Day One Hundred Twenty-Eight

Copyright 2010.  My Christmas Tree :O)

*There's magic in the air this evening,

magic in the air.

The world is at her best you know,

when people love and care.

The promise of excitement

is one the night will keep,

after all there's only

one more sleep 'til Christmas.*

-- Muppet Christmas Carol --

Day One Hundred Twenty-Seven

Copyright 2010.

All Rights Reserved.

Day One Hundred Twenty-Six

This is not a black and white picture... but this is exactly what it looks like outside.

It's been like living in a black and white world for the past week.

Copyright 2010.  Ice, ice everywhere...

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Day One Hundred Twenty-Five

Copyright 2010.  December 16, 2010.  Ice Storm in Lexington...

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*Whose woods these are I think I know,
his house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here,

to watch his woods fill up with snow.

...

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

but I have promises to keep;

and miles to go before I sleep...

And miles to go before I sleep.*

-- Robert Frost --

Day One Hundred Twenty-Four

An old favorite...

Copyright 2007.  -- This is an oldie, but a favorite :O)  The children I nannied for at Christmas!

All Rights Reserved.

Childhood -- the most beautiful

of all seasons.

Day One Hundred Twenty-Three

Copyright 2010.  First snow in Kentucky.  Strange for this time of the year!

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*No matter how old you are, it's hard not to get excited when snow starts to fall.  Because, so long as it keeps coming, no one can make you go anywhere or do anything.  All life's rules are suspended.  The best thing about snow, other than snowballs, is that it has an equalizing effect.  Snow can take any object or situation and make it pretty just the same.  Couldn't care less what's underneath.  It's not just that snow makes the world pretty... snow gives us all a second chance.  Snow cleanses, hiding the sins of all with no prejudices, favor or blame.  Everything gets to be pure again... if only for a little while.  Which might be all you need.*

-- Unknown --

Day One Hundred Twenty-two

Copyright 2010.  November in Kentucky... love the birds the most :O)

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*At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by the spark from another person.  Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.*

-- Albert Schweitzer --

Day One Hundred Twenty-One

Copyright 2010.  The lone rose I could find left in the Lexington cemetary after a brief warm spell.

All rights reserved.

*... Just remember, in the winter,

far beneath the bitter snow,

lies the seed that with the sun's love,

in the spring,

becomes the rose.*

-- Bette Midler --

Day One Hundred Twenty

*17 years ago this past Monday, somewhere in North Korea, a woman we will never know 

was giving birth to the beautiful baby girl who would soon after become my cousin...

Copyright 2010.  My cousin Laura in Nags Head, NC.

All rights reserved.

Adoption is an amazing thing.

Day One Hundred Nineteen

Copyright 2010.  Sunrise in Nags Head, NC.

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*Far away, there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.  I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.*

-- Louisa May Alcott --

Day One Hundred Eighteen

Copyright 2010.  Fall in the Lexington Cemetery.

All Rights Reserved.

*Even if something is left undone, everyone must take the time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.*

-- Elizabeth Lawrence --

Day One Hundred Seventeen

28 years.

Copyright 2010.  Jockey's Ridge -- Kitty Hawk, North Carolina -- 9/10

All Rights Reserved.



*Here I'm singing Happy Birthday,

better think about the wish I make,

this year gone by ain't been a piece of cake.

Every day's a revolution,

pull it together and it comes undone.

Just one more candle and a trip around the sun...

I'm just hangin' on while this old world keeps spinnin'

and it's good to know it's out of my control.

If there's one thing that I've learned from all this living,

it's that it wouldn't change a thing if I let go.*

-- Jimmy Buffett and Martina McBride --

Trip Around the Sun

Day One Hundred Sixteen

Copyright 2010.  The last flowers of the season -- Lexington Cemetery, 10-23-10

All rights reserved.

*Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.*

-- Harriet Tubman --

Day One Hundred Fifteen

Copyright 2010.  Fall in Kentucky (taken at the Lexington Cemetary 10-23-10)

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*Bittersweet October.  The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.*

-- Carol Bishop Hipps -- 

Day One Hundred Fourteen

* Continuing on with pics from our recent trip to the Outer Banks, NC *

Still have a few to go :)

Copyright 2010.  Ramshackle building out past the Bodie Island Light

All Rights Reserved.

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

-- Erik H. Erikson --

Day One Hundred Thirteen

Copyright 2010.  Dogs playing in the surf in Nags Head.

All Rights Reserved.

Day One Hundred Thirteen

Copyright 2010.  My cousin Laura walking on the beach in Nags Head.

All Rights Reserved.

*All right... what I do is... I watch people.  Do you ever watch someone who doesn't know that you're watching 'em?   An old lady on the street corner, or some kids getting on a bus to school.  Well... they stand there and you look, and all of a sudden this flash comes over them, and you know it has nothing to do with anything external... because that hasn't changed.  They just suddenly become realer and more alive.

If you look at someone long enough, you can discover their humanity."

-- As Good As It Gets --

Day One Hundred Twelve

Copyright 2010.  The Currituck Lighthouse

All Rights Reserved.

*Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.* 

-- Margaret Laurence --

Day One Hundred Eleven

Copyright 2010.  An egret or 'Great White Heron', resting in the grass in Duck, NC.

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*When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be -- I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.  I come into the peace of of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief.  I come into the presence of still water and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.  For a time I rest in the grace of the world... and am free.*

-- Wendell Berry --

Day One Hundred Ten

Copyright 2010.  Nags Head, NC.

All Rights Reserved.

*One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagulls wings woud be enough to alter the course of the world, forever.*

-- Konrad Lorenz --



Day One Hundred and Nine

The next couple weeks will be filled with ocean pics since I arrived home Sunday and have so many to share.  This was taken our first day in Nags Head and shows just how awesome the ocean truly is!  What a reminder of God's beauty in our world!

Copyright 2010.  September 19, 2010 -- Nags Head, NC.

All Rights Reserved.

*When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come,

I go to the sea

and the sea drowns them out

with its great wide sounds.

Cleanses me with it's noise,

and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me

that is bewildered and confused.*

-- Rainer Maria Rilke --

Day One Hundred and Eight -- Off to the Beach!

Copyright 2009.  Nags Head, NC.

*Mother, Mother Ocean,

I have heard you call.

Wanted to sail upon your waters

since I was three feet tall.

You've seen it all...

You've seen it all.*

-- Jimmy Buffett --

This is where I'll be this evening... this exact spot.
I cannot wait!

Day One Hundred and Seven

Happy Birthday Sweet Tater Head!

Copyright 2010.   Connor -- August 2010.

My amazingly wonderful godson turns SIX years old today!

And I still can't believe it.

They grow up WAY too fast!!

Day One Hundred and Six -- One Week!!

Copyright 2010. Our Beach House where we stay in Nags Head, NC.

aka; where I will be in exactly ONE week :O)

*There are windows to the galaxies,

and hallways to the past.

There are trapdoors to the future,

and an ancient splintered mast.

There are relics from Apollo trips,

where earthmen came to play,

and a hammock from a distant star

out in the Milky Way.

...

I saw him through my telescope

on a cloudless night in June,

as he rested between voyages

at his beach house on the moon.*

-- Jimmy Buffett --

Where Were You...

Video I took at an Alan Jackson concert last spring...

It's hard to believe it's been nine years ago since that tragic and horrible day in 2001. 

Nine years and I can still remember so vividly the events of that day as I watched them unfold on television before my eyes.  Unsure whether it was all really real or just some terrible nightmare... some sick joke.

Looking back today, tears still fill my eyes as I watch the news coverage and the documentaries.  My heart still aches for everyone who lost a family member or friend that day.

September 11, 2001... a day we will never forget.

Day One Hundred and Four

*Copyright 2010.  Out Paris Pike on the way to Connor's game 9/4/10*

*Give me a Sunday morning that's full of grace,

a simple life and I'll be okay...

Here in small town USA.*

-- Justin Moore --

Day One Hundred and Three

Copyright 2010.  Connor and his daddy -- September 4, 2010

*All your life, you are told the things you cannot do.  All your life, they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough.  They'll say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to be this, or achieve that.  They will tell you 'no' a thousand times.  No until no's become meaningless.

They will tell you no and you will tell them yes.*

-- Remember the Titans --

Day One Hundred and Two

Copyright 2010.  Connor and Caydee -- August 28, 2010, Lexington Ky. :O)

*Once we cross that far horizon,

life is bound to be surprising,

we'll take it day by day.

Nevermind the wind and weather,

if we walk that trail together,

somehow we'll find our way.

Yeah there's a long road before us,

and it's a hard road indeed.

But darling I vow, we'll get through somehow,

wherever the trail may lead.

... And through the whole ride,

I'll be by your side,

Wherever the trail may lead.*

-- Tim McGraw --

Day One Hundred and One

Way late on this one...

Copyright 2010.  The beautiful Caydee Bug on her 4th Birthday :O)  8/28/10 

*A dream is a wish your heart makes,

when you're fast asleep.
In dreams you will lose your heartaches,

whatever you wish for, you keep.

Have faith in your dreams and someday

your rainbow will come smiling through.
No matter how your heart is grieving,

if you keep on believing,

The dream that you wish

will come true.*

Day One Hundred...

Note to self:  *I really need to get better at keeping up with this...* 

Copyright 2010. My cousin Kayla in June -- hard to believe she'll be leaving for college this week! 

*Trust me, it's paradise.  For mine is a generation that circles the globe in search of something we haven't tried before.  So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay your welcome.  Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience.  And if it hurts, you know what?  It's probably worth it.*

-- The Beach --

Day Ninety-Nine

Copyright 2009.  Statue in DC.

*I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves.  How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity.  Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.*

-- Mitch Albom --

Day Ninety-Eight

Copyright 2010.  Baltimore Aquarium

*Some people spend their lives hoping for something to happen that will change everything.  They look for power or love, or the answers to their biggest questions.  I think really what they're looking for is another chance... some way to lead another life when all the mistakes they've made would be erased, and they could just start over.  Nothing bad has happened yet... and all their possibilities are still in front of them.*

-- Taken --

Day Ninety-Seven

Copyright 2010.  Jellyfish at the Baltimore Aquarium

*Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we hate ourselves.  It's good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth; that when you really look closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually beautiful.  Possibly even me.*

-- My So Called Life --

Day Ninety-Six

Really awesome Mark Twain mural in Annapolis.  Photo copyright me... Artist unknown.

*Twent years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.*

-- Mark Twain --

Day Ninety-Five

Copyright 2010.  Candy Shop window in Annapolis MD.

*There are two kinds of people in the world;

Those who love chocolate...

and communists.*

-- Leslie Moak Murray --

Day Ninety-Four

Day Ninety-Three

Copyright 2010.  The "Fearless" Pirate Boat -- Baltimore MD

*Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.  The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.  From now on you'll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be.  The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.*

-- Princess Diaries --

Day Ninety-Two

Copyright 2010.  Baltimore, MD.

*If you're feeling frightened about what comes next, don't be.  Embrace the uncertainty.  Allow it to lead you places.  Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path towards happiness.  Don't waste time with regret.  Spin wildly into your next action.  Enjoy the present, each moment, as it comes;  because you'll never get another one quite like it.  And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over.  Retrace  your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart... where your hope lives.  You'll find your way again.*

-- Everwood --

Day Ninety-One

Copyright 2010. -- Annapolis, MD -- @ the Thurgood Marshall (Brown vs. Bd of Education monument)

*In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings,

we pay ourselves the highest tribute.*

-- Thurgood Marshall --

Day Ninety...

Copyright 2010.  Baltimore, MD.

*There's a ship out, on the ocean,

at the mercy of the sea.
It's been tossed about, lost and broken,

wandering aimlessly.

And God somehow you know that ship is me...

Cause there's a lighthouse in the harbor

shining faithfully.
Pouring its light out across the water

for this sinking soul to see,

that someone out there still believes in me...

-- Garth Brooks --

Day Eighty-Nine

Copyright 2010.  Baltimore, MD.

*Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it.  But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.*

-- Edmund Burke --

Day Eight-Eight -- Happy Fourth of July!!

Copyright 2010.  Annapolis Maryland -- Main Street.

*We on this continent should never forget

that men first crossed the Atlantic

not to find soil for their ploughs,

but to secure liberty for their souls.*

Robert J. McCracken

Day Eighty-Seven

Copyright 2010.  My cousins Laura, John and myself at David's wedding.

Photo by my dad.

*Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek...*

-- Barack Obama -- 

Day Eighty-Six

Copyright 2010.  My cousin Laura at David's wedding :O)

*I go to great lengths to amuse myself,

because you see,

no one else does.*

-- Jill A. Davis --

Day Eighty-Five

Copyright 2010.  The junior bridesmaid in my brother's wedding.

*And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.*

-- Roald Dahl --

Day Eighty-Four

Copyright 2010.  David and Emily -- June 26, 2010.

*Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always.  A promise, like a reward, for persisting through life so long alone.  A belief in each other and the possibility of love.  A decision to ignore, simply rise above, the pain of the past.  A covenant, which at once binds two souls and at once severs prior ties.  A celebration of the chance taken and the challenge that lies ahead.  For two will always be stronger than one, like a team braced against the tempests of the world.  And love will always be the guiding force in our lives.  For tonight is a mere formality - only an announcement to the world of feelings long held... promises made long ago in the sacred space of our hearts.*

-- One Tree Hill --

Day Eight-Three...

Copyright 2008.  David and Emily in Gatlinburg Tennessee.

*I'm preparing right now to head to Annapolis, MD for my little brother's wedding -- so no pictures for a few days, but hopefully this will hold you over until then :O) *

*Every once in a while, people step up.  They rise above themselves.  Sometimes they surprise you and sometimes they fall short.  Life is funny sometimes.  It can push pretty hard, but if you look close enough, you can find hope in the words of children, in the bars of the song and in the eyes of someone you love.  And if you're lucky - if you're the luckiest person on this entire planet - the person you love decides to love you back.*

-- One Tree Hill

Day Eighty-Two - Happy Father's Day!

Copyright 2009 -- My mom, my dad, me and my cousin Laura :O)

*It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand;  Their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit a top the stories of their mothers and fathers.  Stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.* 

--Mitch Albom

Day Eighty-One

Copyright 2010.  Another beautiful flower...

*There comes a moment in your life

like a window and you see,

The future there before you
and how perfect life can be.
But adventure calls with unknown voices,

pulling you away.
Be careful or you may regret

the choice you make someday.*

-- Muppet Christmas Carol --

Day Eighty

Copyright 2008.  Nags Head, NC.

*All of life is madness.  The defected, the demented, and the damned are the real people of the world.  And I'm proud to be in their company.*

-- Tales of Ordinary Madness --

Day Seventy-Nine

Copyright 2010.  My favorites :O)

*People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.  But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.  Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize;  a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves... the black, curious eye of a child... our own two eyes.

All is a miracle.*

-- Thich Nhat Hanh