abandoned.........

abandoned......

WOW!  Week 4 of my 52 week project with Nicole...  can't believe how fast that this month has gone by!  So our word this week is ABANDONED.  Be sure and stop by and check out Nicole's amazing work and her shot for this week too.  Can I just tell ya how much I LOVE this weeks word!!!  I am sooo intrigued by it!  It stirs a lot of thought and emotion for me....  The truth is this....  I am a freak for old things....  vintage, worn, antique....  someone else's junk....  what ever you want to call it.... I LOVE OLD THINGS!!  Could possibly be why I live in a 100 year old house huh??!!  :)  And the word "abandoned" evokes thoughts of all if this in me...  I am drawn to old houses and buildings...  and the old things that they contain...  they call to me!  And I always find myself with the same thought....  WHAT??  What was that old abandoned place like "back in the day"?  What happened there??  Who lived there??  What did they do???  I want to know the STORY!!!  My thoughts also turn to what is left behind....  a once majestic and loved home abandoned and turned to ruin....  beloved treasures left behind...  meaningless to those who might stumble upon them today....  where are the owners of all these abandoned things??  Who is left to tell the story??  I think about my own house and wonder what happened here??  who lived here??  Wishing that the walls could talk!!  :)  Soooo... my shot (surprisingly) is not from an abandoned place....  it is actually from THE ONLY untouched room in MY HOUSE!!!  Yep!!!  It is a tiny bathroom in the upstairs portion our "dream house"  aka "money pit"!!!  Rick...  BLESS HIS HEART...  has worked tirelessly on almost 2000 sf of ORIGINAL (100 year old original) space that we have upstairs....  With a complete gut and refinish job to be done up there....  this tiny little space is nonessential at the moment!!  So we just close the beautiful solid cherry wood door with the milk glass knob...  and hide this future project...  out of sight... out of mind!!!  ABANDONED!!!  For the moment anyway!!  :)  I actually do LOVE the character of this tiny little space and as with everything else in this old house... we will RESTORE it too!!  SOMEDAY!!  :)  In the mean time it made my shot for this week pretty darn easy!  :) 

self............

self.......

So I have started ANOTHER 52 week project....  this time with Big Picture...  called "picture inspiration".  That will give me TWO shots a week....  think I can handle that...  but I am pretty sure that I am waaay too obsessive for another "shot a day" project!!!  The subject for this week's shot was a "Self Portrait"....  YUCK!!!!  Not a big fan of posed pictures of myself....  hate them as a matter of fact!!!  So.... what to do... what to do!!???  I found this old abandoned house a few months ago driving around my neighborhood....  and boy what a majestic house it WAS!!!  It sits up on a hill...  a beautiful 2 story Victorian that has mostly been destroyed by fire....  nothing of the up stairs remains but a stairway to nowhere and the chimney stacks....  and downstairs there are a few complete rooms that have pretty much been gutted....  but this AMAZING staircase remains....  almost untouched!!!  I find the detail and workmanship to be breathtaking in old houses....  such long lasting beauty!  Beauty hidden by the shell of a burned out old house that has long since been forgotten.  And I have become obsessed with this old house.... find myself there a few times a week with my camera...  so I thought that it was a great place for my "self" shot!!  I am in love with the streams of light breaking in through the cracks and openings of the almost nonexistent ceiling....  and although the staircase is old and weathered there is still such beauty in its details!!  So....  here I am....  kinda like this old house....  old.... weathered.... but if you look close.... beyond the peeling paint and cracks....  hopefully you will see some great old bones....  some beautiful details!!!  :)

....hope....

hope.

To desire with expectation or with belief in the possibility or prospect of obtaining; to look forward to as a thing desirable, with the expectation of obtaining it; to cherish hopes of.

so here it is...  week three of mine and Nicole's 52 week project and the our word for the week is HOPE!!  Be sure to head over and check out Nicole's work too.  I never really thought much about the word HOPE until this assignment...  but I have discovered that I HOPE a whole lot!!  :)  And according to the above definition...  that is not such a bad thing!!  For example, I pretty much HOPE every morning when I wake up that I will have a good day....  I HOPE that a cup of coffee will help me wake up enough to enjoy that good day... recently I have been really HOPING that I will be able to complete a Half Marathon on March 6th without passing out!!!  :)  I also HOPE that I will be able to fit into my bathing suit in a month or so...  aarrrggghhh!!!  I think HOPE is a pretty happy word....  it's a word filled with promise....  a word that makes me smile!!  :)  I chose this shot for the word HOPE for a couple of reasons...  1.  I am IN LOVE with these awesome little buds!!!  and..  2.  I know what promise of beauty that they hold....  these little guys will soon burst into AMAZING Magenta blooms!!!  They are the FIRST thing to bloom in my yard.... the FIRST sign of SPRING!!!  So....  there you have it...  my version of HOPE!!!  HOPE you like it!!  :)  heeheehee

....happy love day baby.....

                                                             
                                                   How do I say I love you.....

Ek het jou lief...  Te dua....  Ana behibak...  Yes kez sirumen...  M'bi fe...  Aamee tuma ke bhalo baashi...  Ya tabe kahayu...  Nahigugma ako kanimo...  Volim te...  Obicham te...  Oun Srorlagn Bung...  Ngo oiy ney a...  Mi aime jou...  Jeg Elsker Dig...  Ik hou van jou...  I wove you...  Mi amas vin...  Mahal kita...  Mina rakastan sinua...  Je t'aime, Je t'adore...  Ich liebe dich...  S'agapo...  Hu tumney prem karu chu...  Aloha wau ia oi...  Ani ohev et otha...    Hum Tumhe Pyar Karte hai...  Nu' umi unangwa'ta...  Ég elska þig...  Saya cinta padamu...  Taim i' ngra leat...  Ti amo...  Aishiteru...  Sarang Heyo...  Te amo...  Tave myliu...  Te Sakam...  Wo ai ni...  Ana moajaba bik...  Ayor anosh'ni...  Jeg Elsker Deg...  Doo-set daaram...  Iay ovlay ouyay...  Kocham Cie...  lurv you boo...  Amo-te...  Ya tebya liubliu...  Volim te...  Te amo...  Ninapenda wewe...  Jag alskar dig...  Wa ga ei li...  Ua Here Vau Ia Oe...  Chan rak khun...  Seni Seviyorum...  Ya tebe kahayu...  Em ye^u anh...  Mo ni fe...  Ikh hob dikh...  'Rwy'n dy garu...  I LOVE YOU...  You are my BEST ONE... 

Thank you baby for loving me...  I love your whole self with my whole heart...  and I love this life that we share together...  sooo HAPPY LOVE DAY to the LOVE OF MY LIFE...

....warmth......

      We are drawn to the light, the warmth, and the cozy feeling it brings to a room and to
      those who share its glow.....

Week 2 of my 52 week project with Nicole and our word is WARMTH!  Be sure to check out her interpretation of warmth too!  Of course the only thing that continued to pop into my head was warmth equals LIGHT!!!  Warmth to me is so much more that the temperature of the room!!  Warmth is the sunlight shining on my face... even on a 37 degree day like today....  warmth is the dancing light of a crackling fire....  or the flickering light of a candle, filling the room with its warm glow!!!  Warmth is the light that I see reflecting in my husbands eyes.....  THAT light wraps its arms around me and tells me I am loved!!  As long as I can remember, I have found comfort from light....  when I was a little girl, light took away all of my fears...  as long as there was a nightlight shining in the corner of my room, no monsters could ever get me :)   Light is revealing.......  there is no hiding in the light!!  And I'm pretty sure THAT is the real reason I am so drawn to it.....  Light is truth...  it is honest... it is telling... but it is also comforting and safe... light is love...  light is HOME...  light is warmth to my soul........

...fallen.....

When I'm not afraid to fail, I wont. When I'm not afraid to fall down, falling down won't feel like failure. I have fallen down enough to get more comfortable with it, to know how productive it can be, how necessary it is to growth. Still, when I sense the ground beneath me giving way, I have to remind myself that it's OK if I falter. I have to remind myself that it's more than OK!



sooo....  THIS is my first shot in a 52 week project that I am doing with my friend Nicole....  We take one word each week for a year and shoot our interpretation of that word (be sure to check out her AMAZING work).  This weeks word is "FALLEN"....  My mind wandered in a hundred different directions trying to interpret this word into a photo.  This was a tough word for me (and I think it was one of MY words!  Sorry Nicole!!)....  In my mind I kept coming back to a visual of ME actually FALLING!!!  Kinda hard to photograph that!!  :)  But as I began to really think about the word "fallen", I realized that I have fallen many times in my life....  almost daily as a matter of fact!!!  And then I remembered the above quote....  those words remind me that it's okay to fall....  I am SUPPOSED to fall!!!  Falling does not mean failure....  it means growth!!!  We all do it.... fall that is!  We fall from grace, fall from what we see as perfection, fall away from our purpose and direction in this life...  and every fall is not without pain....  but the true purpose of our fall is to recognize that "fallen" does not equal FAILURE!  Just like the photo....  we may have stumbled and fallen, but our light still shines!  The trick is to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and keep going!!  Moving forward....  wiser... stronger... more agile... and grateful for the times in our lives when we don't fall!!!  So today I recognize that I may have "fallen" but I am not broken!  And I am grateful for the light that shines..... and shows me the way...  whether I am face down on the ground or standing strong....

here goes nothing!!! :)

well, here it is!!!  My very first blog post....  not really even sure why I am doing this other than I really wanted some place to showcase my photography....  I have really rekindled my passion for photography over the last few months with the Big Picture Fall and Winter workshop's (THANK YOU Nicole!!) and just don't want to put my camera down....  for fear that I won't pick it back up again!!  I have discovered some creativity in myself... which is something that I never really thought that I had....  Heck....  I can't even tie a bow and I can only draw those puffy little circle flowers....  so in my mind "creative" has never been a word I would use to describe myself!!!  And I'm not so sure that it actually applies to me now!!  I just think that I SEE things differently than most folks!!  Pretty much always have.....  ya know...  marching to the beat of my own drum here!!!  Shelly style!!!!  :)  So here it is!!!  The world that I SEE!!!  The one that exists ONLY inside my head!!!  :)  The photo is of a tiny... almost dime sized piece of sea glass!!!  The only piece of sea glass that I have EVER found!!!  I picked it up on a beach in Hawaii....  (YEAH for Hawaii)  actually found it the day we were leaving the island to return home...  after our 24th Anniversary and our vow renewal and right before Rick left for Iraq!!!  So yup....  it is SPECIAL to me for a whole lot of reasons!!!  And I love to photograph it!!!  It holds such simple beauty....  and such special meaning!!!  And it captures the LIGHT just right!!!  Sorta the way I try to live my life....  simple and beautiful....  and in the light!!!  :)