Nurture Self 365

365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Nine

June 20, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: childhood, Great Nephew, playtime, wooden blocks | Leave a comment

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.” Alden Nowlan

I met up with a fellow 365’er today. We had never met before, except for in the forums. I drove from Vancouver, BC to Seattle to pick up my Grandson who flew in from the East Coast to spend the next 6 weeks with me. Since she lives in the Seattle area, we arranged a meetup for lunch. We had such a nice time! My 13 year old Grandson was such a good sport – putting up with two crazy photogs . . . I love how he posed for this photo.

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Eight

June 19, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: birthday, childhood, joy, pinata, sparkle | Leave a comment

“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” Walt Streightiff

I just love the sparkle in my Grand Daughter’s eyes . . . she’s showing off her booty from a birthday Pinata. You would think that she’s just hit a Million Dollar Lotto jackpot! Such innocence, and joy. It’s so sad to see this innocence and joy gradually disappear as we grow older and the realities and responsibilities of life sink in. I want to look at this photo every day as a reminder of what I strive for . . . the same joy and excitement for everything I do. I just can’t feel sad or depressed when I look at this photo of her . . .

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Seven

June 18, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: childhood, Great Nephew, playtime, wooden blocks | Leave a comment

“My childhood may be over, but that doesn’t mean playtime is.” Ron Olson

My husband found a box full of old wooden blocks that he played with as a child. How fun . . . so we got them out for our Great Nephew. He was having so much fun . . . I decided this would be a great 365 picture. Unfortunately I didn’t realize until I brought the picture up on my computer that the focal point was off, but I kind of like it!

My Great Nephew really got in to playing with the blocks too . . .

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Six

June 17, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: Garden, green, growing, rain, weather, wet | Leave a comment

“I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.” Katherine Mansfield

It’s been a VERY wet spring here in Western Canada. Though we have managed a few days here and there of sunshine, this past weekend was wet, wet, wet to the point that we had a small lake in the back yard. Thing is . . . I like the rain but after awhile it would just be nice to have it rain during the week when we’re working, not on the weekend when we want to be out in the yard! Oh well . . . we’re greatly enjoying the lushness all around us. All too soon we’ll be complaining that it’s too hot and everything will be turning brown . . .

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Five

June 16, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: fries, healthy, oven baked, sweet potatoes | 1 comment

“The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine.”
Hippocrates

Yum, Yum . . . Sweet Potato Fries. Actually I had planned on Yam fries, but discovered that these were red skinned sweet potatoes rather than Yams. No bother . . . they were delicious regardless! Drizzled with Olive Oil, and tossed with a bit of Cumin, Paprika and salt . . . then baked for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees. Excellent!

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Four

June 15, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: bedtime, Granddaughter, princess, storytime | Leave a comment

“Any kid will run any errand for you, if you ask at bedtime.” Red Skelton

My Four and a half year old Grand Daughter is in the house! She asked me to read her a bed time story . . . this one was a compilation of about 20 different Princess stories. Of course she wanted me to read them all! So I gave her a choice of four, and I think we ended up with six. Anything to stall bedtime eh? She finally went to sleep about 10pm, two hours past her normal bedtime. Oh well, what happens at Grandma’s stays at Grandma’s . . . right??

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Three

June 14, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: Garden, shadow, slug | Leave a comment

“One minute you’re a slug and the next minute you’re a hero, so you don’t know what to think.” Ed Belfour

My Macro Extension tubes arrived, so I’ve been playing around with them. I’m absolutely amazed at the very narrow depth of field with these tubes . . . this was taken with my 35mm prime, and the 2x tube. My shadow is over the slugs air hole . . . We’ve had a very, very wet spring so slugs abound in the garden. Normally I am pretty disgusted by these slimy little creatures, but getting this close kind of gives me a bit of appreciation for the little creatures. Well . . . yeah . . . as long as they stay away from my garden!

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty Two

June 13, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: archives, historical, pupils | Leave a comment

“I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.” James Joyce

My Mom works in the local Archives at the Library and Museum. My sister and I visited her there and got a bit of a tour of what they were working on. These are the registers of pupils in the school district dating back to the early 20th Century. She is 90 years old, and this is what gets her up and out the door every morning.

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty One

June 12, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: Jeff Foxworthy, Spring Cleanup | Leave a comment

“That awkward moment when the internet goes down so you have to use your book to find the answers.” iliketoquote, on Facebook

We woke up this morning to no Internet (GASP!) . . . apparently somewhere in the neighborhood one of the fiber optic lines was severed. Don’t know how . . . but we had no internet all day. A bit of a challenge as we run our business from our Home Office. Cel reception isn’t the greatest here either . . . so I moved around to different spots in the house trying to find good 3G on my iPad. I got a few bars here . . . We were down all day finally coming back on-line just before dinner. I processed this a bit in Lightroom 4 to get kind of a gloomy feel.

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day One Hundred Fifty

June 11, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: Jeff Foxworthy, Spring Cleanup | Leave a comment

“That’s the great thing about a tractor. You can’t really hear the phone ring.” Jeff Foxworthy

We’re finally able to really get out and do some Spring Cleanup – despite the fact that it’s June already. We had decent weather all weekend – on the cool side and overcast but no rain. We did a lot of tree trimming, pruning, and raking up all the dead leaves from last year. And of course there is something so cathartic about getting the yard in shape for the summer. It’s all so green and lush right now as we’ve had a very wet Winter and Spring. My favorite time of year . . . and a huge reason why I love where I live.