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Posted in Children, Family, Parenting, Photography, Trains, Travel, Vacation, tagged Busch Gardens, Busch Gardens Tampa, Children, Dreams Come True, Family, goals met, Journey, Joy, Life, Love, new beginnings, Parenting, roller coasters, Summer Vacation, Tampa, thank you!, Thanks God!🥰, Traditions, Trains on May 30, 2021| 2 Comments »
Posted in Dreams, Family, Joy, Life, Love, Photography, Travel, Vacation, tagged Alive n Active, Arizona, Grand Canyon, Mount Humphreys, Mustang Convertible, Saguaro, Sedona, Thanks God! peace to You on April 29, 2021| 3 Comments »
It’s what keeps us alive!
May every 12 year old (and the rest of us) climb 10k feet to play in the snow, descend to the desert going 100 mph in a Mustang convertible, perch on the edge of the Grand Canyon and play in the red rocks of Sedona in the span of 24 hours!
Carpe Diem, Baby!!💕
Posted in Christianity, Faith, Family, God, Honoring, Inspiration, Lent, Love, Prayer, Religion, tagged Bible, Christianity, Devotionals, Exit from sin, Faith, Family, Friendship, Genesis 19:16, God, Harry Edenfield, Inspiration, Jesus, Lent, Linger no longer, Lot, Love, Mercy, new beginnings, Prayer, Religion, Remember me, Spirituality on February 27, 2020| 3 Comments »
Harry Edenfield, a Christian author, offers a thought-provoking daily devotional for this season of Lent.
Today’s verse is from Genesis 19:16: “But Lot lingered. So the angels seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.”
Edenfield reflects, “Lord God, your servant Lot lingered in Sodom. Sometimes I love my chosen place too much. You urge me to leave my sin spot.
I linger.
I linger even if it may be injurious to my loved ones. Remember me: I, too, need an escort from the magnet of sin.
As we leave together, Holy Spirit, urge me to have no regret about the exit from sin. Urge me not to look back.”
Amen.
Posted in Band, Children, Family, Life, Parenting, Photography, The South, Travel, tagged Caged, Drum & Bugle Corps, Family Fun, Freedom, God Does Things, God is Love, Marching Bands, Southwind, Summer Vacation, The Cage, Touring, White Gloved Lady, You’re Always Right! on July 7, 2019| 4 Comments »
Today marks the start of the annual tour for Southwind, an elite drum and bugle corps representing the Southeast region’s best percussion and brass players.
(Oh, and coincidentally, today marks this blog’s 8th anniversary – thank you to all my readers and friends for 8 incredible years!!! xxxooo). Back to Southwind:
They will travel nearly 6,000 miles in six weeks, performing and competing in cities throughout the Eastern seaboard and the Midwest, culminating with a world class competition at the Colt’s football stadium in Indianapolis.
Southwind began 40 years ago and carefully selects its members from rigorous auditions and recommendations. This year, its members hail from 15 states. Lucky for us (and our son who plays the euphonium), they chose our county as Ground Zero for their many weeks of rehearsal camps leading up to today, so we didn’t have to go far to visit him.
Last night they held their dress rehearsal, before they leave tonight for Valdosta, GA, their first stop on the tour circuit. We will catch up with Southwind again next Saturday in upstate Alabama for one of their competitions, before they head north for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan and points beyond.
Some highlights from yesterday:
The schedule is dizzyingly intense, with few breaks
Shoe blow-out is common – these students engage in marathon-training conditions in blistering heat and are fed special high-energy diets and go through gallons of water a day
Did I say “blistering heat?” This was what the sign said yesterday as I was leaving camp at 4:30pm
The supplies and resources necessary to pull off a tour of this magnitude are phenomenal. How every detail comes together is a miracle of the many staff and volunteers who expertly think of everything!
You just never know who’ll show up on tour with Southwind!
(wonder if this guy ever wishes he’d taken up the trumpet instead?) Everyone helps haul the instruments, props and supplies
Meals are served outdoors and consist of lots of high protein, high carb foods. I’m told that spicy and sugary foods are off the list for the most part.
It takes a crew to wash the uniforms, a crew to cook and clean up, a crew to keep track of the students, a crew to organize and pull off the tour, etc. Check out the Southwind website to see their talented Visual Staff and Percussion Staff.
Warming up on the field while the rest of the Corps unloads
Full percussion warming up with brass getting ready behind (note everyone’s gallon jugs precisely at their sides)
Just like a pro ball team, each position/section has its coaches. For the Corps, this includes experts in fine-tuning (literally, as in ensuring drums are properly tuned). The coach listens to each drum carefully, getting down to drum-level with his ear and instructs each player accordingly to ensure perfection.
Each instrument has to be inspected, each day
For each performance, they have a very short amount of time to assemble all instruments, props and supplies, so they learn, among other skills, how to, um, for lack of a better term, haul ass
The drum majors take the field. Yes, that is a roller coaster in the far background but it was so hot we didn’t see anybody on the rides!
The dress rehearsal turned into an un-dress rehearsal, as the searing heat even after the sun went down, prompted them to spare the uniforms for the tour and they did the rest of rehearsal in their bibbers (and white gloves – never ditch the white gloves, so sayeth the Lady, no matter what the conditions!)
The choreography, precision and talent are mind-blowing!
The performers put their heart and soul into each note
This year’s show is called, “The Cage,” in four movements. The first movement portrays what it is like to feel caged – the constraint, the sacrifice of self, the pain of stuck-ness. The second movement illustrates the frenzied attempts to break out of the cage, unsuccessfully.
Movement three is about what we might call learned helplessness, or accepting our circumstances, perhaps complacency and/or ditching the dream to be free and happy. Choosing to settle. Learning to be “happy” and giving up on potential.
In the last movement, the cage finally opens and we experience the joy of true freedom, being able to live life to its fullest capacity and the relief of being out in the open at last.
The show is copyrighted so we are forbidden to upload videos of the performance (plus we don’t want to give our secrets away to our competition before the tour!), else I would have loved to share the power of the sound and theatrics this talented group of students and staff produce.
And, just like a ball team, they have their own mini-ambulance
Away from the action, empty hangers, backpacks and instrument cases line the fence
Ready to roll up the road to the next venue!
I caught up with him after last year’s show in Hiram, GA
Thanks, God, for opportunities You give us and our children to exercise talents, discover new skills and to experience great adventures. Thank You for freeing us of the many cages of our own making in which we ensnare ourselves….and may we always fully trust and be free in Christ.
(This hot summer – and now 16 and driving! – he values a shorter haircut than last year lol) – Godspeed, Jonathan William and all of Southwind!
Posted in Art, Beach, Christianity, Church, Faith, Family, God, Honoring, Humor, In Memoriam, Love, Photo A Week, Photography, Postaday, Religion, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged 3D, Ashes to Ashes, ♥tla♥, Camellias, Cremation, Death, Dementia, Depth of Field, Episcopal Church, God has a sense of humor!, Laughter, Prayer, Reburial, Spirituality, St James, Storytelling, Sunsets, thank you!, you promised my mother and she won’t rest until... on February 10, 2019| 4 Comments »
Depth is critical. Without it, life is two-dimensional and only has length and height.
3D, however, is by far richer because it adds depth. And depth adds dimension, perspective and soothes the mind, heart and soul because it helps bring things to life, and life into focus.
Similarly, in photography, depth of field allows us to discern distance between what is in focus while keeping an eye on what lies beyond.
Note that neither concept embraces looking back.
Ironically, last week before this post came out, I had captured a shot down by the bay that I’d sent to my blogging buddy, Mr. 3D, for his feedback, since he has a really good eye for photography, creativity and all things beachy keen.
My mother’s favorite flower was the camellia, a flower she paid handsomely for to enjoy in her native Chicago, but which grows abundantly here where she chose to live out her last years with me. So I always think of her in the winter when the camellias bloom so beautifully like this.
Some of you may be aware that I laid my mother to rest, summer before last.
Or so I thought!
In an odd and truly unusual religious turnaround, the priest sought me privately after church last week and made a very unexpected confession. “Er, I believe we found what appears to be more of your mother’s ashes, back in the sacristy. What would you like us to do?”
You see, the priest had been hit by a drunk driver the week before mother died (fortunately he was alright after a few weeks of recovery), so the interim priest did the funeral and interred her ashes in the church memorial garden.
I know mother was buried because I and my family was there in vivo to participate in the solemn event. We wept. We joined hands. We sang hymns and prayed. The children scooped grandmother into the earth. Rites were performed.
We said goodbye. Forever.
There was apparently some miscommunication about a second box that turned up long after what the rest of us thought was the actual second box, had been dispersed to the places her ashes were scattered over water. Somehow, the funeral home had created three boxes and delivered them to the church and with the main priest out of commission, nobody knew about Box 3.
Until this week. They’ve been doing a head-to-toe cleaning of the church as they prepare for the regional Diocesan Convention to descend upon our church later this week.
Mother was a photographer and she also had a great sense of humor, so I’m sure she was LHAO from all points beyond, when we learned she had actually been haunting the church for the past 18 months.
So when the priest asked me what I wanted him to do, for a split second, mother’s funny story about what to do with her ashes (pre-death) danced across my mind.
At some point in her 80s (she died at 93), some funeral home solicitor kept calling her every week trying to get her to buy a funeral plan. They were, as pesky solicitors are, relentless.
So one day mother, anticipating their call, decided to rig up a sure-fire way to get them to stop calling. Sure enough, the phone rang that day and she answered with a wry smirk on her face and when they asked yet again she’d decided yet to buy a plan with them, she said without skipping a beat,
“Yes, I’ve finally decided what plan I want. I want to be cremated and for my ashes to be divided into four. Each one of my children will get a portion of my ashes to keep in the trunks of their cars. That way, should they ever get stuck in the snow somewhere, I can still be of help to my children.”
The hapless funeral solicitor never called back. And I decided against suggesting this to the priest, although I might save the story for him for a lighter time in the future.
So yesterday, mother was officially laid to rest with the rest of her ashes, in the church garden where we thought we’d been going to visit (all of) her all along.
The garden happened to have many different-colored camellia bushes behind the memorial section, so I picked one for mother this morning and located her plot, which was newly disturbed with broken grass and unearthed dirt.
Rest finally in peace, Elizabeth Anne – and may you take some awesome photos in Heaven!
Thank You, God, for the gifts You have given me through my mother – love never ending, a happy spirit, an abundance of laughter, a zeal for learning, an eye for Your creation, a passion for seeking You…and for 3D and depth of all fields.
Posted in Children, Family, God, Inspiration, Life, Photo A Week, Photography, Postaday, Relaxation, Vacation, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged Beach, Birthday, Blue, Butt Sledding, California, Drive Thru Tree, Driving, Fun, Gleiser Blue, Journey, Klamath, Mt Shasta, Multnomah Falls, needed you there, Oregon, Redwoods, Smith River, Sneaker waves, Snow on January 13, 2019| 5 Comments »
Much of our recent trip west was spent enjoying The Great Outdoors …what splendor and awe we found, most often in the most secluded and rugged places.
Boy meets Pacific Ocean
Redwoods at Jedediah Smith State Park
Yup, I drove through one!
Majestic Mt. Shasta
Beach boy meets snow for the first time!
Fortunately there were only two spots where there were rocks in the road with no place to swerve but off the cliff. Woo-sah, I can still drive high elevations after all these years!
Smith River…my favorite place to see a shade of blue you never see except deep in glaciers or geyser pools
Oregon coast
Now we know what a “sneaker wave” is!
Multnomah Falls
Thank You, God, for an incredible trip, for the privilege of being able to share Your inspired creation with my son, for spectacular shows of nature and for happy memories. God, may all people experience the natural revelation of You. May we serve You through caring for this world and its people, preserving these special and awe-some sights for generations to come.
Posted in Beach, Culture, Family, Inspiration, Life, Photo A Week, Photography, Postaday, Travel, Vacation, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged Clouds, Faith, Home, Horizon, Journey, On the Horizon, Sunsets, tla on January 6, 2019| 4 Comments »
I had every intention of posting more along our journey to the West Coast (which ended yesterday)…but our trek took us into treacherous and remote places along the way daily, with internet service ranging from spotty-at-best to nonexistent.
But I’m glad to have waited, particularly seeing this week’s challenge topic, since there are now many “on the horizon” shots to choose from. Here are a few of my favorites:
Fog rolling into San Francisco Bay, two nights ago
Crescent City, California
Central Oregon Coast near Newport
Columbia River Gorge, looking towards Washington state
Orchards near Mount Adams
Mt. Hood eclipsing the sun
Between cloud banks on the flight home yesterday
Thank You, God, for the privilege of travel, for affording us new world views, for reuniting with old friends and for rekindling family ties. Your artwork is amazing, Lord, the way You paint each horizon with unique beauty and passion.
Most of all, thank You for the many blessings which continually abound on each new horizon of our lives.
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