Tag Archives: Weekly Photo Challenge

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

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What’s “Up”?  This week’s photo challenge theme…a movie I never saw…my youngest child’s very first word (although she said it ‘uppy’ meaning, “Please pick me up, Mommy!”).  What’s up with me?  I’ve been working at Discovery World Museum and keeping our home business, Scholar & Poet Books, running, so I haven’t been online for two days.  But I am up for this! (and down with it as well)  The sky’s the limit!  Things are definitely looking UP!
The rooftops of Wauwatosa
Playing with my dad, 1971.
My treehouse
Blannerhasset lantern

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

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Pema Chodron writes in a book called “Comfortable With Uncertainty”:

According to the Buddha, the lives of all beings are marked by three characteristics: impermanence, egolessness, and suffering or dissatisfaction.  Recognizing these qualities to be real and true in our own experience helps us to relax with things as they are.  The first mark is impermanence.  That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and changing, is the first mark of existence.  We don’t have to be mystics or physicists to know this.  Yet at the level of personal experience, we resist this basic fact.  It means that life isn’t always going to go our way.  It mean’s there’s loss as well as gain.  And we don’t like that.  …We experience impermanence at the every day level as frustration.  We use our daily activity as a shield against the fundamental ambiguity of our situation, expending tremendous energy trying to ward off impermanence and death. …The Buddhist teachings aspire to set us free from this limited way of relating to impermanence.  They encourage us to relax gradually and wholeheartedly into the ordinary and obvious truth of change.”

 

Much of my life and energy of the past 10 years has been spent trying to cope with change, as I watched my husband’s health deteriorate and my children grow from an innocent childhood into a difficult adulthood.  Five years ago, my husband died at the age of 47.  In my most agonizing moments of wrestling with impermanence, I would take myself for a walk.  Two blocks from my house was a place I liked to call “my prairie”.  It was a place where “relaxing gradually and wholeheartedly into the ordinary and obvious truth of change” came naturally.  At that time, I’d never heard of Pema Chodron and knew very little about Buddhism.  But I could see change all around as leaves turned color, decayed, and returned to the soil where new shoots would eventually spring.  Cloud formations came and went, as did the warmth of the sun.  Paths mown in the prairie grass grew indistinct and were redirected.  Small animal carcases seemed to melt into a puddle of fur and bones until even those were carried off or disappeared.  Change was constant and friendly, not the scary beast I was beating from my front door every day.  

“My prairie” became a very special sanctuary to me.  This is where I went on September 11, 2001 to think.  This is where I went when I returned to my old neighborhood after moving in with Steve in 2011.  This is where I will wander following the Bridal Shower my daughter’s best friend is throwing for her in June.  I bring myself and all my changes into this sanctuary, and I feel immediately embraced by the bigger changes of the Universe in its course.  All the impermanence, egolessness and suffering of my life seems to settle down into just What Is when I am here.  I feel at peace.  It is my pleasure to introduce you to my picture of Change…

change  

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

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COLOR!  Wow.  Great photo subject!  It is now April, and color is slowly returning to the palette of the Wisconsin landscape.  Lawns are still brown and dormant, but the little Scilla Siberica is pushing up bright green and blue in my garden.  Hooray!  I’ve been posting black and white photos for months.  It’s time for a change!  I am definitely agreeable to embracing the rainbow…and you can take that as a political statement, too, if you’d like. 

Emily’s ukelele
scilla siberica

Happy April, everyone!  And Happy Birthday to my son, Joshua – thanks for making my life more colorful!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: A Day in My Life

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This week’s photo challenge, A Day in My Life, is a great opportunity for me to tell my readers about my New JOB!  I have completed two days of training at Discovery World in Milwaukee, and although I haven’t taken any of my own pictures, you can see some on their website.  In addition to my job in Guest Services at this museum, I will also begin working two days a week at Old World Wisconsin at the end of next month as a Costumed Historic Interpreter.  This means that I get to do weekly time travel, from the 19th Century into the Future, and talk to folks of all ages about how things work, how we work, what we do with what we know, and what wonderful things are all around us!  I think it’s pretty cool that someone’s willing to pay me to do that.  And when I get home, I photograph, describe, list and sell all kinds of old and new stuff on eBay.  

Favorite elements of my new job: hearing the screech of seagulls on the Lake, matching my breathing to the pace of fish in the aquarium (ever notice how flying ducks are always in a hurry and fish rarely seem to be?), watching a 5-yr-old stroke a Pencil Urchin with 2 small fingers, and seeing a kid’s face light up when he lands his plane in the Flight Simulator.  I am looking forward to getting a deck tour and cruise on the SV Denis Sullivan when the ship returns from the Caribbean and taking in a film at the outside amphitheater at dusk during the summer.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense

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The challenge for this week is Future Tense.  I admit, thinking about the future often makes me tense, anxious, sometimes panicky.  I have a vivid imagination and a lot of irrational fears.  And I’m working on breathing, living in the present moment, all those Buddhist practices that address those thought patterns that Western Pragmatism put into my head.   The OMG! your children, your finances, your health, your retirement….you must have a PLAN for the future, you must be PREPARED, if you’re not anxious, you obviously haven’t grasped the situation!!!!  There are DANGERS out there in life!   

Do you think life is something to be feared?  Do you think life is a wonderful adventure, naturally unfolding, peaceful and harmonious and without judgment?  How do you want to live your life?  You have a choice. 

path to the dark side

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

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This week’s challenge is about a universal favorite: FOOD!  I grew up in a family that was highly educated about and highly appreciative of food.  My family was started in Massachusetts, moved to Chicago and then to California.  Regional ethnic influences were explored and absorbed with gusto.  Last night, as Steve & I enjoyed dinner at our local sushi bar, we got to talking about our personal culinary histories.  Steve adamantly refused to eat anything but hot dogs, potatoes and asparagus until he was 16.  Then, on a trip to New England, he actually tried fresh fish and realized that he was missing a world of wonderful taste.  You can get lost in a food wasteland, if you’re not adventurous, in the Midwest.  But there are plenty of opportunities to branch out. 

Last year, on St. Patrick’s Day, we ventured into the city to see what kind of shenanigans we could witness.  We had lunch at one of Steve’s favorite places: Beans & Barley.  I love it immediately for its California vibe.  Here’s a picture of my portabello and gorgonzola and roasted red pepper sandwich with curried potato salad:

Lunchtime

And the beer?  New Glarus Spotted Cow.  The best in Wisconsin micro brews, IMHO.  And you can’t buy it in Illinois.  Oh, but that’s not all!  DESSERT!

dessert

The cafe has a deli and market attached, were you can find a variety of locally made sauces, mustards, natural soaps, and ART!

Art

Yes, indeed, ladies & gentlemen!  Step right up to the Art-o-Matic vending machine, insert your token, make your selection, pull the knob, and PRESTO!  A cigarette-pack-sized piece of genuine, handmade ART will plop into the tray!  Decoupage, graphic, random, actual ART.  Really, isn’t this a cool idea?  Get your local cafe to install one TODAY!  All your neighborhood artists will want to supply stock for it.  I think it’s brilliant.  

This year, on St. Patty’s Day, we’re invited to the Finnegan’s house (Steve’s sister’s) for garam masala corned beef & aloo gobi, naan, chutney and Chai spiced rice pudding.  See, living in Wisconsin need not be bland!

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The Illuminating Blogger Award

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light bulb concept

A new-found kindred spirit in the blogosphere has nominated me for the Illuminating Blogger Award.  I’ll allow her to introduce herself from the description on her About page:

“Sally W. Donatello is an educator, photographer and writer. Until recently she worked at Special Collections Department in the University of Delaware Library. Her interests are eclectic, but her passions focus on art, gardening, human nature, nature and reading. Mostly, she prides herself in being a lifelong learner.”

Typically on a Friday, I would be posting a Weekly Photo Challenge entry, but this week, the prompt is Phoneography Challenge: My Neighborhood…and I don’t have an iPhone.  But Sally recently began her own iPhoneography challenge for Mondays, so check out her stuff!

(in case you haven’t caught on, all the underlined bits are links to those places. 🙂 )

Now, I’m going to share one random thing about myself and then nominate some others for this award.  Here goes:

As a fellow lifelong learner with Sally, I am thrilled to have learned a new word this year.  Phenology.   Spell check hasn’t even learned this word!  Phenology is “the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors”.   Aldo Leopold, a Wisconsin naturalist and hero of mine, took this study quite seriously.  I’ve been going to naturalist classes at the UW Madison (where Leopold taught) Arboretum for the last few months, and at every class break, the hostess has asked the group if they have any phenology to report.  Well, today, I have field notes that I can share at the next class.  I heard the first red-winged blackbird of this year singing his territorial song!  I was thrilled.  There’s something about the liquid melody of this bird that just makes my spirit soar.  The sun is shining brightly on the piled up snow.   The days are longer and all my photo sensors are doing a happy dance…I feel dazzled as a Tahoe skier, except without the raccoon face tan.  Temperatures are inching up well past the freezing mark, and we’re told to expect rain this weekend.  Yipee! 

Maybe that’s not so random.  It may be integral.  I love nature; I love sunshine; I love being outside.  How about this?  I had a job interview at the US Postal Service yesterday.  Yeah, that’s pretty random.  I have another interview, coming up next week, at Discovery World museum.  I think that one would be a better fit for me.  Okay, on to the nominees for Illuminating Blogger.

I’m not sure if these fine people accept blog awards, so I offer these nominations simply out of my own appreciation for the enrichment they have brought to my experience.  Any response is entirely up to them. 

Interesting Literature.

Jose of JoseRaSan66. I don’t read Spanish, so I miss a lot, but I do love photography and gain on that account.

Jamie Dedes of The Poet By Day 

I’m supposed to share 5, but I’ve only added 3 blogs to my follow list since the last time I gave out awards.  Instead, I’ll share a photo of my neighborhood.

neighborhood

Yup, that’s my car at the bottom of the shot.  But today, a red-winged blackbird sang!  I am illuminated, lit up all around.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details

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This week’s photo challenge is hosted by a nature photographer.  His shot of an icy falls reminds me of some that I took at Wehr Nature Center…and for that reason, I want to go in a different direction. (Yes, I fear comparison!) 

“Lost in the Details” is an interesting posture.  Are you forgetting the big picture?  Are you so overwhelmed that you are purposely choosing to downscale?  Or are you simply appreciating the most minute things in wonder?   Details… are they petty?  or pretty?

This would be a great theme for macrophotography.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the lens.  Here’s one detail shot that I’ve posted before that I like:

knobs

And here’s one that I took this Wednesday after our latest snow storm:

storm window

I enjoy details…and I always want to be reminded to look up! (or as my mother would quote from her Girl Scout leader days, “Look wider still.”)

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward

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“Forward” is the weekly photo challenge prompt.  Hmm.  Directional.  Nautical.  Paths…I have a bunch of shots like that which I’ve already posted.  Boring.  Check the dictionary.  Aha!

2
a : strongly inclined : ready

b : lacking modesty or reserve : brash

3
: notably advanced or developed : precocious

Inspiration!  Allow me to (re)introduce Emily.  She is turning 22 on Wednesday.  Last year, I did a Birthday Post dedicated to her, but she deserves more press.  Especially with this theme!  Ready, brash, precocious.  She is much more than these, but she is these.  Ready to act, in many senses of the word.  Ready with her emotions, her opinions, her dreams.  Ready, often, to take on any challenge.  Brash, bold, unreserved, “larger than life”.  Precocious….oh, the stories I could tell!  When she got 2nd runner up in the Little Miss contest, they asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.  “An artist…like Georgia O’Keeffe!” she replied in her 5 year old voice.  In first grade, she was given the responsibility of trotting down the hall to the third grade classroom for reading because she was far more advanced than the rest of her class.  Often, however, her teacher would find her in the nurse’s office having an extended visit, chatting, charming, helping out, telling stories.  In high school, she was invited to lunch in the teacher’s lounge by a new staff member who thought she was a teacher.  She is progressive.  She is learning, growing, changing at an incredible rate, still.  And she is someone whom I love so thoroughly and passionately that sometimes, I almost can’t bear it….the rush of oxytocin, almost losing her as an infant to meningitis, the fights we had, the pride when she performs, the fear we lived through…we are bound together and moving forward, deeper, higher all the time. 

So, now, the photos:

Guess which daughter is Emily...

Guess which daughter is Emily…

...and Mema, who is always too fabulous for words

She is really too fabulous for words, but “Forward” describes some of her.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Kiss

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Photo credit: my little brother, aged 7. I set the shot up for him on my Canon AE-1 (a gift from Jim) and asked him to do this favor for me so that I'd have a picture to take away to college. What 7 year old kid would take a photo of his big sister kissing her boyfriend? A sweet, generous one. Thanks, David. Always grateful.

Photo credit: my little brother, aged 7. I set the shot up for him on my Canon AE-1 (a gift from Jim) and asked him to do this favor for me so that I’d have a picture to take away to college in 1980.

January 7, 1984

January 7, 1984

July 3, 1992. Recovering from open heart surgery. Mom tries to kiss it better.

July 3, 1992. Recovering from open heart surgery. Mom tries to kiss it better.

December 2008. Eyes wide open.

December 2008. Eyes wide open.

The Kiss.  What a photo challenge!  How do you participate in a kiss and take a picture at the same time?  Or if you’re not participating in the kiss, why are you photographing it?   Are staged kisses different from spontaneous ones?  Should kisses be documented, or should they be private?  How many kiss photographs do I even have in digital format?

Well, that last one became the deciding factor.  I have others in hard copy of my kids being kissed: as babies, on birthdays, at graduation and that kind of thing.  I even have one of Hershey’s kisses that my husband arranged on the floor in a heart for the anniversary of our first kiss.  These few tell a timely story, though.  Five years ago today was the last day I kissed my husband.  It was the day after Valentine’s Day.  We went out to dinner at a local bar & grill, came home and watched TV, kissed each other good night and fell asleep holding hands.  He never woke up.  The clue to ‘why?’ is in the third photo.  What’s different about the fourth photo?  Different guy…and my eyes are open.  Thirty years with Jim, full of youth and fairy tale and children and love and kisses, and I was often dreamy and often afraid.  Four years with Steve, and I’m learning to face things, be aware, and take greater responsibility.  Intimacy is even better when you’re fully awake.  IMHO.