Peek in my Gallery

A Human Peace Sign

operation beautiful

The owner of the company I work for gave each of us in the HR department this new book called Operation Beautiful.  Her intention was to inspire us to post uplifting notes anonymously in the workplace for other women to find.

These notes are written to encourage women to stop negative self-talk and help them to improve their self image.

The book is actually the result of  a blog by the the same name  OperationBeautiful.com where people send in pictures of notes they found or placed in public areas and tell their story.

It has been such an amazing experience writing and posting these notes and has it helped me on such a personal level as well.

Everywhere you look,  society and the media suggest that we have to be skinny, with no blemishes, perfect features and all our parts in the right places in order to be beautiful.  When is the last time have you actually heard someone say “Hey, you are beautiful just the way you are, flaws and all!”?

What an amazing concept! Change the way you see, not the way you look!

Check out the site and allow yourself to really feel beautiful just the way you are, then post a note to encourage someone else to feel beautiful and to accept themselves just the way they are!

Pirate Radio

pirate-radio

A quirky type comedy with great music that was just all around fun to watch.

First,  I love pretty much anything that Philip Seymour Hoffman stars in, he is  an brilliant actor.   Second, it was kind of a nice escape in a nostalgic sort of way.

Set off the coast of England in the 1960’s,  a pirate radio station gave listeners what they wanted to hear and could hear nowhere else, Rock and roll 24/7.  The plot was kind of dry, but the movie wasn’t really about the plot.  It was more about the lovable quirky characters,  the mood of  an awesome generation and the emerging music of the sixty’s.

An all around fun movie.

Title: Pirate Radio

Director/Writer: Richard Curtis

Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans and Tom Sturridge

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music

Language: English

Released: 2004

healing tree

treeAgain, playing with color.  Love the muted distressed look and the way it blends.  May use this as a background for another painting.

ancient

ancient

ancient

I love working with color and texture.  One day I would like to do this with paint and a brush on canvas, but for now this will do.   It is easy to clean up, all I do is just close the laptop.

home sweet home in a fairy tree

fairy-tree

I broke my ankle a few weeks ago and have been stuck on my couch the entire weekend.   With not much else to do,  I spent the entire day today working on this fairy tree.  Why a fairy tree? I have no idea.  It just started evolving and I couldn’t stop.  It is not even close to what I had intended on doing today.  Oh well, it kept my mind off my misery.

artichoke

artichoke

artichoke

This picture was taken by a friend of mine  from in her back yard.  It  is of an artichoke in full bloom.  Personally, I have never had the opportunity to see an artichoke plant before and didn’t realize how absolutely stunning they can be, especially in full bloom.   Of all the pictures that she brought in, this was my absolute favorite and  she was kind enough to send me a copy.   The word that comes to mind when I look at it…Glorious!

Greg du Toit – Hippo Bubbles

Greg du Toit - Hippo BubblesWas surfing though Pixdaus for my daily pic flick and discovered this amazing professional wildlife photographer Greg du Toit. He is an eighth generation African and and seems to have been born with the passion of living up close and personal with the wild.

I found  “Hippo Bubbles” quite calming and settling to the soul.  You can almost hear the hippo breathing cool bubbles into the warm water.  There must have been a full moon as the bubbles appear so bright and festive.  Gorgeous isn’t it!

Check out his Gallery for more amazing photos,  his journal for a “behind the shot” glimpse of his life in the field,  and if you ever dreamed of going on a Photographic Safari, he does that too.

the lost garden – Dana Gioia

The Lost Garden – Dana Gioia

If ever we see those gardens again,
The summer will be gone—at least our summer.
Some other mockingbird will concertize
Among the mulberries, and other vines
Will climb the high brick wall to disappear.

How many footpaths crossed the old estate—
The gracious acreage of a grander age—
So many trees to kiss or argue under,
And greenery enough for any mood.
What pleasure to be sad in such surroundings.

At least in retrospect. For even sorrow
Seems bearable when studied at a distance,
And if we speak of private suffering,
The pain becomes part of a well-turned tale
Describing someone else who shares our name.

Still, thinking of you, I sometimes play a game.
What if we had walked a different path one day,
Would some small incident have nudged us elsewhere
The way a pebble tossed into a brook
Might change the course a hundred miles downstream?

The trick is making memory a blessing,
To learn by loss the cool subtraction of desire,
Of wanting nothing more than what has been,
To know the past forever lost, yet seeing
Behind the wall a garden still in blossom.

~Dana Gioia – Interrogations at Noon

I had the great opportunity to hear Mr. Gioia speak at my son’s graduation a few years ago.  A very inspiring man with an incredible vision.

This morning I was surfing a bit and happened across his website and discovered this treasure of a poem.

There is something about poetry that has a way of putting into words  feelings that can not otherwise be described.

This is off his website:

Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet. A native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent, Gioia (pronounced JOY-uh) received a B.A. and a M.B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University.

peace mandala – desert

peace mandala - desertWent out to the bird preserve yesterday and the cactus were in full bloom.  The above peace mandala was made from the picture below.

desert blooms

Oahu Hawaii

Oahu Hawaii

My oldest son just got married in Oahu, Hawaii so we had an opportunity to travel and see the sights.  This was taken on one of our hikes the day before the wedding.  I found the contrast of cactus and ocean quite beautiful.

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