Did some more baby bump portraits this weekend of Meagan. She’s feeling good but getting to the point where you start to get uncomfortable and wonder just how big the baby is going to get before it comes out! We tried using a window as our backdrop on some of the pics and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Still learning the ropes with my camera though, and now I have a new flash too, I do wish I was a bit more technically proficient sometimes:)
See more Weekend Snapshots here!
Photovisi is a free online collage maker. You can download your collage after you create it in various sizes and use it for your desktop wallpaper. As you can see, I’ve been busy taking photos of herbs for my iStock account! See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
People have been drawing on walls since ancient times and today many graffiti artists have crossed over into making a living off their art. Keith Haring was a famous artist who began his career drawing on advertising boards in the subway. His foundation has a fun website for kids (of all ages!) where you can play games (like Hangman) or draw your own graffiti. Sticking with the Detroit theme I have going, this week’s WW photo is of some cool graffiti on a wall downtown. See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
I took some flower pics for fun this morning. I’m still struggling with the whole balance thing, I always feel like I should be doing chores or only taking the kind of iStock photos that sell well. I wonder if it’s mostly an American problem, always feeling like we need to be doing something that will make money or accomplish some kind of work related goal? We do tend to be a workaholic society. Why is it when we do something solely to feed our spirit we feel guilty, even though we know in our hearts that at the end of our lives we aren’t going to wish we had spent more time at the office or vacuuming the floors! Hmm, so I think I’ll take a me day today, do some creative stuff, read, meditate, maybe even watch the grass grow (really, I sprinkled grass seed this week outside my office window and it’s cool and rainy so it’s going to sprout any minute now!). But first, I should throw the wet towels in the dryer before they start growing mold, empty the dishwasher, clean off my messy desk…
Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. ~Matthew Arnold
I wandered over to the fishing pond across the street to take a few pictures and two swans were conveniently floating around enjoying the bright sunny day. It’s finally starting to feel like spring around here. I must admit to feeling a little blue today however, it was a year ago this week that we lost our first granddaughter at only five months gestation. Last spring was tough with my mom being so ill and then the baby’s death. Thinking about those days and weeks reminds me that I have so much to be grateful for; that Meagan is pregnant again and doing well, that my mother is no longer suffering and my dad is adjusting as well as can be expected to living alone.
I suppose what they say is true, time heals all wounds. Or perhaps it just puts some much needed space between you and the pain. And in that space, if you are lucky, you may find a little peace. Near the end of one of my books I write …when the earthly lives of my daddy and brother had safely made that transformation from flesh and blood to mist and memory, when the grief had finally settled itself comfortably into the undercurrent of my days and nights, my voice came back to me. I wrote that not long after losing my beloved father-in-law Hank, and I was remembering that shift, that soft gray place where grief slips quietly into the background and we begin again. That is the joy and wonder of spring too, and it is here at long last.
It is light that reveals, light that obscures, light that communicates. It is light I “listen” to. ~John Sexton
See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
Shot this a few minutes ago out my bathroom window, my Bradford Pear tree is budding, getting ready to officially announce spring. It’s sunny and fairly mild today, when it warms up a bit I think I’ll go walk around the yard and look for more signs of spring, maybe cut back some of the plants I didn’t get to last fall. I feel like I’m a little out of balance lately. I think I’m watching too many cable news shows and worrying too much; about the economy, about Meagan and baby Brooklyn, about how my dad is dealing with being alone, about my ginormous Visa bill…etc. Things that are basically out of my hands (except my darn Visa bill, if only I’d actually kept that card out of my hands in the first place!). Worrying really is just a bad habit, isn’t it? It accomplishes nothing, changes nothing. I remember my mom doing her spring cleaning every year when we were kids, washing walls, wiping away dangling cobwebs, cleaning out closets and moving furniture so she could vacuum up the hidden dust and crumbs that accumulate after a long, dark winter. I feel like I need to that with myself this spring, cut away some of that cluttered old growth and give my spirit a good sprucing up:)
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. ~Winston Churchill
I did some new baby bump photos of the kids last week. I’m having fun planning the shower, we’re using the photo on the right for the invite. We had a slight scare yesterday when Meagan developed pelvic pain. Her doctor determined that it’s not preterm labor (a huge relief) and we’re hoping that the pain goes away soon, she still has 100 days left to incubate our little granddaughter! I love how women today wear tight tops and bare their beautiful tummies at the beach when they’re pregnant instead of trying to cover them up under tent-sized tunics. Perhaps Demi Moore’s controversial Vanity Fair cover taken by Annie Leibovitz helped spark the belly-proud movement. Now, unfortunately, we have that photo of Octo-mom’s giant baby mound, which definitely falls under the category of too much information and is enough to make any woman give up the idea of motherhood altogether and get a puppy!
Making a decision to have a child–it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
bookbabie 