A Vase, Photoshop, and Rumi

Today's Capture Your 365 photo prompt was color.  I love color!  This should have been so easy for me.  I am discovering though, that the prompts whose subjects are those about which I feel deeply connected are the one's that are most difficult for me.  I suspect that I over think them.

I finally decided that i would buy some colorful flowers this afternoon at the grocery store and photograph them in a colorful hand blown glass vase that Weber and I got while we were in Vermont on our honeymoon.  That was a great plan until I forgot to but the flowers.  The vase is pretty in its own right so I decided to photograph it empty.  I gave it my by shot (pun intended), but the photos did absolutely nothing for me.  I decided to see what would happen if I played with some fun techniques in Photoshop.  This is what I got.

I feel like the Photoshop Twirls are the photographer's answer to drawing mandalas, a practice which I also enjoy.  I simply went through a process with this and waited to see what emerged.  I must admit that I was surprised but the image that resulted here.  To me it looks like two hearts joined with a cross at the center.  That pretty much sums up my relationship with Weber and since the original image was that vase that we bought on our honeymoon,  the whole mood seemed to come together.

The quote from Rumi also seemed perfect.  Every day I am thankful for the person with whom I share my life, but today I am particularly thankful for his support of and inspiration for all of my creative endeavors.

Thought for Today

Most of my thinking happens on a yellow legal pad.  I am thankful for those yellow legal pads that help bring my thoughts to life!

Thankful To Be Grateful

Sunday began November and the season of Thanksgiving.  I love this time of year - the falling leaves, the cooler temperatures,  big pots of warm soup, and the flannel sheets back on my bed.   I also like the idea of being intentional about giving thanks, but, it's confession time, I don't really like the Thanksgiving holiday.  It always seems like way too much work resulting in way too much food for way too little enjoyment.  By the time we get everyone's "one favorite" Thanksgiving dish on the menu it seems that we end up with enough food to feed eighty rather than the eight of us.  And of course I feel obligated to taste at least o little bite of everything and before I know it I have "tasted" way more than I needed or wanted.  Over the years I have tried to find ways to simplify the Thanksgiving feast, but none has been particularly successful.

In an effort to perhaps prepare myself a little better spiritually for Thanksgiving Day,  I decided to take time each day during the month of November to acknowledge something for which I am thankful.  I started on Sunday by first considering what it means to be thankful.  I realized that in my own thinking and writing, I tend to use the word "grateful" more often than "thankful."  This sent me on a mental expedition in search of what the difference between these two words is.  I had a hard time coming up with something concrete ton my own hat distinguished the two, so I turned to the dictionary.  I was surprised by what I found.

Thankful is defined as "pleased or relieved" and  grateful as "feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness."  These definitions seem to have totally different connotations, yet each definition also gives the other word as a synonym.  It is the word "relieved" used in the definition of thankful; that feels a bit odd to me.  Even when I do choose to use the word "thankful" rather than "grateful," it is never because I am in need of expressing relief.

I am thankful for my family.  I am relieved  by my family.  Um...no.  This doesn't even begin to make sense.  I am grateful for my family.  I am  appreciative of my family.  I can live with the latter.

Thinking on these two words has done nothing to help clarify for me the distinction between them or their proper usage.  Fortunately, it is only November 5th.  Perhaps by the end of the month I will have better sense of each.  For now, I am thankful that there is no reason that I have to be clear on the subtlety of these words and I'm grateful for the opportunity to continue pondering what is most certainly an extremely important concept, I'm sure.

Here are the things that in these first five days of November for which I am thankful/grateful.

November 1: I am grateful for who I am.  I have lots of imperfections, but they all contribute to making me who I am.  I am blessed by my family, friends, and by the work that I do.  I do my very best to be in a light in my small corner of the world, but I also strive to keep that light from shining on me.

November 2: I am grateful for the newest member of our family and for Brooke's help in training and loving this little pup.

November 3: I am grateful for a peaceful backyard where the dogs can play and I can kick off my shoes and relax.

November 4: Though the time change leaves me little light for photography when I get home from school, I am grateful for the quiet of the long dark nights.

Grateful for the calm

Of the dark and quiet night.

Day's long lullaby.

November 5: I am grateful for comfortable clothes - my duck jammies, a sweatshirt, Crocs, and tie-dyed socks.  I am also grateful for a husband who loves me even when I am wearing duck jammies, a sweatshirt, Crocs, and tie-dyed socks.  I am also thankful for that husband who, after dropping me off at school at 7:15 this morning, went home to get my lunch that I forgot and brought it to me on his way to school.

I need to remember that often the little things are the big things and the big things are just little things.

All Saints Day

A year ago today was my dad's memorial service.  The readings, the hymns, and the day for that celebration were all details that I carefully orchestrated.  What better day for a memorial service than All Saints Day?  As today, November 1, 2015, comes to an end, I have now passed the year mark of life without my dad.  Every anniversary date that  comes along from now on will no longer be "the first."  I was blessed to have had the opportunity to sing a Choral Evensong for All Saints Day with my church choir this evening.  What a meaningful way to mark the passage of this last year.

I miss my dad, but I know that he is among the great cloud of witnesses, ever present and ever watchful.


Today's photo prompt: Who Am I

I am very much my father's daughter.  The humble life that he led is my inspiration.

Five Fabulous Finds - October 2015

Back when I was being faithful to my blog, I did a regular post each month called Five Fabulous Finds.  In most cases it was a silly list of things that I had come cross during that month that were either new to me and that I found interesting, fascinating, edifying, or just plain fun.  As part of my ongoing effort to get back in the swing of things here, I am reinstituting that monthly post today.  It WILL appear on the last day of each month.  There.  I made it public.  Now I must be accountable.

FIVE FABULOUS FINDS

1. Pumpkin Spice Oreos
It is no secret that I love cookies, almost any kind of cookie, but I am kind of a cookie snob and prefer homemade.  That said, what kid of my generation didn't grow up with Oreos?  I do like the traditional Oreas, probably more for the memories that they conjure up than their actual taste, but I do like them.  In my adult years, when I guess Oreo was trying to spread their wings and try some new things, they came up with Uh-Oh Oreos.  These were vanilla cookies with chocolate cream in the middle.  In my opinion, they rocked!  I preferred them to regular Oreos and would actually buy them to pack in my lunches during the school week when baking cookies from scratch just was;t going to happen.  Then they disappeared from the grocery store shelves.  Sadness ensued.  Lately Oreo has spent a lot of time messing with these iconic cookies.  Here is a link to the list to all of the Oreo flavors ever made made, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Though apparently they were first released in 2014, I just stumbled upon the Pumpkin Spice Oreos this year while at Target.  They were neatly stacked on the impulse buy end cap right at the cash registers.  The marketing ploy worked and we bought them.  I do like pumpkin spice flavored stuff, but I am not an addict.  I am not one who waits all year long for Starbucks to again start serving pumpkin spice lattes.  I like pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread, but when its gone for the season I'm OK with that.  The Pumpkin Spice Oreos just sounded good at the time and worth the risk of trying them.

When we made it to register to pay, the cashier asked if we had ever had the cookies before.  We responded "no" and asked the same of her.  She said that she had not tried them but wanted to.  So, we opened the package right there and we shared the Pumpkin Spice Oreos with all the checkers within a few lanes of us.  The consensus was that they are pretty good.  Like pumpkin pie, they are nice while they are here and I'll wait until next year to buy them again.  Now my waiting has turned to the Chocolate Covered Ritz Crackers that are only available during the Christmas season.

2.  Moonshine: The Hee-haw Musical
Early in October, on a Thursday night, we joined some friends to see MOONSHINE: That Hee-haw Musical.  "MOONSHINE: That Hee Haw Musical distills the spirit of an iconic television series and bottles it into an original musical comedy!"  The Dallas production was the first for this new show and surely it will not be its last!  The production and the cast were top notch.  The book is hillarious and the music was superb.  We loved it so much that on our way home that evening we bought tickets to see it again on the following Sunday night for its closing performance.  If you hear of this show running in your area, it is well worth the ticket.  We hope that it makes it to Broadway. And when they do, there is definitely a New York trip in our future to see it again.

3. Wearing God by Lauren Winner
LaurenWinner is a historian, author and lecturer. She is Assistant Professor of Christian Spirituality at Duke Divinity School.  I have read several of her books in the past, my favorite being Mudhouse Sabbath.  I had the opportunity to hear her speak at our church about her new book, Wearing God.  I have not yet had the chance to read this newest book, which explores the many Biblical metaphors for God, but am looking forward to reading it at the end of the semester.  I'm sure I will have more to say about this book once I have read it completely.

4. Pixels, Plates, and LOLs!
At first it may appear a little narcissistic to include Pixels, Plates, and LOLs! in this list since is it a blog that I co-author.  Though I'd like to think that it contains some useful information and cause for a few laughs, that is not why it is included in this list.  I am including Pixels, Plates, and LOLs! for what it represents.  Tracey and I write about our shared love of food and photography and our friendship that has grown around these two things.  The thing is, on the surface our lives are very different and we have never met or even talked to one another on the phone.  Yet beyond the external, we have a lot in common and have found a way through our shared blog to both share and continue to build our friendship.  The fact that we have been able to join together on this venture is due to the positive power of the Internet.  Here is a link to our first post, which explains how we got started.

5. Puppy Bumpers
I hope you read the story of our newest family member in my last post.  We are blessed to have her, but definitely were not planning on another dog at this point.  We have just finished some major landscaping at our house a few weeks ago.  Part of that involved tearing out some old chain link fence and replacing it with wrought iron fencing.  The wrought iron is much prettier and does perfectly fine at keeping Harley and Adidas safe.  It's bars that are four inches apart do not, however,  keep a five pound puppy inside. It didnt seem fair for Piper to have to be on a leash all the time, so we started exploring ways to keep her safely inside the fence.  Our first thought was to line the fence with some kind of mesh, but that kind of defeated the purpose of all of the beautiful landscaping that we had just had done.  Then I discovered Puppy Bumpers on Amazon.com.  Puppy Bumpers are threaded on the dog's collar and look like the neck rests that they sell in the airport to make sleeping on an airplane halfway comfortable.  Basically, the make the puppy too wide to fit through the fence.  I ordered one just to try.  It was $20, not a huge investment if it didn't work.

We received our Puppy Bumper the next day.  I first went outside with it without a puppy to see if I could push it through the fence.  Nope!  So I threaded it on Piper's collar, attached the whole contraption on her and off she went into the yard with the big dogs.  She barely seemed to notice that she was wearing anything extra.  She didn't seem the least bit interested in trying to slip through the fence.  I'm not complaining, mind you!  We're not sure how big Piper will grow to be.  She may get big enough to not need her bumper, but if not, she is safe with it on.  And, the bumpers do come bogger as well as in a waterproof and glow in the dark model.  We have this girl covered!

Thank you for reading!

Welcome, Piper!

Today was not a normal Sunday.  Weber is still suffering with Shingles and its accompanying tiredness so we did not go to church at 9 this morning.  We also did not have our regular Sunday brunch get together because so many had conflicting schedules today.  That left Weber and me to our own devices this afternoon.  

We had a late and leisurely, let's just say, meal about 1:30.  Though we had breakfast food, it was too late to even qualify as brunch, I think.  As long as we were out, we decided to go to Petsmart to gets some glucosamine for Adidas, a quick in and out.

As usual, right inside the door, there was a local rescue group with dogs and cats that needed forever homes.  Though I have a soft heart, I also have a realistic mind.  I usually glance over at the animals, comment on their cuteness, express my hope that they find loving families, and go along my way.  Again, today was different.  As soon as I walked in the door, my eyes met her eyes.

Resting on a hot pink pillow was this little "fringy" looking dog.  Something about her drew me to her.  As soon as we approached her crate, she came quickly to the front, all five pounds of her wiggling frantically.  The rescue society person said that she must like us because the puppy had been a little reserved thus far.  Someone who is trying to sell you a dress or a car will say just about anything to get you to buy; that is not the case for people looking to find homes for animals.  They are protective and want to make sure that the dogs and cats go to a home that best suits the needs of the animals and the humans.  I asked the basic questions such as age, gender, and probable breed.  I don't know why it mattered; we weren't  in the market for a puppy.  She is a four to five month old probably Jack Russell mix.  Throughout this conversation the wiggles continued and the pawing at the crate door to be let out.  The rescue volunteer asked if we  wanted to hold her.  Yeah, we all know that was a mistake:-). As we were holding her and having one of those ridiculous human-puppy conversations, we heard her story.

The rescue volunteer found this puppy at a Fort Worth shelter.  The volunteer was there to pick up a cat, and, like us, was drawn in by this sweet little face.  I'm not sure how the dog ended up at the shelter in the first place, but we did find out that she had been adopted once, kept for three days, and returned because of allergies in the adoptive family.  When the volunteer got the dog home, she noticed a problem with her back left leg and immediately took her to the vet.  X-rays revealed that this poor little pup's leg had been broken in three spots probably because she had been stepped on.  The treatment options were amputate the leg, perform very expensive surgery that may or may not help, or wait to see how it healed.  The later was chosen.

The odd thing is that based on the x-rays, the injury looked old enough that it occurred before the puppy was initially adopted from the Ft. Worth shelter, and no one seems to have noticed it.  Neither did the family that returned her mention any problems with her leg.  The more I heard about this little girl, the more I felt a connection to her.

Weber and I talked about the reality of a third dog.  We knew there would be no problem with Adidas, our black lab; he is so easy-going.  We were, however, a little  worried about Harley, our terrier mix, because she can be kind of bossy and possessive.  The Petsmart trainer suggested that we bring Harley to the store for a meet and greet.  So, we did.  Harley is only a "big girl" on her own turf.  She is definitely a home body and was fairly nervous out in the world.  She basically ignored the puppy despite the fact that the puppy was trying to get her to play.  That was actually a good sign.  At least she showed no signs of aggression.  

Weber and I and the two dogs sat in the training room together for 30-45 minutes and finally decided that the puppy was meant to be part of our family.  Thus, we had some shopping to do.  We needed a new crate, puppy food, bowls, puppy toys, and of course a Halloween sweater!

Once we paid all of our debts at Petsmart we headed home for the big meet and greet...all three dogs.  It went remarkably well.  They all ran around in the yard together.  

The puppy sometimes uses, sometimes drags, and sometimes lifts her injured leg.  It doesn't slow her down and does not appear to cause her any pain.  Adidas and Harley are still trying to figure out how all this is going to work.  They were quite disappointed that they got their senior fare rather than puppy food for dinner.  Frankie, the cat, is not amused.  Though the puppy has been in a foster home with cats and only looked at Frankie, Frankie has been in hiding in an undisclosed location since we got home.  After about an hour of checking out her new surroundings, the puppy has been sound asleep in someone's lap all evening, but the cat is not convinced that it is safe to come out.  Things will shake down over time.

So, her name...the puppy came with the name Kandy.  Her  name had no particular significance.  The rescue worker gave her that name when she took her to the vet the first time.  At that point the puppy had no name and needed one for her records.  There was a candy bowl sitting on the counter, so that was the name she was given.  Weber, Brooke, and I all agreed that a new name was needed.  Brooke said that Kandy with a "K" sounded like a hooker name.  

We tossed around several different possibilities and I finally settled on Piper, which had also been one of the contenders when little then four pound Harley joined our family.

I am not even going to try to understand the universe on this one.  We have never considered another dog.  I generally have more than enough self-control when it comes to padding by animal adoption sites, and I have always preferred big dogs.  Harley, who about 26 pounds is the smallest dog I have ever had.  Piper probably will only grow to be about 15 pounds.  She is about 5 or 6 now.

I think we need to stick to the normal Sunday routine for awhile - early church, brunch, and an afternoon nap.  No shopping!

I will post some better pictures once there is less wiggling!

Alone With Me

Today was just the day I needed!  It was gray and rainy.  Not cold, but that's okay.  And, I got to stay at home all day!  For most of the day I could hear the falling rain, its rhythm somewhat irregular but comforting nonetheless.  I was up early, made breakfast for Weber, wrote my morning pages, shared a few texts with friends, and then went back to bed for an hour.  The weather encouraged it.  My calendar allowed it.  And, I needed it.  It is not very often that I give myself permission to do this so today was a real gift to myself.

Brooke and I were both home today.  It seems like some days we just pass in the hall, never really having a chance to talk with each other.  As I was baking this afternoon, we had a chance to catch up and also solve many of the world's problems-if only anyone actually listened to us.  We also took care of a few other mundane tasks like thumbing through magazines and discussing the recipes that will make the cut and be included on our Thanksgiving menu.  These are important decisions!  Smoked turkey, roasted root vegetables, dressing, mashed potatoes, bacon sweet potatoes, sweet potato biscuits, and pie...lots of pie!

Once the decisions about food were made, we had a conversation about time and happiness.  We both enjoy being at home reading, or cooking, or writing.  To us, that is the "good life."  Those things are what make us happy.  That is not to say that we don't enjoy going out and having a good time, every now and then; we do,  but we also agreed that a life based solely in the need to be entertained by the external world is not for us.  Each of is content spending time alone.  I am amazed by the number of people who are made terribly uncomfortable by being in their own company.  If you don't want to spend time with you, why would anyone else?

In my solitude I listen to myself.   I talk to myself.  I assess where I am and where I want to be.  I think. I dream.  I worry.  I cry.  I laugh.  I wonder why.  I deconstruct.  I imagine.  I create.  I fill my heart with thoughts of others.  I pray.  And sometimes I just am.  My time alone equips me to be with others.  Without my alone time to to refocus and recharge, I am not a very pleasant person.  It is time to make my mind and heart right within so that I can be with others and be right with them as well.  It is time I desperately need and need and cherish.

Tomorrow is predicted to be another gray and rainy day.  And I am looking forward to it!