{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent trust – my word for 2011}.

i trust you'll forgive me if i indulge in one last baby savannah photo, even if it was taken last week.

(if you could see me right now, you'd see me chuckling at how i sneakily snuck the word trust in there.)

i never thought of myself as a baby person.

not that i dislike them, just that i don't need to see or cuddle or visit them even if they are around. i have seven siblings and when i was growing up, if i had a choice between baby and chores, i always picked chores; my sister amy picked the baby. if i care about you, i care about your baby because it is something you care about, not necessarily for its own sake.

so, while it is true that i thought it would be great fun to be an aunt, and i did want to visit my sister and see my niece, i really thought the fun of being an aunt would begin once the baby was older.

imagine my surprise to discover that when the baby is baby savannah, i adore babies! oh my goodness. i love that little girl so much i can hardly stand it. i sniffled most of the way home because i was so sad that i had to leave her. (i spent the time when i wasn't sniffling thinking of ways that i can visit. often.)

even more surprising (to me), i am exceptionally good with babies. i am rather like a baby whisperer. at least i am with baby savannah.

also, i am a fount of fantastical stories, though this was not a surprise. among a million other stories, savannah heard the story of the invention of organization (a woman named betty organization who took everything in her house and put it in boxes and labeled them and then her friend myrtle saw it and asked her to do the same thing in her house and then other people saw it and asked for it and then myrtle told her she should name this thing she did and so she used her own name and named it organization) and the story of her ancestor queen savannah (queen savannah rode her pony named mustard around the island of molasses every morning and decreed that all the little girls on the island would be princesses and people came from all over the world to see the herd of princesses on ponies following queen savannah and mustard around the island and they even ended up as a feature article in national geographic next to an article about the mologai tribe who wore bracelets around their neck to make them longer). i am going to record stories for her so she can listen to them even when i am not there in person.

so yes, i am home, and i am really missing my little savannah. being her auntie is just about the best thing ever.

{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent trust – my word for 2011}.

be still my heart.

thought the first: are these not fantastic?! when i was in p-town, i found a shop with things that spun and danced and twirled. some of them were hanging outside where the wind could catch them. i was happier than happy and took photo after photo. they are some of my favorite images from my trip, never mind that you cannot tell where i took them.

thought the second: it turns out that the september collection is actually the september/october collection, so the prints will be available for another month. when i thought about finding a new set of images for october, it felt too rushed. i’ll introduce the new collection in november (think mystery and magic) and it will be available for two months as well.

thought the third: you can now purchase digital images from retinal perspectives! this is a giant experiment and i am very curious to see what happens. my vision is that people will take my images and make them their own, that they will each use the images in their own way, and i can feel so much magic and possibility and creativity in this.

thought the fourth: here’s a funny story for you. (apologies if i’ve already shared this.) i do not love the taste of coffee, but i love cafe culture. this means that i spend lots of time trying to order a coffee drink that does not taste like coffee. usually, i order a medium or large drink with whole milk and a single shot of decaf because it has the least coffee taste possible. one day, i even explained to the barista that if i didn’t feel like i would be banned from the cafe or laughed at, what i’d really want to do is order a mocha (or similar) with no espresso at all. eventually, i had an epiphany. there is such a thing as a mocha with no espresso; it’s called hot chocolate! i feel like i might be the only person in the world who took years to figure that one out.

dory lives in rhode island. i was eating breakfast one day and she decided to join me at the table. it was such a comical sight.

actually, you might have already met her, only the picture i am thinking of is on my old blog and i am too lazy to go and find it. come to think of it, in that photo, she was also sitting at the table. that time, she was staring at a delicious looking cake.

we all need days where we (plus a good book) move from the beach to a hammock to a comfy chair to the dinner table to a comfy chair to a homemade ice cream stand. summers on cape cod are indeed delightful.

of course, this was not that day. this day was rainy.

minus the hammock, and the beach, this weekend looked rather like my vacation. both saturday and sunday were in the 90s, so atlas and i turned into slugs and ate excessive amounts of watermelon. plus, it was the weekend of the hillsboro airshow and i can see bits of the main acts from the park behind my house. there is nothing quite like the roar and rumble of fighter jets flying overhead.

i hope your weekend was just as good.

a zebra! in the wilds of my own home! can you imagine anything more delightful?!

last year, i named the moons (an idea from the wonderful book slow time by waverly fitzgerald). the august moon is the blessed moon of cold drinks, naps, and gelato.

the name of this moon seems ever so appropriate since as of today, i am on vacation. atlas is off to the doggy ranch, and i am off to the east coast to visit family. there will be a post on wednesday – i have another photo of atlas and a musing that i feel moved to share – and then i will be back next week, just in time for weimaraner wednesday.

until then, i wish you sunshine and laughter and moments of sweetness.

i was reading through my inca trail posts on my very first blog and some of the stories were making me laugh and laugh. this one was begging to be told again.

i had a very hard time falling asleep the night before the hike began due to anticipation and nervousness. i woke up after only a few hours of sleep, in the throes of a horrible nightmare about vampires. the nightmare wouldn’t stop, so i lay awake in the dark, trying to make the vampires go away.

all of a sudden, i heard murmuring coming from the bed next to me and then my roommate joan let out two loud long screams.

i didn’t know what to do. what if someone came running, thinking i was killing her. i finally said her name softly and she went back to sleep.

i, on the other hand, was now wide-awake.

when i told her about this in the morning, she said that she was having a nightmare about witches. when she screamed, the witch was attempting to drive a rusty iron nail into her neck.

(did i mention how perfectly suited we were as roommates? there was much giggling.)