Tag Archives: photo

365 Challenge- Day Feb #7 – My View

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Day Feb #7 – My View

christmaslights

 

This is the view from my office window in my house.

These lights have been hanging in this tree since the day we bought our house.

12 years ago.

I have no reasonable explanation as to why we never took them down.

They don’t work. They haven’t since we moved in.

They have never actually been plugged into anything from what we could tell.

They just hang there.

Sometimes I don’t even “see them” any more.

My view differs from my husband’s.

I have always felt that they should come down.

He thinks that they aren’t hurting anything so why bother.

So , they continue to just hang there.

For 12 years.

Check back in 12 years, they’ll probably still be there.

My view.

Day Feb #7- My View.

 

365 Challenge – Day Feb #3- Bedside

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Feb 3- BEDSIDE

Confession:  I cheated on this one. I knew that I had already taken a photo (with my Droid) that means more to me than any new one I could possibly take. It is one I had taken last year for no particular reason on January 12, 2012 .  This is the lamp next to my bed.  It is “adorned”, if you will, with all of these necklaces, which were all given to me by one friend or another at some time during my 12 year RSD journey. They all mean something to me and they are usually the last thing I see before turning out my light at night and the first thing I see when I open my eyes in the morning. Each are a symbol to me that I do not fight this battle alone. They give me strength, and they encourage me. Though I know they would be better preserved tucked away in my jewelry box, I will always leave these particular necklaces hang on my lamp, by my BEDSIDE, so that I know that no matter how hard it gets, I am never alone!

Day Feb #3- BEDSIDE.

bedside

365 Challenge – #6 Feb ~Saved (Up)

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hopenecklace1

My poor little neglected blog. How I’ve missed you!

My apologies… I started a corresponding facebook page! ~ https://www.facebook.com/Allsortsofhopecom?ref=hl

My new FB page!~ Go ahead, check it out.

Then I went  to about five trillion basketball games, a few gymnastic competitions and tried to recover from all that stuff. Having some trouble with my hands, too. Trying to keep the keyboarding/ processing to a minimum.

SAVED (UP).

In this photo, I am wearing pants that I , Hope the clothing hoarder, had SAVED from, no kidding, the early 90’s. I had also taken this photo using a Minolta lens with a Nikon adapter that a friend had recently given me that he had SAVED from years gone by.  In addition, the lovely silver necklace that I wear proudly around my neck  has a silver ribbon with the word HOPE engraved on it. It was a gift from a woman who had SAVED it for a while til she remembered to give it to me.  I waited quite a few hours to get my knuckles un-swollen enough to be able to type even just this pathetic little paragraph. So in essence you could say that  all these things had been SAVED UP for- just to make this photo.   (kinda? sort of?) .

It’s a stretch at best. But right now, I’m saving up for so many things the best thing I could think of  for “Saved up ” was my actually my new ( old) car that I finally went out and purchased after months and months of not having. However, when it came time for my car to make it’s photographic debut, it wasn’t home because my son is now driving it as his was just hit while being parked outside of our home. You see, that’s how we seem to be doing things in this house lately. One step forward, two steps back. It’s a good thing that I saved up for it, though, or we wouldn’t have anything to drive.

I’m also trying to save up every last bit of energy and strength I have. My vision is starting to play tricks on me too. I’m getting anxious. I’ve got a treatment in just 21 days! And that’s the big winner for SAVED UP, I suppose…. the strength and energy it took me just to do this whole thing. I pray no one ever truly understands what I mean by that.  Sadly, I know that there are far too many of you who do.

Day #6 of Feb- Saved Up

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365 Challenge- Day #26 Guest

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Day #26- Guest.

Meet Lisai. Stunning and dark. Robust. Like a great cup of coffee, she is!

Stark contrast to my fair ginger, Natalia.

So when the snow started to fall, I simply had to get them out there together. Could not have been more pleased with the results. The camera loves Lisai! I just wish Lisai loved the camera as much as it loves her.

2snow

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365 Challenge- Day #21 Dream

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“So, if I dream I have you, I have you,
For all our joys are but fantastical…”

Elegy X: The Dream,  John Donne

 

my dream

365 Challenge Day #24 Faux AND Day #25 Real

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365 Challenge – Day #24 Faux and Day #25 Real

My husband’s grandma’s fur coat.

I know the answer. But I’m not telling.

So old. So cozy. So not fashionable any more. 😦

(yes , I wanted this photo to be blurry. I feel like if you have to add that disclaimer, the photo didn’t end up like you wanted it to OR your friends really don’t get your work. )

 

faux

365 Challenge #15 Confusing

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I promised myself that this year I would try to learn as many new things as I could.

To push my brain to it’s limits.

RSD patients can be found to have  damage to the same parts of their brains as stroke victims or Alzheimer patients. Part of my testing for my ketamine infusions made me all to aware of just how far my condition has messed with my brain. Part of the very reason that we have RSD at all is because the wiring in our brains has some how gotten all messed up and the pain signals have become confused somewhere along the way. Thereby making the simplest little tasks sometimes very challenging.

This little project took me almost 3 hours. Interrupted by making dinner, but three hours nonetheless. I was so confused while I was trying to do it. But I did it. And my brain held up. Now I’m just exhausted. It’s not perfect nor exactly how I really wanted it, which was the hardest part for me- allowing myself to say something was finished before I considered it “perfect.”  Nonetheless, I was so proud of myself when I finished it. Though it was very difficult for me to complete this task, very confusing, I did it!  Just don’t ask me to do it again 😉

 

– PS- I should get “bonus points” – because this photo is of my teenage daughter and though she is beautiful and I love her, teenage girls are nothing if not confusing!!

 

Day #15 Confusing

Confusing

365 Challenge Day #11- Signature

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Day #11- Signature.

“Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.”

― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

I ‘ve pretty much always had red hair. When I was younger it was a beautiful dark auburn red. Of course, as we age, things change and like it or not, if we wish to keep living, we must change with them. I decided very early that even though my red hair was being taken from me, I would do whatever it took to keep it red. (Thankfully my sister is a hair dresser!) Though I have often envied women who have gone from blonde to brunette and back again, I really never wanted to be one of them.

I. am. a. redhead.

My children tease me that if I ever stopped being a redhead they would never be able to find me anywhere again. My red hair definitely suits my personality, too. I am temperamental, moody and bitchy beyond belief. I am stubborn, strong- willed and “spirited”, passionate (in all senses of the word.) I have a friend from years ago who told me once that I’ve got “moxie” . (made me giggle.) and I suppose he’s right. I’m pretty mellow until you push me too far. My personality, just like my hair color, is high maintenance, too.

signature

Naturally, given the “challenge” of thinking of  “Signature” , the very first thing that came to my head ( haha) was my red hair. It is undoubtedly my signature.

Redheads banned from Donating Sperm! (6 fiery facts about Redheads)

4 Surprising Facts About The Color Red

all about red

The Sort of Hope Who Has A Daughter That Can Fly

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Natalia’s first gymnastic competition was on Saturday. She competed last year as a Level 7 USA Gymnast and this year is now an Advanced Prep Optional ( it’s a level for girls who don’t quite have all the skills for Level 8 or those who for whatever reason just aren’t ready to compete the next compulsory level  quite yet. )

We could not have been more pleased with her performance! Gymnastics is such a fascinating sport to me. These girls train so intensely. I can’t wait for competition season so that I can be surprised by all of the new tricks that  Natalia and her teammates have mastered during the off season. This year was no exception. Natalia has added a layout full twist to her floor routine. Floor is my favorite thing to watch the girls compete and I honestly think it’s the thing that our gym tends to excel at the most consistently.

Yesterday was no exception. Natalia ended up doing very well for her first meet- she placed First All Around (36.00). Captured a 1st on beam (9.3) and floor (9.25), and a first on bars (8.95) and a third on vault (8.5).

There was a bit of a some excitement and a resurgence of interest in gymnastics last year following the Olympics. I could not have been happier for the girls at the gym. I feel like what these gymnasts go through is sometimes underrated and under-appreciated and surely under-valued because it is not a school sport. I get upset because I personally think that they don’t get the recognition that I feel they deserve. If people knew how much work these girls put into learning just one simple ‘trick’, maybe they’d value the sport a bit more. These girls are true athletes. Hours and hours spent in a gym to master their craft. They have to be braver and stronger and even more courageous than most other athletes. Fear is a word that they check at the door.

Competition days are difficult for me. (though surely nothing like they are for the gymnasts!) They often involve long rides in the car, sitting for hours on cold hard bleachers and then long rides home again. We never eat right. Traveling with me is like traveling with a toddler. I ‘ve got my “goody bag”- water, snacks, socks, meds, music -for distraction if the pain gets bad, pillows, blankets, gloves… If you’ve learned anything by now, you know that things like travel and long days I don’t get along real well, but the only times I have missed her meets were because of treatments. If it were up to me, I’d watch her and her team compete every weekend! I’ll just deal with a longer recovery time afterward. She won’t be competing forever and while she is , I’m going to do my darndest to make sure when she looks up, she sees her mom in the crowd.

I’m not sure why, but yesterday I really struggled to photograph this event. Out of practice maybe? You cannot use flash in a gym, the lighting is typically even worse than in a school gym. Gymnasts move fast. Very fast. This was the first meet with all new routines so I wasn’t sure how to follow them. AND to complicate the process, for every event but the beam, I was shooting through the safety bars of the balcony. I did manage to get a few decent shots of each event.

Special thanks to my two photographer friends for responding to my panicked texts about how to try to take the shots from that meet. (and understanding that sometimes my panic is born of my disease and my over active nervous system making me forget every thing I already know!) You guys are life savers to me. Truly.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t have amazingly talented people who fly through the air with the greatest of ease, allow me to share mine! The girls of FGI. It’s a pretty short season – States is March 16- and our gym only competes about 5 meets- so enjoy these girls with me. They really are something special.

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