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

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

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

nightlife is the bright life

Reminiscing tonight after seeing something on the television triggered a memory for tonight's photo response to the NaBloPoMo prompt, NIGHTLIFE.

When Jim (our middle child) was about 4 or 5 years old, we were eating dinner and talking when we noticed that Jim had gotten quiet.  We looked at him and started laughing.  He had fallen asleep in his chair, with a half eaten chicken leg still grasped in his left hand, his arm dangling at the side of the chair. As we laughed, it led to another "Jim story" from about the same time.  Steve got up before daylight one morning to find the refrigerator door standing wide open. Lying on the floor in the light cast from the open door was the red rind off a piece of bologna, an empty cheese wrapper and an empty soda can. When Steve checked on Jim, he found half a piece of bologna laying on the pillow beside his head.  He asked Jim why he had left the door to the refrigerator open. Jim's response: "because it was dark and I was afraid I couldn't see to get back to bed."

Nightlife in my house revolves around the family refrigerator.  The welcoming gleam of the interior light provides security in a darkened room, foods and treats to scavenge, and drama after a big family meal when we struggle and fight to find places to stuff all the leftovers. Then there is the unsolved mystery of the light. Is it on all the time, or only when the door opens?  Even Jim still hasn't figured that one out, 37 years later.

(Happy Birthday to my sweet Sneezer, who turned 42 on May 25.)

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

talk the walk

My sisters were walking up a flight of stone steps recently, oblivious to me watching them as they walked upward, heads together, chattering away. It was a gorgeous sunny day in California,and we had stopped at a winery. I watched them talking, noticing how the sunlight danced around them, creating a halo of light around their heads. It was a special moment for me, and I snapped them as they continued to ascend the stairway.

Today is day 28 of NaBloPoMo, and the prompt was ACTION. Although it can be portrayed many ways, I chose to use this photo of my sisters and include a haiku. The action may be more subtle, but the light, the contrast, and their movement is action in any sense of the word. How do you portray action in your photos? 

I used three apps to edit this photo. Snapseed (my #1 app), VSCO cam, and Color Cap for the text. Three more days to go in this month's challenge to blog daily. It's been uphill at times, but sometimes it helps to have a goal and routine to help deal with the unknown factors in life that pop up.

...life is full of action... ~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

upside down

Life is upside down right now, for the forseeable future. There are a few constants, but many of the things in my life I thought I could count on, have suddenly changed. So I forge ahead, finding my way, day by day.

Day 24 NaBloPoMo prompt is: UPSIDE DOWN. How fitting, and what a perfect description of my life at this moment in time. Life is never static though, and so I take a deep breath, and wait...and wait...for the change to come.



...life is what it is... ~cath
  i am @jonesbabie on twitter

friday reflection: the funniest thing I saw this week

This week, the +FridayReflections prompts offered a chance to go back to previous weeks and write about something we had not used as a prompt. Since I missed a few weeks, dealing with other things, I looked back and the prompt I wanted to write about jumped right off the page and into my head:

What was the funniest thing you saw or heard this week?

If you saw what I posted yesterday you will see a photo of a 10 year old boy smiling. If you are very observant, you will notice his tie. His mother noticed it the second she saw him from the other side of the room. Here is the story behind the tie:

Jen called me the other day to share something. I had been feeling a bit overwhelmed, dealing with one thing after another in my life. I was beginning to feel as though a day wasn't going to dawn that didn't bring some major thing to endure with it. So I was half ass listening to what Jen said at first. She told me about Awards Day at school for the twins, and their accomplishments. I was proud of the kids, no doubt about that, but still miserable in my own skin. Then she told me about Duncan. 

This year not only did they receive awards for accomplishments, the twins also graduated from elementary school to middle school. So graduation was a big thing for them. Jen told me she sent a tie, shirt and jacket with Dunc so he could dress properly for such an important occasion. She arrived from work just in time to see the ceremony.

And being a mother, she noticed it right away. Dunc, who didn't hold his bottle until 3 days before Jen weaned him off it, and didn't dress himself until he was well over 5, had dressed himself. Jacket, shirt and tie in place. Except for one thing.

The tie was INSIDE the neck of his shirt. When she saw it, Jen started laughing. Then she fought the urge to do corrective dressing and let him wear it like it was. 

I was laughing as loudly as Jen while she told me this. I could just picture it, and when I did get a picture from Jen, it was exactly as I imagined. And...the tie was RED, which meant it REALLY stood out.

A bit later I was struck by the real lesson. It wasn't the laughter, although that was medicine for my soul. It was the fact that Jen got it. She understood what was important that day. It wasn't the tie. It was the fact that Duncan, the boy with ADD who had been failing the first grade, was graduating on the A/B honor roll.

And THAT is more important than a red tie inside a shirt.

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

Today is day 23 of NaBloPoMo over at BlogHer and the prompt is OUTSIDE. I was stumped about it until we stopped at a traffic light today. Stevie Wonder said "look what is painted on the outside of that guy's truck!"  I saw it, and as we passed by I shot this photo. Little bit of editing (I couldn't be me without tweaking a photo with an app), a caption, and here is my take on the prompt (and also the funniest thing I saw besides Dunc's tie):

color, day 21 nablopomo

COLOR!

Color, color everywhere I looked today. Some shots were contrived, some spur of the moment.

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 13: bokeh

Ok, I spent more time reading about people arguing how to pronounce "bokeh" than I did learning how to shoot this style of photography. Then I realized I was running out of time so I downloaded an iPhone app and cheated my way to my version of a bokeh shot. So take it any way you like, since I've been up since 3AM and am looking at the back of my eyelids trying to post this before I doze off.

Bokeh is a photo that is partly blurry, the background part. The more circular the lights or colors in the background are, the better. I think. My photo ended up looking like a cut out pasted on a blurred background, but, oh well. I'm finished. 

Have a great day or night, and remember every day is brand new. Isn't that exciting? 

Addendum: another shot at bokeh. This is one I will have to work on...(sigh)

My sister's bougainvillea, and her photo, with my editing, using Tadaa, a great app to use...

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

close

NaBloPoMo day 11: CLOSE

alice through the looking glass.

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

three

I've always thought 2 was my lucky number, but I've come to believe it is the number 3.  My sisters and I make three, I have three children, and things often seem to happen in threes.  Which begins to make me sound superstitious, and I am not.  So I will just finish right here with the prompt for NaBloPoMo day 10: THREE.

I shot this photo after all the hubbub of today died down, and everyone was either gone home, or gone to bed, leaving me sitting here reflecting on the number three.  Then I glanced at the flowers that I had received from Wretch for Mother's Day today, and shot this photo.  I thought it fitting.  

Happy Mother's Day to my mother, and all the mothers or people who nurture and protect, guide and love other people.

...be positive...the best is yet to come... ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

day 5: my style

 NaBloPoMo day 5: my style.

be positive...this, too, shall pass.~cath

find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

the bee keeper

This is a haiku time for me...I'm funneling my life into photos and haiku verses.  Short and sweet, and shared with you all.  And so, today is a haiku for my honey, the beekeeper.

...life is good. ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

joy

Here I am, after not writing much for most of this year.  Not that I haven't had thoughts.  I've just had a busy year.  A new position at work last January (not so new now) and things happening along the way that just made me feel at times like a voyeur gawking at my own life.  But here I am, December. Almost the final hour of the year, and I decide to make a last hurrah.  Which means I probably won't have much to say this month, and will blather on about something or other to try to meet the BlogHer NaBloPoMo goal of posting every day.  (AM I CRAZY? I shout at myself inside my head....probably. I reply).

We will see.  But I am going to share a moment of my joy with you tonight.  Sunset from my front yard as I arrived home.  (Well, I was trespassing to get this shot, across the road in the neighbor's yard.  Luckily, the only dogs they have don't eat humans, just lick them to death.)

Somehow, sunsets just always quiet the turmoil in me.  Like this one tonight:

...life is good. find your joy.  ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

autumn

the air is warm 

but the first faint crispness of autumn

hits your senses

awakens the eyes, the nose, the ears

keenly you look forward 

to the change of season

and a break 

from summer's last stagnant heat

life is good -cath

find me on twitter @jonesbabie

sometimes...

...there are no words...

...life is good. ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter