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Category: Photography

  • Green Moms Carnival: Why I Love Blogging

    Green Moms Carnival: Why I Love Blogging

    The most common way people give up their power
    is by thinking they don’t have any.

    – Alice Walker

    In a nod to Valentine’s Day, this month’s Green Moms Carnival topic invites green bloggers to examine their love for blogging, to answer the question, “Why do we do it?”… in 250 words or less.

    Given that I’ve been attempting to answer this question for myself, off and on, for the last 18 months, and that I’m not known for my conciseness, it’s a daunting way to return to the carnival. But here we go.

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    I continue to return to blogging, and to blogging here, specifically, because I am so in love with the natural world. I believe that this earth and this life are our greatest gifts, and I’m determined not to let a bit of either go to waste.

    I believe that the simple is beautiful…

    and I believe that the unexpected can be found all around us…

    when we slow down enough to look for it.

    In the online world we speak often of having reach, and having influence.

    Part of why I become discouraged with blogging is because I suspect my reach and influence extend only to the seven or so people who read this blog faithfully, and the three young people who live under this roof.

    I come back because I believe that, perhaps, touching just those hearts is important enough.

    They don’t have to be convinced. They just have to act differently.

    I’m not better than anyone,
    & I’m not trying to convince people to live
    by my standards of what’s right.

    I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.

    -from Eating Animals,
    Jonathan Safran Foer

    I blog because I believe in people. I believe in you.

    I share my heart and my photos and my kids and my quotes and my words and my info and my love, in the hopes that I can inspire others to help make this an even more beautiful world.

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    So, that’s my submission to the February Green Moms Carnival. You can read about why other green moms blog over at Best of Mother Earth as Karen hosts on Valentine’s Day 🙂

    Fellow bloggers: why do you blog?

    Readers: why on earth do you come to see me here?

  • Happy Birthday, Thomas Alva

    Happy Birthday, Thomas Alva

    I never did a day’s work in my life.
    It was all fun.

    -Thomas Edison

    Happy birthday Thomas Edison!

    I read a biography of Thomas Alva Edison recently that suggested that, had he been brought up in today’s environment, he would have been quickly diagnosed with ADHD for his ever-shifting focus.

    Remember, this is the man who said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” By all accounts, statements like that were not an exaggeration. He slept only four or five hours a night and believed good things came to him who “hustles while he waits…” Imagine what that must have been like to live with.

    I read yesterday that ADHD has been linked to measurably heightened creativity levels in young adults. They’re better at thinking outside the box; they “like generating ideas, but are not good about completing the tasks.”

    I wonder often if by medicating our ADHD kids, our obsessive-compulsives, our manic-depressives, we better their individual day-to-day experiences but hamper their abilities to create great things. Inventions and art that better us all as human beings.

    Will we ever have any more Da Vincis, Edisons, Franklins, Doestoevskys? Will an eccentric like Theodore Roosevelt ever be allowed to lead a Boy Scout troop, let alone a nation?

    Just a thought. The line between genius and madness is a favorite topic of mine.

    In any event, I am humbled by the idea that Thomas Edison managed to do so much with the time he had at hand— it inspires me to set aside my own excuses. Edison had six kids and the same allotment of 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that we are all given.  He brought light to the masses. He changed the world.

    I guess it helps when you approach every day as fun 🙂

    In Edison’s honor, an assortment of photos to remind me how much fun parenting can be.

    Have a great weekend!

    Improperly focused, but I had to include it. This is my niece
  • (Almost) Wordless Wednesday

    (Almost) Wordless Wednesday

    fly macro

    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

    Going through some old photos for another post I’m drafting, and oh,

    I am so very ready for spring.

    I can’t wait to hang out with my buggy friends in the warm sunshine.

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