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

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

nablopomo photo day 14 and 15

the road from home, early morning

It's been a busy, overwhelming kind of week, so I combined the NaBloPoMo photography prompts sun flare (day 14) and black and white (day 15). A picture is worth a thousand words, the saying goes. So these should be good for about 4,000, on a day when I feel more comfortable with a photo than a written word.

Have a good weekend.  Look at the sky and feel the ground beneath your feet. 

my office, early morning sun flare

approaching storm at sundown

view from my office, early morning fog

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

remembering Thom

consciousness approaches slowly.

as the morning light approaches the sky,

she breathes softly next to me.

the birds awaken and greet the dawn...

she rolls into my side, hiding her head under my shoulder,

remaining locked in Morpheus' arms.

I lie quietly, listening to the cadence of her breathing

remembering the moments of her life

since she first entered mine.

I first wrote that on April 22, 2011.  My first tentative foray into poetry (which I have definitely not mastered) brought a kind comment from Thom Brown, and gave me the courage to keep writing poetry, mostly in the form of haiku.

I don't think Thom realized the impact he had on me.  We belonged to a diverse blogging group, people from around the world brought together by our love of sharing the written word.  Thom and I also shared a love of photography, and even though he wrote about his neglected left arm quite openly, he never let it prevent him from doing most anything he wanted to, such as photography.  He asked my opinion about cameras one time when he was looking at purchasing a model that would produce higher definition images, and I gave him what little knowledge I had on the subject, flattered that he had asked an amateur like me anything at all about camera specs.

I enjoyed Thom's blog in the almost 3 years I knew him.  He was a prolific writer, with a variety of topics on his blog, as well as lovely photographs of his tree, made into a wonderful video from the almost daily photos he took from his office, in every season.  You can see this tree in all its glory, through several phases, by clicking here.  It captured my artist's heart when I discovered it while visiting Thom's blog after his lovely comment on that fateful April day in 2011.  He often made me smile with his posts, or shed a tear or few.  He had that way with words.  They stuck in my mind, and lodged in my heart.  His pride in and love for his grandson was another thing we had in common.  I loved every post, every word and picture about the Mighty Finn, because I have felt those same emotions and lived similar moments with my own grandchildren.

Thom died at his home on February 9, 2014, surrounded by his loved ones.  I don't think I told him often enough how much his friendship, and those lovely comments he often made, meant to me on a personal level. But somehow, I think he knows.

I invite you to visit his blog To Gyre and Gambol, and soak up his wit and wisdom.  Thom finished many blog posts with the words "I am a fortunate man".

I am the fortunate one.  Thank you Thom.

(I'll miss those Sunday jokes.)

...life, often bittersweet, is still good. ~cath
  find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

yada yada yada

This month we are prompted to write posts that relate to love for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month for those of you who don't understand the acronym).  I guess they thought that writing about love in the month that Valentine's Day falls would be an easier prompt to follow.

Except that as usual, I march to the beat of my own drum, which means I haven't followed a single prompt all month, but written and shared things that are important to me, or that hit me funny.

I kept up through days of surgery for Stevie Wonder and also for me...took photos and wrote haiku poetry. I got to a point in time that I became smug...announcing to Steve that I was going to MAKE IT through this month!

Until I got to tonight.  No ideas.  Fatigue so overwhelming that I am having trouble putting two sentences together that make any sense at all.  And I feared that tonight would be the night I failed.

Then I decided to write about just that.  This isn't award winning material I write after all, it is just a record for my children and grandchildren to have after I am gone that is part of me, so they can read it, understand me a bit better, and enjoy sharing my memories.

So for you, my family, I write about a typical day for me, a Friday on this twenty second day of March, 2013.  The day your mom and grammy decided to take the bull by the horns and write about her near defeat.

Near defeat because I made it through another day, but there are six more days to go in the month.

Just remember I love you all...(I added that to keep sort of on target with the theme for the month.)

And another photoless day today...because I am bereft of ideas to shoot. :D

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