mystery

Yesterday I ventured outside to tackle my Picture Inspiration assignment, which was to capture "mystery". I had little time, little energy, and little excitement but I set out anyway. So picture me wandering the park in my post work pj's, with my camera in hand, praying hard for something to catch my eye.  After fifteen minutes of finding nothing I looked up into the new spring growth on the trees and found my mystery! (Cue mysterious music.)  I spotted this mysterious issue, that you see in the above photo, plaguing a handful of trees. At first I did not notice it because the trees were swaying in a lushness of green, but hidden among the perfect leaves were a handful of these rotted, polka-dotted ones.

I am always curious about such things as I am the type of person who likes to get to the core of a problem. So as I inspected the oddly spotted leaves I knew that they were: one, expressing the symptoms of some mysterious illness that worked somewhere deep in their unseen internal life forces.  Or two, the victim of an unseen mysterious pest. And because I am not an arborist, the reason for their spotted appearance was indeed, a real mystery to me.

Okay, so I am a bit geeky about nature and how it mimics life so I immediately thought about how we often do not recognize our own disease (emotional, mental, physical) until it manifests itself in the spotted leaves and fruit of our lives. Then I thought about how too often we try to deal with our external symptoms in a vain attempt to heal (or cover up) the real problem.

Sometimes we can be so dense. I can be so dense.
Honestly, I think some of us are walking this planet in stupid awe (or maybe denial) over the spotted leaves we find sprouting from our limbs. For some, it ain't no mystery to those who linger under our shade. They are not fooled by the lush sway of green surrounding the ugly leaves and can spot our problems before we can. And then there are those of us who spend all of our energy trying to control the symptoms in ourselves and others without ever getting to the root of the problem. A total waste of energy, by the way.

I have always been a firm believer in the root bares the fruit. The external display of our leaves is merely an outworking of what lies in the soil and roots of our lives. You can do your best to orchestrate a magical display of smoke and mirrors, deflection techniques, etc. But eventually whatever it is will continue to eat away at your health like a small unseen, mysterious pest...

...Until you are vulnerable enough to go see an arborist who can sort out the mystery and look you in the face and suggest a course of action that will get you healed from the inside out.

I know from experience, that there are some things in life that are meant to be left a mystery. The source of your well-being, or ill-being is not one of them.

And that my friends, is my pep talk for today. All this from a little walk across the street with my camera, a curious eye, and a pluck of a few leaves.

Now off to google "yellow spotted tree leaves". This is one mystery I'd like to solve.

umbrella friday/saturday: coming and going and "the staying"

This is Friday's umbrella post, posted today. Blaming Blogger and their "issues" they were having over Thursday and Friday. All is well now, so on with life and blogging we go...

I took these photos when I was in China Town a couple of months ago. This local woman was hidden behind the protection of her umbrella, braving the weather, intent on her destination and unaware that I was following her.

I have titled this set, "Coming and Going".

Sometimes I feel as if I am always in one state of coming or going, and yet I am rarely taking the time to be in neither. In fact, sometimes I am actually thinking about my return when I am on my way to some destination. I will stop myself in my thoughts and realize that I am "living" my life one moment ahead of the present. Which is silly because I am not really "living" my life in the moment ahead because it is not the moment I am in, and therefore not a real moment.

That was a lot of "moments".
Anyway, you know what I am saying?

What I am trying to say is that my mind is always ruminating in my comings and goings and not really skilled at practicing "the staying". The staying is the hardest.
Because the staying in the present is the real, unrehearsed life. It requires an acceptance of "what is" that the future has yet to force upon me. And sometimes that "what is" is not what I pictured when I was doing all of that ruminating in the coming and going.

So maybe you can relate when I say that I am learning that I waste much of my life when I ruminate on my comings and goings. My life should be about learning to make peace with the staying. Because the staying is the only real moment I have.

My blogging friend Andrea, posted her own umbrella post today too. Go check her post out (click here), and the rest of her blog. She is a budding photog herself so leave her some comment love!

linked: from the car

5/13 Post edit: So for the last two days Blogger has been not working and so any attempts to post and link, etc. were met with an "error" message. This original post below was lost and so I had to go back in and rewrite write the portion of it that had been saved. Such a PAIN. Anyway, here we go again...

(And Friday's post will be up tomorrow. We're flexible right?)

After fifteen years of marriage I can still say that one of my favorite places to be is alone in the car with my hubby. Sans kids. With music of our choice. Or a perhaps a little driving in that beautiful, glorious silence.

It is a rarity, one that we did not appreciate until we no longer had it. That first day we drove home with our son from the hospital with him fastened securely in the infant car seat, we entered a completely new world of the driving environment: one that is filled with kid noise, kid's music, passing of snacks, refereeing of squabbles, fielding questions, and fishing for lost sippy cups, dropped pacifiers, and blankies. Like I said, one cannot learn to appreciate what one has until it is reduced to a scarcity.

On Mother's Day I had a couple of hours of that glorious car space with just my boyfriend.

And it just so happened that my blogging link-up partners, Stacey and Michelle and I had just decided that our "linked" assignment this week would be "from the car."

There could not have been a more perfect time to pull out my camera.

I am anxious to see what "from the car" moments Stacey and Michelle captured this past week.

Head on over to their May 12th blog posts and view with me!

For Michelle's post, click here.

For Stacey's,  post click here.

Happy Friday,
T

off in the distance

You know when you have a big "thing" ahead of you that's gonna take some serious energy and strength to get through and you feel exhausted and spent just thinking about that "thing" before it has even arrived?

Yeah, I feel like that.

I am taking over for Bean's teacher who is leaving on maternity leave this week. For the next three and a half weeks I will be a full-time teacher. I have not done that since the mid 90's folks. That was fifteen years ago when I was high school English teacher. But back then I was a newly married, pre-kid self that could come home to a quiet home and shut down for a few hours before getting up and doing it all over again the next morning.

Bean's class is a great class, their teacher a wonderful, organized, prepared teacher, so I am not worried about any of that stuff.

I am simply an introvert, looking at the vast, hot sandy stretch of beach that is stretched out in front of me, eyeing the horizon of summer.

Three and a half weeks friends. Three and a half weeks of a class room full of kids, end-of-the-school year activities, coming home to mom duties and after school appointments. Summer is a dot on the horizon and I will be focusing my gaze upon her until I meet her with an embrace of relief.

Blogging may be infrequent, just warning you.

Prayers greatly appreciated.

My Picture Inspiration prompt this week was to capture "distance". Last week we were walking this stretch of the California coast line and I meandered ahead of everyone to this open peninsula of sand that jutted out  into the ocean. When I turned around my family and friends were but a dot on the horizon, barely noticeable in the distance. I was in an introvert's paradise, just me and the birds and a little family of seals out a hundred feet in the waves. Glorious.

iheartfaces: motherhood

Sometimes I think motherhood is just one long practice in the art of holding, and letting go.

At first, we are constantly holding them: on the couch, in the rocker, in our arms trying to make dinner, or standing sleepy eyed in the center of a darkened room in the middle of some crazy early morning hour. We swaddle them close, swaying to the rhythm of some silent song in our heads, waiting for the finale of one last droop and close of the eyelids that marks the sendoff to some far away land of sleep. Later, we are holding them close while reading a bed-time story, administering band-aids, hugs of encouragement, comfort. This is the practice of learning to hold them "just so".

Then they grow before our very eyes and we are frantically trying to stay one step ahead of them. When our worry gets the best of us we find ourselves, minute by minute, praying for their protection, health, safety. Praying that they will make good choices, make good friends, find the perfect love, just make it through each day alive. We can no longer cling to the false safety of choosing for them, being in control of their daily lives. This is the practice of letting go.

And no matter what chapter we are in, we are wondering if we are doing the "right" thing, wondering just how much money our children will have to spend on therapy later on in their adult life. :)

Motherhood is the most difficult job in the world with the least amount of pay back in dollars and cents. Through our best and worst moments, our reward is the change that it brings to our own hearts and lives. For better or worse, we are never the same after that moment we hold our first child.

This week over at iheartfaces they are celebrating motherhood. What an appropriate theme coming off the tail of Mother's Day.

I did not get a chance to do a mother's day post yesterday, to publicly honor my own mother. So let me just say....

Mom, I know you could have written this same post today. I know that you have held, swaddled, swayed, prayed me into the person I am today. I also know that you have prayed yourself through the worry of letting go of what you could not control. I want you to know that you have done an amazing job. Yes, I did spend some money on therapy :), as we all could, but it does not invalidate the amazing love that you have poured into me every single day of my life.

I am so very thankful for your example to me of what it means to be a mother who lovingly holds, and lets go.
I love you.
xoxo
t


p.s. go check out all of the other motherhood posts at iheartfaces.

click here

R.F.U.D.

Last fall Bean was obsessed with a certain song. And frankly, I secretly loved could not stand to listen to it. We took a big break from it for several months and kind of forgot about it.  Then, when I was going through these umbrella photos, I found myself humming along to them.

So to begin this Random Friday Umbrella Day, I would like to unapologetically bring this song back into the our minds and introduce you to Bean's debut umbrella montage--with her singing Miley's "Party in the USA"...




(You can thank me later when you find yourself humming this tune all day in your head.)

Here's my bit of Friday randomness:

My son had the "6th grade talk" this past week in school. It was all good, no surprises, nothing that we had not already shared with him. But it brought back those memories of coming home with the little educational pamphlets and being highly embarrassed at the anatomical drawings included in them. With this sort of stuff I try to be really natural and relaxed, talk like this is every day conversation material in our house because I want them to never be ashamed or feel isolated in their thoughts over their changing bodies.

So when he plopped into the car he pulled out the pamphlet and told me all about it without me having to ask him. I gave him a smile and asked him if it was embarrassing to discuss this stuff in class. He said that it was (the boys just nervously laughed through it all) and then with a total huff and roll of his eyes he told me he was frustrated because he thought it was highly unfair that the drawings of the naked, puberty-evolving girls were not as detailed as the drawings of the naked, puberty-evolving boys.

I swiped the papers out of his hands to inspect the drawings. I am not sure what more he wanted from the girl drawings?! They were pretty anatomically and scientifically detailed.  And then I went silent and handed the pictures back to him and told him that they were detailed enough and wondered if I should shred them when we got home?

I am telling you friends, this puberty stuff is fun. I may present this calm front to my children about the whole thing, but inside I am freaking out.

Ok, so enough puberty talk.  Let us move on with this post!

On Wednesday I mentioned that I was going to be doing another Random Friday Umbrella Day (RFUD) post and invited anyone to join me just for fun. Immediately after the post I had a couple of friends email their umbrella pictures!

My friend, Hilmari, and I have known each other for years and used to live on the same street in our old town. Several years ago she moved back to her home country of South Africa with her Mississippi-bred hubby. I miss her terribly. She does not have a blog (still trying to get her on Facebook) but wanted to participate in RFUD so it was a delight when she emailed me pictures of her kids...

I love those green plastic half-shell umbrellas! When I was a kid, I used to bring mine into the sprinklers and sit underneath the protection of it and listen to the pounding of the water spray.

I have never met Hilmari's smallest child. Makes me desire all the more to get on a plane, camera in hand, and travel to South Africa! Thanks for sharing Hilmari! Love and miss you!


So I would love to have you join me on this RFUD! If you would like to participate then leave me a comment with a link to your post (or flickr pic!) and I will post edit a list below as the day goes on. I will leave this post up all weekend.

Go visit my fellow RFUD'ers....

1. Christine at These Stones. (Hi Christine!)
2. Stacey at sdanddoublee (Fellow Party in the USA fan)








Thanks for joining me!
xoxo
t

lil' rascals

I have decided to title this picture: "Everybody wants to be the funny guy."

Kid on the right: the funniest. Didn't even notice him until I went to edit the picture and my eye traveled from left to right through the picture and landed on him. Ha!

So, not kidding about tomorrow's Random Friday Umbrella Post Day with random musings included.

I have already had two friends excited about joining me. 

Just leave me a comment tomorrow and let me know you joined me and I will post your link.

(I will make it a point to post by 8am west coast time.)

Of course now it's 80 degree weather here in California so no one wants to pull out an umbrella, but whatever. Take a trip to Chevy's and get one of those fruity drinks with a little umbrella and take a picture. An umbrella is an umbrella.

And please, this is all for random fun. Don't take it too seriously.

dishing

Picture Inspiration prompt this week: "from the kitchen"

Honestly, I wasn't thrilled about this prompt.

One, I do not have a creative, fun kitchen. It's nice and all, super functional, it just lacks any creativity or good light and so I am always jealous of people who takes these beautifully, softly lit photos of their breakfast table, or breakfast bowls of oatmeal. Also, taking pictures of kitchen stuff is not usually my go-to for inspiration.

Two, I did not have much margin for time and creativity this week so these photos took me all of ten seconds to shoot while I was making dinner and my kids were watching iCarly on insta-Netflix. I just aimed up into my kitchen cabinets and caught what I saw. (Soooooo creative.) I wish I had been more mindful, or at least had picked a quiet, iCarly-free time to take my pictures.

However, after uploading them and looking at them, posting them here, I have to say that there a few things I do like about these photos.

One, they capture the dishes that have been with me since I first registered for them over fifteen years ago. These are standard Crate and Barrel Cafeware dishes and I still like them. I love that there is a small chip in the bottom plate (in the first pic) on the right. When I look at the photo I want to reach in and twist the plates around to hide it. It creates a little photo tension and I like it. Imperfection is sometimes good.

Two, that red bowl is one of four Fiesta ware bowls my mom gave to me a couple of summers ago after her trip to Homer Laughlin. She is a collector of Fiesta ware and I have taken a liking to it too. I love the vintage, yet modern lines and I love the colors (the pale aqua's are my favorite). As you can tell, when I was first married I thought that I wanted everything white white white. As I have grown older I have begun to favor color, especially when it is a simple addition to the neutral back drop. Get my drift?

Okay, so thus ends my PI rambling for the week.

On another note...
Friday is coming, and if you have been here before on the last few Fridays you know that I have been posting some umbrella pictures that have been hiding in my photo files for the last few months. I have jokingly titled my Fridays the "Random Umbrella Friday Posts" because it seems that everyone in the photo/blogging/flickr world has a special photo day of the week, and I have felt left out. (Totally kidding! Just poking a little fun at it all.)

So if you would like to join me THIS Friday in posting your own Random Umbrella Friday picture (with ramblings included), then please, by all means, join me! If you do, and you want to let me know, then come back here on Friday and leave a comment and I will post edit a link to your blog in my post so that others can see them over the weekend. If no one joins me that's okay. I won't cry. I just wanted to open it up to others who have mentioned that they feel left out too.

Let us all umbrella away!

It's all natural

Over the course of blogging for two and a half years I have found myself pleasantly surprised at the amount of friends I have made via the blogging world. I had no idea that this would happen when I first started, and yet some of these friends have become quite dear to me even though we have never met. I know it seems kind of weird if you have never experienced this, to make friends over the internet without ever having met them, but it all happened so naturally and has been a sweet gift for me during this past year. They are always encouraging, always humoring me, and often offering prayers of support.

It feels nice to not be alone on this journey.  

Two of those friends, Michelle and Stacey, have joined me today in a fun little blogging experience that many bloggers find themselves doing when they have made blogging friends. We have teamed up for a little photo assignment in which we post our chosen photos for the theme and then link to each other's blogs.

We chatted via email and threw out various ideas and then we made Stacey be the decision maker. (She thanked us for this role.)

Today's theme was: "natural"
As in, we had to take a picture of something that was not man-made. Super simple, the ideas were limitless.
So when we were at the beach over the weekend Bean and I came upon these little tracks leading into the tide. They made us smile, naturally. :)

Ok, so here is where I am encouraging you to head on over to Michelle's blog and take a look at her interpretation of "natural" on her May 3rd post.
Then head over to Stacey's blog and see her "natural" take on the same day.
I know that both of them will offer up a unique take on our theme.
When you do visit, share some comment love with them and let them know that you came from my blog.

I am super excited that you get to "meet" them. They are fabulous photogs and I am honored to call them friends. (Oh, and when you visit Michelle's blog, I want it to be known that I love her dog Lanie. She is one of the reasons I now find myself wanting a dog.)

And lastly...
I caught Bean making her own steps along side the lonely trail of bird tracks. A visual reminder to me that friends who just "happen to find you" in your journey and travel along side you are friendships that are made of nothing artificial. They are natural, God inspired, God-made, organic...and highly cherished.

You do what it takes

If you do not have an eleven-year-old son who does not like to have his picture taken, then just try and imagine with me what steps you might need to take to get your eleven-year-old son to stop what he is doing and smile for the camera.

Like, asking him to think about his favorite "funny" potty humor that he brings to our family dinner table time. The kind of humor that has his sister rolling her eyes, his mother slapping him on the arm, and his dad covering his face trying not to show his approval. Because this is what I had to do to get him to show off his genuine smile...tell him to think about his dinner-table potty humor.

You do what it takes.

(Hey Bud, try not to look too enthusiastic about getting your picture taken.)

Now there's my Mister.
Love this kid.

Happy Monday.
t