Very often we miss the beauty of the simple basic elements around us because we are too busy to stop, examine and look beyond the obvious. There is a fascinating underworld to be discovered when photographing refraction and I am amazed at its endless beauty. Experimenting with sunlight, water and glass, nothing prepared me for the dramatic and mysterious abstract results!
I really should have seen this coming! After weeks of waiting, I got approved to exhibit and sell at the Imperial Farmers Market at the old sugar mill in Sugarland, TX. The email arrived Monday afternoon and this week is going by in a blur.
The Farmers Market originally started late last year as a market for farmers in the surrounding areas of Texas. It was such a success that they are keeping it open all year and expanding the vendors to include arts and crafts. SCORE!
So I now have four craft markets booked where I will be selling seedlings of the Black Pearl and Calico Chili Peppers, seed packets and the best of the water refraction photography.
Tell everyone you know to visit MyTerraTree on Saturday morning, Imperial Farmers Market from 9.00 am to 1.00pm. Seeya there!
Most people aren't up at three in the morning, let alone delving into the ins and outs of photographing water droplets. I figure if I'm going to be up at that time of the night, it had better be worth it. Twelve hours later I seem to have made some significant inroads into figuring out how these pics are taken. Lots of fun!
It's about two weeks since my first chili plant post. As you will see from the pics, things are coming along just fine. As this is a quick update I'll let the photos do the talking. The seed packs have gone onto the market this week. It seems like we are going have an early spring - so all those chili heads with green thumbs need to start getting busy! Visit www.myterratree.etsy.com for more information. Thanks to everyone for your support!
This morning I received the Irena Sendler email which is circulating the world. I am not sure where this email started out or who the original author was. I must be honest and say that I always go to urganlegends.com or snopes.com to verify authenticity and this one does seem to check out. It's a story of a woman who had true courage, put the fate of others before herself and single-handedly lead the operation which rescued 2,500 babies from the ghettos and chambers in Germany during WWII. She was a caring person who leant credence to the words "service to humanity is the best work of life". I always marvel at such people. For people like Irena Sendler it was probably never an option to do nothing. I would think she simply put one foot in front of the other and went with her heart. She died in 2008 in Poland and even though she moved mountains during her lifetime she was humble about her achievements right to the end. The stories of fact and fiction are endless when it comes to what happened in Germany and it's become a little faded with time but this is a story of inspiration rather than desperation. Truly remarkable ......
Here is the story:
Irena Sendler, Lifeline to Young Jews, Is Dead at 98Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Irena Sendler, a Roman Catholic who created a network of rescuers in Poland who smuggled about 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto in World War II, some of them in coffins, died Monday in Warsaw. She was 98.
The death was confirmed by Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, an organization that supports rescuers of Holocaust victims.
Mrs. Sendler was head of the children’s bureau of Zegota, an underground organization set up to save Jews after the Nazis invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Soon after the invasion, approximately 450,000 Jews, about 30 percent of Warsaw’s population, were crammed into a tiny section of the city and barricaded behind seven-foot-high walls.
On April 19, 1943, the Nazis began what they expected would be a rapid liquidation of the ghetto. It took them more than a month to quell the Warsaw ghetto uprising. By then, only about 55,000 Jews were still alive; most of them were sent to death camps.
Also by then, however, Mrs. Sendler’s group of about 30 volunteers, mostly women, had managed to slip hundreds of infants, young children and teenagers to safety.
“She was the inspiration and the prime mover for the whole network that saved those 2,500 Jewish children,” Debórah Dwork, the Rose professor of Holocaust history at Clark University in Massachusetts, said Monday. Professor Dwork, the author of “Children With a Star” (Yale University Press, 1991), said about 400 children had been directly smuggled out by Mrs. Sendler.
Elzbieta Ficowska, a baby in 1942, was one of them. “Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come,” Ms. Ficowska told The Associated Press last year.
There were several ruses by which the children were saved. Mrs. Sendler was a social worker for the city, with a pass that allowed her to enter the ghetto. “The Jews were all disease carriers, as far as the Nazis were concerned,” Professor Dwork said. “They put up quarantine signs throughout the ghetto.” Forgeries of the government pass allowed other members of Zegota to enter the ghetto as well. They went in day after day to persuade Jewish parents to let them rescue children.
The most common escape route, Professor Dwork said, was through the Warsaw Municipal Law Courts, which abutted the ghetto.
“There were underground corridors that had entrances on the ghetto side,” she said. “The Polish police were bribed to allow the traffic. Parents were told to dress the children as well as possible, certainly without wearing a star.”
For a time, the ghetto’s boundaries extended to the Jewish cemetery. “Some children were placed in coffins, their mouths taped, or they were sedated so they wouldn’t cry,” said Ms. Stahl, of the Jewish foundation. “Other children were smuggled out in potato sacks.”
Sometimes an ambulance wagon, with a driver accompanied by a dog, took children through the gates. “Children were under the floorboard,” Ms. Stahl said. “The barking dog would drown out a child’s cries.”
A church straddled the ghetto border. “Children would be taken into the church, go into the confessional, and come out with papers as a little Catholic,” Ms. Stahl said. They would be taken to a Christian home, a convent or an orphanage.
In a letter last year to the Polish Senate after her country finally honored her efforts, Mrs. Sendler wrote, “Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory.”
In 1965, Mrs. Sendler became one of the first of the so-called righteous gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Poland’s Communist leaders did not allow her to travel to Israel; she was presented the award in 1983.
Irena Krzyzanowska was born in Otwock, in what is now Poland, on Feb. 15, 1910. Her father was a physician. Her marriage to Mieczyslaw Sendler ended in divorce after World War II. Her second husband, Stefan Zgrzembski, died before her. She is survived by her daughter, Janka, and a granddaughter.
Mrs. Sendler once told Ms. Stahl that she wanted to write a book about the bravery of Jewish mothers.
“She said,” Ms. Stahl recalled, “ ‘Here I am, a stranger, asking them to place their child in my care. They ask if I can guarantee their safety. I have to answer no. Sometimes they would give me their child. Other times they would say come back. I would come back a few days later and the family had already been deported.’ ”
I'm not sure why I always end up reflecting on life on high days and holidays but today is Valentines Day and once again I'm questioning the whole darned Valentine deal. And it is a deal - a very big deal - for some people. It's a big deal for those caught up in it and I think it's a bigger deal for those who aren't.
So, for those already gazing bug-eyed at their roses - I'm happy for you. For those who aren't and won't - it's time to take stock and look at what society has thrust on us. I could go into a whole diatribe about how we swallow everything the media and shops throw at us for Valentines hook, line and sinker - but we know where this is going - so I'm going to get to the point.
On this day, why does our happiness and sense of self-esteem hinge on hopefully receiving flowers, a card, chocolates (never a good idea for me), cute cuddly bears, etc, etc, etc? I would rather take a step back and take a wide-angle view of things. The whole ritual of Valentines places pressure on everyone. Our happiness and self-esteem does not revolve around what the media and retail stores dictate. We should rather spend these days feeling good about how we measure up by our own standards. It's a much better yardstick. Don't know about you but I would rather take a look at who I am, how I treat people, what I am trying to accomplish and where I am on that road.
Of course it's always nice to let your nearest and dearest know that you love them - but last I checked, you didn't have to drop a wad of notes to do it!
There are some things in modern life that are more than cool - they almost are too much to digest. You know that Google and Wiki are friends of mine. One friend I have not yet mentioned is a close cousin of Google named Earth! Google Earth is the very, very best thing on (actually off) this planet! Following on my blog about the Easter Island Heads yesterday, I thought I would take a voyeuristic peak at the island, itself.
Well, guess what I found?!? There - in all their glory - and clearly visible via satellite image are some of the statues. This type of thing simply blows me away! There are some days when I hate my dependence on my computer and all it represents but there are other days (such as today) when I wouldn't swap it for the world.
One of the most important things about the internet is that we can sit in our homes and LEARN so much. A very dear friend on Facebook posted the fact that the Easter Island heads had bodies -
a somewhat strange and intriguing statement! So I went to my friend Google to see what was so unusual about anyone having a body ............. What I found is truly remarkable.
Easter Island is a blip on the radar of the universe - a small island in the Pacific Ocean and yet it bears evidence of yet another footprint in history. Here's what my other friend Wiki says:
Moaii/ˈmoʊ.aɪ/, or mo‘ai, are monolithic human figures carved from rock on the ChileanPolynesian island of Easter Island between the years 1250 and 1500.[1] Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads three-fifths the size of their bodies. The moai are chiefly the living faces (aringa ora) of deified ancestors (aringa ora ata tepuna).[2] The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island, but most would be cast down during later conflicts between clans.
The production and transportation of the 887 statues[3] are considered remarkable creative and physical feats.[4] The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was almost 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighed 82 tons;[5] the heaviest erected was a shorter but squatter moai at Ahu Tongariki, weighing 86 tons; and one unfinished sculpture, if completed, would have been approximately 21 metres (69 ft) tall with a weight of about 270 tons.
Stop right there! Lets try to bring a dose of reality to the situation. Here's a tribe or clan living in the middle of a very large expanse of water maybe 700 years ago. How did they get there? Where did they come from? What did they eat? They must have liked seafood, I would think. And they must have been strong. These statues are carved out of rock and were partially buried under the ground. Where did they get their tools? Did they carve using sharpened rocks? However the inhabitants of this island went about their business, they achieved something remarkable. They left behind something noteworthy that enriches our lives. These statues are around 30 feet high and what we find on Easter Island represents commitment and perseverance beyond anything I can think of.
One last thing - on close scrutiny and by deduction, this must have been the work of men because I don't see any skirts or dresses. Ah! Some things don't change!
There are none of MY photos on the walls of this spa. Other than that this spa looks pretty fly. Kudo's to HKS Inc in Dallas TX for this great rendering and article.
Top 10 Design Tips to Dazzle Your Guests: The Spa
February 2, 2012
An outstanding spa experience can help set a hotel or resort apart from its competition. From a design perspective, the spa presents an architect with an opportunity to get creative. From an ownership point of view, it is an integral profit center. Great spa design must be beautifully pristine, yet highly functional – imagine spa employees floating like butterflies in rarified air, creating a guest experience deluged in relaxation and rejuvenation – the ultimate escape.
The piece is the seventh installment of 10 published in Hospitality Design's HD Talks blog. The spa design blog is written by Ray Neal, Steve Doyle and Luciano Mazza with HKS Hill Glazier Studio. Read more at: http://www.hdtalks.com./
HKS Hill Glazier Studio specializes in the design of hotels and resorts including sophisticated urban hotels, unique destination resorts, world-class golf clubhouses and luxurious spas. With hospitality construction underway on five continents, HKS’s hospitality practice is ranked as one of the top in the nation and the world, according to BD World Architecture, Hotel Business and Hospitality Architecture + Design. Over the past two decades, the firm has designed projects in 41 countries garnering numerous awards and coverage in national and international publications. For more information, visit www.hksinc.com.
Don't know about what you think but I think that stories of child abuse at school seem to be on the increase. Almost every week some new, shockingly perverted situation is revealed.
I don't condone physical punishment in schools at all, although I grew up where boys were caned whilst bending over in the principals office and girls had to hold out there hands to be stung by a ruler, this latest incident at Miramonte Elementary School is disgusting and goes far beyond punishment. Words fail me when I visualize children having to endure live cockroaches or spoonsful of semen whilst blindfolded and silenced with tape over their mouths. What sick, perverted, filthy swine would do this?
These children are in elementary school! They are young and innocent, keen to learn and at the start of their academic lives. Mark Berndt should have recognized the privilege that it is to lay the foundations in his student's lives. Instead he used these children to cater to his misguided internal needs and used them as props over which he could salivate and flagellate at night .....................Ugggghhhhhhhhh!
If it is true that child molesters have the worst lives in prison, I say, bring it on. This man is the scum of the earth.
Whilst I am fascinated with the refraction pics I do, I must say there are some unbelievably good photographers out there. One is Matt Bell who clearly has more talent that any one person should have!
Through his photos you can see that he just gets the female psyche. I find his photos amazingly beautiful. Here's a sample of his work. Visit him on www.mattbellphoto.blogspot.com.
This blog goes out to all women who walk as a form of exercise. Personally, I rack up a good many miles each year and there is no doubt that a couple of miles a day does wonders for the body and mind.
However, there is one real problem ............ there just doesn't seem to be really nice sports clothing around. Let me explain where I am coming from. All the stores that stock sporting clothes have racks and racks of great sportsgear that will look fabulous if you are between 20 and 40 years old and have a great bod. However, not all of us look like we just stepped off the front cover of Runners World - which is probably why we walk anyway and I don't want to wear sweats or lycra sports bras and baggy shorts. I want to know how others handle this issue. Don't you think it's time that we had more attractive options available to us? Maybe a skirt or walking dress. Something practical, comfortable, easy to wear, flattering and hides the odd bulge here and there!
