Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: Photography


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WordPress Photo challenge – yellow

I know.  Yellow??

The point of the original post was that we are surrounded with holiday colors this time of year, blue and silver, red and green.  But does yellow have a special meaning for anyone this holiday season?

Turns out it does for me.

 

Sandy's favorite color

Sandy’s favorite color

 

This time the photo challenge isn’t about finding an interesting representation or a stunning photograph.  This time it’s just about friendship and nostalgic memories.

And jingle bell socks.

You see there once was a woman here at work who loved the holidays so much that as Christmas approached she wore socks with jingle bells sewn into them.   We all smiled as we heard her coming and going.   I wrote about her last winter when she died after a short illness; how she was everyone’s ‘work mom,’ confidant, advice giver, listener.  How we were going to miss her.

Her favorite color was yellow, and everyone at her funeral wore yellow ribbons in her honor.  I pinned it to the dusty dirty wall of my cubicle last February and look at it every day.  I can still hear her voice and her laugh in my head,  and I hope I will always be able to bring her to mind and smile.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot these past few weeks as the holidays descend, as work stays crazy and home life gets crazier.  And once in awhile when I hear the faint jingle of a bell I’m pretty sure it’s her checking in on us.

If you see me walking around grinning it’s because she’s still with me whenever I see the color yellow this holiday season.

So….how you doing girlfriend?  We miss you.

Merry Christmas up there in heaven.

 

 


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Happy Birthday little girl!

Katie here.

Guess what, Guess What, GUESS WHAT!?!?!

I am eight years old today!  I think there should be a giant party and everybody should come over and tell me how beautiful I am and give me stuff, especially yummy treats, which I would not share with anyone because princesses do not share.

Oh.

Mama says I need to be polite.

OK.  So I’d share with all of you.  Princesses can be gracious if reminded.

I guess.

But Mama has to go to work today so there isn’t going to be a big party for me.  I’ll probably just get my regular dog food too.  Sigh.  It’s so stinkin hard to be a sheltie princess when the mama keeps going off for entire days at a time.  I mean if a girl’s a princess in an empty house and no one sees, is she still a princess?  Huh?  I ask you?  Not fair.  That’s all I’ve got to say about the matter.

The only good thing about today is that my bestest dog walker friend is going to come take me for a walk at lunch!  When my mama has to go away for the day she sometimes gets my friend to come over and play with me.  That’s just so much fun!  She comes with treats too…so I guess my birthday won’t be an entire washout.

And my mama will come home from work eventually and then we’ll play play play!  I hope.   She’s been pretty preoccupied lately.  The whole truck thing last week got her really sad and I had to work double time to cheer her up.  I did my best work at 5:30 in the morning when she seemed to need cheering up the most.  A dog always knows that timing is everything.  She’ll thank me latter when she’s in a better mood.  She seems a bit of a grouchy pants at the moment.

Anyway…because today is my 8th birthday and because she has to work today she took me to my favorite park yesterday afternoon.  It was a gloomy day but I didn’t care, I love going to my park and she lets me sniff as much as I want.  It’s the best present she could give me.  Here’s me next to some beautiful tall grass.  I think I make the grass look even prettier, don’t you?

 

At my park 12-14-14

And just in case you haven’t seen me as an cute little puppy, here’s me my first day at home.  I was 3 mos old and just as cute as could be.  Mama and Daddy fell in love with me the first time they saw me, even though I wasn’t at all sure about them.  I hid behind a big chair at my first mom’s house and watched them.   But then I let mama pick me up and it was OK after that.  I slept upside down all the way to my new house, and it’s been perfect ever since.    I can’t blame them for loving me right away.  Can you?

 

March 31, 2007

First day on my sofa, March 31, 2007

I know, I know…adorable…right?

 

So I think everyone should go get something yummy and treat themselves on me!  Sort of my gift to you from me on my 8th birthday!  Happy Birthday to me!

Enjoy everybody!

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WordPress photo challenge: Converge

Converge – where different things come together and this week’s photo challenge.  I was visiting my brother’s home during the Thanksgiving weekend and climbed up into his loft.

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And there I saw the convergence of inside and outside, light and dark in the angled windows of his home on the lake.

You can see other version of converge at the original link.  Or see a few of my favorites here, here and here.

 

What do you see converging around you?  Share with us…you have an entire week to find something perfect.


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WordPress photo challenge: Angular

 

 

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I haven’t visited the local hospital since the new wing was completed.  It’s very beautiful.  More beautiful is the fact that I wasn’t there to visit anyone, just to shoot a photo challenge.

You can see other interpretation of angular here, here, here and here.  Or go to the original link and see many more!  I like this one too, and her short explanation of cultural differences was was interesting as well.

Over the course of the week I expect more people will be posting their shots, so it’s worth going back to visit again later on.  And look around your own world.  I bet you can find something angular yourself.  Post it to your blog and connect to the original link and you’ll find people stopping by that you’ve never met before.  The hunt for an appropriate shot and then the visits of people from all over the world is what makes these photo challenges so much fun for me.

Come along and join the fun!


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A simple thank you

Great Lakes National Cemetary

Great Lakes National Cemetery

Today was Veterans Day; the eleventh day of the eleventh month and designated by President Wilson in 1919 as a day to honor those who have given so much so that we here in the United States remain free.

It was a day for all of us to say thank you to those who have served our country in the military.

Flowers amid the stones.

Flowers amid the stones.

Over hills and across farmland, not far from where I live, is the Great Lakes National Cemetery.  It sits on over 500 acres, was opened in 2005 and is the final resting place for thousands, and someday hundreds of thousands, of veterans and their spouses.  The numbers, even now, are staggering and very visual as you look across row after row of white marble headstones.  You can become lost in the vastness of it.

Thousands of souls.

Thousands of souls.

Or you can stop and wander, read a few of the names and messages found there.

Wandering and reading.

Wandering and reading.

Each stone honors an individual, a veteran yes, but also a person.  A person that had a life outside the military, someone who laughed with family, hung out with friends, traveled, went fishing.

Sometimes the story on the headstone is simple.

Pearl Harbor survivor.

Pearl Harbor survivor.

And sometimes it gives you just a tiny glimpse of the person who once walked this earth.

Animal lover.

Animal lover.

So many of the stones reminds you how short life can be.  How short it was for so many.

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While we were out there we had something of a flyover.  Five sand hill cranes flew in formation directly overhead, crying their own version of a patriotic melody.

In formation.

In formation.

It seemed fitting.

Today was Veterans Day.  But really, shouldn’t we honor those who serve our country every day?  Tomorrow, the day after Veterans Day, take a moment and thank a veteran.  Smile at them.  Shake their hand.  Buy them a cup of coffee.

This WW II veteran understood the truth.

This WW II veteran understood the truth.

Make someone’s day.  And yours.

Let's not forget.

Let’s not forget.

Just say thank you.

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WordPress challenge: minimalist take II

I wandered about today, camera in hand, even though the sky was mostly uninteresting.  The leaves, once colored, are long gone, the crops nearly gone as well.  The landscape was brown.  And gray.  Drab.

But that works for what I was looking for; minimalism in the country.

I honestly think the concept of a minimalistic photograph fits more into an urban setting, at least in my mind, but I wanted to see if I could show you the vast expanses of farm country here in mid-Michigan.  And see if I could convince myself that minimalism can have a country side as well.

I found a few interesting things, but so many seemed busy, cluttered.  I like filling the frame when I’m on a photo hunt, so it was hard to look for negative spaces, to leave part of the frame empty.  I’ll show you some of the shots that didn’t make the minimalist cut, but when I came across this I had to capture it.

harvest time

It’s the end of the harvest here, and the white truck parked and being filled with shucked corn by the harvester in the middle of nowhere just struck me.  The muted colors, the empty field.  It all shouted to be noticed.

So I did.

You can see other photographers’ minimalistic offerings here and here.   Go.  Enjoy.  Spread your arms in all the space.   You can see all of photos by going to the original post.

And give it a try yourself.  No matter where you are you can find something minimal and interesting if you look.

Even way out in the country.

 


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WordPress Photo Challenge – Minimalist

The concept of a minimalist photo is simple.  You might even say minimal.  It should contain a large amount of negative space and a somewhat monochromatic color scheme.  And if you can, it should tell a story.    This morning we woke to our first significant snow, so large parts of our world were monochromatic; I found this right outside my front door.

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I’m not sure this is totally correct, I don’t see negative space for example.  I’m hoping to get out tomorrow to search for another example.  But you never know about tomorrow, so I’ll put this out there for now.  You can see other examples of minimalist photography here, here, here and here.  And especially this one.  Or go to the original link and read all about it, then look at the hundreds of submissions attached.

Meanwhile I’ll enjoy looking for another bit of minimalism.  You can too.  I’d enjoy seeing what you come up with!


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How music heals

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI heard a piece on news radio during my commute to work Tuesday morning about how upbeat music helps sad people feel better and calm music helps settle people who are stressed; how music can be used in any number of problem situations to make things better.  True I thought.

True.

And I hoped at that evening’s concert we would be able to deliver a bit of fun, maybe even a bit of relaxation to our audience.   We’d be playing Halloween music, things like March of the Trolls by Grieg, Shadow Rituals by Markowski, and The Fortune Tellers Daughter by Gorham.  Mostly fun stuff, mostly things we could play if we paid attention, though Shadow Rituals was a toss up.  We’d made it through that piece, from start to finish, for the first time at  last week’s rehearsal.  There were no guarantees we could do it again.  On the other hand, as people who listened to it played by professionals have said, “Who would really know if you made a mistake?”

Good point.

We were all dressed in costumes for the concert, a bit of freedom from the normal black concert attire.  Lots of people went all out and were unrecognizable; a purple telatubby, a vampire, the tallest leprechaun trombone player I’ve ever seen.  (The photos here are from last year, I forgot to take a camera this year!)   I just added a big tie and a clown hat to my normal workaday outfit.  I figured some of my customers take us for underwriting clowns anyway so it was fitting.

I’d started the morning with a headache, a bit of a sore throat, and a sense of being light headed.  By afternoon my eyes were itching and I couldn’t stop sneezing.  “Great,” I thought.  Just what I need.  All I wanted to do after work was drive home and climb into bed.  Then I got to the concert venue.  Sniffles disappeared, eyes cleared up.  Headache?  Gone.

And that was even before we began to play.

I think the audience had fun.  We got a standing ovation from most of the audience when we finished.  Maybe they were just glad we were done.  Or maybe they’re our relatives.  Or both.  But I think they had fun.  But not as much fun as we had playing.  I’ve always said, and I’ll say it again, it’s much more fun to be the one playing then the one listening.  Even when listening is pretty darn good.

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Our sound engineer forgot to turn on the recording equipment until after the third piece, so we played the first three over again at the end of the concert.  Most people stayed to hear them again, and turns out we played them better the second time.  We had a blast doing it. Tuesday night the news piece on the radio proved to be true.  Music is what’s good for you.

And for me.

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