Choices, Choices

Our Molly is one lucky girl! Reason #1 - She applied to three (great) colleges: Alma College (Michigan), Slippery Rock (Pennsylvania), and Otterbein (Ohio). She was accepted into all three with an academic scholarship. Reason #2 - Two of the three would like her to play soccer. Reason #3 - She auditioned for all of the dance departments and made it into all three!! There is talent money scholarship as well for two of the three (maybe all of them....we're still waiting to hear back from one). I am very happy and pleased for her. I think she is surprised, happy and a little shocked that it all went so well. Now comes the hard part--deciding where to go. In a stroke of sheer unbelievability...her best friend Alana decided to go to Otterbein. Alana and Molly have been preschool friends, soccer buddies and classmates their whole lives. Molly went and looked at Otterbein first and loved the dance department. Then, Alana looked at the nursing program. Alana will also be on the soccer team and also be the kicker for the football team. It is amazing to me that with all the options these two have in regards to higher ed placement that they might end up at the same college. So...now we wait....Molly is a little nervous, but like I told her, with the choices she has, she can't make a bad decision. Stay posted to see what happens next!

The Epiphany of the New Year...2011

There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.

Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.

Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within reach, is joy.

Take Joy.

And so, at this Christmastime, I greet you with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the daybreak and the shadows flee away.

Fra Giovanni

(Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515) was a Renaissance pioneer, accomplished as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, classical scholar, and Franciscan friar. Today we remember him most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.)

The Longest Night

This entry should be dated 12/21/10, however, it took me a long time to figure out how to upload it from an ipad.....sheez! Technology! Anyway, this is the winter solstice PLUS a lunar eclipse. Great picture made on my school playground. It is one of my favorites!

Holiday preview

I am having so much fun with my new camera...I'm sure I will bore everyone to death before it's done...Anyway, I have discovered picasa and piknik. I'm sure before too long I'll move on to adobe light room, etc. and start running with the big cats! For now I'm pretty happy with my (almost) freebies. Stay tuned to see what else I post. MBL

Indian Summer

We have been so lucky this fall--those of us that live in NE Ohio that is. We have had a fabulous fall. Beautiful warm days, clear skies and moderate temperatures. Likewise, it's been a great soccer season too. (I love the game, but when the wind chill dips down or I can't feel my fingers, I'm out of there.....At one of last year's games, a cake that was brought to serve at the end of the game actually froze before we could eat it. ) This year we enjoyed the sunshine right along with the soccer game. This is a picture of my class with their fourth grade pals. We are getting ready to participate in first grade's "Insect Olympics." Together with their pals they see if they can jump as far as a cricket, dance like a bee, see like a dragonfly, emerge from a chrysalis like a butterfly and be as strong as an ant. Usually this time in November, this event would have taken place in the school gym. Lucky us, we could have fun being insects outside this year. I wonder what the winter will bring?

Mollinator and the Monster!

This post is about Molly (aka. the "Mollinator") and a monster she helped to create....her mother who is beginning to morph into Ansel Adams (talent non withstanding). When Erin and Merc were up for a visit last week, Erin (who is an amazing photographer) loaned me her fabulous camera. I LOVED it and found a real joy in the images I captured. David noticed me LOVING the camera, and so for an early birthday present, got me a camera too!!! Complete with a zippy close up lens!!!! This is my first official portrait. It is of my Molly at her last soccer game...complete with a grubby captain band on her leg and an expression of bliss on her face. May her bliss and mine continue.

Endings and Beginnings

These are my two favorite pictures from this summer. They seem to capture the essence of the season...family, home and the simple joys of sharing time with one another. This has always been a very poignant time of year for me. Gearing up for the beginning of school, the ending of summer. A very bittersweet kind of feeling. It struck me that these pictures really captured many of my feelings and emotions. Ross, my great nephew is poised to head off to Mother's Day out in a few weeks .... his beginning of the next 17+ years of education he'll probably receive. It's the end of Molly's public school career. September 1 is her last first day. She'll be graduating next May and heading off to college. Kate has changed her major. Her beginning was music education. She now has a double major in music and business. A real departure from what she thought she wanted to do. I'm sure that is exactly one of the things she and my dad were talking about when this picture was made. He ended a career in business when she was just beginning, period. Me, I'm now officially ending my blog-free summer. The time is right to begin to write again.
P.S. Erin, you are the best photographer on the planet. Forget teaching...take pictures.