paintedpinkmountains

Really, seriously tired of this weather. The snow is beautiful, but I've had enough already. Little more than one month til spring is here. And it can't come soon enough. I need flowers blooming, birds singing and warm air.

went out at lunch today and shot some photos, for fun. it was a beautiful day, if a little bitter, the sun was shining and it just felt really good to be outside.

A recent post by Dancing Mermaid http://dancingmermaid.com/blog/2010/01/12/what-brings-you-simple-joy/ begs me to post today. To answer her question, "What small things bring you so much joy?" I'll make a list :) 1. watching the sun rise during my morning commute 2. when my boys walk up to me out of nowhere, throw their arms around me and say "I Love You, Mommy!" 3. a warm bowl of Amy's Organic Chunky Tomato Bisque 4. having great friends at work to help me escape when it gets stressful 5. meeting with a potential wedding client who tells me that she really wanted to meet with me because she likes my style. 6. standing outside my house at night in the complete quiet looking up at the stars. 7. fresh flowers 8. an empty laundry basket (which doesn't happen often) 9. an empty sink (which happens even less often than the laundry) 10. the color blue 11. listening to Hank Williams Sr. and remembering my dad playing his guitar and how he used to sing along. 1...

Clean slate, fresh start! A chance to make resolutions and feel good about moving forward. But also a chance to beat myself up about things that don't "stick". Setting unrealistic goals with strict guidelines is just setting myself up for failure. So, my word for the year being "acceptance", I'm going to go further than originally planned with this. Not only am I going to accept the things that have occurred in 2009 and find a way to move on from the grief and sadness in them, I'm going to also add "acceptance of myself" to this list. Sure there are things I want to change but rather than trying to ignore them & hope they go away I'm going to accept these things and look them in the eye and make friends with them. I'm going to say "oh, hello there procrastination, I see you're visiting again". Then I'm going to say "could you come back later? I really don't have time to indulge you right now". ...

Christmas Eve at my mom's house. I enjoyed capturing some of her decorations amongst the chaos of four children scrambling to open all their gifts. Lego's, Bionicle's and Play-Doh, Oh My!

I've been snapping the last couple weeks but haven't gotten them off the camera til today. Busy time of year, indeed. Taken from inside the warmth of my house. S is for Snow, which we got lots of this weekend! Reflection :) I love this shot! One of my favorite things. A jar full of shells from, yep, Ocracoke. Red Fish Blue Fish hanging at the bottom :( where he's been for about two weeks now. Swimming up occasionally to attempt to eat, but just falling right back down. I'm hoping he perks up.

2008 was tough, and when it was over I was glad. I looked to 2009 to bring change, to bring the many things I was looking to see become reality in my life, and as January came I began to take steps towards making it all come true. 2009 was going to be my year. I was ready and pushing forward. Just one short month into 2009 as I basked in the happiness I felt over purchasing a domain and setting up my photography website I was hit with tragedy in the sudden, horrible and totally unexpected loss of my grandmother. A woman who was the rock in my family. A woman who I looked to for wisdom and strength and cherished with every piece of my heart. It wasn’t a natural loss and the fact that I know she would have lived well past the centurian mark made it even harder to accept the loss. And just three even shorter months later I lost my father to cancer. Another rock. A man who spent his whole life working to provide for his family. A man who never thought of himself. He spent his days doing fo...