one of those days. inspired by life april 2018

I told Joshua we could go spend a couple of hours at the beach. We are fortunate to live in a place where an hours drive will take you the most beautiful beaches in America. It’s still a little chilly for me to be hanging out in a bathing suit, but Joshua was all for it!

And then he surprised me. He asked me if he could bring his paints and a canvas and paint a landscape while we were at the beach. Well of course I said yes!! Now just so you know, this was his first attempt to paint on site. And he didn’t take in to account how glaringly bright our beach is with the white sand. So for a while he had his towel over his head painting. It was so fun to watch. While he got his art on, I took my camera and got mine on.

It was one of those days….

we had to find the perfect spot. so we sat down sightly behind this dune so he “could have some interesting views.”

in his element.

“mom I don’t have enough paints.”

bathroom break.

after finishing his painting, joshua wanted to go explore fort pickens. we used to bring the boys quite frequently but since they are older we haven’t been as much. i think he has missed it.

brought my new lens baby so, of course, I had to experiment a little with this new lens.

it gets dark in the tunnels.

the landscape is so different around the fort.

the wildflowers were everywhere.

i’m thinking he had a great day.

I think we all need one of those days. Find yours. You’ll create memories for a lifetime.

❤️ Brandi

This blog is part of Inspired by Life Blog circle. It is filled with wonderfully talented photographers from different parts of the world. Please follow the circle and see what has Inspired our artists this month. Next up is my friend Melissa. Please check out her blog here. See ya’ll next month!

 

understanding: artist inspired blog circle May 2017 – purple

Enjoy the spring. There are colors everywhere. Today I found purple.

 

 

 

The Artists Inspired Blog Circle is made up of an exceptionally talented group of photographers from all walks of life, from all over the world. They are wives, mothers, friends, daughters and visual storytellers who draw from their own experiences to create art that is inspiring, unique, beautiful and thought-provoking.

This blog is part of that circle. It is meant to share other artists. Please follow our circle by clicking here to see how Sharleen interpreted purple. You won’t be disappointed!!

the gold season: artist inspired blog circle september 2016-Gold

I dislike September. If something bad is going to happen, it always seems to happen in September. Green Day had it right when they sang “Wake me up when September ends.”

Besides September 11th, there have been many things in my own life that have given me this sense of sitting on tenterhooks waiting for the next disaster. My grandfather, the most enigmatic man I’ve ever known, passed away September 15th, the day before Hurricane Ivan slammed into Pensacola (my hometown). Unfortunately, it took a while to find out where his body had been taken after the storm, much less get a funeral together. My family had to arrange our own flowers for his casket. With power out in the city we couldn’t use fresh flowers. So, we bought silk flowers in Jacksonville. I still have one in a shadow box. I should have know he would have gone out with a bang. Nothing was ever simple with that man.

Several years later, my husband’s grandfather passed in September. His death wasn’t as dramatic, but the impact was felt as severely. I miss his jokes and inappropriate humor. I seemed to have been the only one in which he would share that particular characteristic.

Enough about me. It’s not really what I wanted to talk about. I just finished reading a wonderful book, The Butterfly and the Violin, by Kristy Cambron. Part of the book takes place during WWII. And it got me to thinking, as any good book should do.

When I was a child I did a social study project on Auschwitz, and during this project I interviewed two survivors of this horrible place. It was one of those moments that changes the way you view the world and the people that inhabit this place. It can be shocking to realize the evil that exists. I’ve always “known” that evil exists. You cannot grow up Catholic and not know. Even the church accepts it. However, true evil, the evil that infects so easily and breaks down every barrier without hardship is completely and utterly terrifying. Oh, and guess when little ole Hitler marched into Poland? September 1, 1939. Evil and terror, such as he created, is incomprehensible to me. Was he even human?

How do you survive such unholy terror? It tries to destroy everything that makes you human. But that’s the thing, being human. Our will to survive is simply amazing. But even more fantastic is the ability of the human spirit to see and create beauty and love in even the most dire of circumstances. And I believe the reason we can is because of God. He is there to help us see and feel it. We just have to let Him.

I wonder sometimes if those moments are special because they are so simple.

Do you think the people held prisoner in the “work” camps could even see a sunset? Or did the ashes from the crematoriums block out the sun? Could God’s golden sun break through, for even just a moment?

 

Was the silence of snow on golden leaves precious? Or did it feel like doom knowing that winter was ready to bleach out the color?

How in God’s name did they do it? How did they keep their soul from wasting away behind barbed wire?

To put it simply, I don’t know how they did it. I’m just glad that they did.

I wonder what their first sunrise was like after their liberation? Do they remember it or was it just enough to know that they would be seeing another one?

 

I told my husband today that if anything like that ever happened again I hoped that I would be as courageous as the survivors, or as honorable as the people that helped to hide them or assisted in their escape. Not because I want to be important, but because I want to be the person that God wants me to be.

As for September, well, I suppose there has to be a low before the high. Maybe I’ll use this month to look for the simple beauty in watching the heat dissipate and the clear air reveal all the wonders of the gold season.

The Artists Inspired Blog Circle is made up of an exceptionally talented group of photographers from all walks of life, from all over the world. They are wives, mothers, friends, daughters and visual storytellers who draw from their own experiences to create art that is inspiring, unique, beautiful and thought-provoking.

This blog post is part of that blog circle. It is meant to share other artists. Please follow our circle by clicking here. I hope you enjoy Kathy’s interpretation of Gold.