New musings

Well, school is underway and things are going quite well. Until the power surge yesterday that is. First I saved a computer file onto my flash drive during my Computer Graphics class. I brought it home and worked on it over the weekend in a trial version of the software. What I downloaded was 2 versions ahead of the school's so the file wouldn't open when I got there. Then, I started from scratch and was doing so much better than the first attempt. It's Corel Draw and I'm not familiar with it plus we're copying a picture of a train engine (not easy). So I take break half way through class and save my file to the desktop. I come back and start to work again and boom - there goes the power. When I finally got my computer turned back on (had to unplug it before it would cooperate), the file was gone. The school has them set up to wipe out any files not installed by them when the computer is rebooted. Oh, lucky day. So here I am with nothing and it's 20 minutes before the class ends. Thankfully, the prof. saw me working and knows what I had done. But still. :~(

Nicole is loving her college class. She's taking Music Fundamentals which teaches how to read and write sheet music. Zach is taking a class back at the mainstream school and he is loving it too. Unfortunately he has a crappy reputation and some guys caused some crap for him already but it was straightened out with the vice principal. So school is good for all of us.

My weight is slipping away. I'm under 180 pounds. I haven't been this low since my pregnancy with Zach. I'm so excited and I feel so good. I ran into friends at a fundraiser a week ago and they hadn't seen me in 8 - 10 months (i.e., before the surgery). They couldn't believe the difference. I look good. I haven't felt that I did in a long time. Life is getting better and better.

New photos

This past fall, I was signed up to do an independent study in photography of landscapes. It was to be self-directed. I found it impossible to get into the darkroom to develop film or make prints so I dropped it. I finally went to a local camera shop and dropped of 7 rolls of film to be processed that I had shot in hopes of completing the study. I picked them up this weekend. A few of the shots really blew me away. I was using two different cameras; a standard 35mm SLR by Olympus and an antique medium format camera by Yashica. The photo to the left is from the Yashica. A friend of mine has a vacation home on Mason Island which is off the coast of Mystic, CT. She walks a lot on Elder Island (which is next to Mason) at a monastic retreat. The place is absolutely beautiful. A lot of the shots I took there came out fabulous. I am really happy with the results and wish I had taken the time to work them myself. I now have 5" x 5" prints instead of 10" x 10" which I would prefer. This one is a covered patio on the grounds of the monastery. I loved the look of the table and chairs and the shading. More photos can be found at http://community.webshots.com/user/kimmer60 along with hundreds of other pictures of local areas and my artwork. I hope you have a chance to stop by.

New Year's Eve in NoHo

Nicole, Lisa, and I spent a few hours last night in Northampton for the First Night Celebration. We walked all over the place and did a lot of window shopping. At 6:15PM, the city started the fireworks display. We weren't in the best location for viewing but we got the gist of it. I took a lot of photos but with my film camera instead of my digital. When the photos are developed and if they look good, I'll post a few. It was so fun to do something out of the ordinary. I haven't been out on New Year's Eve in probably close to 20 years. We were home early but I felt like I'd celebrated a little. It felt good. Lisa loved it. She's not that familiar with Northampton so it was quite the experience for her. She's a very traditional person and Northampton is anything but (which is one of the reasons Nicole and I like it so much).

I really want to move there. Last night was like walking in Greenwich Village. The atmosphere is similar and the streets were full of people. So many of the theaters were open and having performances plus we came across numerous street performers. One group was doing a stomp dance. That was so cool. I hope those photos come out. I took pictures of a man playing a steel drum too. His music was so good. We also listened to a man with sax playing Auld Lang Syne. The air was cool but without a breeze so it was tolerable. We had a really good time. Northampton is where I want to be.

Happy New Year!

I am sitting here on New Years Day in New England without a flake of snow anywhere. It's raining, not snowing. Global warming has become really apparent to me lately. We've only had one little flurry of flakes so far. This is not normal. The temperature has been much higher than usual too. I think it's time for action. I'm trying to do what I can to reduce, reuse, and recycle. I'm driving a small car but it's gas mileage isn't what I want. Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy a new vehicle right now but when I do, I'm going for a hybrid. After watching Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth", I feel compelled to do something. If we don't, I will one day have ocean front property. Now it's not that I don't want a beach house, it's that I don't want it in Western Massachusetts. I'd hate to see Connecticut and Rhode Island wiped off the map by polar cap melting.

Speaking of other movies that raise our consciousness, I am in love with "The Secret". I've been attuned to this idea for a while now and this movie brought it home for me. I am working to be more mindful of the ideas and thoughts I allow to head out into the Universe. I like "What the Bleep Do We Know" too. I was watching that last night when I feel asleep (before midnight). The piece about Mr. Masaru Emoto's work with water crystals is amazing. I've taped a piece of paper to my Brita pitcher that says my favorite word: NAMASTE. I read an interview with him in the latest issue of Science of Mind. He talked about exposing water to that word and how beautiful the crystals were afterward. In the movie, one character says something to Marlee Matlin's about if words can do that to one crystal, imagine what it could do to the human body that is 70% (or more) water. Later after ranting at herself and saying hateful things about her own body, she remembers and then takes a makeup pencil so she can write loving things on herself and draw hearts. It was a powerful image and idea.

So my wish for the world is an awakening; awakening to the love that surrounds us and the beauty the world holds. I pray that we all remember we are ONE. With an open heart and mind, we can see past the differences and be united by the similarities. This is my one true dream for humanity.