Flickr Badge - Most Interesting Photos Currently
Monday, December 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
317/365 "Hey we're in Tiny Feet!"
Sunday, September 9, 2012
A Walk Past Peas Of The Recent Past...
I got this girl while at BlytheCon 2012 in Texas where I had more fun than I have had in a long time. It was a long deserved vacation for my husband & myself. I had promised myself last fall that I would not purchase any more Blythe girls having 60 or so neo's & 4 kenners along with a few middies & many more petites, but somehow there have been a few girls this year that have caused me to break my own commitment to myself. I must say I came home from BlytheCon fully refreshed & ready again for life. I have many, many photos to go though that I took while at the event & look forward to having the time to post them here on my blog as time permits so that all might see the creativity in the Blythe Community where there are many kind & generous souls that always keep me coming back to Blythe!
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
<3 down at Paradise Springs - BlytheCon 2012
Untitled, a photo by mydollies4 on Flickr.
Love this rare photo of me getting the nicest hug with Jair one of the other BlytheCon paricipants down at the pool party - one of the pre-events to BlytheCon 2012. I don't even remember posing for this photo taken by Juliet (mydollies4 - flickr), but I do remember having a great time floating down the Lazy River on inner tubes sprayed by water falls & other water features along with my husband John (L side of photo), then getting out for about half an hour to talk to Blythe friends such a Jair only to return to the water when it got to hot to sit outside there under the shade of a Texas canopy.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
As The Dark Moves In, Forrest Remembers When Amelia & Goldie Last Wore These Outfits..., While Alexis Looks On Worrying About Her Sister
As The Dark Moves In, Forrest Remembers When Amelia & Goldie Last Wore These Outfits..., While Alexis Looks On Worrying About Her Sister, a photo by rhubs knit on Flickr.
I am so grateful though that Goldie, Babette the rest of the girls & I know that Amelia will soon be joining Roz. These girls were so excited to put on these matchy - twin outfits, but then Forrest (PAM) remembered who wore them last while poor Alexis doesn't have the faintest idea why Forrest is sad. I guess I will need to show Alexis the photos from last year and tell her all about the traveling blythes. Excuse the graininess & the the unkempt hair - will take another photo during the day. Just had to capture Forrest's memories expressed through her face & Alexis' concern for Forrest.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
cre8space: Journal prompt: Pivotal People
such a great idea especially since I just recently found two important friends in my life who I had lost track of about 30 years ago.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Me at Twenty Something...
Me at Twenty Something...
I don't know when my Uncle Bob took this photo, but it must have been when I was going to Simon Fraser University in Canada. My cousin Cathy sent the file to me as a surprise on Saturday night as she was going through family photo files for Mother's Day. So nice to discover photos that you never knew existed. Especially since I was usually the one who took photos even back then. :)
Mother's Day Pics
Monday, May 7, 2012
Birthday Surprise
Babette: We have such good Blythe Aunties Goldie.
Me: Thank you Mel!
Dresses by Melacacia
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Growing Older
Now in my late 50's as I move in the direction towards 60, a new awareness enters my mind; my husband will be retiring in the next 4-5 years even if we can't afford it. It is cliched to say, but so true "how quickly time has passed." How I wish blogs were around as my children were growing up so I could have written cute stories & posted all their photos day by day - documenting their life & mine. But alas although personal computers were around when my youngest was born & they were beginning to exist while my eldest son was in elementary school, we were documenting on old film cameras and on video tape; even then often only for special events or during vacations. I definitely was not one of those mothers who kept up a baby book as my children grew, but at least at a certain point I started taking a lot of photos even if they did not end up in an album, although on occassion they did. It was not until I had an iPhone 3GS that I really dicovered digital photography, and blogs of course have been a recent development.
I was surprised when my older son told me that I was very adept at computers in both my use of the web & my iPhone usage. He then continued to remind me how I had been his computer teacher when he was in elementary school & had taught him beginning programing using turtle graphics & the Basic language, as well as allowing the children to create stories & the drawings on the old Apple IIes long before anyone except early computer geeks in the mid 80's had personal computers in their homes. He was reminding me that although many people who are my age have had to learn to use a computer in their work that their use came after my pioneering exploration of computers in the early to late 1980's. Of course as I had spent a life not just being a mother, but also working in the movement field & dance, as well as working with & advocating for children & their families, I did not stay in the computer field & dropped behind. Yet now I see what a wonderful tool it is for documenting a life or many lives & cannot help but think how wonderful it would be to both document my life & my children's lives through photos from the past slowly being scanned in as well as using the reflective written word.
I was lucky as I was a child growing up that I heard many stories of my mother as a child & young woman & my maternal grandmother while we sat and had lunch, dinner or tea together and the two of them would reminice, but now with both gone I have so many more questions I would like to ask them and how I wish they had written down more about their lives that I could read now for I would like to know so much more now. And while I asked my mom to write about her life while she was in her 70's & early 80's, she never took me up on it.
I asked my father once when I was 14 about his life & if he had pursued & found what he wanted in life & while he told me through barely a few sparce sentences that he had not, he did not go into much detail and we in many ways ended up strangers. How nice it would be to have a fuller picture of his life than the rough sketches & outline I have of him. So now I think of going through boxes & scanning in photos of my past & my children's past & slowly filling in through words, our history together & apart. I don't know if they will ever be interested nor do I think that matters as it may not be until they may be quite a bit older, perhaps my age now, that they might even wonder about my life for a flicker of an instant, but they might enjoy seeing & reading about the time that they were growing up through my eyes. Often when I ask my youngest son if he remembers when..., he tells me "no" so he may want at some point to read about himself and of course many people love looking at photos from when they were little so I am thinking about actually creating a blog about the past & blending it in with the present since I can't document my children's lives & my own as so many young mothers are doing currently. (The inspiration for the above thoughts came after I had just finished reading Christopher's & Tia's blog about their little family before beginning to write here, How jealous I am that famiies can now do this kind of journaling as they go through life & not leave all the clutter doing so.)
In the meantime, before I start hunting up photos from the past as well as writing about it, today I slept in & caught up on some sleep before I began my second ever granny square out of some beautifully mixed coloured fibers out of strands of merino wool and silk as well as other sources I had bought at Yarnia.(Yarnia is a store where you can make up your own mixture of different types of colours and materials on one spool.)
I had seen a photo of a book on Facebook posted by a friend called "The Granny Square Book - Timeless Techniques & Fresh Ideas For Crocheting Square by Square" by Margaret Hubert.
Funny enough as I was looking at this crochet book, I met one of the very active members of the Crochet Liberation Front who was very excited that some of the crochet patterns she had created were going to be published in a book, while at the same time she was discouraged that there were only a few patterns among the various yarn stores participaing in the crawl for crocheters. We talked about how we would have to change this situation for next years crawl, while exchanging personal information and giving me a new source of crochet patterns & community. As I went to put the book back on the shelf, I did not see the two other copies of the book that stood there originaly when I had pulled down my copy of the book to look at it so I thought to myself that I should at least get the book held over night while I looked up granny squares online. The next morning I got online & whipped up my first basic granny square out of some cheap burgandy yarn then in the afternoon went to an appointment in rivers of rain with hail and went to the small library close to me. Although I didn't find the book I had been looking at in the store, I found other crochet books that interested me and brought them home, knowing that I could most likely get Hubert's crochet book out of one of our other libraries. When I returned home despite all the digital information & my new library books, I broke down & took my sweet service dog & I for a walk down to the yarn store to purchase the book while the sun was out, justifying the purchase wih the idea that I can always give the book to a friend or family member for a birthday or holiday when I am done with it. With the digital age not as many items need to bought anymore, no longer do you need shelves of books to read nor do you need stacks of photos in boxes or albums, you don't even need various sizes of tapes for music, movies or videos. So you can these days enjoy much less clutter and yet I am rhoroughly enjoying having this beautifully photographed crochet book in my home.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Are You Sure?
Are You Sure?, a photo by rhubs knit on Flickr.
I turned this photo into a poster that I love to use to show the two parts of myself & to remind myself to have have confidence from within.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Love At First Sight! Happy Valentine's Day to all my Flickr friends!
Love At First Sight! Happy Valentine's Day to all my Flickr friends!, a photo by rhubs knit on Flickr.
Postcard #1 Well this week I was giving myself a hard time for breaking down & adopting 2 girls one of which is Babette with her pup Bibi (on the left) as I have been good since August of 2011 the longest stretch of not adding a single doll & in fact had rehomed 2 momoko girls I loved a lot to a dear friend in Australia, Worry has overtaken me this past week so explaining why I broke from my resolve not to bring anymore girls into my home is in order. You see Goldie on the right & I had been missing Amelia for over 6 months now, (one of 3 traveling Blythes also done by Gbaby like Babette), since Amelia came to visit us at the end of June through the 4th of July right after I had been released from the hospital after dying & coming back from pneumonia. Feeling terrible & weak I took Goldie & Amelia out & about & watched how Goldie came to life in a new way with one of Gbaby's girls to play off of. Now I know I could still win Amelia, Goldie's best friend ever & would love to have Amelia come live with us too, but when I saw Babette I knew she could bring Goldie great pleasure as well as me & that Amelia would likely remain a distant friend (though I still wish she could come here as well...) so here Babette is & just in time for Valentines Day when Goldie would so need to fall in love again. Goldie is smitten & it was love at first site for the two of us with Babette & Bibi so I am trying to forgive myself for spending almost 2 months of my fixed income & not put pressure on myself to immediately adopt out the many takara rbls that I will one day send out on their own adventures when the time is right.. There is still a girl coming who will be another girl's special friend from a caring flickr friend that I finally met at BlytheCon2011 who gave me the biggest hugs with tears after knowing I barely made it to the event. I am hoping that I will make it to BlytheCon 2012, but money lately seems to be a question knowing I will probably now never work full time again. I know as time passes & I don't add anyone else I will feel better & I also know I would have regretted passing up Babette & the coming Po. Besides who really knows what the future will bring.
Another thing, I had also planned to send out some Valentine cards to some very dear flickr blythe friends earlier this week who also became very important to me during the summer right after being so ill, but failed at that too & so the affection these 2 show gazing at each other for the first time provided me with at least a photo card for Valentine's Day. Maybe I will send out real belated V day postcards of this photo, but this will be good enough I think... I need to let go of the worry about money & now truly just enjoy the girls I have! Slowly I will let go of some of my other girls, but no rush. I just need to forgive myself & enjoy 2 new girls who bring me a special joy after a time that was so difficult. I hope this is not too personal, forgive me if it is... & know that in the future I will do better & in fact get cards off & special swaps off once again giving back to all those who have given me so much & as I get stronger I will stop being such a hermit. :)
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Bundled Up & Ready to Go!
me: What's up Komiko-Bramble?
Komkio-Bramble: Well, I er...ummm...
me: Just curious...you look so pretty in your new dress from Diem & so nice & warm in your knit jacket.
me: Where are you taking off to Komiko-Bramble?
Komiko-Bramble: I'm going to check on our animal friends down by the swollen river.
