there is much excitement in the elizabeth & atlas house.

early tomorrow morning, i am setting out on an adventure. my youngest sister is studying in spain this semester and i am off to spend her spring break with her.

as a bonus, i am going to turn 35 years old in morocco! with that beginning, i am pretty sure that 35 is going to be the best year ever.

i will be back on the 20th – with lots of photos, i suspect.

(speaking of photos, did you know that if you buy a spare camera battery and it sits in the box for four plus years without use, when you happen upon it and are excited to take it on an adventure with you and go to charge it in preparation for the trip, you will discover that it doesn't work? i feel rather sad that my poor battery expired without ever getting to do the thing for which it was created.)

my blog will be quiet while i am gone, so i am leaving you with three things:

a picture of atlas, who will be having a jolly time at the doggy ranch;

a rather silly story about a hippopotamus named humphrey;

Humphrey

and a sneak peek of my brand new website, which i adore and will introduce sometime after i return. it's from the lovely allie of allie creative, who is a design genius.

until i return, may your april be full of sunshine and flowers.

there is a post about the peculiar shame of loneliness and my related need for connection wandering around my mind, but it needs to percolate for a day or two.

in the meantime, i am popping in to remind you that the birthday celebration sale in my etsy shop will end on march 25th. enter the coupon code ATLASIS9 at checkout for 18% off your entire purchase. once the celebration ends, the shop will close for most of april.

if you are wanting or needing a dose of beauty, or have had your eye on something in my shop for a while now, do go visit!

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

another picture that makes me think of both radiance and luminosity.

p.s. i was closing registration for the secret garden earlier today, when i decided that i loved the card set for the circle of aqua so much that i wanted more people to have it. so, just for fun, i am leaving registration for the circle of aqua open through monday. if you were interested in it, there are a few more spaces available, and you have a few extra days to decide. maybe you want your year to be full of happy surprise, delight, and gleeful anticipation too!

happy monday! i do love mondays. they're such a nice fresh clean slate sort of day. even though i have let go of most of my "i'll start on monday" patterns, i still love the newness of monday. i suspect that will never change.

do you remember when i introduced the secret garden? something (or somethings) you love plus a year of happy surprise, delight, and gleeful anticipation? there are still a few spots left and, in case you are thinking about it, i want to remind you that registration will close on march 15th. that's this thursday. (it's also atlas' birthday!) i just got the photos that i am using to make the card set for {the circle of aqua} and i cannot stop looking at them and smiling. they are magical.

this past week was very full of sunshine. on a walk on thursday and a hike on friday, i did not even need to wear a jacket! i am the sort of person who is still wearing a jacket when the rest of portland is wandering about in shorts and a t-shirt, so clearly it was warm. i celebrated with gelato.

i hope your monday includes birdsong and unexpected magic.

(title courtesy of adele)

atlas will be 9 next week, and i will be 35 next month. wheeeeeeeee!

to celebrate, i am having a birthday celebration sale in my etsy shop. enter the coupon code ATLASIS9 at checkout for 18% off your entire purchase. good through march 25th.

there are lots of cards, and i added some of my favorite prints.

if you are wanting or needing a dose of beauty, or have had your eye on something in my shop for a while now, do go visit!

the shop will then be closed for most of april.

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

people!

i have to tell you a secret because i am so very excited about it.

the plan, for a while now, has been that retinal perspectives will have a lovely new web home this year, likely toward the end of april.

and!

the thing i know now – which i discovered over the weekend, thankfully just in time to tell the designer before she started work – is that my business and web site will no longer use the name retinal perspectives.

it turns out that i am going to use my own name.

i am going to be ..

insert drumroll please ..

elizabeth halt :: the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

i am so in love with my new idea that i could just burst.

(that being said, i am still very fond of the name retinal perspectives, so it might remain in some form or fashion, at least for a while.)

do you know the feeling of happy surprise and delight and gleeful anticipation that you get when you are waiting for something you love to arrive?

i love that feeling.

the thing i don't love about that feeling is that it ends.

secretly, i have been working on a way to keep that feeling going all year. and now it's ready.

i am happy to introduce you to my newest offering: the secret garden, a 2012 patron program for retinal perspectives.

i won't try to explain it further here – there's already a whole page for that – but i do hope you like it.

visit the secret garden.

it was such fun offering postcards the other week that i decided to do something similar for cards. i know, you could just pop over to my etsy shop and buy them, but this seems easier and – in this moment – more fun.

besides, there might be other people who are like me and just wrote a year’s worth of birthdays in their 2012 calendar and subsequently realized that they might, in fact, be slightly behind already. (though in all honesty, i like to send cards belatedly. it makes them even more unexpected.)

$17 gets you 6 {happy surprise} cards. shipping is included. (if you want to see some examples, you can pop over to the shop.)

if the offer speaks to you and the timing is right, just click the rosy red button.

yay! more mailbox goodness!

sunday update: i removed the buttons because this round is done! yay! thank you!

hello, my dear readers!

it occurred to me that you might be in need of some postcards (maybe you want to say "hello! happy new year! i love you!" to your friends).

it also occurred to me that, now that the enjoyable but generally atypical fun december mail is winding down, you might want goodness in your mailbox even in january.

i have a large stack of lovely new postcards, and i am in the mood to pull out my crafty supplies and create cards, so i thought i'd make you a fun and easy offer.

$6.50 gets you 3 {happy surprise} postcards, packaged in a lovely card handmade just for you.

$12 gets you 6 {happy surprise} postcards, packaged in a lovely card handmade just for you.

if the offer speaks to you, just click the applicable button and complete your payment. i shall do a happy dance and start creating your card.

yay! mailbox goodness!

friday update: i removed the buttons because this round is done! yay! thank you!

i have a couple of quick announcements. imagine my disembodied voice booming over a loudspeaker. hee.

there are new images in the grab bag! in case you're looking for a wintry computer background, for example. it's still "choose your own price" – which i like to think of as a variation on "choose your own adventure". remember those books? i loved them. (i read them in a very methodical and logical manner, in order to be sure i covered every single possible adventure. now that i think about it, given that, it's no wonder i enjoyed programming.)

there are a few more days for the holiday special on the pause. i don't have any spots left this week, but if it speaks to you, you are welcome to buy a session and use it in the new year. resting and renewing and retreating – in the comfort of your own home – seems like the perfect thing for january.

ok. it's time for the disembodied voice to leave; if you like, you can imagine it singing "whistle while you work" as it goes. for some odd reason, that is the song that comes into my head most often.

i read tolkien's the hobbit yesterday after stumbling across a trailer for the movie version. i love the book, though i always forget just how much until i read it again. (as an aside, i want to live in a hobbit-hole.) this time, i noticed lots of bits that i wanted to write down in my journal. here are two of my favorites.

"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."

"It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait."