Tag: photography

Daily Work, personal

Life Happens – Stating the Year Over Again

rockyfort

I started this year with good intentions. I had plans. I was going to do a lot of work on promoting my devotional books. I was going to use this blog as a showcase for writing and for my photography, as well as giving people a behind the scenes look into the mind of one person who writes. (I can’t speak for all writers of course, just myself, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at what I’ve done and not been able to understand it.) Then life happened.

There’s an old saying that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. I don’t think God laughed and said, “You think so? Watch this!” I don’t even think God laughed, believing as I do that God foreknew all that would happen. I think God took me by the hand and said, “Get ready my child, life is going to go out of your control, but it will never be out of my control. Stay with me.”

In early January, my mother passed away. She was 90. She’d lived an amazing life. She beat death twice in previous incidents. There were tears, of course, but during this time, I learned a lot about lamenting. I didn’t even realize I was lamenting until my pastor mentioned the process in a sermon and I realized that he was describing what I was dealing with emotionally.

Then, an event that was planned a few months earlier came to pass: my daughter’s wedding. I had the honor and privilege of performing the ceremony as my daughter married an outstanding young man. I knew him before he started dating her and I thought he was amazing before. When I saw what great taste he had in choosing a life mate, how could I not see him for the amazing young man that he is. He comes from a great family too.

Life’s about to get crazier, because the next week, we flew to Orlando, Florida to celebrate my wife’s graduation as Dr. James. I joke about her letting me call her Dr. Wife, but she is just “Lucy” to anyone who knows her. I won’t go into all that she endured in the process of getting this doctorate, most people think that battling breast cancer and spitting in cancer’s eye during this time is amazing enough.

Then came the dog. When my daughter moved away, after her marriage, she took her dog with her. My wife had grown accustomed to petting her dog, so, we decided that we would finally get a dog that wouldn’t bother her allergies. She was younger than we thought. Rather than attaching herself to my wife, she attaches herself to me. But we do have a new boss of the family now.

When my wife went for her six-month checkup with her oncologist, she mentioned a concern. The doctor arranged for her to stop taking meds for a couple of weeks, because they might cause the pain she was experiencing. Lucy did that and then had no relief, so they did a bone scan. They found an area of concern. They did a CT. We are now awaiting a needle biopsy, tomorrow, and then the results.

In short, life happened, and a lot of my plans went astray. As I thought about those possibilities, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to start the year over in July? Maybe you’ve had a rough year and you haven’t lived up to your own expectations, because life happened to you, too. One area that easily gets dropped is our spiritual growth. That’s why I’ve been promoting my July-August devotional book this last month. It is free for those of you who use any kind of eReader. If you want to re-start your year spiritually as you seek God, I want to help. Click on this link and download your free copy of “Daily Enduring Truth: July-August.” If you like those devotionals, you can buy the other volumes later. If you decide these aren’t for you, you haven’t lost anything. Accept this free gift and start the year over.

Daily Work

Looking Back – The Painted Churches

rockyfort

So, it began with a dress for my wife. She wanted something special as the mother of the bride. The problem is that after her double-mastectomy, she doesn’t have the normal feminine figure. After looking around, she got discouraged because there isn’t a big market for dresses for her figure. I suggested that we work with a friend, Lindsay, who owns a company called “Frippery: Custom Costumes and Whimsical Designs.” (Facebook link) She is the wife of the man who used to be our youth minister. The key phrase here is “used to be.” He’s now the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Halletsville, about a two hour drive from us. (Spoiler alert here: it was worth it.)

Because we knew her work and we trusted her, we made the drive about three times: first for measurements, second for a preliminary fitting, and third for the final fitting and touchups. If you read any of my posts on Facebook about our travels to Houston during Lucy’s cancer treatments, you’ll know that we enjoy the time driving and talking together, so it was a great time together. On the second trip, Lindsay told us about the painted churches in Schulenberg. She suggested that we find a way to check them out. On the third trip, Lucy had her final fitting and Lindsay needed a couple of hours to put the finishing touches on her work. The painted churches were about half an hour away, so we drove up to Schulenbert and looked at as many as we could. The article I linked explains the origins of these churches better than I could, so let me refer you to the article for an explanation. The TL/DR version is that German and Czech immigrants built these churches in the styles they were accustomed to.

While we didn’t get to all seven in the area, we saw enough to know that we’d love to go back sometime to get a full tour. My pictures weren’t all good, but you can get idea of the beauty of the churches from a few of the pictures. The second picture is an extension of the first if you look to the right. The fourth picture is an extension of the third if you look to the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures of the stained glass suffered from my eternal problem with the camera: tilt. I don’t know why, but I seem to make my shots tilt, even when I think I’m getting them straight. Here’s an example. When I try to account for that, my impression is that I’m pushing down too far the other way. I need to find a way to put a level in my viewfinder. I try to line things up with the dots, but I’m not very good, I guess. If you have any suggestions on how I can stop doing that, please let me know!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we still don’t have the official pictures from the wedding, I do have this picture of the dress as Lucy tried it on. That was in Lindsay’s work area. We were happy with the work. Our only concern was that she didn’t charge us enough. We were going to be sneaky and add a tip to our bill, but PayPal didn’t have that option for this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, that’s a short look at one of the things we did while I was avoiding blogging at all. When I downloaded these pics, they were 2.5 months old. I only had one other set in between this set and the woodpecker pics from yesterday. It’s time to get back into my photography!

Bird Brain Chronicles, Bird pics and story, books, Daily Work

Coming Back

rockyfort

Hey there! Remember me? I haven’t done my daily posts for a while. I think that the major reason is that I’ve been dealing with my mother’s death. Part of the way I dealt with her death was an attitude of “I don’t care” about a lot of things. I’m in a writing challenge and I’ve been struggling to meet my simple goal. As I struggle with doing any writing, I tend to be highly critical of what I’m doing – and part of that is because I don’t really have a plan for my writing and so I keep criticizing everything I write. I’ve given myself a sabbatical from writing my devotionals, but I finally began doing a little work on promoting the book series today. I should point out that if you’d like a free copy of my July – August devotionals, I now have a book funnel account so that I can give it to you freely. If anyone wants to help me out by going through the process of downloading it and making sure that everything works ok, I’d sure appreciate it. The bookfunnel link is here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/4nw47oq9cd If you’d like to leave an Amazon review, that would be cool too, but I’m not expecting you to do so. You are welcome to share that link if you find the book helpful to you.

Another part of my problem has to do with the animal kingdom: we now have a dog. We thought she was a year old when we got her, but the vet said she was about 6 months old. She’s been a hand full! She’s as sweet as can be, but she’s also annoying. This week has had some extra challenges because my daughter is taking her delayed honeymoon and we’re watching her dog. The dog that used to live with us when she did – which is why we wanted a dog. So now we have a 14 year old grumpy lady chihuahua and an 8 month old baby girl chihuahua. Only, the baby gets distracted when we take her outside. Then she comes in and wets the carpet. Or worse. Today’s been extremely tough on that front, with me needing to clean up between five and ten messes.

Perhaps I should mention all that’s gone on since I stopped posting regularly. I stopped after my mom died. Then we had her memorial service. After that, my daughter got married on March 16. Then, we traveled to Florida to celebate my wife’s graduation ceremony as she finished her requirements for an EdD. degree. She now lets me call her “Dr. Wife.” And finally, my wife and I just observed our 40th anniversary. So, I’ve been busy. And I haven’t been writing a lot. But it’s time to get back to the work of writing and photography.

I realized the photography angle today when I had the dogs outside. I heard the familiar thump of a woodpecker. She was on the utility pole thumping away. I ran inside and got my camera so I could take a few pictures. I couldn’t choose which of these two to use, so you got both. This is a golden fronted woodpecker and she’s been in the area for a while. My plan is to get back to more photography in days to come. I’ve missed doing that. I’ve missed sharing my pictures with y’all. So, maybe I’ll take a day or two each week, make some egg salad sandwiches, and spend some time taking pictures and sharing my adventures with you. Tomorrow, I’ll probably share some pictures of the Painted Churches of Schulenberg that we saw while we waited for the final alterations on the dress my wife wore as the mother of the bride. Anything you want to know about South Texas (that I can photograph) just ask in the comments.

 

Blog Administration, Daily Work

January 13 – Where Does Sunday Go?

rockyfort

So today, there won’t be any bird pictures. If you came here looking for them, I apologize, but Sunday is a busy day. Last week I tried to get some pictures in, but right now, there aren’t enough birds flying around to make it worthwhile. What takes so much time on Sunday? We leave the house around 7:45 to go to church. I usually have duties at church that require me to be there from 8:00 AM (or earlier) until our second service lets out around noon. Of course, we talk to our church family until about 12:30 before we head out. Today, my duties included photography for a special commitment service. I used the church’s camera, so I don’t have any of those pictures to share.

When we got home, I fixed a quick lunch and did a few things before leaving again about 1:40 to go to a retirement center where I lead a Bible Study. I do that for half an hour, and then head back home where I have to do family things and write my devotional, except today, I had a rough time putting my thoughts together. Then, it’s time to prepare supper and at this time of year, it gets dark early enough that I can’t go out and take pictures.

My devotional, by the way, is called Daily Enduring Truth, and is available every day at the link in the text. I share one of the things that I learn from my personal Bible reading. This year, I’m doing something different by making the devotional an evening devotional with the idea of having people reflect on their day and see how they can learn and grow from the issues of their day. It’s a new concept for me, but I began thinking about this late last year when I thought about how the Bible describes a day. Each time, it begins in the evening. “It was evening and it was morning, the first day.” or “Evening, morning, and at noon will I pray.” My first set of devotional books is based on the same Bible readings, but meant for the morning. The possibility exists that thee will be a second set, but I have other writings to work on.

Now, one last bit of news. A short story I wrote has been accepted for a charity anthology. We will be supporting Alex’s lemonade stand. So, in addition to Bird Brain Chronicle posts showing up here, I’ll even be including some other bits and pieces of my writing and promoting the books that I have short stories in. I may even have some excerpts from the story of the journey my wife and I took as she battled breast cancer. Thanks for reading here and following here.