taking a breath of life

Friday Reflections' prompt gave me something to think about this weekend. The prompt that caught my attention was this one:

Give us some advice on how to de-stress at the end of a bad day or week?

At first I wondered how I would give anyone advice on this prompt.  This past year has been so stressful for me that there were days I didn't know if I could find the energy to do ordinary tasks, much less deal with work and what was going on with the rest of my life.

But as it all spiraled out of control, I knew that if I was going to survive, I needed to deal with the stress. One day I stopped, took a deep breath and remembered how I had dealt with high stress times in the past. And so the advice I give comes from the lesson I learned then. It was actually a self taught lesson, a compilation of things I have learned over the years, and the way I survive times in my life when I feel as though I might explode from overload.

I see my life as a plate. Literally. I close my eyes and see what is going on in the here and now as a plate full of stuff. I don't see food, I see the words representing what is stressing me. For instance, if I have a deadline at work, I see a piece of paper with the name of the project on it. If I have several projects going, each one is on that plate. If I have someone in the family with something serious going on, I see them too. (The year my daughter Jen had multiple throat cancer surgeries, she was sitting on the plate, in a hospital gown.) This past year, my husband's pacemaker was on that plate, my cancer was on the plate, the dog bite I got on January 1, 2016 was there, and so was my mum's illness and death. Full plate huh? You bet it was.

In the past, when my plate got too full, I started taking things off the plate to relieve the stress. I quit a job that almost caused me to burn out as a nurse, and several other things too. The problem with this past year is that there was nothing I could remove from the plate. Absolutely nothing. I couldn't run from breast cancer, or the huge bite on my face that got infected. I couldn't run the day Steve nearly died because his pacemaker failed. And I couldn't stop my mum from dying. My plate was as full as it could get, with no room left for anything else. 

When that happens in my life, and it has happened in the past, then I use mental imagery to escape.  I fix a cup of tea, picture a favorite place I have been, remember something good that has happened in my life, and I go there for a little while. I have mastered the ability to be in a place physically, but be thousands of miles away in my mind. I actually discovered this when I was a child, and would live inside the books I read. It takes practice, but I can actually feel my muscles begin to relax, and my breathing softens and deepens. Relaxation. Life. De-stressing in the moment. 

Yoga is another way to accomplish this same thing for me. It is one of the best practices for releasing stress. I recommend it, because yoga has made such a tremendous impact on my life.

Taking care of yourself includes managing the stress in your life. Too often we spend all our days filling them with things to do, tasks for ourselves and others that takes up all our time and energy. And like a fuel tank on a car, eventually that tank goes empty. You have to make the time to refuel so that you can manage that busy life you live. A balanced life is a happy one. For me it is anyway.

And even with all that has happened since last April, I have found my happy spot again. That doesn't mean every day is easy and not stressful. It just means I have regained my coping skills again. 

Found my happy spot. I encourage you to find yours.

...stop, take a breath of life... ~cath

i am @jonesbabie on twitter

the lesson of the shawl

When my mother recently died, my sisters and I had to sort through her things. It wasn't a conscious "ok now it's time to go through Mom's stuff" sort of a decision. There wasn't much to go through.

Years ago mother decided the best way to make it easy on us when the time came was to get rid of as much stuff as she could. She was moving into my sister Vicky's house and was downsizing anyway, so we had a big cleaning out for her, and divided up what meant to us then, sorting and passing stuff to our kids. Mom was happy it was taken care of.

That meant that when she died, all she had left was what was in the room she occupied at Vicky's. So there was no huge task of sorting things out. That had been done and dusted a few years before.

What the task of going through mom's things became for us was a trip down memory lane. Especially her jewelry. Mom didn't have expensive jewelry. She had never believed in spending a lot of money on it. So what she had was a collection of good and not so good costume jewelry. Some of it was so tarnished we couldn't tell what it was. But as we sorted through it, we talked about where the pieces came from, who had given it to her, and what she wore it for, if we could remember.

We laid things out on her single bed, walked away when it became an emotional overload, and then one by one over the week and a half I was there, I noticed we would drift quietly into the room, touch her things, and sort through our own memories. That was how I discovered the shawl.

It was under some things mom had crocheted, and as soon as I saw it I recognized it. It was made by my grandmother many years ago for my mom. Grandma had a special tool called a daisy maker, and she had made the daisies then crocheted them together.

I pulled the shawl from the drawer slowly and wrapped it around my shoulders.  As I looked at myself in the mirror on mom's dresser, it seemed almost as though I was looking at mom. I closed my eyes and could almost feel her presence there with me, and I felt a calmness wrap itself around me like the shawl had.

The truth of life is that no matter what you do or say there is never enough time.  Letting go of the anxiety and fear of my own mortality was the lesson I learned that day.

I miss you Mary, more than I ever thought I would.

...life... ~cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

Writing prompt for Friday Reflections:
Tell us about something you have in your home that has been handed down to you. Describe it, take a photo, and tell us the history and meaning of this item.

YOLO

January 1, 2016

I've never been so glad to see a year end. Today is just one day away from one of the most trying years of my life. Realistically I know this year could (and I say could instead of will because I'm an optimist) have challenges ahead for me. Bumps in the road of life as I call them. 

Right now, in this moment, the road is flat. A calm spot. And I'm sucking up every second of that calm. 

Life is an adventure, ultimately. Some people face adversity with an attitude of fatalistic gloom and doom. But if you see things negatively, it's easy to lose the ability to laugh. If you can't laugh, your soul withers. 

I choose to laugh. Every day I will find something to laugh at. I choose adventure. 

I choose...LIFE. 

...and I wouldn't mind getting into that size 10 top in my closet, calling my name. That's optimism too, isn't it?

the starry night

One night last week, I found myself lying on a lounge chair under the stars, with my youngest daughter Deborah lying beside me on another lounger.

It had been a difficult week for both of us. I had been to the radiation oncologist and was one step closer to getting my boob barbecued.

Deborah's week had been equally difficult.  Life has been sending her curves for a while now, and every time she gets a foothold and feels as though she is beginning to move forward, something knocks her down.  This time the something was enough to make her feel hopeless for a bit, before she righted herself and decided to plunge forward.

So there we were, watching the Perseid meteor shower on the peak night in August when they were shooting across the sky leaving long trails, talking about a lot of different things.  It brought to mind a favorite song about one of my favorite artists and that song ran through my mind while we lay there star gazing.

The talking included a couple glasses of wine, so that may explain why our conversation ambled along about these subjects:

Nocturnal cow mooing.  We thought it was a romantic time of the month for cows, and the meteors were putting them in the mood.  One cow in particular bawled her way across the pasture from where we sat, mooing loudly from one end to the other.  Occasionally another couple of cows would chime in.

Tiger chuffing.  Not to be mistaken with roaring.  Deb said it was a sign of her lack of a social life, that the last thing she searched for on her iPhone was tiger chuffing.  It was replaced by cow mooing, which is when we discovered it wasn't cow sex going on, but one cow trying to find the herd.  Which totally burst our romantic notion about cows.  I was irritated at this point by the cow screaming across the road, so I.....

Stirred the cows up with my iPhone flashlight.  I know, totally mean of me, and I paid for it by being flogged by a million bugs rushing at the light and up my nose, in my eyes and ears, and...well you get the idea.  Deb also was eaten alive while Googling cow mooing.

Our California road trip.  Possibly the best road trip of our lives.  While we reminisced about the trip, we also talked about our own insignificance in the scheme of the universe, watching the sky light up with orange meteors shooting past in the sky overhead.  Then things deteriorated again when we decided to move our lounge chairs to face the house because it seemed like the meteors were coming from there.  That was when....

I peed my pants trying to get up off the lounge chair to move it.  I hadn't been to yoga in a couple months due to recouping from surgeries, so my abdominal muscles were jello, and so were my legs, which led to the above.  After we got settled down, we realized that the meteors were actually more visible in the direction we had just turned from, and somehow I made it up off the lounge, then Deb said something, I laughed, and peed my pants again. Just a little.   At that point, we started to laugh and talked about....

Estrogen levels and how they affect homicidal behavior.  I had just been taken off all estrogen, given a tablet to block my body absorbing any estrogen it might try to produce on its own, and told that the pill would probably give me hot flashes.  By a doctor who was smiling so kindly at me when he said it that I thought seriously about slapping him.  Just for a second.  Which means this ain't gonna be good, if I felt like that while I had estrogen still floating around.  About this time a leaf blew off the tree and hit Deb's shoulder, and she screamed loudly.  Which made a cow start mooing again and made us....

Laugh at shadows, more bugs, and leaves.  About that time we were sipping the last of our wine, and didn't notice Steve slip out and say something in his booming deep voice.  I jumped and screamed and so did Deb.  I thought a cow had gotten loose, circled around behind us and was about to charge us.  I invited Steve to join us, but he said no, he was going back to bed, which caused me to wonder out loud why the *#&$ he had bothered coming out at all.  Except I knew why.

He wanted to make me scream and pee my pants.

Because he is evil that way.

Thanks Deb, my Wretched Daughter, for being there to watch stars with me.  Let's do it again kiddo. Same time, next year.

(This post is in response to two prompts on Friday Reflections, how I deal with anxiety, and reflecting on my favorite song.  Somehow, this week, they were both tied together.) 

...life is good. ~cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

jump back

dahlia, watercolor, pen & ink

I think I had something really good to say.  But, like so many thoughts lately, it left.  When your brain gets too busy, it tends to do that you know.  Lose things.  Thoughts.  Gone.  As someone once said: if you can't remember it, then it wasn't important.

I have a renewed interest in art lately and spend much of my time there, drawing, painting, and photographing things that catch my eye or mind.  It takes less brain effort for me to do that.  It is my comfort zone.  Where I have spent most of my life.  Especially a good spot when thinking takes too much effort.

But I am jumping back in.  Life has a way of cycling like that.  You're in, you're out, then back in again.

Along the way I have been making decisions.  There is too much online that is distracting to me. I am going to be trimming my life, weeding out what I don't really love, and I mean LOVE, doing online. No more saying yes when I don't want to do something.  I have been stretched too thin, and find that when I dabble in too much shit, I end up creating shit. So I will do what I feel most passionate about.

The first thing I have done is separate my Instagram accounts.  My @jonesbabie Instagram will be the everyday shots of my life, stuff that is don't spur of the moment.  For my art, @cathyjonest will be the account I use.  I decided it is time to dig deeper into what I am capable of and want to do.

So there it is.

Come along if you like.  Because I found out yesterday I am going to be around.

don't hit that sun!

PS...here is something fun for you iPhone users...an app called Prune...a simple game with no rules...you just prune trees...yes there is a point and you can lose your trees, but no mad dash to win, no hyperagitated tensed up feeling...just....relaxation...a truly minimalist zen game...

...life is good. ~cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

just face it

Two prompts for the Friday Reflection for June 10, 2015 caught my eye. Prompt #1 was a quote by Lauren Bacall, who said "I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that." At my age and with my experience in life, writing about my face would be easy peasy. A bit too easy. So I decided to add another prompt into the mix and combine them for a twist on the Friday prompt.

Prompt #2 was look through my photographs and choose one to write about. This is the photo I chose:

That was me about 4 weeks ago, on the morning of my first surgery for breast cancer.  I say first, because I found out that a second surgery was needed a couple weeks after the first one, and that was not an easy prospect to face. In this photo, I was positive, and just ready to move forward. Who doesn't want to get past something like breast cancer and move forward?  Being positive was easier with that first surgery. The second surgery was more difficult, because negative thoughts began to creep in and take over my brain.

It was hard to overcome those negative thoughts. I am not a negative person by nature, and won't whine and bitch about what was going through my mind. I won't give a lot of advice about the experience either. There have been tons of articles written about breast cancer and survival, etc. Sooner or later I will write a more personal post about my experience, so that maybe someone else who is diagnosed with breast cancer and starts combing the internet for information, will come across my little post and have a few questions answered.  But that time isn't now. I am not ready to dig that deep into my thoughts.

So I will focus on the photo of me.  Sans makeup, it shows me smiling, which is something I do most of the time. I have had a mostly good life, a magical life, with just a few life bumps along the way. Until this year, when I seem to be traveling a mostly bumpy road. Since January I have had to deal with things that are new and difficult for me to comprehend and work through. I have gotten past some, and some are still happening. I've decided that the best thing to do to get through a year like this year is to just take one day, one step at a time. To look forward too far is to sabotage where I am right now. And to look backward with regret is a waste of energy, because nothing will change, and again, it sabotages where my life is in the present. It prevents me from working through what I am dealing with at this moment in time.

So I will drag out my copy of A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle one more time, and thumb through it, and regain some insight into my mood and way of thinking, which lately has been self defeating. I will do this because I am that positive person my dad had a big influence on. I have that strength in me, waiting to be tapped into. I will do it because I am a get it done type of person, and not possessed of a victim mentality. 

I will continue to depend on my family, reconnect with old friends, make new friends, stay connected with my sisters (who were the first best friends I ever had), and find joy through my art and photography. I will tap into the strength inside me to overcome and deal with anything and everything, and it will show in my face.

My face, my eyes. An open window to my soul. 

...life isn't always good, but it is always real... cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

imagine

Photography is an extension of every thought that I have. - Trent Parke

I love social media.  Where else can you have conversations with people who fire your own imagination to new heights through an ongoing exchange of fresh ideas and innovations?  For years I have watched people online who brought their own thoughts to life through their art, and by sharing their work inspired me to areas of thought I would never have experienced without the exposure to social media.  This has been what has driven and influenced my own work.  I am passionate about art in all its forms.  The one thing that makes being human unique is the ability to experience and enjoy creativity in forms too numerous to mention.

As a child I got that exposure through books, then movies and television.  With the advent of the computer age, there has been a veritable explosion of sharing, at a speed that is mind boggling.  I can't say mind overload is unique to social media and computers, because even as a young child I would read so much so fast that my eyes would go blurry.  The main difference between past and present is that I am now more keenly aware that there is no way to experience it all.  For someone who loves to see and do new things, this has created anxiety and sadness at times, the fear that I will miss something, the knowing that I do miss so many things.

But juxtaposed against the anxiety and sadness at what I can't see or do, is the joy I find in everything that I get to ex[experience and learn.  The joy greatly outweighs the negative emotions, and keeps me pushing myself to use my imagination.  The joy that has led me to try to capture my life and thoughts, to share with others, but most especially for my family to have.  I find a lot of comfort in the thought that someday my grandchildren, and their children, will be able to see what I saw, and know me through what I have done.  That is my hope.

It is why I write my thoughts, and put what I see and think on canvas and in photos. It is an extension of me.

Just my thoughts....

...imagine life is good, and it will be... ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

tunnel vision

Been looking at this tunnel for months now.  This year hasn't been the best, but I really can't gripe much, because it could be worse.  Yes, things can get worse.  I've had those years too.  It's been a while since I felt like pieces of the sky were falling, and hitting my head, but this year has taught me that it is time to bring out the safety helmet before the next piece of sky whacks me.

I don't mean to sound negative, and I am sure that there are plenty of oh woe is me blogs out there, and I am really not that type of person.  Mostly I've been numb and just not dwelling on this cancer in my breast.  I am good at avoiding stuff. When things get tough, I have a knack for just not thinking about a problem if there is nothing I can do about it. I have to say, this problem has given me pause though. Time to think about where my life is, where I want it to go, and things I haven't done that I want to do.  We all think about things that way sometimes, right?  I mean, I know I can't be the only person who has felt these things.

I feel like I have kind of skipped all those stages of grief that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about, and just went straight to numb. As numb as the armpit and shoulder where the lymph node was removed.  I'm glad for small things, like finding out this cancer has a 94%ish cure rate, and that the lymph node was negative.  It almost makes me feel ashamed for feeling this numbness.  But it is there, and I can't make it go away, so I am focusing now on the light at the end of the tunnel.  And allowing myself to be numb for the moment.  Thinking as I watch the clock tick away and the hours go by until this next surgery later this morning to remove the cancer cells that were missed, and that the tissue biopsy revealed.

So I look at Goliath and wonder what it will be like to have a breast with a crater in it, dread being put to sleep and the loss of control over my own body, dread the discomfort and pain afterward because I am so effing ready to be well again, and not this recovering surgery patient.  I want my effing life back, things back to normal.  I have SHIT TO DO.

So, hurry up sunrise, and let's get this show on the road.  I have a life to live.

the light at the end of the tunnel

 My parting shot is a favorite Pink song, that exactly fits my mood right now...(alert, explicit language)...

Is there anything in life BETTER than rock and roll????  

 ...life is good, dammit, so raise your glass!!... ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

ambulance chasing

June 26, 2015 was an important day for Stevie Wonder. Due for the first checkup since nearly dying in April when his pacemaker had to be replaced after an epic failure to pace his heart (read about it here), he was understandably nervous because he had developed atrial fibrillation after the new pacemaker was placed in his chest.  His recovery from the second surgery was a bit rough compared to the first time.  I tried to reassure him that he was doing ok, and just had to give himself time to heal.  He was a bit whiny about the whole thing in my opinion, but I think that was because my patience was thin from dealing with my own breast cancer and surgery, which was taking place almost simultaneously to what Steve was enduring.

The twins were staying with us for a few days, so they went with us to the clinic. We were going to wait for Gramps to get all his tests finished, then go eat a late breakfast. We left at the crack of dawn for an hour long drive to the clinic. Duncan used the seat belt as a hammock for his head so he could sleep.

Duncan in a head sling

As we walked into the clinic (it was attached to the main hospital), I was explaining to Maddie what an echocardiogram was and the way I watched Gramps heart beating on the monitor when he was in ICU, before his pacemaker was put in. Her response to what I felt was a brilliant description was: "Disgusting!".

the long wait

 As we sat waiting, we talked, and I played a few games of checkers with the kids. Time passed...one hour, then two. As we began our third hour of waiting the kids were about to mutiny from hunger and thirst.  So I took them to another part of the clinic to get some juice and a snack.  As I was digging money out of my purse to buy juice for the kids, Maddie (who was standing near the hall) uttered the fateful words: "There goes Gramps".

I figured she meant he had walked past and was headed to the waiting room looking for us.  I said as much, and that was when she lowered the boom: "No, he wasn't walking, he was on one of those rolling tables."

"WHAT?" I said.
"He was on a rolling table Grammy."
At this point I looked a little panicky because I was caught between putting a $1 bill in a machine for a snack for Maddie, and taking off after the gurney. Maddie made my mind up quickly when she said: "I don't need a snack Grammy!"
So we took off down the hall. The hall took several turns, like a snake. Maddie had run ahead to scout Steve's location as I brought the rear up with a still sluggish Duncan. She would get to one turn, I would shout at her "CAN YOU SEE HIM?", she would shout back "YES I CAN", and then we would advance to the next bend in the hall.

In my mind the whole time was that SW had collapsed during the stress test, and they had come looking for me to tell me they were transporting him to wherever they needed to go to fix him, and couldn't find me because I WAS BUYING EFFING SNACKS FOR STARVING GRANDKIDS.

After what felt like a mile of scouting, reporting and running, I ran out of steam as I made it to the last bend and saw the end of the gurney and a nurse waaaaaaaaaaaay down the hall just going out of sight. I decided we would go back to the waiting room and wait until someone found us and told us the bad news.

So we sat there, they split Duncan's honeybun and drank their juice and I fidgeted like I had ants in my pants. About an hour later, Steve walked in the door of the waiting room.

bubba gramps

WALKED.  I jumped up and almost shouted at him "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?"
He looked at me like I had lost my mind and said "yes".
I said "did you go by on a gurney about an hour ago?"
"No" he said.

Then it hit me.

I had been chasing a stranger down the halls of the hospital. I asked Maddie how she knew it was Gramps on the gurney. She said: "because he had white hair and was wearing a mask like Gramps does when he is sleeping."  Steve saw my face and knew something was up, so I had no choice but to tell him what had happened.

He started laughing.

He was still laughing 4 hours later every time someone called to check on him and he got to tell the story again.

an anticlimactic end to the morning, at Waffle House

I thought I had finally lived it down until Steve said a few hours later:

I would have loved to see what happened if you'd caught that gurney and saw you'd been chasing a stranger down the hall.

Steam started coming out of my ears at this point.

I am now the victim of another Steve story, which grows with "embellishments" every time he tells it.


...life is like chasing gurneys, you never know where you are going or what lies ahead. ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

rubberband man

Two weeks ago I opened my closet door, searching for the lightest material I could find. It had to be light as gossamer, and not add one ounce to the scale when I stepped up at the doctor's office. I knew jeans would add at least a pound of fake weight, so I dug through sweaters, tops, pants, jeans, searching...searching...beginning to feel desperate.

Then I saw it. Tucked back out of sight, never worn because it had always been too clingy. Too revealing of bulges and bumps I didn't want on display. The dress. Just a simple navy, scoop neck knit. You ladies know the type of dress I am talking about. I twisted my lips as I wondered if I could get into it. Then I lifted it off the hanger and my decision was made.

It weighed about 2 ounces. Perfect. If I could just squeeze my ass into it. I went to ask Wretch if she had a slip I could borrow. It had been so long since I wore a dress that I didn't own a slip. Wretched Daughter handed me a slip as she uttered the fateful words:

"It's a slimming slip."

That should have clued me. The key word was slimming.  I didn't have time to think it through so I grabbed the slip and headed to the shower to get ready for work. That is when the fun began. I learned some valuable lessons as I struggled to get this piece of spandex hell on:

1. Never put on anything spandex while your skin is still damp from a shower. It sticks like glue and refuses to budge.
2. Never use lotion before putting on spandex for reason #1.
3. Never EVER put it on over your head.  STEP into it.
4. Once you have put it on over your head, you are trapped.

It was nice and soft and stretchy when I was holding it in my hand. Once I got it over my head and under my armpits, it turned into a boa constrictor. It rolled up firmly under my armpits, and refused to budge. I couldn't reach it to pull it over my head, and I couldn't unroll it to pull it down.

I was stuck. At that point, I got a bit panicky, and started to sweat like a pig. Which made the boa constrict tighter. It began to feel like I would die, and end up with a rubber band buried up in my armpits.

I pulled from the front. Then realized I was pulling the bottom of the slip out over the top and it couldn't roll down. Not even one inch. I tried to unroll it from underneath, but it decided that it wasn't going to budge that way either. I tried to reach behind my back and pull it down from there.  Nope. I tried to pull the whole nightmare of a slip off over my head. Nope. By then my body was swelling from having the blood flow constricted, and it was buried even deeper into my flesh, if that was possible.

I was running out of time and made one last effort. I grabbed the front of the slip and yanked on it like I was pulling down a shade. It hesitated, then suddenly unfolded. I rolled it down my thighs, and then stopped to catch my breath.

Suddenly it felt pretty good. Or maybe it was that I could breathe again. I slid my dress over my head and looked down. Bumps, bulges and odd spots all under control. It really was a miracle slip. Wretch cautioned me that it wouldn't remold me (dang it) but that it would smooth me.  It sure did. I felt like a tire with a new tread. Today was going to be great, I could just feel it.

I drove to work. When I got out of my car, I realized that the rubberband slip was going to let me know all day who the boss was.

Because every time I sat down all day, the backside of the slip slid up and cupped my behind. I spent the entire day feeling like my ass was in a sling.

All that effort to save 6 ounces on the scale at the doctor's office.

The dress went in the garbage when I got home that night. The slip is still embedded in my skin.


...you're bound to lose control when the rubberband starts to jam... ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

sex, drugs, and rock & roll

#Friday Reflection prompt: Reflect on how it's important to make the most out of life.

Several weeks ago Wretch noticed the Steve Miller Band was going to be performing  in concert  in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in June. I told her to book three tickets and we would drag Stevie Wonder along to it. We'd missed the Magic City Art Connection and Corks and Chefs on April 26 because SW decided to break his pacemaker that weekend. We gave away three tickets so that Wretch and I could spend the weekend watching SW lie in a hospital bed in ICU waiting for a new ticker on Monday.

At the end of May, after a couple months of testing and retesting with mammograms, ultrasound and needle biopsy, I got the verdict. Breast cancer, caught early, and was told the recommendation. Surgery (lumpectomy), radiation, and oral medication for a few years. Not a problem. I was ready.

Then it hit me.

The concert I had waited patiently for was in a couple weeks.

Oh hell no, I thought to myself. I am not missing this concert, or dodging elbows with a boob that is in a sling. I talked to the surgeon, and although my oldest daughter wasn't keen on it (neither was middle sister when she found out later on), Wretch understood where my brain and heart were. With the music. The surgeon assured us I that I would not drop dead if I put my surgery off for 3 weeks.

So I did.

Sunday my ass was sitting in a pool of sweat in a plastic stadium seat heated to oven temps by the 90F setting sun at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater. I sipped a glass of red wine in a plastic cup, groped SW a bit, and enjoyed some of the best music from the 70's played by a couple of great bands, now old farts like me. (Steve Miller is 71.)

And damn, they can still play.

Some things just get better with age.

...rockin the good life... ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

make it snappy

Truth is stranger than fiction. It's a fact that I am blind as a bat without my glasses. I wear contact lenses.  There is a small period of  time when I remove my contacts, and before I put my glasses on my face, when I am blind and lack depth perception.

Tonight I took my contact lenses out. I reached into the cabinet, got out my glasses in their case. What happened next is what caused the chain of events below.
I opened my eyeglass case upside down.

My eyeglasses fell out, headed for the ceramic tile floor (brand new glasses by the way).

I grabbed at the glasses with my left hand to catch them before they fell to the floor and got scratched (only you eyeglass wearers can appreciate my panic).

As I grabbed with my left hand at my glasses, I reflexively closed my right hand.

Eyeglass case in my right hand (spring loaded closure) snapped shut with a loud crack.

On my right nipple.

I screamed and yanked.

I'm still afraid to open the glass case. 

I think my nipple may be inside.


...make life snappy... ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

my best photo

Today is the last day of May and the last day of May NaBloPoMo. Thirty one days ago I started this daily blog prompt centered around photos. One reason I joined the blog prompt over at BlogHer was that I had not been writing much for an extended period of time, for personal reasons. My focus was elsewhere, and I couldn't seem to focus on writing, photography, drawing or painting.

Today's NaBloPoMo prompt is: your best photo. I thought about that one for several days now. It is hard to pick out my best photo. I thought about all the photos I had taken that I felt demonstrated an increase in my skill as a photographer. Then I thought about what is important for me to share with my photographs, and the answer came to me.

Plain and simple, I think the most important thing I can convey as a photographer is emotion, or the story I am trying to tell. I chose this photo to share. It was shot quickly, not the technically best photo I have ever taken, but I see it now, and I feel strong emotion wash over me. It is a photo of my daughter holding my granddaughter's face in her hand. In Maddie's eyes I see pure love. And I know, because I took that photo, that the love in Maddie's eyes is mirrored in her mommy's eyes, and felt through the touch of her hand.

Total devotion and love of a child for her mother, and a mother for her child. Unplanned and blurry, this may be the best photo I have ever taken. It is certainly one of the most important moments in my life. Captured now, forever. That is the magic of photography.

Life, lived moment by moment, photo by photo. Shared. Experienced.

My best photo.

...life, lived, is your best photo... ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

still life

Day 26 of NaBloPoMo prompt uses the theme STILL LIFE. When you use your camera to shoot still life, it can include any inanimate, or nonliving object. Still life is one of my favorite subjects, but I also like shots that include a message, whether it is implied, or stated straight out and in your face.

Today has been an "in your face kind of day" after a long, lazy three day weekend. So I skimmed a few hundred photos, and my eyes were caught by this photo. There are so many people who cause me to smile in my life. Smiling and laughter are the best kind of medicine for whatever might ail you. Today I am sharing this, for all the people in my life who make me smile.

...thank you, for making me smile. ~cath
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

to maggie

Maggie was about one year old when she came into my sister and brother-in-law's lives.  She was beautiful, and well cared for, with toenails painted pink.  Someone loved her, and Vicky and Donnie spent weeks trying to find the owner, and never could. So Maggie became part of their family.

day 19: vintage treasures

Seems a good night to sit back and think about family, memories and smile as I look at the photos I took for today's prompt over at NaBloPoMo.

contrast, day 18

I look at each day's blog prompt at NaBloPoMo and wonder if I can find something suitable.  Today it is contrast.

day 17: surreal

NaBloPoMo's photo prompt for today is surreal. Day 17 and I am still going strong.

far...day 12

NaBloPoMo day 12: FAR

Don't focus on what is in front of your eyes...look afar. See what lies in the distance. Is it the bend in the road, the railing end on a fence? Chase it as far as you can see.

My eyesight is so poor that many times I am shooting almost blind. I can see major objects, but detail escapes me until I edit. Many times I edit with my glasses off and my face one inch from the screen, so that I can try to see all the details. But I chose to leave these captures a bit out of focus, to capture the essence of distance. The road leads to my home, the fence is a neighbor's fence. The more photos I take, the more I realize there is no place like home. Really.

...life is full of new places to explore... ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

nablopomo day 8: focus

keep your eyes on the prize, cat.