Beelieve

it's a mad world...

and some days i feel as though i have lost my head

 

so i have tried on others :P

 

evaluated what i am seeing

purging what i no longer need

diving into what i do need

and escaping long enough to listen

 

hi there blog, remember me

...so hard to keep up and expand my wings at the same time

Good times, good friends

..and beautiful horses.

Wednesday was a very lucky and happy day for me.  I finally got to Saratoga race track for a girls day.  YAY!  Much needed and you may remember how I missed my girls day last year.  We did eventually get there last year but a day away from it all is so needed once in a while.

It was a very lucky day indeed!  And for my friend I went with, who suggested how to show my pictures, the first 4 are for you!

Lucky Necklace: handmade

 

Lucky Dress: probably too much $

 

A Horse Named "Sax in the City": worth millions

 

Winning all day:  PRICELESS!

The rest are some more of the, kid you not, 100's of shots I took!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers indeed!

100 strangers project...practice!

 

So inspired by this post  and all the photographers I have discovered actually participating in the100 strangers project...i just had to let my friend m. heart know that I too am "painfully shy" face to face with a stranger.  It is a bit different when it comes to a new patient at work. They are no longer a stranger when I am there to try and make their day a bit better, and they are each the most important person of the day.  Take me out of my environment and it is a different story.

I am really interested in the 100 strangers project.  When I was taking pictures of all the birds I was hanging out with my friend here :)...at an antique shop across the street.  The owner was so nice, he came out to chat and told me about 30 people took pictures of the Blues Brothers that day.  We chatted a bit and I really wanted to ask him if I could take his picture for this challenge...but  major cold feet!!!  He knew I was waiting for my daughter while at a class and offered for me to come in the shop out of the sun to hang out with them.  That, I thought, was so kind.  I was sitting on a cast iron bench...it was around 90 degrees and full sun.  He had to know that I just branded my butt sitting on that scorching bench...but it was directly across the street form the birds...and worth the pain :) 

Next time, I will be more brave...the shop owner would have been a perfect first stranger...but just taking the time to chat was what this project is really all about in my opinion.

I will make bring myself to do this project and would love to hear about anyone who has made it past that first click with a stranger!

Off to the cage in a bit...will miss you all today!!

Thank you for all your love and support

 

I am back home again and just wanted to touch base with everyone for a moment.  Your beautiful words, prayers and well wishes filled our family with support over the past few days. I want to thank each and everyone of you for your comments and personal emails.  It made me realize a bigger connection with my father I never noticed before.  A few of his Ham Radio buddies from long ago stopped in to pay their last respects.  This flooded me with memories of my younger years and living with the sounds of "aliens in the night" as my dad would be up at all hours talking to those who shared his passion around the world.  My father reached out a trusting hand and connected via wireless communication to strangers who became instant friends, as I have through this blog and yours. 

I can remember my father receiving QSL cards daily in the mailbox.  They were basically postcards with another amateur radio operators call sign on them and a bit of information about their contact time.  They were literally confirmations saying, "yes I exist and we communicated".   Something to hold in your hand to confirm a friendship out there between 2 people who may never meet.  As similar as we do with ATC's, sketchbook swaps, etc.

If my father was well enough to understand this concept of blogs and connecting he would have found it interesting and noticed our similarities.  I am my father's daughter and have his "social" gene.  We share a connection with connecting.  So once again, Thank you for reaching out to say "yes, I exist" in your beautiful words of condolences.  Heaven is a better place now that my Dad is there and my world is better each day with the love sent and received via the communications with all of you.

One last goodbye

To the first man in my life forever and always...

John Salva:  June 18, 1926~July 14, 2009

 

I will be out of town and offline for a while.  My father passed away yesterday morning. He has gracefully lived with Alzheimer's for many years and much loved by those who took care of him.  In the picture above he is giving me away on my wedding day.  Already in the beginning stages of this disease and not well enough to escort me down the aisle....that was over 11 years ago.  The past week has been a tough one for our family with pneumonia taking over him.  Your prayers for our family's safe travel will be appreciated as we travel for one last goodbye.

When I was very little I wanted an airplane.  I wanted my dad to build it for me thinking he could really build one I could fly in.  He gave me a paper airplane and I remember being so confused that he did not understand what I wanted.  "No!", I told him..."I want one that I can fly in". He told me "This one is special because you have the power to give it flight."

His worried human found him

 

 

.....too answer one of Pajama girl's questions, "YES, wishes do come true!"  (and I can now hear her ask it again)  My wish was for this loud and stinky sweet little Beagle's human to find him before the weekend was done.  Early this afternoon, after he took me for a walk, his human pulled in.  Yesterday Mr. Honey and PJgirl made a sign "FOUND BEAGLE" and put it roadside at our house.  I paraded him back and forth then took him for a long walk.  I just finished a photo session with him to make a sign to take to the gas station and a car pulled in.  The owner's friend saw me walking "Sisco" near the sign and went right over to tell his friend who lived nearby.  He had got away during a thunderstorm that left our area without power on Friday night.  A funny little chap and just like Snoopy...he did not want "in" the crate he wanted to be on top of it.  I guess if I were a little dog I would want to climb up high too.

Lots of projects coming up and more interesting PJ questions to continue.  I forgot the good one today that gave me a brain cramp and memory loss evidently but it led me to tell her Sunday is a day off from questions but yesterday Daddy got "what makes you, you?" and tonight I got "For how long was I zero when I was born? "and " how did I get out of you?"

ahhhhhhh, time to got to bed in a nice and quiet house with only 3 dogs and no Beagles!

the $6 lawn sprinkler= priceless memories

 

 

Transcending

Thank you Donna for knowing I would appreciate this. To anyone who remembers to "hold hands when we go out in the world" from back in kindergarten, this is for us!

Blooming.....

...love friendship and extended family.

A dear friend recently posted of flowers and memories. I have to say there are many connections with flowers and their scent to certain memories.  There is a visual memory linked with the poppy for me.  There is such and anticipation for the opening for this interesting bud. 

 

Six simple and fast years ago we did not anticipate what our bud would open into,

 

we just enjoyed the process of the opening.

 

....so delicate...

 

and...

 

... so strong!

(she is getting the perfect attendance award on the right)

 

Influenced by the sprinkles of love around her...

 

...all she ever needs to know in life she just learned in kindergarten.

I would like to take the opportunity now to thank all the members at her school that may see this on what an wonderful job they do.

I would also like to thank all of you, my readers and extended family for your support.  I had to sit alone as her family representative for the graduation.  There was no other family that could have been with us yesterday.  I heard a grandmother complain about "how many of these things do we have to sit through...this is my 7th one"  My mother would have loved to have been there.  My daughter's paternal grandparents left  us before she arrived, but we know she was kissed by her grandma M before the angels sent her to us.  I sat and watched the slide show of the school year and tears rolled down my cheeks at the pictures of the kids with there extended families and grandparents.  It was lonely at first coming home after with no big celebration, just us.  She is not missing it as she knows no different. She is missing her new extended family of kindergartners though.  She is learning the power of friendships, I have learned them too.  It was wonderful to have the "Flickr tissues" handed to me first thing as I posted pictures yesterday...I can no express how much it means to me that you were there! I will have a special post for you in a little bit but for now would like to leave you with this:

All I Really Need To Know
I Learned In Kindergarten

by Robert Fulghum

All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play
and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands, and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup:
The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody
really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even
the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die.
So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books
and the first word you learned - the biggest
word of all - LOOK.



Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.
The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.
Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your
family life or your work or your government or
your world and it holds true and clear and firm.
Think what a better world it would be if
all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about
three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with
our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments
had a basic policy to always put thing back where
they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you
are - when you go out into the world, it is best
to hold hands and stick together.