger gluten intolerance can also cause Type 1 Diabetes. Something my family needs to keep in mind (I have one of the Celiac genes).
After we got home another storm blew in and this one brought along some marble-sized hail. Click on the pic above to see a larger version. It was pretty wild. Mr. bookbabie went out and scooped up a bowl of it (I have no idea why) so I took an iStock-like photo of it for him! What is going on with the weather? Is your weather as crazy as our is?
bookbabie 