Bye, Bye 2010

2010…you can go at any time. Well, in 12 hours you’ll be gone for good.  I have to say that the first half wasn’t all too bad.  But the second half…we could have done without.  I’m so glad to be entering a new year, one that is fresh and full of promises and possibilities.  Welcome, 2011.

Here are my top 10 memories/moments from 2010…

1. Emmy’s first birthday!!













2. Graduating from Liberty University with a Bachelor in Religion!!  Glad to have all that hard work behind me!

3. Trip to the Columbus Zoo – both of them!


4. Best Thanksgiving ever!!


5. My 31st birthday – photo shoot w/ Miss Katy around town for Homecoming.


6. Building for the first times – end tables in July and Emmy’s easel & baby bed in December.

7. Completing my first quilt – for Emmy Jo’s first birthday


8. Just spending time with Emmy Jo and watching her grow from a little baby to a little person with her own personality.

9. Reading for fun…may sound stupid, but after reading textbooks and journal articles for nearly two years straight, it was wonderful to be able to read just to read…and I’m glad I tackled the Twilight series.

10. Gardening…it was fun planting, harvesting & canning…hard work, but fun. Oh, and yummy!!  Can’t wait to try again in 2011.  Grandpa Jim has already enlarged our garden plot.


Well, there you go.  That’s how I’m going to remember the good stuff of 2010.  What’s your favorite memory/moment?

A Saturday in the City

Bean, Emmy & I took off Saturday morning for Columbus.  Our main destination was our cousin’s house in Grove City so that I could photograph their beautiful new baby girl Maggie.  Maggie’s dad is our cousin Jeremy.  There are 9 cousins in our family and we (Jody, Jeremy & Jil) are the middle three. My sister and I are almost exactly 18 months apart to the day and Jeremy is smack dab in the middle.


This is the three of us, around 1984.











I think Emmy Jo likes her new cousin:
   

After we finished the pictures, us girls headed over to the Flower Factory.  It was a zoo in there!! No offense to the actually nice people in Columbus, but there are lots of people in Columbus who do not have any manners at all.  I think Bean was ready to leave within 5 minutes, but luckily we stuck it out because we got lots of decorations for the OSU-Michigan party next weekend and for the Birkhimer Christmas.  By then it was almost 3 and neither of us had ate at all so we headed down the road to O’Charley’s….yum.  Then we headed up 270 to Easton to look at furniture stores and shop at Old Navy and Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Emmy was so good the entire time despite the fact that it was a very long day.  It was one of those days that was just perfect.

So I hope her Mommy & Daddy don’t care, but I had to share just one picture of Maggie Sue.

Just a fun Thursday

We had such a fun day a couple weeks ago!  It started out with Emmy & I painting leaves.  It was her first time trying a paint brush.  All I had were the really small handles, but she did pretty good.  Then she decided that we needed to go back to finger painting.

          












I decided it was such a nice day for that late in the year that we needed to have a picnic.  I called G’ma & G’pa and we headed down to the Waterworks Park to enjoy some food from the Dairy Twist.  There was a stray cat at the park that captivated Emmy’s interest.  After lunch we tried some of the toys.  G’pa took her down the slide, but she wasn’t really feeling anything except the swing.  It was such a great day and we totally enjoyed ourselves!

         

Remember the Sabbath

Our Bloom Book Club is getting ready to discuss Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest by Wayne Muller next week.  I checked it out of the local library, but someone else (maybe another Local “Bloom”er ?) has it reserved so I can’t renew it so I wanted to write down a few things so I won’t forget.  So I thought maybe I would share them here and maybe peak someone else’s interest in the Sabbath. This is just random stuff…

God lays forth in the Ten Commandments: Remember the Sabbath. “Remember that everything you have received is a blessing. Remember to delight in your life, in the fruits of your labor. Remember to stop and offer thanks for the wonder of it.’ Remember, as if we would forget. Indeed, the assumption is that we will forget. And history has prove that, given enough time, we will. ‘Remember the Sabbath’ is not simply a life-style suggestion. It is a spiritual precept in most of the world’s spiritual traditions – ethical precepts that include prohibitions against killing, stealing and lying” (p. 6-7).

“So let us remember the Sabbath. Let us breathe deeply in the rhythms of life, of the earth, of action and rest. Traditionally, Sabbath is honored by lighting candles, gathering in worship and prayer, blessing children, singing songs, keeping silence, walking, reading scripture, making love, sharing a meal. Just as we must wait until the darkness falls before we can see the stars, so does the Sabbath quietly wait for us. As darkness falls, as the light of the world fades and disappears, we light the inner lights of home and refuge. Our steps take us home, and the light draws us in” (p. 11).

We need to have a Sabbath rest because it is in the rhythm of creation.  “The fruit contains the seed, and the seed contains the fruit. What we harvest in this seasons provides the seed for the next season. In Sabbath time we taste the fruit of our labor, and prepare the seeds for the week to come. If we are too busy, if we do not rest, we miss this rhythm. One day we look up and it is winter, and where are the fall days, brisk and clear, leaves ablaze?” (p. 67).

“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” – Rabbi Abraham Heschel

The Hebrews had a strict set of rules to abide by in the Old Testament about what they could and could not do on the Sabbath.  Working in the fields was definitely out.  Every seventh year they would celebrate the Sabbath year.  During this year, nothing was planted in the fields.  They would only harvest what would grow on its own. “This served as a dramatic reminder that it was not their work alone, but God and the earth who fed them…The Sabbath teaching was clear: Nothing really belongs to us. It is all – lands, wealth, loved ones, life itself – on loan from God” (p. 206).

From Ecclesiastes: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Muller gives many different ways in which people might observe Sabbath in their lives. These are a few that I found beneficial to myself: 

• Light a Sabbath Candle
• Chose a heavily used device or appliance (computer, TV, washer, phone, etc.) and let it rest for a Sabbath period.
• Prepare a Sabbath meal
• “Bless your children, your lover, your friend, by placing your hand on their head, and offering a prayer for their healing, their well-being, their happiness.”  Or secretly bless strangers on the street.
• Observe a period of silence so that you may hear.
• Take a Sabbath walk – quietly, slowly and with no purpose, other than “to let your soul catch up with you.”
• Spend time in nature.
• Prayer
• Play: “When we engage in ‘purposeless’ enjoyment of one another, we harvest some of the sweetest fruits of life.”

How I Celebrated My B-Day

Well, this year I celebrated my birthday for an entire weekend.  We started with going to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. So Friday we – Mom & Scott, Nick, Bean & Emmy – headed to the zoo on like the hottest day of September.


  

Emmy on her 3rd trip of the year to the Zoo.

This is one of the two Polar Bear sisters that the Zoo has. 

Emmy wasn’t feeling the Polar Bears much that day. 

The Zoo has two brown bears.  These guys are brothers.  A tour guide was there and told about how they came to the Zoo.  Their mother charged at a man & his dog on a trail.  The man was able to get away. Later, a park ranger went up to check it out.  The bear again charged at him and he had to shoot.  And then out of the bush came two little bear cubs.  So the orphan cubs were brought to live at the Zoo.  This day they were very active and were fighting with each other.  Did you know that brown bears don’t like to get their ears wet?

Only one of the two tigers were out.  The tiger just kept walking beside the window, back and forth, back and forth.  I think he may have been guarding the huge bone off to the corner of the window.

Is this how Scott really got injured??

  
1. Emmy    2. I think this seahorse daddy was “pregnant”.  3. The temp in the shade…very hot for late Sept.

   

1. & 2.  Nick is so funny.  Glad that he became my brother!!   3. Scott & Mom

 

1. Deuces   2. The best way to end a day at the Zoo is dancing to the musical fountain.  Especially when it was “Hang on Sloopy”. 

We ended Friday with a stop at The Cheesecake Factory for (what else?) cheesecake.

Saturday was my actual birthday.  I watched the beginning and end of the Ohio State game. In between, I took photos of Katy (see previous post).   Then Sunday evening we had a family dinner.

It was a very nice time doing my favorite things…hanging with my family, watching Ohio State, taking pictures and eating cheesecake.

Beautiful Katy

As soon as Katy facebooked me asking if I would take pictures of her for Homecoming, I was so excited!  I knew that this would be a super fun shoot!  And it was!  We spent 2 hours driving around to different locations in town and in the country.  I ended up taking 624 pictures.  My cousin Bobby tagged along as the photographer assistant.  So here are some pictures of Katy...isn't she absolutely beautiful?!?!

 

I’m probably only 1/3 done with editing.  She’s such a great model that nearly every picture turned out.  That makes it real hard to pick out which photos are “the best of the best.”  But for a photographer, that’s a great thing!  Thanks Katy for asking me to do this…it was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday!!  Rumor is I might get to shoot this lovely lady’s senior pictures.  Could I be that lucky?

As for my goal of taking 20,000 pictures this year: it was my birthday so these pictures are the first to count towards the goal.  I’m 624 of 20,000. And that, my friends, was just 2 hours.

Goals for My 31st Year

For the last several years I’ve made a list of goals on my birthday for the year.  Here are this year’s:
1. Get back into Church.
2. Read the whole Bible.
3. Make an apple pie.
4. Sew a skirt.
5. Finish my bedroom.
6. Make a 2nd quilt.
7. Take 20,000 pictures.
8. Sell something on my etsy store.
9. Host a dinner party.
10. Get a mani &/or pedi.
11. Weigh 150 lbs.
12. Save $1000.
13.Visit a state I’ve never been to.
14. Read 20 books.
15. Grow a pumpkin.
16. Build something.
17. Get published (article or picture) in a newspaper, magazine or reputable website.
18. Try 10 new recipes.
19. Go camping.
20 – 29. Do 10 things I’ve never done before.
30. Watch 20 movies.
31. Dress more girly.