Happy Birthday Jessica!

How did you get from baby to little girl? From scrawny teenager to wife, mother and best friend? You did it amidst and in-spite of so much turmoil and pain..so effortlessly it seems. You grew inside with such grace its astounding, and as I write this in the evening of a steaming Californian summers day, I cant help but be so incredibly proud of who and what you are...and you know that!

So enjoy your day my darling girl, amidst friends and family..they are so incredibly lucky to have your company today, give those precious kids and husband of yours a special huggg and a kiss from me.

Much love to you Jess, my daughter, my best friend, have a Happy Happy Birthday.

I miss you every day my girl

Mom xxxx

The Last Midnight

A flock of pelicans followed me as I hugged the winding coast road on my way to work this evening. The sun was setting in a haze of marine layer, making this last drive feel quite surreal. The last time to park my car..just here, the last time I will swipe in, or out...the last baby to be delivered tonight, as there will be no further admissions to this nurturing place where I have spent the last 9 months, a full pregnancy. Tonight will be my last midnight here..

We are planing a ceremony of closure on Tuesday, we plan to pause and reflect in each birthing room a time to share stories, laugh and shed tears...proper closure for the time spent in the midst of these remarkable women. My heart is full, my chest a little squeezy as we scurry through the night whispering 'the last time' so many times to each other. Eyes fill at the slightest provocation.

After 42 years this Birth Centre at Goleta Valley is closing and the woman I am caring for tonight will be the very last person to deliver here, and by some quirk of fate ..she finds herself lying in the same birthing room in which her mother gave birth to her, 31 years ago, she has the same doctor to care for her as her mother had. Her labour has started spontaneously and she labours well, at 0200 she gives birth to a gorgeous little girl who is totally unaware that tonight, a little after midnight..she made history!

The sun is rising as I finish this, filtering gently through the jacaranda trees still in half bloom and I realize my last midnight has passed..

Twisted ~ Picture perfect

T W I S T E D

Seaweed Ensemble ~ taken this morning with my sony cybershot, the pic is un-enhanced

Twisted curled bent out of shape

once green and lush you grew

tossed upon a barren sand scape

amidst a raging storm you flew

quietly plucked one early morn

I brought you home with me

and watched you dry and twist and curl

to shapes of dreams restored,

seaweed growing once resplendent

now altered to a perfect form

The Twelve Gifts of Birth

The Twelve Gifts of Birth

reminds us to recognize dignity in ourselves and others, read them often listen to them with your heart and see their gifts developing in you in each day’s experience…

The first gift is Strength
May you remember to call upon it whenever you need it.

The second gift is Beauty
May your deeds reflect its depth.

The third gift is Courage
May you speak and act with confidence and use courage to follow you own path.

The fourth gift is Compassion
May you be gentle with yourself and others. May you forgive those who hurt you and yourself when you make mistakes.

The fifth gift is Hope
Through each passage and season may you trust the goodness of life.

The sixth gift is Joy
May it keep your heart open and filled with light.

The seventh gift is Talent
May you discover your own special abilities and contribute them towards a better world.

The eighth gift is Imagination
May it nourish your visions and dreams.

The ninth gift is Reverence
May you appreciate the wonder that you are and the miracle of all creation.

The tenth gift is Wisdom
Guiding your way, wisdom will lead you through knowledge to understanding, may you hear its soft voice.

The eleventh gift is Love
It will grow each time you give it away.

The twelfth gift is Faith
May you believe.

A Long Story about Nobody (..but I feel better already!!)

I am tired and beyond cranky, but if I don't just let off steam somewhere safe I may just explode in quite the wrong place, and make an awful mess. I hate drama, I come to this place as a place of refuge..a place to chill, to write and share my day. Life is tough enough without having to deal with irrational people in a virtual reality. Today I have been moved to tears at what people can and will do for attention...

I have never slandered or questioned what people do on their own sites, you know some we like some we don't, and those we don't we just don't visit and we certainly don't add them to our contact lists, its called having a choice people..fair and honest choice.

Last week i had more drama on Picture Perfect than Ive had in a long long time. There's only so many times Tint or I can explain issues, there is only so many times anyone can even listen to your drivel Guy. You don't engage in fair and open discussion and you embellish the truth in order to cause chaos and hurt for your own gain.

We opened up Picture Perfect 4 Kidz last week.. a children's photographic site, and asked everyone to create a safe site if they intended visiting there..for no other reason than to protect the children. (What parent here doesn't want that care taken where their child is concerned..esp on the internet!??). I do not want children having access to adult sites, so the moms and dads visiting PP4Kidz would have to have a separate safe site if they wanted access there. Surely this make sense??

Unfortunately in a totally unrelated incident at about the same time, two people were knocked off the PP contact list..something none of the admins were responsible for. It was weird, Cherie and I had funky computers that day and people were getting bumped from the site. We wrote directly to the people involved, reinstated them apologized for what was most certainly a simple computer glitch, and that should have been the end of that.

I totally underestimated Guy. He still believes after a week of private pms and public explanations, that we wanted PP folk to have safe sites for the PP site..it doesn't matter how many times we say..'No Guy its for the kids..the boundaries and the control is for the kids site only..' Nope, dear old Guy is like a dog with a freakin bone, anything sensible just washes right over his head. He is convinced it is CENSORSHIP of the highest order, he wrote and accused me of THOUGHT CONTROL and then invited me via private pm to view it. As if I cared!

This man has got more attention than he deserves quite honestly, and I was all set to just walk away from it all and move on, so to speak, but yesterday when I was alerted to his new Picture Perfect for Adults group which he has started, and then viewed a few really bad photographs this morning, I felt I could ignore this no longer. Not only has he plagiarized our name, but he is encouraging woman to put pictures up of themselves in the name of art...they aren't artistic at all and no one will tell you this ladies. In the name of good taste, of all things decent...take a look at what you're doing, think for your selves, because quite honestly the book Animal Farm does come to mind.

Freedom of expression is a wonderful thing when its your own idea and you choose a unique name for your endeavour, but when you step on others and use them as pawns in order to ride a brief wave of 'fame'..its just sad and quite sickening.

I have to add a very firm disclaimer here..PICTURE PERFECT is in no way associated with the adult site formed by him and distances itself from all material posted there.

A Bowl of Cherries

Cherries were in season.

Cherries as gorgeous and red and decadent and as seductive as any apple in Eden ever was.

I saw them at the store and brought them home one hot summer evening last year. I rinsed them under the cool water of the tap and then without even bothering to turn on the lights, I sat down alone in my kitchen and ate them one by one.

~That was last year

this year I made cheesecake ~

Acoustic Sunset

Blistering Heat

Our hot spell continues, no relief in sight.

Im not sure why I was so shocked to find my candles had totally melted in my little garden

The temperature gauge outside says I was a right

..its another damn hot day here in Solvang

Riding the Heat Wave

After a long chilly winter/Spring/Early Summer this are heating up fast. Yesterday it was up to 111 here in dear little Solvang, a numbing heat which melts the bones cant lift your head sort of heat. There is no a/c in this little condo so I had fans blasting out cold air in two rooms giving some relief, Senga found herself a spot in front of the big fan..the one with a turbine engine...and lay facing it her ears straight up from the wind pressure, it was so funny looked a bit like that basset-dog ad we see here on tv!!

On Thursdays there is music on the green, local artists play for about 2 hours which families picnic on the lawns. The folk at my hairdressing salon had an open house with free wine and supper (I mean really) I parked my self near their table which looks onto the lawns listened to music and watched the 10 kids per square inch of ground arguing over whose turn it was to walk Senga.

Afterwards we took the party outdoors

and turned an ordinary day into an extraordinary one

filled with laughter and high pitched helium voices...

..which drove poor Senga nuts..she had never seen a balloon before and went nuts trying to get her teeth into them, and so with much shrieking the kids tried to keep one step ahead of her!

I left a little after 8pm just as the sun was setting through the trees, the heat had turned down to a simmer...

Industry ~ Picture perfect

Journal entry May 2006: I have stood at this spot before, watching the water flow past. I wasn't alone then. There is a bench nearby and a small paved area where people sit Im sure, when the sun shines and the weather is good, watching the water glide gently by.

Today it surges and thunders past, the melt has flowed down mountains and gathered here in an awesome display of power and fluidity. It never turns back, always looking forward, following the path to an inevitable destiny.

Its mesmerizing standing here, just here, cool wind blowing the rain in my face as I snap a few pics for memory's sake.

The old, now vacant industrial buildings alongside the Black River, in Springfield, Vermont.

19th May 2006

Parks and Woolson, manufacturer of woolen cloth finishing machinery, is both the oldest existing manufacturing complex and the last major mill to operate in Springfield.

The manufacturer of woollen cloth finishing machinery, is both the oldest existing manufacturing complex and the last major mill to operate in Springfield.

The mill closed in October 2003, leaving 14 workers unemployed. Located at 33 Park Street, the complex includes the original 3 1/2 story brick, gable-roofed mill built in 1829. The mill was remodeled in 1859 and expanded and remodeled again in 1877, 1910 and 1914Park Street, the complex includes the original 3 1/2 story brick, gable-roofed mill built in 1829. The mill was remodeled in 1859 and expanded and remodeled again in 1877, 1910 and 1914

The Fellows Gear Shaper Company also operated along the Black River in Springfield from 1899 to 1953. Today the mill seems partly reused for light industry.

Here I quote from the Springfield National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form:

"The Fellows Gear Shaper Company complex was the largest and best known of the precision tool industries in Springfield, and it directly contributed to the late nineteenth century place-name designation of Springfield as the Precision Valley."

Now it is merely a photographic delight...

Holding My Heart in Your Hands

~ My grandson getting up close and personal with an Nguni calf ~

Who are You really?

Oldest Daughter Big Sister Mother of three

Adored Grandmother housewife Breadwinner

Aunt Comic Midwife

Thankful Friend

Dog Owner Dog Feeder Dog Walker

Picker up of Dog Poop

Amateur Photographer Scribbler

Lover of Laughter

Music Fan World Traveller Divorced

Decorator

Cook with a speciality in take-out

Diet Coke drinker

Margarita Mama

Mourner Regretful Happy Smart Daft

Avid Reader of Big Books

TV junkie Artist of sorts

Lover

P e n s i v e Internet surfer sociable loner

Blogger asthmatic

liberal conservative

compassionate

Survivor

In the Arms of a Good Man

I have this picture of my dad and my youngest son taken over 22 years ago, Nic had climbed on to a chair next to his grandad (it took a while) and once there, sitting proudly upright, promptly fell asleep. Sucking his thumb intermittently, his little head drooped and his whole body slumped slowly sideways in an attitude of total relaxation and suppleness which only the young achieve successfully. My dad watched him slide into sleep and extended his arm for Nic to lean on. He sat like that for well over an hour, never moving a muscle least the child be disturbed. The picture moves me so.

I have other better, clear pictures of my dad doing a multitude of things, but this one always reflects who he really was more profoundly than any other.

My dad and I were close, we shared the same passions. We listened to stories on Springbok Radio together, me snuggled up on his lap the lights dim, my dad sipping a cup of coffee and making me jump with fright at the scary parts. I would take his face in both my hands and get really close and whisper 'Don't do that' he would chuckle and nod sagely, but he never listened.

We fished together, a lot, and once went hunting I hated it and he never asked me to accompany him again. He was a teller of stories too, oh he would sit on the end of my bed and tell me the most fantastic stories of African folklore and animal stories. When I had children of my own, he wrote and illustrated a little book for them a tradition I followed when mine had children too...

The sound of his footsteps as his boots crunched across the gravel when he arrived home from work is with me still, I would frantically get his coffee ready as soon as I heard the car door slam. I can still see him filling his pipe and puffing quietly on the back veranda as he watched the sun set over the far Lebombo mountains.

I watched his skin burn in the fierce African heat as he dug a swimming pool for my sister and me. Day after day with only a helper to mix the dugga I would hear him shout 'Fugga lo dugga' as they mixed cement by hand and lined the pool. My children swam in that pool 20 years later.

He played hide and seek with us in the twilight and then rescued me from a tree I had climbed, he drove miles and miles to take us to movies at a neighbouring town and waited in his car for the movie to finish as it was too far to drive home and come back.

He healed my soul at times when I least expected it, often just with a word or kind touch. Oh I miss you dad, I miss the safety I felt of having you soothe my life.

Nothing profound in any of these things I thought, just normal dad stuff, when its you. Now I'm at the age he was then and these things have a new level of meaning. Now I watch my son-in-law with his children and I see the same love, the same commitment to their well being and safety. I watch him fish with his son and play rugby with his daughter or patiently explain a maths problem. I see them sit on his lap and reach up and touch his face, safe and unafraid, in the arms of a good man.

Happy Fathers Day !

The Edge

I'm here looking over the edge into nothing. The wind whips my hair into my face and the sheer drop below forces me away from the rock-face.. Bizarrely, birds are flying below me, Oh God am I that high?

I wait and look around catching my breathe from the arduous climb. You said to be here, your voice was quiet, just be there at 10. Promise? I promised and I came, and now there is nothing.

Slowly I lift my eyes and scan the horizon. The view is spectacular. I reach for my pocket sized camera and snap for a few minutes, and then I notice the path. It winds down from the hill behind me a different path to the one I took, a well trodden area at the base of the rock draws me closer and gingerly I step out on to the ledge.

The unexpected sound of your voice startles me and almost sends me stumbling for cover, my eyes widen with shock as I hear my name come floating up on the breeze The sun blinds me for a few seconds enough time to experience real fear and an acute sense of disorientation.

I hear your whoop for joy at the same time that I catch sight of you. Your brand new, brightly coloured hang glider glinting in the sunshine, swoops and dances below me in the updrafts. Free and unencumbered it slides effortlessly through the warm air, held aloft by the warm rising currents. You are safe and my laughter is forced as I wave happily.

Caught up in the joy of the moment, neither of us saw the furious pair of eagles descend on that expanded canopy spread playfully above your head. All I heard was the tearing ripping of the nylon. Along with my heart.

Facets

ASSIGNMENT:

Using five of the homonym pairs below, write a piece that uses both in their proper form (noun, verb, adjective- whichever the case) and meaning at some point in your piece. Your work must flow and make complete sense.

You have until June 11 (one week) to post, and link back to the comments here. The complete rules and a place for questions are found HERE.

PLEASE accept this challenge. I think it will be a lot of fun.

____________________________________

affect effect	ate eight
ball bawl	blew blue
capital capitol	dear deer
hair hare	hear here
know no	mail male
muscles mussels	pail pale
pain pane	role roll
sea see	soar sore
you're your	who's whose
Teacher's pet aisle I'll isle	Teacher's pet buy by bye
Teacher's Pet cents scents sense	Teacher's pet check cheque Czech
Teacher's pet I eye Aye	Teacher's pet praise prays preys

The Czech paused. The crowd stilled. He looked pale but unflustered but I noticed a slight hesitation as he bent down to the pail sitting on floor next him, and retrieved eight more oysters. He ate slowly, seemingly savouring each bite, I thought he was going to barf all over us actually. His eyes fixed on the striped blue wall in front of him and his mouth moved in a rhythm of its own. His affect was blunted with concentration, his calm demeanour as he finished had hushed the crowd with good effect. He held himself in check as he wiped his mouth and blew gently on the cheque that would change his life.

Picture Perfect ~ Extravagant

More than I need,

much more than I know what to do with

savoured and enjoyed

For just a short time

the lavishness of the extravagant

is all my body and soul

can manage

Snail Bait

I sat quietly and

watched my fountain gurgle and splutter

in the twilight of evening last night

I noticed I had friends pop over for supper

They had travelled quite far

over dale and down gutter

and supped quite liberally on my

basil and thyme

They posed for some pics

these pests of opportunia

before I gently persuaded

them both

to pop over next door

and dessert

on Harold's Pink Petunia

Acoustic Sunset

My song of the day

Reflections

'Whatcha doing?'

'just thinking..'

'so much water..so little time'

Halcyon days

Each summer my mother visits friends and family in other parts of the world, all it really costs her is an air ticket, a little bit of spending money and time spent packing her very well used suitcase on wheels. Everybody puts in their orders for her company years in advance ..its quite hilarious really, she hates to disappoint and has on occasion said yes to multiple parties, a situation which was resolved only when the one (really old) friend died peacefully in her sleep. My mother never missed a beat, just repacked her clothes for a warmer clime!

This year she is spending summer in Dorset in England with friends from our Swaziland days, the anglican minister and his wife, as their surname is Molesworth..he has been known as Holy Moley for as long as I can remember. Good people they are and the friendship goes back almost 40 years.

I drove over to Bakersfield on Friday and spent a glorious weekend with her, happily helped her tidy her garden and clean the house, decide what she should and shouldn't take and discussed old times and old friends, the one thing my mother has is an excellent memory and she tells a story like no other. We shared food and wine on the lawn in the evening and she talked and(talked) I listened... a lot.

She worries about leaving, about the blue jay eggs which haven't hatched yet, and the baby doves perched precariously on the garden shed. I reassure her that nature will take its course whether she is there or not. We fixed pool equipment, pulled heavy pot plants into the shade, washed and changed linen on all the beds as she gave me her thoughts on Obama and Clinton saying 'Im sure she is a very nice person, but..'

The next evening we found some old liqueurs in very ornate bottles, we made taco's and picnicked outside in the cool of the evening. I packed my memory full of her laughter, her wise words the smell of her, her energy refueled me.

Her flight left this morning and she called just before to say she had found baby dove feathers all over the lawn. Such is the fragility of life.

Happy holiday mum!

Lunch in Los Olivos

Today my two friends (colleagues and fellow bloggers), Rosi (on the right) and Lori, drove up from Santa Barbara to meet me for lunch at a quaint little side walk cafe called Panino's in Los Olivos. We had the most gorgeous sandwiches on whole wheat bread and baguettes with fresh herbs and salads, and topped it off with a delicious latte!! After much chatter we explored the town..

wandered down all the side streets

and found the quaintest shops and this hilarious/clever/over-the-top sculpture garden.

All made from scrap metal.

As usual I've taken far too many pictures, but included some close-ups for you all and will post the rest of the pics up in my photo album.

This is metal cactus (from Arizona I'm sure)

this is what it looks like close up

the horse is metal girls, it just wont go!!

(blond, what can I say!)

two on a horseshoe-bench..(lotsa curves in this picture!!!)

a horseshoe cemetery?

tightly packed together

and yes...sigh..we did forget where we had parked the car didn't we??

curves 3

Picture Perfect ~ Curves

P I C T U R E P E R F E C T

C u r v e s

Mercurial curves

full of grace

spilling your light at

the mercy of the ebb and flow

of seaweed

as you drift and ooze

in an ever changing

array of colour and shapes

curves of silence

In a gentle flux

pulsing, magnetic and poised

with lascivious radiance

you flicker and float

flaunting your

shimmering graceful

seemingly

elusive curves

Up Close and Personal

The Aquarium itself needs a blog of it own. It was the most magical few hours Ive ever spent anywhere, I was fascinated by the little things this time and my imagination ran wild.

The small jellyfish the tiny starfish..

the fairy-like sea anenomies.

Little fish swimming in circles. Everything seemed to have a different perspective.

The sea anenomie standing alone in a bed of seasand, seemed like palm tress set in a desert setting. The tiny fish like alien space craft.

The sand dollars

reminded of headstones in the remote cemetery of a ghost town..

A placenta.. ??

..only much much prettier....

I will post the remainder of my photo's in my photo folder in the next few days...