I went hiking and now I’m sore

After the broken camera fiasco of two weeks ago, I was thoroughly excited to open my gifts and find a brand new lens with even wider aperture settings! See the beautiful picture?

Choose joy.  Some days, it’s easy. Choose joy in fingers dipped in paint.  Choose joy in little nuggets of artwork created by little gems of people.  Choose joy in rainy days filled with yellow flowers and smiling children.  Choose joy in globs of paint in blonde hair. It’s easy to smile when creating artwork and…

One of the things I’m learning to love about living in the Pacific North West: road-trip-ability. By crossing into the USA (patriotism win!) and sailing down the I-5 past Seattle (in between traffic jams) and detouring onto the famed US-101 (canopied in green),  we found ourselves in Cannon Beach, Oregon. At first, I wasn’t overly…

We dubbed it take your wife to work day.  Nothing official, nothing authorized, just me joining the van full of commuting expats heading to the banks of the Yangtse river where The Machine was being constructed.  And what a machine it is! I won’t try to do it justice, and even the photos don’t properly…

An ode to my first professional camera, upon its demise: You were a long time in coming to me, the journey scattered with high school photo contests and college poli-sci text books. Your cousins the Pentax K-1000 and the Nikon D80 prepared me for the joy that was your whistles and bells, for the delight…

I stood in the middle of a barn, meeting a horse worth more than any car I will *ever* own and learning about what it takes to own a horse farm (while wiping sweat from my forehead and swatting flies away), and realized how blessed I am. Yes, blessed. (Despite the sweat and flies).  I…