Monday, December 28, 2009

holidays are crazy days!

These holidays have been overwhelmingly busy-
filled with lots and lots of family, friends, food, laughter and fun! 
A few pictures from the past week:


Skiing on Christmas day was utter perfection-
Sunday River never ceases to amaze me



we saw a triple rainbow, but only captured 2 on camera


2 days later, family and friends paraded into our home
to celebrate my mom's 50th birthday...
SURPRISE!



I played with the kiddos.


It was a party filled with laughter...

by everyone.


Cheers!
Life is great!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

love, courage and wisdom


"Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as
with the ordinary church member.  Courage without love
and widom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier.
Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with
the ordinary intellectual.  But the one who has love,
courage, and wisdom moves the world."
-Ammon Hennacy


Some men working in a garden on the shore
of the Sea of Galilee, Israel

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

music making

I performed at an open mic night with my friend Christina
once-
and I hated it.  But for some reason
now-
I feel compelled to try it
again.



Tuesday, December 15, 2009

i can taste freedom

since i'm (almost) finished with school this semester
i decided to drop in at starbucks
after work.
it turned out to be a most rewarding excursion-
seeing some of my favorite girls there...
this one's a tribute to Robyn:
a favorite barista
&
favorite friend of mine...


cheers!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

handwriting is always better...

Handwriting is Always Better:

An exhortation to those who still prefer handwriting.

Firstly, I must note- that only writers ever write about writing. Case in point-

Sometimes I feel as though writing by hand has become this convoluted and unthoughtful task for so many people. Considering the reality that handwriting is likely a part of every day for most people (that I know anyway), why, then, is it not even thought of or spoken of after the second grade? Even writing (forget the handwriting for a moment) has been reduced to following these blue lines. What happened to the wonderful sweeping white of a blank, empty page? Handwriting is intimate. It’s visual. It is telling, in its own right. For writers, there can be a lot of words… but then you hit that moment where you don’t have to think anymore, when the pen leads the journey. On a page, you can see that shift- it’s when the words all begin to bleed together in a rushed but beautiful mess, and they become illegible to all except the author. There is a sort of satisfaction in that chaos, though, because you know that these words are the meat, the substance, the climax of the piece. With handwriting, every little detail matters- Do you use pencil or pen— black, blue, green or the awful red? Do you write big or small, with your left or right, in cursive, all in caps, with curly letters, at an angle, forgetting to dot your i’s, with terrible grammar and no spell check to correct it, skipping a line? The list goes on. Grammar can become more of a novelty when writing by hand- should I add a dash here ~a squiggle there, a comma there?—the details hardly matter when it’s formed with your own ink. Do you revise as you write, or wait until you’re finished to begin revising? Do you erase your mistakes, cross them out with a line so that you can read through, scribble them illegible, or do you bring in another element like white out? The saddest loss when it comes to handwriting, which technology has nearly eliminated, is written correspondence. Because of cell phones and the internet, kids would rather send each other texts or instant messages in the middle of class than pass a note back and forth. Now, it is not uncommon to send just one card a year by mail with only a “Happy Birthday, love Mo” handwritten inside. What ever happened to the lengthy letters between families and friends? Writing and receiving letters, snail mail- I mean, is one of the most wonderful treasures that I know; to have something so tangible and telling. Handwriting allows the freedom to doodle and draw, it alleviates the pressure to always follow a subject through in content. You can appreciate the little things when you’re holding a paper that was filled by the writing hand of your correspondent. Anyways, this is really a lot of chatter. I wish that I could post it in my own handwriting, so that you could see the journey I went through creating this… putting letters on the paper in this mess of nothingness. In the end, I still stand by my title- handwriting is always better. So for now, I’m stopping the dance of my fingers on this keyboard, and I’m wrapping them around something real- that I have to sharpen and work with… and the handwriting begins.



meet tim


he is funny
(looking)

Saturday, December 12, 2009

lost and found

what once was lost
has now been found

the fob is back!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

dancing snowflakes

I write so that I can remember nights like tonight...

As I walked outside tonight, I marveled at the snow, danced a little happy dance, then cleaned off the inches of powder that had piled on my windshield, and began my drive home.

I tend to get nervous when I’m driving in the snow. I have been in several accidents, and there’s not a worse feeling than losing all control when YOU are behind the wheel… the car spinning or fishtailing. It’s absolutely vulnerable and terrifying. Anyhow, despite the conditions of the road (covered in snow) I was not nervous at all. I drove slowly through Waterville. I saw a total of 5 cars on all of KMD. I had some jazzy music playing quietly in the background, but when I realized what was happening around me, I immediately shut it off. It was almost as if God had intentionally slowed me down (literally…15mph the whole drive) so that I could see the work of his fingers. The wind was blowing and it seemed to come in billows, sort of in ebbs and flows. There would be a clear road in front of me then out of no where a gust of wind from my right would sweep a rush of fluffy white snow all around me. Sometimes it was still, other times it was so full and alive that I couldn’t see the road in front of me. It felt like the snow was the Holy Spirit, and God was twirling it all around me with his fingers in different shapes and forms. It was as if a symphony was playing music and the snow was dancing perfectly with it. The calms, then the rushes of wind were the rising and falling of the tempo. It was a living allegory. Then an occasional leaf would meander its way down from the sky above. It would waddle through the air and fall upon the freshly blanketed ground. I didn’t slip on the road. My drive was completely safe. God was good. Then to top off my fantastically beautiful drive home, I turned down into my neighborhood and there were no driving tracks at all. The road was absolutely smooth and shimmering with that cold white stuff. It was flawless. I had the first tracks in the first real snow of the season. Good job Jesus


it's snowing!



my snow creature is so angelic

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

shadows and shapes

Thought of the day:
If I could be anything- I'd want to be God's shadow.
I could be called "Shadow of God".

Monday, December 7, 2009

circles

Every day my pen touches the page
Hoping that something beautiful, lovely, magical, profound
Will come out.
Consistency is my rule, yet for what?
What do all these words mean?
Why am I so insistent upon this exercise of pulling things out of my head and out of my heart…
Of taking the indiscernible and making something sensical out of it?
It’s like a puzzle-
But most times some pieces are missing-
So I piece it together, choosing according to my audience.
Surely there are things that I wouldn’t share with others-
And on the other hand, there are things that I intend for others.
Nonetheless,
It doesn’t matter.
Circles.
It’s all about circles.
My mind goes in them and so does my pen.
Circles.
Mysteries and incompletes are part of the process…
But then in that moment of turmoil, frustration and secret elation,
It is finished.
Circles.
In the end there is something to be said for the finished,
Complete, uninterruptible circle-
With my very name, essence and spirit in the center of it.
Perfectly imperfect circle.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

before the snow came

i'm not sure what kind of a tree this is
but i really like it!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

is this not outrageous!?

i went out to the shed to grab something and realized that my family is outrageous.
somehow we have built up a collection of sixteen, yes SIXTEEN, boats...

2 tandem kayaks
2 ocean kayaks
1 sit-on-top kayak
2 lake kayaks
4 whitewater kayaks
1 windsurfer
1 canoe
1 hobie sail boat
2 jet skiis


new tandem

hobie sailboat & 2 lake kayaks
2 jet skiis covered for winter

4 whitewater kayaks, 1 canoe, 1 windsurfer, 2 ocean kayaks, 1 sit on top kayak & 1 tandem kayak

why? your guess is as good as mine...

Thursday, December 3, 2009

little me

thought of the day:

I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not the best at anything- especially not writing or photography. All that I can really be, and be it well, is myself. So for my sake and for your sake, I will be as much me as I can be- because I don't want to waste my time trying to be something that I'm not supposed to be.

my first day of school

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

photos of photos

i have an office job.
i like photography.
these are some of my favorite magazine photo clip-outs
that fill the walls of my office space.
(the woman makes me so happy!)

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

questions about john

By the time I got home from work today it was already dark, therefore- no picture today. However, last night, when I was nestled in a private nook in the library studying for a term paper, a name in the text stood out to me- John the Revelator. As soon as my eyes scanned over his name my mind was bombarded with a barrage of questions and thoughts—

No one ever writes about John the Revelator. So much is written about the Revelation of Jesus Christ that he received, but not so much about him. I wonder what it was like, exiled on the small island of Patmos.

How many days did he lay there, in that dark, damp cave? Where did his scribe come from and what was he like? Was he, too, exiled to Patmos? Where did they get parchment (or whatever it was) to write on? Was the writing platform divinely and naturally there at the time of the Revelation- or was it worn in by tourists? Did his body shake and quake at the power of God surging through him as he watched the future unfold before him in a vision far larger than life? Did he see it all at once and recite it later by memory? Was the Revelation so real that he could not only see what he saw but also touch, smell, taste, and feel it? In what manner was the written Revelation found? Did he post it on the next pony express? And what happened after?
We never hear the rest of John’s story.
When did Patmos become overwhelmed with religious relics, monasteries and churches? At what point did people recognize this as a “holy place”? Was John praised and received for his encounter? Did he see colors that earth has never known (just like the creatures he saw that eye has not seen)?

It’s not really important to know these things, either way. I’m just curious.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of Patmos- taken in May 2009.

Looking out at the ocean from the western side of the island
One of the 300 churches on this 14 kilometer long island

A farm on the eastern side of the island
looking down into the bay

wild goats- we may have eaten their brother for a meal...
And finally- waiting for a ferry at the end of our stay

Monday, November 30, 2009

Saturday, November 28, 2009

basement mason jar

lets have a ball today

thanksgiving- mom turns 50

best reaction ever!
i think she liked the picture

Thursday, November 26, 2009

abysmal weather doesn't keep us indoors






we went for a hike on Thanksgiving morning-
rainy days aren't so bad...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

in the yard

a tree in the back yard

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

happy days


elizabeth always laughs
even over salad.

Monday, November 23, 2009

corn maize

sneaking through the corn maze in farmington
October, 2009

Sunday, November 22, 2009

condensation at window's edge


my window when I woke up at 7:12 this morning

Saturday, November 21, 2009

box of cleaning supplies (take 4)







taken today in the bathroom

i thought the 4 shots were more dynamic than just one

Friday, November 20, 2009

Sailing in Maine




Aboard the Nathaniel Bowditch
off the coast of Rockland, ME
October, 2009