Have you ever wondered how two people can look at the exact same thing and each see something totally different? It happens often enough that it is almost miraculous that we are able to effectively communicate with friends and loved ones at all.

When I look at this picture, I see a beach filled with broken pieces of life. Others may see the circle of life, nature simply taking back what was hers.

What do you see?

Perhaps the art of effective communication is as simple as asking what the other sees.

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

Now and then I retreat into a world of my own, a place of stillness with muted emotions, a place to just be. It isn’t a light switch that I can switch on and poof, suddenly I am in the quiet place, but rather noticing over several days that I have become quieter, with very little interaction with others.

Sometimes I discover that somewhere in the back of my mind I have been dwelling on something that I should probably deal with. Other times I think perhaps it is just a mini vacation from too much going on in a short period of time and I simply choose to reduce the stimuli around me for a bit.

Maybe it is a protection mode or wall that we all put up occasionally…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

Do not watch the petals fall from the rose with sadness, know that, like life, things sometimes must fade, before they can bloom again.” Author Unknown

When I took this picture of a rose, I put it away into one of my “someday” files. It just didn’t say anything to me at all. It was just a rose, ya know?

I simply hadn’t captured what I was seeing inside of me. The words were buried deep inside my very soul, but the image just wasn’t saying what I wanted to say.

It felt like one of those special whispers from Spirit when I came across this quote (above) within moments of taking this picture back out again.

It fit the moment in time perfectly for me.

Maybe it is all about the timing…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

When I was young, my granddaddy would tell me stories about the “good old days” and how kids these days didn’t have the sense God gave a goose. Of course he also loved to tell me how he used to walk 20 miles to school, uphill both ways, and barefoot.

Every once in a while he would add a few feet of snow into the memory.

I would sit there giggling at him, loving his stories, dreaming of a simpler life and how wonderful it was to know him. I also secretly thought about how all old people told these same stories, but I never got weary of listening.

Guess what slipped right out of my mouth today?

“When I was a kid…”

Lord help me, did I really say that?

When did I become one of the old people?

Sighs…

In my defense, I didn’t bring up walking to school a million miles (or so) each way. Probably because I didn’t. A bus picked me up about a block or so from my front door. We did however whine about how long we were stuck on that dang bus. (grin)

I was just thinking of a time when life was a bit more simple, when we didn’t have cell phones, computer games, and laptops to occupy our time. Amazingly enough though, we were never bored. We spent hours playing neighborhood games of kickball. If we didn’t have a ball, we played kick the can.

We rode our bikes for miles down trails and jumps we made ourselves.

We didn’t have fancy backyard gym sets, but we knew if we had a nearby creek and a rope, we could spend entire days on that rope swing laughing until our sides ached.

Life was just simpler I think.

When I was a kid…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 18 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

It takes a village to raise a child.” African Proverb

Listening to all the nearly vicious political debates in the news, I began to wonder. In the middle of all of this, who is watching out for the children?

Is this truly the example we want them to learn?

How can we claim to be good Christians if we live a life filled with hate? Children hear and remember our words, but they learn and mimic our actions.

Are we taking hopes and dreams away from the future of our nation?

It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” Albert Einstein

This year, I have been so disappointed in the school my daughter attends. They built a brand new school and football stadium, but they have less teachers teaching more students, and classes without enough (if any) books.

Discipline issues are at an all time high which seems to coincide with how these kids are treated. I have heard teachers speak to children in a manner that I would not speak to a rabid dog. And we wonder what has happened to the attitude of teenagers? If we treat our children like thugs, guess how they start acting?

Yes, we as parents are fully responsible for our children, but does it mean we don’t stand up for the children of others? Why on earth do we allow anyone to treat a child with disrespect? I agree there are some incredible teachers out there and they are simply not paid enough, but I also believe we have teachers right now that shouldn’t even be allowed to train an animal, let alone our children.

It doesn’t stop there either. Spend one day living the life of a teenager, and tell me what you see. Cops hassling kids hanging out at a park for the day? Why? Because they MIGHT be thugs? A couple of teens take their allowance to a store to buy new things and they are followed by security. Why? Because they MIGHT be thugs?

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Bernard Baruch

Again, I agree there are problems out there, serious problems that desperately need to be solved. I just don’t believe that labeling all children with the same cloth is the answer.

Yeah, I was in the mood to rant. I will step back off my soapbox now.

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 17 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” Mark Twain

I am smack dab in the middle of some serious spring fever. Enough so that I am digging through old spring photographs I have taken so that I can recapture those scenes inside of me, if only for a moment. I literally crave spring days filled with sunshine, butterflies, and tiny wildflowers blooming as far as the eye can see.

I am not sure what it is about spring that brings me so much joy. I think perhaps it is a season of hopes and dreams…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 16 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

When a photographer captures an image, that image becomes an intimate look inside their very soul, a peek at the world through their eyes….

I often see a mirror of me, of my thoughts within, when I am sorting through the pictures I take. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I am not a big fan of the city. Those picture are often dark and dreary, towering over me.

Likewise when I photograph places that bring me comfort, I tend to emphasize color, light, and wide open spaces as far as I can see.

Photographing out in nature, I am often focused on the natural beauty of wildlife, adding a gentle feel and softness that we can almost touch.

Perhaps it is more than quacking like a duck that makes people realize it is a duck. (Yeah, that thought came out of nowhere…)

Recently I have begun to notice this same thing with writers, except the look inside of them is created with their words. You can tell the difference when they are writing about something they are passionate about, as opposed to when they write because they feel they need to for business reasons.

If our actions show the world who we are inside, I wonder if we are aware of exactly what it is we are showing people. Is it within our control? Or, something that just happens? Or, perhaps I just overthink things.

Nope, I haven’t reached a conclusion yet. Today was just a day of meandering thoughts. Yup, I have those kind of days often and I am okay with that…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 15 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

The expression on Lemur’s face, moments before his surprise attack on Taylor, was absolutely priceless. You could literally see him planning how this was all gonna go down. Finally, he would be king of the mountain, or in reality, king of the couch.

I seriously considered stepping in, or at least giving her a warning about what was to come, but in the end, this ongoing battle of wills is between the two of them.

I was laughing a bit too hard to grab a shot of Lemur’s failed launch off the couch and besides, Taylor wasn’t exactly amused at the rude awakening from her nap. Apparently Lemur had forgotten about the rule of what goes around, comes around.

The line was now clearly drawn in the sand.

Again, no picture of the moment of victory for Taylor, as my laugher had now reached the point of hysterics. (Yeah, I am easily amused.)

Her final look of total contempt for him (as she reclaimed her spot on the couch) sent him off in search of more playful prey. Taylor went back to her nap.

Gosh I love my cats…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 14 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

So you’ve got the ball, huh?

Whatcha gonna do with it?

Run like heck of course! What possible sense could it make to just stand there holding it? What are you doing? Waiting for someone to take it away from you?

RUN!

Life is always a series of choices.

Yes, we can make the wrong decisions, but don’t ya think that maybe sometimes we miss out on wonderful chances in life because we just stood there holding the dang ball?

If we spend life thinking about what we should do, we never quite start living it.

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 13 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

Sometimes ya just gotta scratch that itch.

We grew up hearing not to go out in the cold rain, for fear we would get sick.

To heck with it!

Run, play, and love it until you are too exhausted to play another minute. Go ahead! Get drenched! Jump in the puddles and fall in the mud screaming with insane laughter.

They told us not to talk to strangers.

Pffffft, everyone is a stranger until you give them that huge infectious smile and say hello. Start grinning and tell everyone in your path to have a wonderful day!

It doesn’t matter if they think you’re nuts. Of course you are! Do it anyway.

Should we eat fast food every night?

No, we shouldn’t. But life isn’t about iron clad rules. It is about living, loving, and laughing. No, not those politically correct giggles. I mean good old fashioned belly laughs that make it hard to breathe.

So go ahead.

Order that Big Mac that you have no business eating, just keep it all in balance.

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day 12 of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!