Explanation

She said she hates close ups of herself. I tired to honor that.

But this one’s just too good. I can’t help it. I’m powerless.

And it was taken on my camera, but I can’t claim it. Josh snapped it.

Maybe that’s why it’s so good.

Dichotomy

I had planned for a couple weeks to write this big narcissistic blog post tongight, the eve of the 1st of March, the beginning of Birthday Month. I changed my cover photo on facebook to this:

Because March 1 begins the reign of the Birthday Queen…

But I was reminded that today also marks another seperate but equally important event.

23 days from today, on the 23rd day of March, Abbie turns 23. Her Golden Birthday!
And so I give her…the smaller version of the crown:

Almost Time

For Tulips.

These are all from 3 years ago. I went to the tulip fields in Skagit Valley, and then next year too, but not last year. The month of April just got away from me. I won’t let that happen this year.

I always think I won’t need to go back again, but all that color…all that glory! How can I not go look again?

I don’t know this child, she was just there, so I snapped. Can you believe I’ve never even looked at this photo!?

And thank you VW for driving by just then. You made it better!

If you haven’t gone to the tulip fields before, you just have to this year!

Every color you can imagine!

And I know these are good pics, but seriously, even THESE don’t compare to the real thing,

to really BEING there,

and seeing for youself!

And what fun I’ve had editing these 3 years later, long after I’d thought I’d culled out the best from the day, only to find others I love even more.

Yellow is hard to photograph.

Blue is easy.

Rick. Me. Mural.

Pink and Orange

Orange and Yellow

It’s almost Tulip Time.

Hero’s Birthday

Today is a hero’s birthday. She truly is a hero, but it’s her story to tell, not mine, so I won’t.

I’m just so bummed that I didn’t know yesterday when she was around doing things that help me and help people around me…

If I’d known, I would have bought flowers and dark chocolate and thrown a little party…

I’m a little humbled and chagrined because I go on and on about my own birthday, and here’s someone with her birthday coming up she didn’t let on…

She just kept on doing what she does to help…

while the rest of us went on about our day forgetting for a moment…

…that we were standing

near greatness.

It’s a hero’s birthday today.

Even Steven

Abbie announced this evening that she was offended by This Blog Post. There was a close up of everyone in our family except her.

Blah Blah Blah Blah….I can’t win.

Last night and this morning I was working on backing up pictures from March 2009. And since March is our birthday month, both Abbie’s and mine, looky what I found!

I almost deleted this picture, but Abbie had her arms wrapped around Hannah’s belly and felt her baby bump for the first time and that face…I just love this memory!

Ok, now who feels left out!?

Retro: Vintage

My Uncle Jack came across some old pictures of my Grandpa and emailed them to me. I doubt any of us kids have ever seen these. Uncle Jack and Dad don’t remember seeing them.

This is Grandpa Tate. Amos Oliver Tate who Josh is named after.

I could be mistaken, but I think that’s an Australian Shepherd with him!

And I had no idea my Grandpa was so cool!

I wish I knew the stories behind these photos.

Retrospect

Occasionally I go digging around in my digital files looking for a particular picture that I remembered taking and come across whole months that I never edited and never backed up on flickr where I store all my files for safe keeping. When I went looking for pictures of Joey for his Birthday Post I found at least a couple months worth of pictures that I never edited and never backed up on my trusty site.

From January of 2009:
Snow,

Birds,

Ducks,

on fences

and squirrels,

Exploding Christmas trees (Caleb got hold of my camera)

and good friends turning 50…

Rick and I

and Josh

Caleb and Hannah at ‘the Hog’

The Christmas tree through the wine glass,

Dogs

and haircuts

It’s fun to look back and see the pictures I’m so glad I took just for memory’s sake, and re-evaluate the pictures that I thought were great back then, but now, I see as, well, for what they were, part of the process of a beginner, passionate photographer.

Can’t wait for 5 or 10 years from now to look back at this years pictures and see how much more I’ve learned by then!

Carry on..

Anna

I know we just started the celebrations, and by we, I mean me, but I’d like to take a break from my party for a moment and wish my sweet sister-in-law a happy birthday!

Happy birthday Anna! I hope your day is peaceful and wonderful and filled with love!

It Begins

I can’t help it.

It’s February 20th, and every year for probably 45 years (I’ll assume until age 5 I really didn’t pay that much attention to when my birthday happens) it signals the start of my own personal birthday celebration. I realize this is purely in my own mind, and usually, even here on my own blog I don’t make anyone else suffer through it until March 1st, but this year is different. This year is huge and marks the end of the first half of my life. There is much celebrating to be done, so I think we should start early.

Rick is rolling his eyes about now. Now literally now, but the “now” when he reads this, serious eye rolling! It’s ok. I can handle it.

I have a couple thoughts I want to share and a couple pictures. Like I said, I’d normally hold off until the first day of March, but this year…it’s all about me. Feel free to skip the blog for a few days if you like. But don’t really.

Thought of the day:

Life Is Good.

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who is much older than I who remarked that it’s ‘all downhill from here’ and would rather have just gone ‘home to glory’ at about age 50 than continue to hang around. This person is relatively healthy, although has aches and pains, he does not have cancer, is not hunched over, does not limp. He needs a knee replace, but if you saw him on the street would not think him an invalid or disabled in any way. I admit I became defensive when I felt my positive outlook on life challenged with “why would you want to live here so long when Heaven will be so much better!?” (upon hearing my conviction that I should live to be 100) I tried to keep my voice calm and pleasant and respectful, but I was angry. I am a christian, and I do believe in heaven. I believe that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, and that heaven is more real and more fulfulling than anything here on earth. I do. I believe that…

However, I also believe that the original plan was life here on this tired, old, decrepit, polluted, sagging, decaying, beautiful, wonderful, colorful, unimaginable earth. I believe this was the first and best idea and for reasons of free will and the need for redemption and the gift of the Redeemer, Plan B was put into place. But just because there is a Plan B does not give us the right to degrade and wish away our God Given Gift of Life. How a christian can vote politically based on the sanctity of life and degrade the gift of his own life is more than annoying, I think it’s sinful, and yesterday I said as much to this person whom I love and respect.

I’ll step off my soapbox now and say that I get that I’m still young, I’m healthy, disease free, and painfree. I do not take any of this for granted and know that but for the grace of God, go I. I haven’t walked in the shoes of someone in chronic pain, dying of cancer, or slowly dying of Alzheimers. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to think I even have a clue what that would be like, and I wouldn’t judge a person for wishing to be freed from a body of pain and decay, but I also don’t want to be judged for thinking that this teeny tiny little thing of a life that I have is pretty wonderful, a gift of grace to be cherished, something to be thankful for every single day.

Speaking of going home to glory,

that’s my Grandpa Roy, and that’s me on his lap. I must have been less than 2 years old there. He died when I was 7 or 8 and it was my first awareness of loss and grief and the first time I was cognizant of talk of heaven and ‘going home’. I remember his funeral. There was lots of music, I come from a musical family, but the two songs I remember the most and think of him every time I hear them are these:

I Come To The Garden Alone

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Redeemed
Redeemed–how I love to proclaim it!
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed through His infinite mercy,
His child, and forever, I am.

Redeemed, redeemed,
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed, redeemed,
His child, and forever, I am.

Redeemed and so happy in Jesus,
No language my rapture can tell;
I know that the light of His presence
With me doth continually dwell.

I think of my blessed Redeemer,
I think of Him all the day long;
I sing, for I cannot be silent;
His love is the theme of my song.

I know I shall see in His beauty
The King in whose way I delight;
Who lovingly guardeth my footsteps,
And giveth me songs in the night.

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/

I titled this post “It Begins”, but actually it began a long time ago.

And Life is indeed good.

I Told You So

You might remember in July I got new glasses and chose these:

These are progressive lenses, which I’ve worn for years, in fact the whole bifocal/trifocal thing has no age stigma to me because I started out in bifocals when I was 7. It’s never been a sign of old age in my mind.

I like them. I do. But the last couple months I’ve been struggling to see. The part at the bottom that I should be able to read out of seem too strong and I’m always catching myself peeking out from under them to read, and the middle part which should be perfect for work at the computer are also no longer working and I more often than not rip them off my face and move up closer to my monitor to see it clearly. I finally made an appointment to have my eyes checked again, a mere 7 months since my last exam, and my eyes are “markedly less near sighted”. What?

So, the eye doc tells me that it’s natural and normal for nearsightedness to decrease with age, and most people have a very long slow gradual progression, but SOME people, and apparently, I am ‘some’ people, have a sudden decrease in nearsightedness, it happens very quickly over a few months to a couple years.

Since I need new glasses again anyway, I decided to go with a different look. I’m tired of the dark rims on my face. I want to lighted and uplift my look. With my graying hair, this is difficult.

I tried on wire rims, copper, red, blue, green, purple…

I know that clunkier tortoise shell is still the rage, and being the geeky 4 eyed kid in school, always at least a couple years behind the fashions, as tempted as I was by the wire rims, I’m kinda paranoid about my eyewear.

I picked out 7 or 8 pairs to try on for Rick. He nixed all the wire rims. He liked a couple of the plastic frames, and I saved my favorite for last, and still he wasn’t sure. He likes the shape but thought the color is too light. I sent the picture below to Abbie for her opinion, she usually picks out my frames for me, and since she wasn’t receiving the text I uploaded it to facebook for her to see.

Although the picture was meant for Abbie, I got lots of help from my facebook friends and I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of them sooner! I will say that it was a mixed review. I had a couple people say no way. Too wide, or too light. But others liked the shape and hoped they were red. They are not. Think of those little cubed caramels we unwrap and melt down for carameled apples; that is the color.

After considering everyone’s responses, the pros and cons on facebook, Rick undecided, the guy at Costco thinking they are too light for me, and Abbie also thinking they were too light, (“but not hideous”) I made my decision and ordered them.

I might regret it. A couple months from now I might be whining on here about hating my glasses. And if I do, I give you all permission to say,

“I told you so.”