Spirit Lifters–Day 40 of being “grounded”

It may be difficult these days to think about being creative, but I’m telling you right now, it is absolutely your best defense against the situational depression that is starting to creep in for many, many lonely people, stuck at home.

My dear friend Brenda has been making these amazing pendants lately…before the Virus arrived. I had given her a bunch of broken bits and pieces of old jewelry to use in her pendants and she surprised me by making me this one. She hadn’t known that the tiny blue and silver dangle she used on mine had actually came from a necklace my Dad bought me on a trip to Mexico when I was about 9 years old. I LOVED that necklace from my Daddy. I wore it well into adulthood.

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When the Virus hit, Brenda got inspired and made this beauty!

Brenda's Covid 19 Heart

It’s big enough to fill both hands!!! I

t’s gorgeous, and one has to look again and again to see all it’s beautiful messages

Here’s what she wrote:

This is my latest creation. I’m calling it; Corona Heart 2020

During this very challenging time, I’ve had some really hard days, and some easier ones. There’s been fear, anxiety, shock, sadness and death, but there has also been compassion and caring for one another in new ways, people reaching out and helping, singing, healing, joy and even beauty. It’s such a mixture during this potent time. I wanted to create a piece that reflected all of that.
 
Heart – I chose the heart to represent love, kindness and compassion. The heart is inclusive, caring, understanding, forgiving, strong and knowing. It can hold great pain and great love.

Yin/Yang – I’ve always loved the yin/yang symbol – a symbol of wholeness. Reminding us that life includes it all – light and dark, life and death, joy and pain. The circle is divided into black and white, but not straight down the middle. They are nestled together, holding one another; with a point of light in the dark, and a point of dark within the light – integrated and whole. Life!

Pink – The color pink represents compassion and caring, and during this incredibly difficult time, it’s come to honor the health care works and first responders and all the people who are risking their lives so that the world can still function.
 
We’re all in this together, and love is what heals. Let your heart shine!\

So your job now is to lift your own spirits and go create something!

Then share it with the rest of us.

Photo a Week Challenge–Nancy Merrill RED 3/5/2020

Hmm, I thought I had very little red in my life. Couldn’t think of a single place to photograph something red. But while perusing my photo library, I found more “red” than I expected. Of course, many of these pictures capture colors closer to Fuchsia or orange, but I am counting them as RED today.

Good challenge. Now I’m on the lookout for more RED out there in the world. It is definitely an energizing color!

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A Photo a Week Challenge: Red

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge-Autumn Scenes

I’m longing for Spring but today, Cee challenges us to share scenes from our archives. I love her challenges. Helps me appreciate the beautiful things I have seen, and sometimes think to photograph.

My favorite Autumn scene is the “Wonder Wall”. Just a couple miles from my house. It’s a block-long retaining wall across from our local Home Depot. I take pictures of it every year because it is so amazing.

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This wall is such a great place to experiment with your camera…macro vs telephoto, time of day, color adjusting, week by week, individual composition, balancing colors, etc., etc..

Clearly, I never get tired of it. I have snapped so many pictures, I printed them and turned them into a photo card series…even had a poster made of one!

Oh and the featured photo at the top? It’s to remind you Autumn is not just spectacular colors in the Pacific Northwest.

It’s also weird fungi! Lots  of it! Huge! Like from-another-planet strange!!

 

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Autumn Scenes

To my Best Friend’s Best Friend…on her, uh, 40th BIRTHDAY!?

It can be hard to get bumped out of the Best Friend position…that is until you realize what you have inherited…

A new BEST FRIEND of your OWN!!

Happy Birthday Sweet Patty! I dearly love you and am so glad he found you!! (But, let’s ditch him for a bit on your next visit and have some serious Girl time!!)

This post is all for you. Been gathering PINK for you since early Spring!

 

Love you And Happy Birthday!!!

 

(Try clicking on any photo. It should enlarge!)

A Photo a Week Challenge: Timing (again) 8/3/19

Maybe you had to be there to understand the whole Timing part…

A few days ago, in the late afternoon, I walked through my darkening Group Therapy room. I was headed for the door into the main part of  my house, and was stopped in my tracks by a stunning image.

There was one narrow beam of sunlight, still left in the day, and it was streaming through the row trees that border the west side of my property. This spotlight shot through my window, perfectly aimed at a crystal elephant that sits on the window sill (a precious gift from my grandson).

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The combination sent a laser-like rainbow clear across the room! It was huge and landed on the only section of West-facing, uncovered, white wall.

I knew I wanted to snap a photo of the results but, honestly, by the time I got back from the sprint to get my phone, it was already fading…and fast!

I got these shots…and then it was gone!!!

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Good enough photos I suppose. But it triggered in me the idea for a photo card, which I have made for years, and give as gifts.

I set my alarm for graduated sundown times, for the next three days, and waited for that perfectly timed beam to recreated the rainbow wall-art, so I could create my imagined photo.

But it never happened…not even close and no amount of staging, shifting, twisting and turning of my crystal elephant brought that big color spectrum result from a few days earlier. One of the days, I even ran across to my neighbor’s house, whose kitchen I know gets a ton of late afternoon sun. Me and my elephant, racing the sunset, frantically searching for the right timing and position.

No luck!

But I’ll tell you what I was after so you can picture it yourself. And who knows, maybe you’ll come upon a perfectly timed rainbow someday and can capture my illusive photo.

It’s an image that would be good for everyone!  (In my opinion.)

Here it is: Imagine the hand shadow in the photo below, imposed across that rainbow. I can think of so many uses for a greeting card like that, especially for some of the struggling, newly “out” young people I work with these days…

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A Photo a Week Challenge: Timing is Everything