Another Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone. I can't say I'll be sorry to see the last year gone. I am hoping the new one will be happier and healthier all the way around. Not to say that there haven't been good times I'm just looking forward to putting the yar behind me and making new memories and getting out and doing more things.

Here's wishing you all a very Happy New Year as well. Here is a photo of the mountains just as the sun finished setting on Christmas Day.

The Boiling Mountains

One thing I love about where I live is the mist and the fog that often becomes overwhelming. If you look hard enough you can find the beauty in it.. sometimes it just takes the extra effort of being willing to see it..

Goodmorning Sunshine

On my way to work

Some Macro Work

Been a While

Wow it has been a while. One day I might be organized enough to actually be able to stay on top of things.

Fallen Hero

I sit here watching the live funeral of a fallen Toronto Police officer, Sgt Ryan Russell. I feel a deep sense of loss for the family and it hurts my heart that we would lose someone who wants to make the world a better place.

Learning

It occurs to me that no matter how good my photos get I need to figure out how to edit them. I need to know how to perfect them and make them even better than what they are. So I now endeavor to learn the intricacies of Photoshop Elements... or at least get a basic lesson or two.

Here is one of my attempts while just messing around in the different menus seeing what it does...

I don't have much to say today but I still thought I'd log in a share a photo. I honestly don't feel like doing much of anything.
On a positive note I'll be forced to get up and go a bit because in a half hour Canada's Hockey team is playing for gold in the World Junior Hockey Championship. Something about watching Canada play hockey just forces a person to get excited and even if you never leave the house as I won't be today you still feel like part of a great nation and just a little bit happier. On that note I'll share another picture that just happens to make me feel patriotic too..

A bit of Laughter

So my son has once again proven to me that even when you feel down forcing yourself to get out and do something can help. My husband and I who like to go for walks to take pictures decided that now that my son is just about five years old we should get him a real camera for Christmas. No more Fisher Price that takes crappy pictures but a real camera that he can take decent pictures with.
So we went shopping and found a relatively decent camera that didn't cost more than I could afford to flush down the toilet the first time he decided to drop it in a puddle. He seemed underwhelmed about it and was way more excited over the Nintendo Wii Donkey Kong game he got instead but here is to hoping the value over time is more than the game.
Feeling a bit down in the dumps yesterday I forced myself to get out of the house and so I offered to take him picture taking at the "Duck Park" near where we live to try out his new camera. He got very excited and we headed out as soon as we could after rounding up socks, shoes, jackets, a visit to the bathroom and donning it all again, found some mittens and a scarf and toque (aka about an hour later haha)
I felt much better surprisingly after that.
Then today while him and I were looking at his pictures again because he wanted to show them to me he found a blurry one. He looked up at me with an unhappy look, raised one eyebrow and said "But it's blurry". I did my motherly duty and tried to reassure him, I told him that was fine with the intention of following it up with such sage advice as.. you are still learning and you'll get better as you do when he shakes his head and looks at the picture again and then at me. He tells me "No, I don't like blurry pictures. I want to delete it."
After a grin I didn't dare show I solemnly nodded and said okay, that it was up to him and that if he didn't like his picture he could delete it. And so he did.
I don't know too many not quite 5 year olds who look at pictures and critique them, nor do I know too many who are capable of not only deleting them but fixing the red eye in them without help...but that's my son. Biased I may be but I thank him for every moment of joy and cheer that he shares with me.

Mountain to Climb

Do you ever feel like you have a mountain to climb? I have.. I still do. I can see that getting up and moving and doing something would probably help me shed this listless feeling I have but I just can't seem to do it. I sit here thinking about how the sun is out and I should quickly go take advantage of it before the rainclouds come back but feel like the rainclouds hover over me just the same.
What do people think of me I wonder. Do they point and roll their eyes thinking that I am making too much of my loss? Do they empathize with me and say it's amazing how strong I manage to be. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle with a few occupants at both ends as well.
Why do I write this online? Probably because there is a comfort in being able to speak about what's happened to me with the anonymity of knowing that no one actually ever probably reads it. No one out there is worried about the ramblings of another depressed person. And yet I still feel a human connection that writing in a journal lacks for me.
Somewhere out there my two baby girls Grace and Angel who never even got a chance at life press upon my heart. I feel my failure in my ability to bring them to this gift of life that I have been given. This gift of life that so many people take for granted and never appreciate. The greatest indication of this is the waiting room full of women..myself sitting there watching, devastated yet again, watching the 18year old girl talking to her friend about how the baby she is so obviously carrying is such a problem and how the boy at the party she saw last night...the one who just got out of jail for beating up a cop.. is just sooo hot. I feel the injustice of it all. Why would a girl who is not prepared for a child and who so obviously will probably make several bad life choices in the future be capable of bringing a child into that situation so effortlessly while I struggle to do the same. I'm not wealthy, I'm not the best or most gracious person out there, I am no saint and yet I like to think that I would be a better mother than that girl. I think of all the children brought into this world by accident or carelessness and yet many out there struggle like myself so hard to bring that joy into their lives.
And this, this is the mountain I struggle to climb. I struggle to overcome my distaste and sadness with my life and to find the joy in the husband I have and my little boy who showers me with love each and every day. To find the answer on how to move forward. How to return to normal.. whatever my new normal may be.

Depressed?

I sit here wondering could it be that I'm depressed or just depressing? After the last month I've had I suppose no would blame me but I still feel a deep rooted sense of guilt for not being on the top of my game. Christmas is not the easiest season to be suffering the effects of grief.
I try to be supportive of my family but find that encouraging these relationships takes more energy than I have at this time.. I hope it gets better soon and that they can forgive my inability to interact at this time.
I used to feel like I was witty and even sometimes amusing but I find it hard to find something to laugh about.. I feel guilty feeling so horrible over what some would consider a small thing compared to the trials in their lives and yet I feel the same way about other people complaining.
I realize the irony in complaining about the hand I've been given while feeling anger and frustration when I see people complaining about their trials and tribulations which seem so minor and trifling compared to mine. Even the knowledge that it's a big deal to them doesn't make me feel any more compassionate. The last time this happened to me I remember my explosive rage..this time it seems to be more of a slow rolling boil. The anger never fully goes away.

To Learn

So I decided today that something I lack is the ability to manipulate my photographs. Most photographers before digital learned how to get it right in the camera and then how to make it POP in the darkroom. I have never developed film and so I feel sometimes I am far behind those who some people would call Old Fashioned. I wish I had their knowledge.
To attempt to correct this I decided to google (I swear one day Google will rule the world with how dependant we have all become on it) and learn just one new skill today for photoshop manipulation. I chose how to make a picture black and white. This would seem such a simple skill and yet I did not just want to take the colour away I wanted to learn the proper way to manipulate a photo to get the best black and white picture I could.
I would like to thank all the people out there that attempted to make a guide online for dummies like me but would like to point out that step by step instructions are pointless if I still don't know where to find the menu/choices/Palettes you speak about. Instead I stumbled across a website that explained how to isolate a colour.. so after two hours of hair pulling then an hour of figuring it all out.. this is what I'm left with.

Just Layin Around

I have realized today thanks to my son that perhaps I'm not setting the best example of how to be a get up and go personality. I learnt this when my little munchkin of four wise old years saw that I had gotten dressed and asked me where we were going. I asked him why he thought we were going anywhere and he looked at him like I had grown two heads and politely said.."because you got showered Mommy".
Who doesn't love a day where one can lay around in their PJ's all day and do as little as possible. I have come to realize with this little gem of truth however that perhaps in the last while that the PJ days have become more normal than the get up and get showered days. I also realize that perhaps I need to revise this normal so that it's not quite a shock to his system when I act like a normal Mommy should.
Here's a photo that's all about just laying around...

Life Goes On

It's been a few weeks since the nightmare of my life was so cruelly dragged before me yet again. After having felt sorry for myself for this amount of time and doing very little at all which led to feeling more depressed which led to wanting to do less I realized that I needed to break the cycle.. so I decided it was time to get out of the house.
I attended a Christmas party and other than one horrible instance where someone shouted out and brought the whole tables attention to a brand new baby in the restaurant that one of the girls knew, and made me want to cry, I managed to muddle through.
Today I decided to go take some photos and try to put some normal back in my life. Here is my favorite photo of the day.