A Friend's Search for Heartbreaking Beauty

Growing up I had a few really close friends. One of them was Sonya. She had white-blonde hair and the most adorable smile. And one thing I remember about her all these years later is that she had the best art supplies and an insane amount of talent for a little girl. Did you ever have a friend like that? When she colored with colored pencils, it was like there was no white paper underneath. I swear she out-colored all of us, even in like first grade. And don't even get me started about the notes she passed me in high school or the handmade gifts (like the "How We Look Book" she gave me one year, full of photos of her family with hilarious little descriptions) or when she started entering (and of course, winning) photo contests in high school.


So it's no wonder that today she's a super talented artist, about to set out on the adventure of a lifetime. She's planning to spend a couple of years (YEARS!) wandering the globe documenting what she sees with photographs and writing. When she told me she was going, I started to think "Boy, am I lame." and then, "What's going on with everyone these days?" Didn't I just mention how I just recently ran across an acquaintance of mine who took his entire family (kids and all) on a year-long bike adventure to Mexico and blogged about the whole experience? What is it about right now that's causing people to pick up and take off like that? Or is this something that people have been doing forever and I'm just now catching wind of it?

Sonya says she's "sacrificing security for the sake of experience." She says it's not a new story. That lots of us get jobs to buy cars to drive to work to...wait...what are we doing? Why are we stuck in this grind?

I can see where she's coming from. "Regular" life gets kind of stagnant and you forget that you only get one chance at it, so you better make the best of it. I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of her freedom and I'm anxious to live vicariously through her for a while. She's already seen more of the world than I have, and she has an incredible eye for finding heartbreaking beauty.



She's looking for financial backers, if you can throw a buck or 20 her way, she'd be forever grateful (and I think there are perks to it, too!). If you have $750 to pledge, she will let you choose a location on her itinerary and she'll create a blog post with photos just for you. To learn more about Sonya and her project, check out her Kickstarter pledge pageand her blog, which has a ton of gorgeous artwork and writing.

I'll be checking in with her progress periodically, so c'mon back. Live vicariously with me!

My Parents Were Awesome (Still Are)

I'm newly addicted to My Parents Were Awesome, the blog that features photos sent in by readers of their parents looking their awesomest. A few years ago, my mom supplied me with some totally awesome photos of she and my dad back in their youth. Today I submitted a few to the good people at My Parents Were Awesome. I hope they make it on!!

Were your parents awesome? I would love to see some photos!!! Blog them, or send them to myparentswereawesome@gmail.com.

New Card Designs!

I've been in a real card design rut lately, until I realized that there's a half-hour window between which my kiddo goes to bed and the sun goes down. Some nights that half hour has been used to clean up toys strewn about the house. Other nights, like tonight, it was used to make the most of the daylight by photographing all the toys rather than put them away. I have to admit, I had a lot more fun photographing them than I did putting them away.

What do you think of the results? I'm really not that great of a photographer, so maybe I shouldn't be selling these but instead keep them for my own stash. It's it painfully obvious that I'm a total amateur?

Winter Sunrise in Minnesota

Yesterday the sun came up in Minnesota in what my mom would call a typical "Sailor's Take Warning" sort of way. Big, beautiful and full of purples, pinks, blues and reds. I wished I didn't have to rush off to work, but I managed to snap this shot off our deck before dashing for the bus.

Speaking of the bus, today was a particularly irritating ride. The enjoyment started with a sort of comedy of errors in which a man with a backpack got on and didn't realize that a steady stream of water was coming out of the water bottle stuck in the side. A passenger informed him of the problem and he, like a dog chasing his tail, did several turns around and around while a woman with a stroller tried to get on the bus. It took another passenger (now two passengers are helping) to take the water bottle out before the issue was resolved and the water bottle emptied outside. It just went downhill from there.

In brighter news, I got an email that my new holiday fabric is on it's way. I can't wait to get my hands on it! I also got a flyer for a big sale at Hancock's over Thanksgiving. Yipppee!!!

Getting Out and Getting Lost (Almost)

I had a free hour today to do whatever I wanted while the Pumpkin napped, so I grabbed the camera and headed for Larpenteur Avenue in St. Paul where I knew there was a nice walking path by the off lease dog park. It was so unbelievably relaxing to wander around by.my.self and smell the smells and hear the sounds (unfortunately the least "remote" of the whole experience, lots of plane noise and traffic sounds) and look at the tail end of the fall colors changing.

The coolest part of the whole thing was the wooly bear caterpillar I saw on my way back to the car. Predictably, when I picked him up he curled into a tiny, fuzzy bundle and played dead. I stood there long enough to watch him slowly re-emerge and hoof it away from me and my camera. Ah, but that brought back childhood memories.

Hope you got out and enjoyed the weekend. It's supposed to snow here tomorrow. Seriously!

Hello, Jack

I found this beautiful flower growing in my parents back yard. Isn't it lovely and green and peacefulquiet looking? Ahh...

I just wanted to share that with you, because I don't see too many of these little guys around. I thought about transplanting one to my house, but jeez he just looks darn at home here in his little woodland paridise. This is a Jack in the Pulpit flower, which according to wikipedia has some interesting medicinal uses, and may also make you very sick or die. So DON'T EAT IT! And DON'T LET YOUR DOG EAT IT!

Monticello Trumpeter Swans

A cygnet landing.

Sheila feeding the birds

The grayish ones are this year's babies -- the cygnets.


When these birds land, all the other birds duck. Really!
Did you see the movie March of the Penguins? Do you remember them talking about the smell of all those thousands of birds, and the sound? I really couldn't grasp what that would be like at the time. I imagined my trips to the zoo. Or the smell of a litter box that hasn't been cleaned. Or the sounds of a flock of geese flying over. That is, until I went to see the Monticello Trumpeter Swans. The minute I stepped out of the car I could hear and smell them. It was overwhelming!

This weekend we went to Monticello, Minnesota to see the Trumpeter Swans that flock there every winter. Resident Sheila Lawrence has been feeding them since the '80s (when there were only a few birds), and so they return to feast, fight, fly, and honk. According to Sheila, the swans have been visiting that part of the Mississippi since the '60s, when a power plant opened, flooding that part of the river with warm water which prevented it from icing over. Nowdays, there are over 1200 swans that visit ever year! It's pretty amazing given that they were thought to be extinct in the early 1900s.

Monticello is only about 40 minutes from us. I'm glad we took the trip. There were about 15 people there also taking pictures and watching. Some of them come every day, many several days a week. One told us that is costs about $150 a day to feed all the birds. She has quite the setup for feeding, too. It's a huge pipeline running from a grain truck in her driveway down to the river. Lots of geese and ducks have of course heard the news and come running, and we even saw some sort of farm duck and a bald eagle! It was really pretty fascinating to watch.

If you go, dress warm and take a telephoto lens for pictures (or video camera or binoculars). You can buy coffee, cider and tea there as a means to fund the bird food.

My New Camera IS AMAZING!

I just got a new camera, the Nikon D40, and it's unbelievable. Compare this shot to the one in my previous post taken with my old camera. Maybe it's *not* me that's the terrible photographer!

Mama Photo Contest

I love the idea of the Mama Focus Photo Contest by Mama Zine, but I have not a photographer bone in my body. I like to blame my terrible photography on my equipment, but the more likely culprit is me. I just don't have the eye. But, if you do, or if your kid is old enough to take a picture of you, you should enter this contest, or at least visit the Flickr group where the entries are posted. Boy, there are some pretty mamas and some really good photographers out there. So far my favorite is this one by Laura Kukulski.
My favorite (although not arty, not really worthy of this contest) photo of myself post-mamahood is this one. I think it really captures the moment when Grant's feet hit the cold water at the kiddie pool, and I thought, "uh oh, maybe not such a fun idea!"

I think my sister should enter this one, which I assume was taken by one of her kidlets!