30/365-3 Commitment

'A Commitment to Mentoring"

29/365-3 Tethered

"The Ropes"

28/365-3 Play

"Work and Play"

I am fortunate that work means making music!

27/365-3 Nourishment

"Body, Mind, and Spirit"

It is important to make sure body, mind, and spirit are all well-nourished.  This was taken on a beautiful 80 degree afternoon...in January!  There is something wrong with that, but I'm not complaining.

26/365-3 Movement

"Playing Nicely"

Well, today was an epic fail all the way around - technically and creatively.  The start of the spring semester has really messed up my photo taking routine.  I decided that I better be prepared for my classes tomorrow so it was dark by the time I got to my photo.  Most nights, the cat sits and waits for the dog to round the corner and then takes a paw to her and much motion ensues.  I was on the floor waiting.  Tonight it didn't happen:-)  The one time that I needed them to not play nicely together they decided to behave like civilized young ladies.  Oh well...win some, lose some:-)

25/365-3 Resolve

"Live!"

I resolve to live each day to its fullest, not wasting precious time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

24/365-3 Who and What

"Harley's Bath Day"

Thanks to the warm weather and the help of her human big sister, Harley had a bath today.  I am absolutely sure that this is not how she would have chosen to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon given a choice.

23/365-2 On the Third

"Cheese"

The intended subject for today's prompt was a landscape.  we were to intentional place the horizon.  A landscape photo was not happening for me today; I had way too many other things to be doing and did not have time to go out looking.  Fortunately, I got a lot of landscape practice last weekend in Delaware.

I could have cheated a little and used one of the photos that I took over the weekend.  I was torn between following the prompt and staying true to a photo every day.  I opted for a photo that I took today.  Obviously it is not a landscape and thus has no skier a horizon, really.  Perhaps it fit the "on the third." bill.  It doesn't matter.  It is what it is.

I am double dipping a bit today because the photo was actually taken for today's post on the blog Pixels, Plates and LOLs!  We shared some photos and recipes for our favorite comfort foods.  Stop on over and visit if you have a few minutes!

22/365-3 Color Blocking

"My New Jacket"

For Christmas I asked for a North Face Denali jacket.  I didn't specify a color, but anyone willing to spend the money to buy me this jacket knows me well enough to know that I would definitely want blue.  In doing his Christmas shopping, Weber discover that North Face has an option where you can design your own jacket - choose the polar fleece color, the nylon, the zippers, the stitching, and they include an embroidered personal tag.  That is what I got for Christmas.  It was really two gifts in one.  Playing with all of the color combinations on the website was a blast.  The hard part was having to make a decision...well, not really.  Blue and orange were the only contenders;  the only hard part was deciding in what combination.  Obviously I settled on one and my jacket came today!  It may not be the most exciting picture of color blocking, but I am pretty excited about the jacket!

Here is the link if anyone is interested.

21/365-2 Play or Meal?

Geodesic Gnome Dome

Food photography is not my forte.  And, I am a firm believer that bad food photography is the worst kind of bad photography.  Every time a prompt surfaces that involves food, I tend to think, think, rethink, and overthink...as was the case today.  To make matters worse, today's prompt implied that the food shot should be a clever...oh great.

I thought about it for awhile.  The picture below is my response.  It is a take on something I think I saw in an online article a year or so ago.  As far as my contribution, it is fairly uninspired, but it fit the bill.

I remembered after I took this that the girls wanted me to photograph the gingerbread house that they built over the weekend.  (We were out of town and our kitchen was overtaken.)  Brooke and Erin have made a tradition of building a gingerbread house together over the Christmas holidays.  However, now that they both have "grown-up" jobs, time did not allow for that during the real holiday season, so it was put off until now.  As I was photographing their gingerbread dome, I thought, "Well duh; this is a much better image of playing with food than was my silly fruit and shredded wheat."  And, it's more meaningful.  I am glad to have documented the yearly house building.

I think Mr. Gingerbread Man is a little concerned about the style, or lack thereof, of his new neighbor.  We'll see what the geodesic gnome dome does to the property values in their neighborhood.

Mr. Gnome is glad to meet his new neighbors.

A Gnome With a View...

I'm glad that my girls keep me entertained...the Legos were more contribution to their project.

20/365-3 Trio / Triptych

"Stability"

I am focused on this week's overarching photo theme of balance. Weber is pretty good about talking sense into me when I am way off base, he'll hold my hand to keep me from straying too far off the path, and he'll stand with me to help me stay grounded. Trust me, all of that is hard work!

As classes started today with my ridiculous teaching load and I am still in the midst of settling my dad's affairs, I am relying on him to help keep me balanced!

19/365-3 Negative Space

"Good-bye, Lewes."

A lonely tree on the way out of town...

18/365-3 Balance

"Balance and Sacrifice"

We are in Delaware going through all of the stuff in my dad's house. It was my grandparents so there is two generations and then some of family "stuff" here. I am trying to make decisions about what to keep for me and for my girls, what to donate, what to auction, and what to get rid of. I am doing my best to be realistic about what we can use and what we have room for and trying to avoid feeling guilty about those things I don't keep.

As I was walking on the beach this evening, I was struck by the image of the two benches - one looking forward and one looking backward separated by the trash can. That is how I feel. Looking back through all of the family stuff, needing to move forward, and the literal and figurative trash can standing between the two.

We saw this barn while driving around town.  The light and the fog were just perfect!

17/365-2 Powdery

"Sand"

There was no powdery snow in Lewes today, but there was some loose sand on the beach.

16/365-3 Snowflakes

"Snow Geese""

According to my Garmin Vivosmart wristband, I had one hour and fifty-four minutes of sleep last last.  I mentioned in yesterday's post that I spent most of the day working on material for my new joint blog project (www.pixelsplatesandlols.blogspot.com)  That meant that at midnight last night I was just beginning to pack for our weekend trip to Delaware.

We had a 5am flight, which meant getting up at 2:30am to leave for the airport by 3:15.  We had an uneventful flight out of Dallas.  When coming to Delaware, we connect through Charlotte on our way to Salisbury, MD, the closest airport to Lewes.  The fog in Charlotte was terrible!  We were able to land although the pilot announced that we would be making a "Category III landing."  I just looked up what that means.  I'm glad I didn't know this morning what I know now...a Category III landing means that the landing is completely automated.  The flight crew "simply supervises the landing."  We landed just fine, but our connecting flight was delayed by an hour and a half.  The delay was not a big deal except we missed seeing the people in Delaware that were really the reason that we made this trip.  Still, not a big deal.

The sky was clear and the sun was shining by the time that we landed in Salisbury.  It was cold and there were patches of snow still on the ground from a snow storm earlier in the week.  

Just as we got to Lewes, Weber noticed a field that was completely covered with snow geese.  It was an amazing sight...and sound.  My pictures don't do the scene justice.  Weber graciously pulled over so that I could take some photos, but I didn't have the right lens on my camera and my settings were still set for photographing muffins from yesterday.  Needless to say,  it was an impressive sight.  There must have been thousands of geese.

We have some things to get taken care of while we are in town this weekend, but there is also some down time to visit with my cousin and aunt.  This is my last hoorah before starting back to school on Tuesday.  I plan to make the best of it!

15/365-3 First Taste

"Sunshine and Steps"

Today was the first day that we have had a taste of sunshine in many days.  It is also the first day that I have ventured out for a "real" walk since before Christmas when I broke my leg.  It was so nice to get outside in some fresh, though brisk, air and get some exercise.  I so enjoyed my walk to the grocery store.  My leg was not as happy as the rest of me, but it will get over it. :-)

A good part of the rest of my day was spent finishing up something for a new project.  A friend and fellow photographer and I have started writing a new blog together.  Its primary purpose is to honor our friendship.  We intend to do that by sharing our love of photography and food.  If you are interested in following along with us, the blog is called, Pixels, Plates, and LOLs!

 The address is:   www.pixelsplatesandlols.blogspot.com

In addition to finishing up a post for that, I was also trying to get ready to leave for Delaware.  I should have spent more time on travel preparations and less time on writing and photography, but I didn't.  

14/365-3 Positive

'A Positive Sign"

For Christmas Weber bought a box of "Pop Open Cards."  They are much like fortune cookies in that you open them up and each contains a different inspirational message.  I consider the one that I opened this morning as a positive sign.  A good friend from Capture Your 365 and I have begun writing a blog together.  Though we have been working on it for a little while and the first post has be out there for a week or so, we had not made it public until today.  Yep, today was the day we bit the bullet and shared our new adventure with the world.  Well, maybe not with the world, but with a few friends via Facebook.

Our blog, "Pixels, Plates, and LOLs"  is a celebration of our friendship.  We will share stories about food, photography, and how these things have served as the impetus for creating and nurturing our friendship.  If you have a few minutes, click on over and check it out!  

13/365-3 A Pop of Color

"Brooke's Tea Cup"

A struggled with this particular prompt.  A wandered around all day looking for something white with a pop of color.  After several uninspired attempts at just photographing "something" that resulted in epic fails, I was about to give up when I turned around and spotted Brooke's dirty tea cup on the kitchen counter.  Most of the time the fact that how the dishwasher works seems to elude my 25 year old daughter, tonight it worked to my advantage.  Every time I look at this photo I will be reminded of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of times I have asked her to please put her dirty dishes in the dishwasher.  Perhaps it will tens of thousands of times of asking before I wear her down and she finally gives in and opens the beast known as the dishwasher.

12/365-3 Frost

"Fire and Ice"

Though it was chilly today, it was not chilly enough for frost so I had to go a different route with today's prompt.

With sincere apologies to Robert Frost, here is my silly illustration of his poem Fire and Ice.

Some say the world will end in fire; 
Some say in ice. 
From what I've tasted of desire 
I hold with those who favor fire. 
But if it had to perish twice, 
I think I know enough of hate 
To say that for destruction ice 
Is also great 
And would suffice.

11/365-3 White

"A Picture of Albinism"

White?  I have white covered.  I'm glad for the days when I don't have to think too hard about the daily prompts.

10/365-2 A Habit

"Group Hug"

Let me start by saying that this IS NOT the photo I was going for today! My intention was to photograph a hug. We do have a habit of starting and ending each day with a hug and by saying "I love you." I am a firm believer in never saying anything that you wouldn't want your last words to be. That said, the dog photo was a photo bomber. She quickly made herself comfortable between us, as is her habit!  When I looked at the images on the coputer, this just made me laugh. It is not a great photo by any means, but it is pretty representativeI accidentally hit the remote in my hand and took this photo. When I looked at the images on the com of life around here:-)

9/365-3 Multifaceted

"Welcome Home!"

As is evidenced by the fact that it is now Saturday and this is Friday;s post, I was short on time, as well as inspiration and creativity, yesterday.  There wasn't anything really major going on, just a lot of little things that managed to eat away at t my time - mentoring, conference calls, a few chores, playing for a service last night.  It is one of those cases where the sum of the parts seems greater than the whole.

Multifaceted was a weird word to me.  I know what it means, but I didn't really know what it looked like.  I wasn't going to take a photo of some kind of gem, which is the first thing that came to mind when I heard the word.  Then I thought about myself as a multi-faceted person, but that is more or less the photo that I took on Thursday.  Frustrated and running out of time, I turned and looked at the front door, which I had already been through many times already and decided that it would have to do for today's photo.

So here it ism for what it's worth, a (multifaceted?) section of the glass in our from door.  I have to admit that this is something that I have never thought of as the subject for a photo.

8/365-3 My Gear

"The Write Stuff"

By education and profession I am a musician (clarinetist and professor of music theory and composition). And obviously photography is a much loved hobby. But it is really the pencil that is the most important piece of gear I own. I use it to write music, to make performance markings, to take notes of all kinds, to journal, to underline important things in photography books and manuals. That pencil is truly the key to my success in everything that I do. Yes, I am still a big fan of paper and pencil though I have and use all of the technological gadgets.

7/365-3 Solitude

"Circles of Quiet"

I am an only child.  Only children, at least those few that I have known, are content with solitude for the most part.  When I was little, I remember spending countless hours creating with my Spirograph, often when there were no neighborhood kids around with whom to play.  Its possibilities were endless, always a new design.  In all those hours, I bet I never even came close to creating the same design twice.  It was like magic as the beautiful geometric forms emerged just from moving a plastic circle round and round and round inside another circle.  I don't know what happened to my original Spirograph. We parted ways sometime along the way.

This year for Christmas, Weber got me a new Spirograph.  It is a little different from the 1970 version, but it still has its magic.  No longer do you a need a piece of cardboard to stick pins to anchor the big circle guide so that it doesn't move.  The Spirograph now comes with that sticky tack stiff like you use to hold posters on the wall.  You can stick the plastic piece right to the paper.  This small set also only comes with two colored pens, red and blue.  The big set from my childhood had a black and green pen as well.  That doesn't matter so much.  I have a plethora of pens in way more than four colors!  And the sticky tack stuff is also a nice improvement.  Everything else is as I remember it, the clear plastic wheels and rectangles just waiting to combine and make beautiful shapes.  And all of this in a cool little tin box making it more portable than my original version.

This morning after I finished writing my morning pages, the brightly colored tin box with my new Spirograph caught my attention from its perch on the corner of the dining room table. I pulled out random pieces, stuck the wheel to my paper and off I went, making magic.  As I circled that wheel round and round moving my pens from one hole to the next, I was struck with how calming, how peaceful, how meditative this whole process was.  I now know that what I was creating forty-five years ago with my first Spirograph and what I made this morning are mandalas - sacred circles.  This morning I was overcome with calm and peace in my moments of quiet and solitude.  I suspect that the quiet circles of the Spirograph had the same calming effect on me all those years ago, I just didn't realize it. 

I wonder what children would be like today if they spent more time playing with Spirograph and less time playing video games.

6/365-3 Where I Stand - January

"Where I Stand Sit - January 2015"

I'm still trying to heal from my pre-Christmas "photography" injury so I am supposed to be taking it easy on my leg.  Yesterday I took down the Christmas decorations and this there was not much resting  so today was a day off of me feet...except for a little vacuuming.

5/365-2 Ensemble

"A Duo of Duos"

It's bad enough when people start looking like their dogs, or couples start looking like each other...but when a couple starts looking like Lego mini figures????  Scary stuff.

4/365-3 A Reflection of Me

"Give and Take"

I am see to be in my introspective period...

3/365-3 Open Possibilities

"Possibilities"

We had a great day with friends today.  We went to see Into the Woods.  I thought it was well adapted to the big screen.  Despite its basis on fairytales, it is not a children's movie.  Oh wait, fairytales were never really intended for children.  Someone forgot to tell this to the family in the back row with the screaming baby.  They did finally take the unhappy little person out to the lobby.  And then there was the pre-schooler in the second row... The other thing is, and this is rather sad, most children today do not know the stories of the fairytales well enough to understand or appreciate the mastery by which this particular story was constructed.  

The movie, because we went to the "earlybird" showing (translation: cheap) was over at 3:30.  We all had "lupper" together at a local Italian restaurant.  By the time we had finished eating, I had missed the good light for taking pictures.  Oh well...Weber and I went out to see what we could see.  I had fun playing with the possibilities.

2/365-3 Think Over

"Don't Think.  Just Be."

The left-brained academic in me often overpowers the creative free-spirit that also resides within but only occasionally is set free to come out for recess.  I am always thinking, planning, trying to learn, hoping to improve whatever I think needs improvement, which often feels like almost everything.  

For Christmas I was given the book Photography as Meditation by Torsten Hoffman.  I picked it up early today just to take a peek.  I was sitting near a window that seemed more like a percussion instrument thanks to the heavy rain beating against it.  I closed my eyes.  The rhythm, and even the melody, of the raindrops was mesmerizing.  So random yet measured, chaotic yet peaceful.  

When I opened my eyes, I looked down at the book that I realized that I had rolled into an arch in my hands.  The abstract landscape image of its cover served as a warp upon which the reflections of my window, my rain...my now...became the weft.  Like the raindrops, the lights and darks of the jumbles images were both random and peaceful.  I reached for my camera to capture that image.

When I looked at the photo on the computer, the picture that I captured was exactly what I saw with my eyes, but it did not stir the same sense of wonder an awe as it did when I held the book in my hands in front of the window only moments earlier.  I wanted that feeling back, at least for a moment.

I sat in front of the computer trying to name what it was that I felt in that previous "now" that which was gone in the image.  I decided that what was missing was the randomness, the unpredictability, the impermanence of every moment.  And truthfully, all of those things are antithetical to photography,  which seeks to preserve the fleeting moments of our lives.  With those thoughts bouncing around in my head (that I was trying to not use to think), I decided that I wanted to try to create a photo that some how might elude to the idea of impermanence. 

Today's image is that photo that I mentioned above, the one that left me emotionless.  I pulled it into Photoshop and began playing, trying things whose outcome I had no way of predicting.  You can see where I landed.  In reality this image will never change, but in its abstractness, and with the ever-changing state of my own perception, each time I look at it, there is the potential for something new to be revealed to me.  I like that.  And with that, I accomplished my goal for today's photo without too much thought.

I have yet to read a word of Hoffmann's book, but if the material in the book is as inspiring as is simply holding it in my hands and looking at the cover, working my way through its contents ought to make for quite a journey.

1/365-3 Good Morning 2015!

"Thanks and Possibilities"

Welcome 2015!  What better way to start a new year than with a warm cup of coffee in a mug given to me for my birthday by an awesome friend.; the wisdom on the mug is a perfect mantra to take into the new year.  And, by looking back at all that 2014 gave to me.  For Christmas, Erin collected my photos from the year and had them printed in a book.  On the cover is my photo from January 1, 2014.  So this morning I am looking back and giving thanks for the joys and sorrows of the past year and opening myself to the possibilities of 2015!

I wish each of you happiness, love, and joy in this new year!

365/365-2 Party

"No Dancing Shoes!"

Yes, I forget to post this "yesterday," but it was after midnight when I got home so technically it would have been today anyway...

This is not the photo that I would have liked as my final image for the conclusion of my second year of a picture a day, but this is what my life was today.  And the point of this project is to document my life, so here it is.

My leg is not fractured.  It is as injured as it can be without being broken.  The good news is that it is not broken.  The bad news is that the injury is potentially more painful and takes longer to heal than an actual break.  Oh well, I don't have to go back to work until the 20th of January so I have some time to rest and recuperate.

We did spend a quiet evening with friends to usher in the new year.  It wasn't actually a party, but it was a joyful celebration - food, friends, and watching the ball drop in NYC.  It all made me happy!

Happy New Year everyone!