Changes of Time

Time, time, time
See what’s become of me…

That rascal time has done it again. Minutes tripped into days. Days tripped into months. Months tripped into years. Blown away. Flown away. Swept out into the horizon and vanished with the settings of many suns.

Where does it go?

Your guess is as good as mine.

But in that passage of time, there is so much more than the days and nights. There is joy and sadness. Burdens and blessings.

Hearts have mended. Hearts have broken. Some pieces had to be reshaped. Some drifted away like dust to sky. Tender new sprouts took their place.

I’m not going to pretend the last few years have been easy breezy. They haven’t. Life can be hard. Death is harder. Life after loss is the journey. Finding your way without them. Finding the YOU that you are when they are gone.

We laid my Mom to rest. My last living parent.

Mom - March 24, 1942 - January 07, 2017

You know I thought I lost her long ago. To her illness. To her alcohol. To her memory loss. But it wasn’t until she was really gone that I understood what losing your Mother is really like.

Sharon's Roses

It’s been over a year now. See? Sneaky time trickster. I can finally take a breath when I realize she is not here. The shock of it, not as intense. I don’t look for her signs (or smells) as much. Although they pop out every so often, like the Bluebird flying straight at me while admiring Spring in the backyard.

It’s little things to remember. Memories to hold close. And….. I know. I probably haven’t grieved properly.

Because what is that really?

But the sun still sets. My precious family encircles me. I know in every part of my heart where her spirit beats within the new places and the old.

We were born to die, and we die to live. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth; we fully flower in heaven.

Blooms

Landing on Flickr Explore

Have you ever heard of Flickr Explore?

No?

Well, let me tell you, it’s a page of badassery as far as photographic images go.

The best of the best. The boldest and brightest. The most UNBELIEVABLE photos uploaded to Flickr.

They call it Explore. And if you do Explore, you will be astounded by the talent they choose on a daily basis. That’s right. Every day. From millions of photo uploads, the Flickr Gods choose 500 to display for twenty-four hours on their feature page (called Explore).

That’s one photo out of 17,000 images or something like that. It’s really crazy and the images are crazy good. Did I say that already? They are CRAZY good.

If you’d like to see for yourself, click here. This will take you to the Flickr Explore page for today. At the bottom, you can scroll through previous days.

And this post is not about the secrets of how to hit the Explore page – although I hear there are some, and many have theories on this process. But I do not.

I consider it dumb luck (for me anyway). I’m pretty sure that is how it happened the first time I hit the Explore page. With my image of the vintage light bulb for my Project 52 that week.

Project 52: Week 4 - Low Light

And yes, I am happy with this one. The light is stunning. I found exactly what I wanted and executed it exactly as I saw in my head. And NOOOOO. That never happens with me. I, normally, have a bright idea heh! and it NEVER turns out how I envisioned it.

But this image.

It totally did.

And to my surprise (or dumb luck) hit the Flickr Explore page. It was quite a thrill! Thousands of views and hundreds of people favoring your image. It’s enough to make a photo girl proud.

So, twenty-fours later, my image drops to the next day and a new set of 500 images are displayed.

And of course, those images are just as Ahhhhamazing as the day before! Hey, no big deal, it’s just another day of The Extraordinary Images of Flickr.

Life goes on.

Another week, another photo for my Project 52.

But then…several weeks later…it happens again

Yes, dear readers, my image hit the Flickr Explore page for the second time. And WHAT!?!

This time it is an image of my mean ol’ Maya kitty looking deceptively sweet. Oh, so deceptive!

Project 52: Week 11 - Green

She is probably my go to photo subject. I can’t even tell you how many photos I have of her from kitten to (almost) adult. She is just very photogenic. I mean look at her. She is just gorgeous. And don’t let her fool you, she bites. And she bites hard.

Several of her kitten photos got a lot of views too.

Project 52: Week 28 -  Pair

This one as her eyes were changing from blue to green.

Project 52: Week 26 - Half

This one the day we brought her home.

And just for fun, here is another set of photos on my Flickr that were viewed quite often. One is from the girls’ beginning of school photos. And the other is for the birthday of my oldest step-girl.

Project 52: Week 33 - Back to School

Project 52: Week 18 - Happy Hour

Maybe, they weren’t Explore-worthy, but they sure were view-worthy. I wish I could tell you how it’s done, but alas, it is still a mystery to me.

One thing, I will do…keep posting photos on Flickr and sharing them with you.

Maybe, you will find them as interesting as the Flickr Gods do.

The Most Interesting Weed in the World

A Centrical Weed

The Most Interesting Weed in the World

And truly the most abundant in our backyard.

L is for Layers

Breaking Bad

Dandelion SpaceCraft

Whisp away

As annoying as this weed is, I do find it most unusual. A weed or a flower? A seed or a shower of them? A part of child-hood, and a part of Spring. Maybe even a thriving example of the most copious life cycle.

Whether they are annoying or beautiful, I do not know.

And that is why I deem them – The Most Interesting Weed in the World.

The Most Interesting Weed in the World.

After a Dark and Snowy Week…

The sun comes out to blind me to brighten our days.  But the snow, and ice (which is still snow to Texans) was a fun and dramatic change from our sunny 60’s (sometimes 80’s!) winter.

The Dallas metroplex is one of those areas when the weatherman says, “Snow.”

We say, “Yeah, right!”

And when he still says, “SNOW!”

We say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Well, we believed! We believed last week and we believed this week. The magical ice and snow and allllll the blustery cold things happened. We broke out the gloves and scarves. We made chili (well, my sweet hubby made super, yummy, delicious chili). And most of the household had many wonderful snow days away from the office and school.

Except for me…because…I work for a travel agency. Even better, I supervise the EMERGENCY SERVICE Department of said travel agency. And what do you know? Snow storms and flight cancellations seem to top the #1 EMERGENCY of travelers. Huh.

But you know, with the skidding and sliding of planes off runways and such. Yeah, that. It’s kind of important that they CANCEL these precarious flights, lest you end up crashing into a ditch, screaming as you plunge down a blow-up slide while highly flammable jet fuel LEAKS nearby. So not the winter vacation you were hoping for. This is why I am happy to work snow days and keep you extra safe. You’re welcome.

But fingers crossed, someone has snuffed out that darn ground-hog and it WILL FORtheloveofGODplease be Spring real, real soon.

In the meantime, enjoy my lovely (and rare) SNOW photos. It happened. It really did.