curled up / stretched out

L - iphone / T - iphone

We're back. Sort of. I am still without a computer at home but I found time to sneak in a few posts at work : ).
Taylor is home. Putting in applications to find a job, meeting with the administrator at Creative Circus (hoping to go to grad school there in the winter) and helping around the house. But she's enjoying some down time too.

summer evenings / summer days

L - Nikon / T - iphone

Tis the season for summer concerts in the park. / bookbag tan - it's happening.

day 13 - sign

L - iphone / T - iphone (portion of a piece at Lamar Dodd Art school)

Signs of spring and signing as art.

day 12 - fork

L - iphone / T - iphone

Spring break for Taylor this week... dinner at my parents house last night... carrot cake for dessert - the best ever!

home / away

L - Nikon / T -iphone

Knitting has been an obsession around our house - ever since Christmas when my 10 year old niece taught us all how to knit. She was such a great teacher she had me, my brother, Taylor, my sister-in-law, and my fiance all knitting a scarf. It was my brother who put us all to shame though. He has already completed 3 scarves and 2 hats! Taylor is knitting her second scarf. I, however, just finished my first one - and it's not so pretty. I'll keep trying. / chicago was fun but i was glad to get back home - to see miss daisy and my bunny, and to get back in the swing of things.
stay away from lonely places - ron terada exhibit at the contemporary museum in chicago.
lines from a willie nelson song
Remember that sorrow prospers
In a heart that never smiles
So stay away from lonely places for awhile

heart / home

L - Nikon / T -Nikon

May you heart be wreathed in happiness, your home be wreathed in smiles.

I am so thankful for the friendships I have made here in the internet world. These relationships are meaningful for me and I want to wish each and every one of you a very blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!

Leslye

Nov 1 / Gratitude

L - Nikon / L - iphone

Happy November! And the holiday season begins...
Beginning on this first day of November, I will be posting, along with many other blogger and flickr folks, a month long celebration of all I have to be grateful for. Seems fitting to start with HOME. Even more specifically, my physical HOUSE. I am so thankful to have a beautiful, albeit small, house that is structurally sound and protects and keeps me warm and safe from the environment. My dad helped build this house and it has many special touches that make it just perfect for my daughter and me - now just me. It is situated amongst evergreens and hardwoods in such a way that I feel I am the only one around. I love my house... it is home.

P.S. The remaining gratitude series will be on my autumnsun blog.

refuge / retreat

L - Nikon / T - Nikon


This little kitty was very shy - she wouldn't venture far from her safety zone, her refuge from the world of over-eager children wanting to play with her. Her brother was a little more accepting of the attention - even let Taylor pick him up. Taylor wanted to take both of them home with her. I hated to say no, but I had to. However she is going to try to place them in loving homes so they will be protected and loved. / i took this photo when i was in southern california a week ago. sad to say it's the only photo i took to speak of. this hotel room was my retreat - rather it was where i was stuck for lack of having a car (too long of a story). we had some good times and i have to admit there were some boring times. that's just the way it goes - summer has some of both.

rouse / awaken - oh spring

L - Nikon / T - Canon

"The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within."

- William C. Bryant

p.s. flower overlay is added to photo - not wall.

warm bread / warm chair

solo post - L, Nikon

Today it is chilly outdoors – lots of wind and pending snow in the forecast. But inside it is toasty warm – the warmth of the fire, and the sunshine on the chair invited me to sit and read... but I had work to do. Not dreaded work like laundry or vacuuming, or even taking down Christmas, but finally a chance to get down in my studio and work. After a slice of cranberry bread, fresh out of the oven, I set to work. I'm happy to say it was a very productive day. And honestly, I'm hoping for that snow that is in the forecast. It's just as exciting to miss a work day now as it was to miss a school day in days past, don't you think?

warmth of sun... / warmth of home...

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Warmth of friends... for these things I am grateful.

I know many of you will be busy this week preparing for family visits, shopping and cooking and getting together with friends, so I want to take this time, this Sunday night, to express my thanks. I want to say thank you for your visits and your kind words, your inspiration and your support. You take minutes out of your busy day to visit with me and that means a lot - you know it does. So to each and every one of you - I am grateful for the warmth of your friendship.

upstairs / downstairs

solo post - L, iphone/Nikon

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer. -Helen Hunt Jackson

This time of year the shadows dance lively as I get ready for work. I see them upstairs and downstairs. I'm lucky that I don't have leave for work before the sun rises - I get to see the pretty light show on my walls. I love how the house has a cool autumn feel in the morning too. We're moving into my favorite season. What about you? Do you look forward to cooler days ahead or are you wanting to hang on to the summer?

daisy / fresh

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

August Break 13

"Fresh as a daisy". There is something about the simplicity of a daisy - they're just so bright and cheerful. I'm sad that these are the last of the season in my garden. / i straighten up my place because dad was coming to visit. unfortunately i can't keep this coverlet on my couch because bunny has nails.

a view from the window / a window view

L, Nikon / T, Nikon

Bunny hears Taylor drive up. She doesn't know yet that she will have a new home soon. Will she miss Kodi? Will Kodi miss her? I think Kodi will be glad to be able to eat ALL of her food for a change.
See that book on the table? Taylor and I found it at a flea market in Canada. There were a few pages in it that Taylor thought would make nice pieces to frame. The book is titled "Happy Hours in the Little People's World" - New & Old Jingles & Stories / Prettily Pictured. There's an inscription in the front of the book that says, "Presented to Lawrence Hartman for attendance during the school term 1889-1890, by his teacher August Barries." It was a great find but it's very old and delicate and will need special care. Below is one of the prints that Taylor wants to frame. I think it will look nice hanging above her white bird cage piece she got from Elizabeth. / the weekend was busy - spent moving out of the old and into the new. now I'm back home again to pick up a few more things... and my kitty. it will feel legit - like a home - when bunny is there.

bunny / rabbit

solo post - L, Nikon

Sorry for the blurry photos - poor lighting and trying to shoot quick.

Well Taylor's kitty has awakened from her timid beginnings - she's a little rascal and quite funny to watch. And I'm glad to say she and Kodi are getting along just fine. They sleep along- side each other by day and chase each other by night. But last night that crazy cat jumped on the counter and up on top of the refrigerator and down behind it - trapped until I finally found, with Kodi's help, where the distressed call was coming from. I had to move the refrigerator out away from the wall, in order to set her free. I hate to think what would have happened if she had done this when I was away. / We have another little trouble maker about. Imagine this cute little bunny rabbit being so naughty. He's eating the daisies down to the ground.

does anyone have a trick for keeping cats off counters and bunnies out of the flower garden?

recognize / discover

solo post - L, Nikon

I can't believe it's been 10 days since I last posted. It's unusual - I did not take one photo all week long and even this weekend my photo options were slim. Anyway... I hope everyone has been well and starting to enjoy a fun summer.
Taylor is now home for the summer and it sure is nice to have her here - sleeping under my roof, eating meals and watching movies with me and planning fun activities for the summer. She can be so much help around the house too. Last week I came home to a cooked meal, kitchen drawers that are now clean and organized, the refrigerator cleared out of out-dated bottles of dressing, etc and the cabinets as well. She loves doing this type of work – I don't love doing it - it makes me very happy. We joke about her OCD tendencies as a weakness but in actuality it can be a real strength. Soon I hope her 'organizational' skills and diligent work habits will be earning her good money instead of just making her mother happy – she's looking for a summer job.
I found a book on my shelf that I forgot about. I'm going to give it to Taylor to read this summer called, "Now, Discover Your Strengths". I think the sooner she recognizes her real strengths, and how best to use her weaknesses, the better off she'll be in determining what she wants to be 'when she grows up'.

"Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your work with excellence." ~Author Unknown

outside looking out

solo post - T, Nikon, collage

"Inside yourself or outside, you don't have to change what you see, only the way you see it." - unknown

yellow / green

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

The color of the week is yellow green. How appropriate. There is new growth all around us. I love this time of the year when the colors of green in the horizon are so varied. But I don't love the haze of yellow green that's in the air - it hangs in the air like a thick cloud and covers everything like a yellow blanket! The pollen count in Atlanta yesterday was 5733 - 120+ is considered extremely high. What? Well, thank goodness we've had a nice rain today to wash it all away. As I look out my office window now, the clouds have lifted and the world is clean and fresh looking, the pavement is grey again instead of pale yellow and once again you can tell that I drive a white car not a yellow one. / i came home yesterday to go to a concert. i had lunch with mom and i also got a haircut, finally. i needed one badly but now it seems so short to me. p.s. there is pollen everywhere, on everything. my green yellow car is now yellow green.

green / tree

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

Happy Spring everyone. Hope your day was filled with new delight.

When I bought this car 13 years ago I immediately fell in love with the color. Many people think it's an awlful color but to me it is the color a Japanese maple leaf in spring time. That's how I describe it anyway - Jeep calls it Citron Green. Taylor drives it now and she loves it too. It's almost a one-of-a-kind. As long as we've had it we could count on one hand the amount of times we've seen another one just like it - anywhere. Taylor wants to drive her Kirby forever. She says it just fits who she is. And I'd say it does - unique.
I feel so lucky - she has been home two weekends in a row. I bought her tickets to see Spoon at the Tabernacle, but she also wanted to shoot some more film for her assignment. It's a project on color so first we drove down to Cabbage Town where the homes are bright and crazy colors, and to Little Five Points were the graffiti walls add color to otherwise rundown buildings. It was a gorgeous sunny 75 and we enjoyed being outside together. We ate at Flip (a unique burger joint) to end the day before she headed to the concert.
Since we were together we decided to look at our photos of the day and pick two to post, together. I chose the Jeep because I had planned to use it on a post at Lensustogether and when we saw the one she took of the tree and the green wall in Cabbage Town they seem meant for each other. When she first saw that wall she said, "hey look they're painting it Kirby green" and took a photo - not knowing that I had shot the photo of her car behind our maple tree earlier in the day.
Two 'spring greens' behind bare trees waiting for their new leaves.

she didn't have time to write her portion

read / re-read

L - Canon / T - film sp

I do like to read but I don't always pick out books that keep my attention. Lucky for me I have a nice library right in my office complex and can check out the latest releases and just swap them out if they don't pull me right in - some books just don't. Both of these books sounded interesting - I had just read an excerpt from them on npr.org so I checked them out today and will see if one grabs me.

I don't re-read books very often but I have a few that I enjoyed enough to re-read. Taylor on the other hand re-reads often. In fact she told me she had recently re-read "The Road" and is now re-reading "The Bell Jar". What about you? Is there a book you enjoy over and over again? / i'm re-reading the bell jar by slyvia plath.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." – chapter seven