On Monday evening I went to the library alone.  A rare treat.  I found a book titled  Photography Speaks/150 Photographers on their Art.  I have found it to be extremely humbling, inspiring, and fascinating.  Here are some quotes from the book:

There is another quality which ought to be present in all photographs without which no photograph can be considered perfect; and, until this quality has been recognized, the photographer should stop before he pats himself on the back and says, “What a good boy am I,” after he has taken what he may look upon as a perfect piece of work, as an example of technical skill or an attempt at picture-making; it may be clever, yet for all that it is a failure if it cannot speak to those who look at it.  Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (English, 1852-1941)

I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.  Julia Margaret Cameron (English, born in India, 1815-1879)

If I were asked what I have learned during my 40 years experience as a Photographer, I should reply: “The most important thing I have learned is to observe the beautiful effects of atmosphere and light.”  Many Photographers are concerned only with the subject and they seek to render it as it is.  Often they fail to observe that the lighting and the atmosphere adorn and transform even the most humble and common-place objects.  Leonard Misonne (Belgian, 1870-1943)

If you call it a “glorified snapshot” you must remember that life has much of this same quality.  Alvin Langdon Coburn (English, 1882-1966)

The most important skill of the photographer is to know how to see.  With just one click, the lens captures the photographer’s inner world.  Germaine Krull (German, 1897-1985)

I photograph to see what things
look like photographed.  Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)

“As a blind man has no idea of colours, so we have no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.”

Isaac Newton

    “There is a place
of quiet rest
near to the heart of God”

I wish I was outside taking pictures.  But, it’s too cold and my battery needs to charge.

It is so special to see Rich out there with Jacob, Ethan, and David.  They are ice skating on the pond!  I just looked out the window and they are all skating nicely and seem to be naturals.  Rich bought Jacob and David skates last night.   He bought some for Grace, too but they ended up being way too big, they fit ME! 

Here are some encouraging quotes and poems:

He’s helping me now, -this moment,
Though I may not see it or hear,
Perhaps by a friend far distant,
Perhaps by a stranger near,
Perhaps by a spoken message,
Perhaps by the printed word;
In ways that I know and know not,
I have the help of the Lord.  Annie Flint

My soul shall make her boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.  Ps. 34:2,3

“Oh friends, don’t give up!  Don’t quit!  God is not dead, and He has not gone out of the business!  He still loves to help those who trust Him.”  Grace Knowlton

Light is not in the wick,
not in the candle,
but in the burning.

God’s Spirit is like a flame
which kindles in the heart.
It can never be explained, 
but souls are strangely warmed and stirred.

“This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour, all the day long”

Keep sweet.  Keep sweet.
This is the only way;
This is the way,
We’ll win the day
If we just keep sweet.

“The enemy has no power over a praising Christian.  Praise is our most powerful weapon.  It is like a two-edged sword.  One side brings health to your own spirit, the other side cuts down the enemy.  The enemies that threaten my inner life are so formidable!  Fear and doubt are the worst.  They creep into my safe house on silent little cat-feet in the quiet of the night or sometimes they come like a giant, rushing wave to overwhelm in the midst of a busy day.  Can praise drive these two ugly ones away?  For me, the most effective praise tool is singing—simple songs of praise to the Lord of my life, songs of love and thanksgiving.  Fear and doubt must flee.”
Claire Killman

Here is a site that I found that has the words and music to many favorite hymns.  Even the children enjoy picking one and singing along:

http://my.homewithgod.com/heavenlymidis2/index.html

Just for fun   

   Sweet Simple things. . . . .

Rich making me coffee before he left for work

a calm school day

when we tried making beads out of homemade playdough.  When we baked them in the oven they puffed out like strange marshmallows.

when we made cookies (jam thumbprints)

seeing Caleb’s reaction to his cookie (he ate the jam out first)

receiving Caleb’s hug and face rub into my clean outfit. . .now I am walking around with jam on myself

taking a nap

hearing yet another “Little Liza” story.  Making them up is “all the rage” at my house (the imagination is amazing!)

talking with friends on the phone

reading “Spot”. . . again. . .and that “truck book” again. . . .

being trapped in the house because of the cold

making homemade soup

waiting for my husband to get home

knowing it’s FRIDAY!

(he came home with roses)

     “In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to my house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a meandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots.  For a week of even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same length, coming and going, stepping deliberately and with the precision of a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks,-to such routine the winter reduces us,-yet often they were filled with heaven’s own blue.  But no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow-birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines; when the ice and snow causing their limbs to droop, and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir-trees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when snow was nearly two feet deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head at every step; or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on my hands and knees, when the hunters had gone to their winter quarters.”  THOREAU, in Walden

She is surrounded by blue, with treasures in her hands: a chunk of ice that looks like crystal and her toy dog.

Green calm below, blue quietness above.
   John Greenleaf Whittier

She is surrounded by blue, with treasures in her hands: a chunk of ice that looks like crystal and her toy dog.

Green calm below, blue quietness above.
   John Greenleaf Whittier

Sometimes I have to be creative to get the children to sit in a row, look at the camera, and smile.  This time, I said to them, “Ok everyone!  Look at the camera and say, “I LOVE GRANDMA’s ELBOW!!” Jacob thought it was so funny that he fell right off his seat.  I took both pictures in a matter of seconds. . . .

(David is trying to look really tough in the first picture.  Then look at him in the second, about to CRY because his back end got cold!)

What a hoot.