memory of a beautiful moment

The other day I shared a photo someone posted of Hamilton Pool on Google+ and I had to go back and find the photos of the last time we were there. It's been 9 years! Too long. What a beautiful spot. I need to remember to go back and see it again next time we go to Austin.

day 4: something green

I noticed yesterday when I went out to take my "cloud" photo that our big tree in the backyard is budding. I love how the sun is out today and shining through the new green leaves. 

"If spring came but once a century instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change. "  -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

day 3: clouds

no interesting cloud formations today...just a cloudy sky that's spitting out snow and sleet.

day 2: what I wore

Here is what I wore today: it's my Mary Tyler-Moore dress. I think of it that way because the first time I tried it on, I felt like Mary Richards, snazzy career gal of the 70s. 

I don't wear it often, but I was feeling like wearing a dress today, and instead of being 80 degrees like it was on Sunday, it was a 40-degree Monday. So sweater-dress and boots it was. 

I'm gonna make it after all!

30-day photo challenge

I needed something to inspire me to take more photos, and something to post on this-here blog-thing, so when I ran across this 30-day photo challenge, I thought it sounded like something I could do.

This is day 1: self-portrait.

I am going to try to do this each day this month and post here. Let's see how I do!

counting my blessings

If my biggest problem is that I can't think of anything to write about on my blog, or that my husband wants to take my daughter to Paris while my other daughter and I are on a mother-daughter girl scout cruise, then I don't really have any problems.

The photo above is of balloons we released at a gathering last weekend to honor the life and birthday of a boy that my daughter went to school with from kindergarten through sixth grade. He was born with a heart defect and had received a heart transplant as a tiny baby. He was always struggling with health issues but was a lively, funny, quirky kid and I always enjoyed him. He was the only child of a single mom, who adored him.

He died before he ever made it to middle school.

My family is healthy. I don't really have any problems.

am I going to do something with this?

I am always looking for a way to be inspired to be more creative. The THING that's going to get me to stretch creatively and do something new.

Before Christmas, my in-laws asked me to add more items to my Amazon wishlist to give faraway family members some ideas for gifts to get for me. On a whim, I added a package of 8x10 canvas panels, some acrylic paints, and paintbrushes. Thinking I might like to paint something colorful and textury like this.

My in-laws thought, hmm, art supplies? Didn't know she painted . . . okay.

I opened up a couple of packages when we visited at Christmastime and ended up receiving the canvases and the brushes. No paints.

Oh well, it's not like I was going to paint anything while I was up in Wisconsin anyway.

But when I got home I decided that if I actually had the paints on hand, maybe I would paint something. So I ordered them from Amazon. And here they sit.

I don't really know what to do with them. My creative impulse has kind of blown over at the moment. I don't have a good place to set up to paint. How do you even work with acrylic paints? I can't even WRITE about painting. It's taken me a good three days to even put together this disjointed little blog post.

BUT . . . I am inspired by my talented friend Lisa. She used some time that fell into her lap to sit down and create something cool and beautiful. I need to learn to use my time like that.