Tag: photos

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Falling in Love with Art

My older daughter sent us a digital photo frame to which family members can upload photos so that they will appear like magic on the scrolling screen in our living room. I set it up, added the app, and invited all the kids to upload their pictures, expecting the fun surprises of noticing the new ones each week or so.

“Wait,” one son interjected. “Let me make sure I understand. So we can add photos that will just show up in your living room when anyone may be visiting?”

I warned him not to get any bright ideas and to keep it clean. Imagine my amused horror when a daughter zoomed in on a family photo where she’d been standing with her thumbs in her belt loops but actually shooting a bird. And someone added a picture of some stranger in a jon boat holding his arms out to show off a fish, but the fish is photoshopped into the photo several inches from his hands. They also add their favorites through the years, right back to all the times that made us laugh so hard our stomachs hurt. And some of family members no longer with us that are especially touching now. It’s my favorite art in the house ~ photography entertainment where my family members are in the frames.

there we are, kissing in front of Cadillac Ranch

Johnson Rt 66 Trip June 2023

spray painted on a vertical hood

there we are, coffee and breakfast in Tulsa and

standing in front of the Blue Whale of Catoosa

brothers on a bench in El Reno

and our feet on a painted street sign

and look! there’s Boo Radley in the kayak

wearing his Nemo life vest

ready for adventure, whatever that means

oooh, and there we all are in

Tennessee in the VRBO on the mountain

playing dominoes and talking trash

and all the kids in the pool

rocking the place with waves

the littlest smiling, showing off two

recently cut bottom teeth

the others lined up on the front porch

steps eating watermelon

and us eating seafood listening to

Suno songs about us eating seafood

an engagement, a wedding, a cup

of coffee in Starbucks

and watching the Blue Angels

from the heat of a parking lot

and the oldest grandson

eating a Biblical meal

Poppy in the oldest pub in Boston

eating oysters

and us in the sun in Kennebunkport

each memory scrolls by

smiles in these moments

of living and holding presence

belonging for our time

as we live it

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December Cozyla

My daughter sent a text to alert me about a package to arrive shortly as she tracked its movements. She asked me to call when we opened it so that she could give us a few pointers about it (I’ve noticed that the older I get, the more my children have started offering pointers on how to work things).

As we FaceTimed, she watched our excitement when we realized she’d sent us a digital photo frame.

How wonderful! I exclaimed, already thinking of all the photos I would upload and wondering if I would be able to figure it out. It would be nice to see snapshots from our recent week in the Great Smoky Mountains. When I’ve wanted to see those photos, I’ve had to scroll to them on the camera and search – – but a digital frame would keep them rolling and keep us thinking of the family members who mean so much to us!

That’s not just any digital frame, Mom, she explained. That’s a Cozyla interactive frame. If you invite all your kids to upload photos, we can send you pictures anytime and you can see them pop up in real time. You’ll hear a Boo…Boop and it’ll be a notification alerting you that we’re sending you new pictures.

I set it up while she was on FaceTime with me and already have nearly 200 photos in the album. I’m going strong, and I didn’t need as many pointers as she (or I) thought I might. I can’t wait to get my first notification that a new photo has popped up. We’ll be on the lookout for new smiling faces of our grandchildren – – which is like a new gift every day, especially during the holidays with all their excitement. It’s even more so since with four children in four different states, we don’t get to be together in person nearly as often as we’d like.

digital photos

family togetherness

keeping moments fresh

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Creativity: A Jar of Snow Memory Preserves

Daughter clicking her heels in the snows of Kentucky on Christmas Day

One of my creativity goals this year is taking more photographs. I’m not a talented artist who paints and draws, but I enjoy images and words. My daughters have always kept sketch pads and art projects going ~ they appreciate the spontaneity of lettering a Bible verse or sketching a face or landscape. I think “capturing the moment” is the artistic approach that appeals to me most. Life sometimes begs to be captured.

My daughters sometimes just doodle. They fill entire sketchbooks this way, savoring spontaneous bursts of creativity.

On a recent visit, my daughter asked me to share the photos we’d taken while we were out exploring in the snow. We’d worn our pajamas and snow shoes and had taken pictures of sunsets, snowdrifts, and squirrel statues. It’s the ultimate happiness for a mother, really, because pictures aren’t just pictures. They’re memories. That’s what she was really asking for ~ a jar of snow memory preserves. She wants to come back to our moments, just as I do. Score!

I’d given my daughter the camera and later looked back at all she had captured, like this birdhouse.

Something I hadn’t expected was the surprise of discovering photographs she had taken after I’d handed the camera over to her when I’d gone inside to thaw my toes. Scrolling back through these images, I found pictures I didn’t recognize. And then it hit me: these were images I was seeing through her eyes – the gift of glimpses that weren’t mine in the moment, but shared even now.

A favorite photo taken that day – sunset over the snow, and I think we photographed it at least three dozen times as it tucked itself into bed in the rolling hills.

And so I logged in to my photo processing account and ordered some snapshots on real photo paper. Over the next week, I plan to send her three or four each day to bring smiles and memories. She’ll make a photo collage that will keep this day, these special shared moments, forever etched in her heart.

I will, too.

Sunset over Burdoc Farms in Crofton, KY – White Christmas Evening
Assortment of photographs I’ll send this week – making my creativity goals happen through smiles!
The start of a snowball fight……..I passed the camera off to Briar and launched an invitation to fun….