Photography

So hard to believe that it has been over a month since we stayed on Lavender Hill. #3 Taybridge House was the address. It just sounds absolutely romantic. I adore the way that eveything in London sounds romantic. Like you just want to be there, spend some time wandering the streets. Our first night at Taybridge House, we sat in Jules' living space and watched the moon rise over the garden. It had such a Legend of Sleepy Hollow feel to it. Again, the whole romantic thing. I was drinking my very first cup of English Tea, prepared by Jules' housemate, Anna. Anna was not actually English. She is from Sweden. You would never be able to tell by hearing her speak as she sounds very British. I learned to enjoy tea on Lavender Hill. In our first meeting, Anna and I were having a conversation about photography as I was completely enamored by the Sleepy Hollow moon and the great photos that were hanging in their house. She told me that her brother was a photographer and he had recently given her his proper camera as he had purchased a digital. I so appreciated the way that she described her 35mm as a proper camera, because I have very similar sentiments regarding the issue. Everyone tells me that whenever I change over to a digital camera, I will never go back. Perhaps this really is the case. I tend to think that I will stick with my film camera for the time being as I so enjoy taking photos, dropping the film and picking up the pictures. I do realize that there can be a similar process with digital, but for some reason, I have not crossed over. One day, I would like to learn how to process my own film. To develop my photos in my own darkroom. It just seems so romantic. I know, again with the romance. There is this sort of weird obsession with the concept of romance. My husband and I were discussing romance in the middle of our trip somewhere and he said to me, I don't see this place or that place or this experience or that experience as romantic. I think of just being with you, whatever we are doing is romantic. To be together, romantic. Completely blew my mind. Such a shift from what I have always thought. Like you have to create this atmosphere of romance, but really, just being with me is romantic. In fact, I still don't think that I have my mind around the idea, as I am describing these places above as romantic. However, if I am in these places alone, it doesn't seem so romantic anymore, so perhaps Michael has it figured out.

I never realized how much I enjoyed taking photos until we purchased our first proper camera. Prior to our Canon Rebel X, we were notorious for either losing or breaking whatever camera it was that we had, so we resorted to using disposables. Which have a tendancy to produce some great shots. You know, we even lost our Canon Rebel once. We had traveled to Kansas for the funeral of a dear friend and left our camera in a rental car. Several hours later when we realized the camera was missing, we backtracked to find it was still in the same car after being cleaned and rented to another customer for the day. We questioned the detail that was put into the cleaning of that vehicle prior to rental, however, we were very grateful to have our camera back. A year or so ago, we had a couple of photos enlarged and entered a local ameteur photographers contest. Since that time, I find myself engaging things differently. It is a bit intimidating to put your work up against someone else for critique. It is easy for me to look at my own photo and think, hey that's a great shot, but then to see someone else's perspective of art, wow, I begin to think, who are you kidding Lesa? All in all, I am glad that I entered the work. I think that I would do it again, should the occasion arise. By the way, I didn't win any sort of medal from the contest, but I did gain a bit of confidence. I have come to discover that I really enjoy taking photos and imagining what something would look like as a photo hanging on a wall somewhere.

Christmas is in the Air

It felt like Christmas this morning. I look out the window and it has the appearance of snow. Unfortunately, it is not going to be snowing here today. Really it is probably about 60 degrees outside, not on the verge of snow at all. This is our first Christmas season away from the snow. As with all the other changes in our lives, this is another that is going to be an adjustment.

It's been such a long time since I have done some good baking. This morning I woke up with the thought of needing some stress relief, so to the kitchen I went. I started out with a loaf of bread, then cinnamon rolls and I finished up with some cut out Christmas cookies. I love it how a little baking can slow me down enough to relax. This afternoon holds a lot of running, so it was splendid to slow down. I joined this book club a couple of months ago and ironically the book that was chosen for us to read is about a woman that left life behind here in the states and spent months in Europe. I thought it was very cool since we were about to endeavor on a trek across the ocean. We have our book club meeting this afternoon and I was instructed to bring our Europe photos to the group. Should be lots of fun.

You know, for me to travel over the ocean was such an issue of trust. Very hard to believe that we have been back for 2 full weeks already. If you think about it, every day there are people traveling somewhere. There is never a moment when someone is not traveling. Sometimes it hits me that there is life going on somewhere else for someone else. Let me explain. Every morning I get up around 5:15 am, drag myself to the fitness center to do my workout. I interact with the few people that we see at the fitness center at 5:30 in the morning, come home, get ready, eat breakfast w/Michael and head to work. I spend about 5 hours planning events, come home to have lunch w/Michael and then back to planning events for 3 more hours. If all goes as planned, I leave work at 3:30 pm, come home and hang out w/Michael for the evening, go to bed around 9:00 pm to repeat the same process the next day. Somewhere in there, I usually go outside to say "hi" to our dogs. It is so easy when life is rolling along and the weekends come around again and again that I fall back into thinking that the only place that life is happening is here in middle Georgia. I want to say, since I know that "life" does not revolve around me and my issues, then what does "life" revolve around?

To be continued. . .