… by the video bug. Which is no surprise to anyone who knows my history. I mean the first kiss ever shared by my husband and I long before we were husband and wife is captured on video and that is how we got together. I was lugging around a huge camera, directing scenes and capturing it all and he was kind enough to rub my back and wrap me in warmth after hours of standing freezing in the night air to get the scene. I abandoned it all years ago in favour of the still image but lately, i’ve been bitten by the bug and I think I like it.

This oh so adorable video conjurs up such lovely magic, fun and watching it makes me feel the romantic joy of summer sun and bubble smiles,

This is a fairy tale winding its way into my heart and honestly makes me want to abandon all my projects and sketch out storylines and attempt to create my own beauty,

My Favourite Things from kidswithcrayons on Vimeo.

(thanks vivienne)

I recently acquired a Canon 5d, Mark II and it shoots video and I have all these great lenses so I really do have a toolkit ready to go but its going to take some time for me to clear the learning curve to really do what I want to do. That makes me excited and I suspect I will be sharing a lot more snippets of video over the summer. So much so that I couldn’t resist creating a bonus video response in the form of a long photograph for last Sunday’s The Four.

I really do love feeling that excitement when you start doing something new, even when that something new is an old love, it still feels new and beautiful and fun and exciting. I am giving myself permission to share it all here, to make things that don’t work, to get messy, to have fun and to just play and see what happens. I love that.

peace.

pssst. do you wanna know a secret? yes? okay. i love my freckles!! because they only come out to play when i have spent time in the sun and there is not much i love more than to spend time out in the sun.

pssst. do you wanna know another secret? yes? okay. i love teaching!! love it love it love it as much as i love spending time out in the sun. gosh, i guess that is probably why i spent years and years teaching everything from swimming to poetry and why i loved every bit of time i spent working on my education degree.

pssst. do you wanna know a not so secret secret? yes? okay. i am teaching in February at one of the be present retreats.

In Liz’s words,

“We will gather in the beautiful small beachside town of Manzanita, Oregon to explore the theme of light and shadow, experience community, dive into play with paint and words and cameras, and give ourselves permission to be present while in a nurturing, meditative environment.

Workshops include:
discover light (play in the shadows)
with Misty Mawn

create light (honor the shadows)
with me!! :-)

breathe in light (dance in the shadows)
with Liz Lamoreux

find out the details and registration information … here.

I think it is going to be an absolute fabulous time and I am super excited not only to teach but also to enjoy our time together. I am also looking forward to experiencing the soulfullness of Liz and to learn how to make a beautiful journal and play with paint and collage with Misty because I have one of her journals and it is sooooo beautiful and I would love to learn to make my own to fill with poetry and photos.

(mosaic credits: journal by misty, photos on left by me, photo on lower right by liz)

the smell of baked bread
bright yellow swirl
flowered house dresses
hanging
the whites in the glowing sun
i captured all
that light
in translucent blue
and remembered the tart
taste of blueberries
freshly picked and held tight
in mason jars

the way your
soft hands stained
from love
hugged me tight
and i remembered
joy.

… i am thinking about doing self portraits again. Its been awhile. I’ve been working really hard, and find myself starting to lose all that weight gain from years ago and I haven’t really wanted to talk about it or how its going but I thought it might be time.

Last Winter, I decided to just forgot about it and embrace the me that I am now (or rather was then) so I went out and bought new beautiful clothes that fit instead of hiding behind the same dark things all the while lamenting the bins of beautiful clothing hidden away in bins in the basement. Being pregnant with twins, bed rest and then grief (did i mention the grief weight was almost double what the pregnancy and bed rest weight gain was?) all culminated in a body I didn’t recognize as my own. But I embraced it and I quit trying to diet and that was that. I turned forty and realized that my metabolism had changed to the point that I seemed to just continue gaining weight. I went to the doctor only to discover that I was whistle bell clean and healthy and was told that the only reason I needed to lose weight was for vanity reasons.

hmmmm. vanity reasons. damn it all, apparently i am vain now on top of everything else. (i say with just a touch of sarcasm). oh and wait, peri-menopausal but sputter sputter, i’m only forty (tee hee ~ i said only forty!! ONLY). so good luck losing weight chickie. okay then. embrace embrace embrace.

So back in February when I chugged up a flight of stairs red faced and gasping for breath because the escalator at the subway station was broken, I realized … weight aside, I really did need to get into shape. So I started doing the deep water aquafit at the local pool once or twice a week and that felt really really good. I started going more and more and then I started swimming laps and that felt so good. Then like a lunatic, I started a running program and oh my goodness did that ever feel good and then back to yoga and biking and a weight training progam and I ran a 5k race and I’m going to do another one and then a 10k and next spring a triathlon. I have goals people. And I feel really really strong and healthy and I can race up stairs and its all quite amazing.

which brings me to the weight. I’m losing!! It wasn’t my intention back in February, maybe I was scared to think about it but I’m losing. At first it was just inches as I felt muscle underneath my skin and my clothes started fitting differently and then I went down a size. A whole size!! I remember tentatively stepping on a scale and seeing .. no change. um. okay. whatever. move along. nothing to see here.

But now. The scale is inching slowly down. wow. I still have a long way to go and I want to stress that I am not dieting, I refuse to diet ever again but I am finding myself eating more healthy than I have in a long time and eating smaller portions not because I am trying but just because it seems to be my body’s way of coping with all the crazy exercise. My body is craving the healthy but its not adverse to splurging on a summer cheesecake now and again, hee hee.

I am enjoying watching my body change and I am enjoying clothing again in a way that I haven’t in a long time. Its hard to find clothes when you are a certain size but that is changing and I am finding all kinds of fun clothes that fit again. So, I might indulge myself in some self portraiture again. Because its fun and its summer and we all need a little fun in our lives.