I had the delightful experience during the holidays recently of feeling like I had become good enough friends with several fellow bloggers to send them trinkets for Christmas (or whatever)!
But I feel incomplete. I still have THREE more to send.
One blogger is deciding whether or not I am a stalker. Here is her gift.
Another person knows for sure I am stalking him but doesn’t seem to mind that much. Unfortunately, he is too far away to mail something to. I’ll just hold onto his gift until he visits us stateside. Or maybe I’ll just wear these in his honor!
THONG SOCKS!!!
And lastly, my most amazing new connection is in the middle of a huge move (after a life time of moving, maybe one of her LAST!) and I am hoping to hand deliver her tiny gift later this year when we will be vacationing practically next door to where she has moved!
I have a whole story from my Dad about THIS quote!
I know this is an obscure post with seemingly secret references but think of it as a mystery! I bet if you ever read my comments, you can guess who these three new friends are.
As for the three who already received their tiny gifts (Blair, Marilyn and Lisa) thank you again for trusting me with your land addresses. I love these newly forming friendships.
My friend Karuna was right. The Blogging Community is truly special! I’m loving it!!
Cyber hugs,
Kathie
PS If you recognize your gift, let me know in a comment!
I did a post for the WP challenge “Repurpose” to show how James had taken a really rough building and turned it into our “Bed and No Breakfast”, our Guest House.
That’s just the guest house. The actual house James built almost 40 years ago is amazing. Talk about nestled into the land.
Hmm, another post brewing……..
So here is that brewed up response:
Before and after shots of our beloved Casa Esmeralda
A wonderful, tiny one bedroom cabin
Then, THIS happened! (view looking up from the Guest House)
I really wanted to retain the Porch Swing, our favorite wildlife viewing spot.
This end of the house is still a work in process but you can see the low windows the Turkeys visit for their vanity checks. My Grandsons are helping me create a rock garden with stones and shells from the beaches of the San Juan Islands!
The inside of the addition is not finished yet but is almost done outside, (still have to complete the upper deck….oh, and shore up the mine-shaft terraced gardens out in front of the house.)
So Marilyn and JoAnne and Ed, and Karuna, Linda, and Lisa and husband and whomever else is interested…make your reservation soon! (smiley face…winking face…hearts…geez, I really have to get some emojis!!)
I have become obsessed this week with Shadow photos but did not think about all the different definitions of the word until this morning.
Here are some of the shots I took inside to show how cool a shadow can be sometimes, cast from the sun on different objects…
My bathroom wall at sunset
Then I went outside to look for interesting shadows. As those who live way up here in the Northwest know, we can go for days and days without shadows of any kind outside.
So I was lucky to come across these…
And then I waited for a long time for these…
It was getting to be late in the day and I remembered playing a shadow game with my grandsons when they were younger…out on the back lawn, so I headed out to see what my shadow looked like.
This is as close as I get to a “selfie”. Don’t I look tall and thin??
But then, as it darkened outside, I began thinking of all the other connotations for the word “shadow”.
I debate with some of my Psychotherapist colleagues who believe we all have this “shadow” part of us…a permanent dark side we can do nothing about. I don’t see it that way. I prefer to think of it as having unfinished work or areas of growth. We can bring “light” onto anything…sometimes simply by changing our perspective.
As I was pondering these various definitions, I remembered a photo I had taken recently, as a follow up to one of my very early posts. This particular story was very “dark”, so much so that I even warned my readers of its disturbing content. I wrote a lot about an incident as an essential part of my own healing. James and I witnessed a horrific car accident, resulting in the very graphic death of a toddler. Here is a photo of the scene just a few days after the collision.
And then on the one year anniversary, I went back to the location and took this shot.
But for this slightly ominous shadow, it’s like nothing bad has ever happened on this corner in Bellevue…like the sweet little girl named Sraddha Pancha Karla never existed.
I do like how the shadow sort of refuses to cover the spot where she died…
Read more about the accident here, but be forewarned…
I LOVE this topic. I take a lot of photos of shadows. I think they can be so beautiful and thought provoking. Here are some of my favorites, all in one post!
…his toe, connecting with the shadow, is all that keeps him earthbound
a shadow love note
road trip of a lifetime
no filters, no settings change, all shot at once, with and without flash
I LOVE my Cobalt and it lives in sunny windows for exactly these shadows!!
I love shadows I can’t identify (or remember…no idea what these were!)
I love to see things popping out from the shadows.
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And then of course, there is the whole dedicated activity of AVOIDING the shadows!
I did a post for the WP challenge “Repurpose” to show how James had taken a really rough building and turned it into our “Bed and No Breakfast”, our Guest House.
You can read that post here:
This is one of the comments I received:
I also love your house. I don’t want to sound envious, but it’s perfect for the setting and I love the way it fits into the land, like a nest.