Bridges Between - December 2008

RuneE is sponsoring this monthly challenge on the first Monday of every month. Bridges Between is subject to open interpretation.


We have this wonderful bell tower in our downtown Esther Short Park. It rings the bells automatically three times a day -- 9:00 AM, 12:00 noon and 3:00 PM.

It not only rings the bells -- but tells the story through means of a recording of the local Chinook Indians and the salmon runs before Vancouver became an incorporated city.

The doors open and a recording begins the story.
The picture rotates and another scene is displayed until the whole story is completed.
There are three scenes.

Then the doors begin to close. . .

The story is finished until the next scheduled time.

It is good to remember our city's roots and the importance that the Chinook Indians played when white men first settled here. Thus my "bridges between" this month. The Chinook Indians were a valuable resource to our city's founders and early settlers from many nations.
(Because of the bright sunshine that day, I had to take the photos at an angle.)

Blog Your Blessings Sunday

If you care to join us acknowledging our blessings go here: Blue Panther

I made this bulletin board for our church hallway because I felt it appropriate for this season. CLICK on to enlarge and read the words. . .

Sunday is the first day of Advent, a time of preparation for Jesus' birthday that we celebrate on Christmas. By reading and studying my Bible, I am enlightened more daily. Jesus is known as the LIGHT of the world. We are indeed blessed to know of the love of Jesus for us. Thus, as Advent begins, I celebrate the blessing of Jesus' birth that we are preparing our hearts for during this coming month. Happy birthday, Jesus. Just as Jesus gave us the gift (Life in eternity) I try to reach out to someone that is more needy than myself. This year, I chose two children's name from our Giving Tree. I got a big sack full of arts and crafts for the 7 year old and had so much fun deciding which items would bring a little joy to her life. I am still hunting for the perfect baby doll for the 4 year old. Maybe my next shopping trip will be the one where I find it.

Making Christmas wreaths

Each year, some of us ladies from my church gather greens and make our own Christmas wreaths. One of the guys from our church has a huge lot he owns next door to his home and it has many pine and cedar trees. He lets us trim trees for our project. We haul the greens back to church and then get busy wiring the cut pieces to a round wire frame. Sometimes we just add a bow and sometimes we put on ornaments or pine cones or holly, etc.

This time, I got a friend to make the bow for the one I gave away
but I couldn't get my snowflake ribbon to work and gave up on using it this time. I finally made a simple red velvet bow and added small ornaments. It looks okay and I am glad to have something for my apartment door since it is inside the building.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!

I am thankful to have internet friends whose blogs and comments give a lift to my day. Please click on to read my message on photo.

Trying Scrapblog again with more snow themes. . .

This is a new scrapblog I made here




I know it takes awhile to upload the scrapblog but if you are patient you can see three more winter theme pages and three new poems also. Of course, you can always go directly there with the link at the top of page and see how scrapin' makes my photos interesting. I am learning to add more features now also. Click on the arrows of the scrapblog to see all three pages.

The first page poems and photos:

Snow Blanket

As far as my eyes could see,
God had covered the earth
with white snow.

For me -- pure joy!





The second page poem and photos:

Winter Coats

Although they don their winter coats now,
it won't be long
before the garments of winter are shed
and summer activities
transform fishing piers, flowering bushes and swimming sprinkler benches
Enjoy God's white treasure now like it is the last!




The third page poem and photos:

Winter Wonders

Snow capped posts line up like penguins
marching to the North Pole.
A blanket of snowflakes covers the bench
where
I'd paused to rest in the warmth of summers past.
Evergreen branches are frosted with snow
like sugar cookies at Christmastime.
With views like these ,we don't need to wonder why
God said, "Let there be snow upon the earth."

Paper clothes

I know awhile back, they tried to sell us disposable clothes but this paper skirt has gone too far. Are times really that bad? I know the price of a daily newspaper went up 50 cents recently so maybe this outfit isn't as cheap as I thought. . . OOPS took another look at the original photos and it is sheet music that was torn from an old music book. The name of the store is Urban Eccentric. . .

Blog Your Blessings Sunday --Internet friends

If you care to join us acknowledging our blessings go here: Blue Panther

My interent friend, Jenny McB, told me about this SCRAPBLOG site. For some time now, Sandy Carlson has inspited me to write my own poetry but I never tried until this week when I had this new forum to use both photography and words called poetry. These two people are my blessing this week because now I have a way to show off my special photos and try my hand with poetry. Thank you Jenny for sharing this site url with me and to Sandy for inspiring me to try my hand at poetry that doesn't have to rhyme. I hope I can learn to use the widgets better to make my scrapblog pages even more appealing.

my scrapblog



White Fashions

Leaves disappear
when Autumn shows
its face.


Nothing remains
but bare branches


UNTIL


Snowflakes
dress each twig
with
a new outfit.

Well, I guess I did something wrong to link the scrapbook photo page graphic here but you can see it by clicking on the link. I am still new at this but you can see some in the previous posts below also. I have included the poem and photo here, exclusive of the scrapblog for those who don't want to take the time to go see it with scrapblogs "touches" there.

Happy Thanksgiving on Thursday to all my American internet friends!

Heading Home

Heading Home



Heading Home


White skies

falling everywhere,

blanketing all

in perfect motion.



Beauty covers all

and waits

patiently

for

the laughter of

children at play.



As they bid adieu

and return home

to warm themselves,

memories linger

waiting

to become

fireside stories

for another generation

St. Helens Roar

The Day Mt. St. Helens Roared

Majestic
Fire
Beauty
Power

Rumble, rumble.

Roar of warning
Danger
Kaboom!!!!!

Destruction
Miles of gray filled skies
Dust souviners everywhere

Calm
Wonder
Hope for future?

God will provide.

An experiment

Well, it worked but it is hard to read my poems on a tiny background that doesn't enlarge or to see them on the shaded background since they are written in black. I guess I will try something else. Click on "scrapblog" if you want to start your own album there.

CLICK on the photos below to see them better. . .



Favorites


Snow . . .

Water . . .

Both I love.

Both in one -

A gift!




Beauty


Is the sunset, that stirs up the clouds, more beautiful

than

the river beneath?

Not to me . . .

They compliment each other when together

But their individual beauty reveals itself

When the other is absent.

Simple beauty. . .

"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. "
Franz Kafka
The colors of autumn warm my soul. If I didn't have a digital camera, I doubt I would have taken this photo. I am glad I did! It is even more colorful if you CLICK on it to enlarge.

Blog Your Blessings Sunday

If you care to join us acknowledging our blessings go here: Blue Panther


This week a smile was my blessing. I found them everywhere! Pumpkin smiles,(enlarge the photo to see all the smiles) people smiles and the smile I felt in my heart as I worked on a quilt for a neighbor who is in the hospital because her kidneys are shutting down. I hope it will bring her a smile too!

When I get it finished late tonight, I will add a photo of the quilt at the bottom here. I plan to take it to her in the hospital tomorrow after church. Well, this photos is a little later in coming than I planned but it is finally here. I draped it over a chair and turned a corner so you could see the mauve backing. It fits a single bed. On my way to deliver it today.

"November" flower . . .Osteospermum

Walking back from the Kiggins House re-model today, I discovered these flowers still blooming. They are natural art at its finest! If someone knows the name for them, please let me know. You definitely want to click on this one to see how pretty it is!

Thanks to the person who left a comment with no name, I have the name of this gorgeous flower.

Experimenting . . .

Don't understand why Blogger makes my photos so small when the originals look so much bigger. . . so just trying something. . .

Full Moon -- New Try

I read Kathy's idea about balancing her camera on a fence post and went outside about 10:00 PM and took a few more shots.

First I experimented by taking these without a "tripod" and thought they were unusual. I liked the clouds around the third one and the rings around the first two even tho they aren't great photos.



I couldn't find a "fence post" in my area and all the signs were too high. A lot of clouds had "moved in" and the moon was coming towards me -- or so it seemed because earlier it was down the block and now it was overhead. . .

Then, I walked to the corner and found the perfect "in a pinch -- tripod!" It was a cluster of mailboxes at a federal building!!!!!!!!!! Each photo I took with my elbow braced on the mailbox came out so much clearer and different! CLICK on to enlarge if you choose.














Anyway, I tried again. . .

Full Moon Tonight

The other night, I took some photos of the moon that was not quite full but neat looking anyway. I looked on the community calendar and it said FULL MOON tonight so I went hunting for it at dusk because we had a clear blue sky (dry) day today after yesterday's torrent of rain. I couldn't see it anywhere! What a big disappointment. I knew clouds had not moved in to cover it up and I was looking to the east. . .WELL, I didn't give up, I went out a half hour later and was rewarded with the biggest moon I ever saw!





When I downloaded the photos, I was a bit disappointed because it was just a BIG white circle in the sky. No detail, like earlier before it was full. IT was a huge moon tho. One of the photos had a mist surrounding it and another had a more solid circular area. . . I did manage to get some new shots of it tonight but think I was happier with the photos from the other day with the size/closeness of the moon in person. CLICK on to make bigger for details.