Patterns all around

August Break- Day 2- Patterns

The challenge was kind of made for me and my blog, if the intent was to look around, find and photograph the world around us, that is exactly my blogs purpose, to see the beauty in the everyday.  I came across this challenge by viewing a fellow bloggers post on her anticipation for this event so I have been thinking and planning for this for several days.  Even though this just started yesterday because I was also anticipating this, it has already helped me improve my blog.  It has given me the impetus to start carrying my camera with me wherever I go once again, to post more often and to get back to experimenting with my camera.  I've also enjoying visiting new blogs of those who are also participating.

This days theme is patterns and this was easy as there are patterns everywhere both subtle and dramatic.  The first photo is of a house down the street with it's rhythmic pattern of stair steps and stone work softened by the Ivy growing on and around it.

 I did not think, with second photo, that I had anything that I would particularly like, but the more I looked at it the more I liked it.  It is more subtle than a lot of my photos and the more I looked at it the more I liked the interplay of the two distinct organic shapes against the subtle gray strips in the clapboard.  Since I liked it so much I decided to play with it some.  I brought out the colors of the leaves in the foreground and took some of the color out of the background plants to enhance the distinctly different growth patterns.  I took this even farther by placing a dark vignette around the frame, thus adding to the subtleness of the background and making the green leaves pop out.  I may tweak it a little more but so  far I really like this.

 

Due to the overcast skies these first two photos lacked stark contrast which I love capturing.  Bright sunshine and it's dark shadows provide that high contrast that I love and adds an additional dimension to my photos.  These last two photos while not taken today highlights just that kind of drama and some real design surprises if you look hard enough for them you will find yourself surrounded by them.

Enjoy

Johnina

Who wouldn't want to eat like this?

Whenever I tell anyone about my following the Paleo Diet, I can almost guarantee the question "Well if you eliminate grains, dairy, legumes; what do you eat?".  Followed by"That can't be healthy!" and/or "I could never eat like that!"  Actually I eat very well, thank you. When I concentrated on eating meat, veggies, fruits and roots I actually increased the nutrient content of my food.  I now prefer to refer to the way I eat as a nutrient dense diet.  This shows the general composition of my meals- 1/2 of my plate is veggies, either raw or cooked or a combination of the two- 1/4 of my plate is meat- and 1/4 of my plate is fruits or roots.  Although this is a rather simplified example and does not explain the principles of the Paleo Diet or nutrient dense diet; it does give you a good idea of how to start. 

This meal consisted of

1 small chicken breast coated with almond flour,salt, pepper, mexican oregano, garlic powder and parsley

   1 1/2 cups frozen broccoli, cauliflower mix sauted  with butter, salt, pepper, garlic powder

1/2 nectarine sliced

Easy, peasy- simple but nutrient dense.  It didn't take long and the plate looked great. 

This post is part of my participation in the August Break event.  It is hosted by Susannah Conway and the rules are basically take a photo every day in August to post on your blog or on the flickr page or a couple of other places that she lists on the August break link above.  She also gives suggestions for the daily photos and an e-mail with an example of that days suggestion for those of us who get stuck.  Her rules are simple and you can break any of them and still participate, my kind of event it allows for all kinds of creativity.  If I understand this right the idea behind this is for bloggers to share there creativity and photos with others, to notice the everyday photo opportunities, and to take advantage of those opportunities.  I don't know if I will be able to do

this everyday but I'm sure going to try.  My posts might be shorter than normal maybe even just my photo for the day, but try I will.  Today's photo was actually of my dinner and I had a hard time with with the lighting, so my dinner actually looked better in person, but I'm learning. Also I'm getting this in at the last minute, but improve I will.

Come and join me

Enjoy

Johnina 

Sunrise after the rain

Good morning!!!

Although this was taken several days ago and I am just now getting around to downloading it; we get a lot of sunrises here that look like this.   In Tennessee, in the summer we get a lot of rainy nights followed by breaking clouds in the morning.  This makes for beautiful sunrises.  Every time I see these beautiful sunrises, I am reminded that in order to have that kind of beauty you need both the clouds and the sun.  In our lives we often want only the sun, the bright, cheerful times but to have the beautiful colors of the sunrise you need the clouds,the darker more somber times, with the bright shining through and reflecting off of the dark.

Now this is completely off that subject but, I've been thinking that since I love blogging so much that I would like to introduce you to some of my favorite blogs and websites.  I've already introduced you to Written Inc and today I am going to introduce you to www.srossi.net.  I met Max and started following his blog through writteninc. and found his posts delightful.  He is a school teacher who lives in Utah.  He is a dedicated teacher whose posts and photos I enjoy.  He quite often posts about his students and his somewhat creative teaching style. When I read his blog I can tell that he loves his students and the profession he has chosen.  I enjoy these but what I like most about his blog is his capture of the flavor of living in Utah.  He shows his love for Utah and it's people in his blog using lot of wonderful photos.  I've lived in Utah a couple of times in my life and miss the uniqueness of living there from the mountains to the people.  Last week he did 3 posts on living in Utah and these made me rather nostalgic.  Sigh and sigh again. 

 I've been thinking about doing this once a week.  I am very visual and can't seem to do a post without pictures and since I have no idea how to get illustrations that are appropriate for the blogs I review; I think I will be doing some of my photos, a couple of thoughts that they invoke in me, then a review.  Even though I do a blog and edit photos it doesn't mean I am tech savvy and so until someone rescues me.....

Hope you

Enjoy

Johnina 

    

If they could only stay little....

Thematic Photographic #302  Temporary

This post was kind of prompted by the Thematic Photographic and the theme for the week 'Temporary'.  It is a post I have been thinking about for a little while now anyway.
 Since I have been spending so much time with my adult daughter and my grandsons I have also been pondering on how fast life goes by and how little time we have with these precious souls when they are young and innocent.  Having raised 6 kids with a 16 year gap from first to last; I spent a LOT of years with small children in the house, but looking back on it now, it seems to be such a short time.  Even the 20+ years with teenagers in the house seems a short time.  Now time flies with the grandchildren.  Every year when I come back I see how much my grandsons have grown.  I regret that I have not been able to spend as much time with the other grandkids.
 Everywhere I go and I tell people that I spend my summer with my daughter and help her with her kids; their first reply is usually "Isn't it so nice to spend so much time with your grandchildren?" or something similar.  I have to say that it is also wonderful and a rare privilege to be able to get to know my daughter on a day to day basis as a grown adult. If they live close most grandmas may help with the grandkids but,  I believe it is kind of rare for them to pack up, move and stay for months and this makes for a totally different experience.
I have been confronted head on with both the good and the bad that I did as a parent.  I knew that parenting traits were passed on from generation to generation because when my kids were young and having sworn I would never raise my kids like my parents raised me, I still found myself saying

 "How did my mother get in my mouth?".  Living with Laura and watching her with her boys I get a much different perspective on my parenting, a lot more regrets but also a lot more joy in the kids that I raised and their accomplishments.  I'm kind of surprised with how much as people up here get to know me, they can, if they are smart and observant, get to understand and know Laura better.

There is one rule that none of the kids or grandchildren were not able to obey and that was their Daddy's and Grandpa's admonition to stay little.  Oh why, oh why?  Well the why is because they need to grow into their own person that we only see as they mature.  Those same sweet souls that we started with can if both sides work at it develop into sweet adult relationships.

I now know that I need to cherish these times with my kids and grandchildren because each stage of life is temporary and precious and we only get one chance to enjoy and savor these moments.

Enjoy

them while you can

Johnina

Thematic Photographic #301 -Dirty

Dirty

One of my favorite sites that I used to visit and participate in is Carmi's writteninc. Now that I am back in the blogging world it is one of my first visits.  He gives out a photo theme for the week and any of his readers can take photos and do a post on the theme and then leave a link to that post in his comment section.  It is delightful to see what other bloggers do with his theme.  No prize just sharing among bloggers which is so much better.  I like getting to know my fellow bloggers and the exchange of interpretations and ideas is fun.  This exchange is what draws me to blogging and keeps me coming back.

The top photo was actually taken for a contest on MyShutterspace.com (which at the moment is having problems).  This particular photo contest had the theme of minimalism and since I didn't really understand the theme, I just took lots of photos and guessed.  The top photo did not qualify as the dirt kept it from having clean lines (no pun intended, of course), one of the qualities of a minimalist photo. 

However, I did like the photo of the dirty vents so I decided to play around with them and came up with a couple of fun pieces of abstract art.  Still did not qualify for the contest, but it came in handy here.

If you would like to check out how others have interpreted this theme click here. 

Enjoy

Johnina

See the beauty

 I named my blog young-eclectic-encounters because I have many different interests and experiences to share.  Although I do tend to be easily bored and have a little ADHD you will find that there will be common threads throughout my posts.  As I mentioned in my last post I have been working on improving my health and have found this to be a fascinating subject, so there will be lots of these.  I am also a lover of good books, as I have learned much from them, both lessons from life and information to improve my life.  Most of what you will see is my artistic strivings.  I draw, paint, art journal, quilt, design my own clothes, but my first love is photography so you will be seeing lots of photos.

My description for my blog is "See the beauty- a survivors art journal" more than anything else learning photography has made me really look around to find the beauty that surrounds me.  It has kept my spirits high, fought off depression and generally kept my life hopeful and moving forward.  The photo above is a good example of seeing the beauty around me.  I saw these beautiful roses on trip just out running errands.  I enjoyed them then and am enjoying them now having captured their beauty with my camera.  But, guess where I found them?  They were part of the drive-thru at Burger King. 

How much do we miss of this beautiful world when we go about our daily lives?  Did this person in the car even notice the roses? Think about this over the next week, notice, share you observations in the comments or write a blog post about the beauty that surrounds us and share it in the comments, too.  One other thing I have found is that when we share the beauty of this world with others we help to make this world a more welcoming place and we humans much more cheerful.  So join me and encounter this world it's many beauties and pass the word.

Enjoy

Johnina

Changing my life

My world now.

The reason that I have been gone from blogging is I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can spend time with my grandchildren and get back into the world.

When I was last blogging on a regular basis (Winter 2011), I was also very incapacitated due to multiple health issues.  I was mostly sitting with the remote in my hand watching TV or with the computer on my lap, blogging.  I am so glad to have had my blog and all the internet friends that I developed.  It kept me sane and connected to the outside world.
I think I have gotten enough of my health back to attempt to rejoin the blogging world, which I enjoyed very much.

Enjoy

Johnina