These photos may not interest a lot of people since they’re just family vacation pics, nothing very artsy, but I wanted to get them posted so that my family (who are now all safely back in Missouri) can get to see them without having to wait a few weeks for me to get them on a CD and into the mail. I took about 950 photos and my hubby took about 450 but I promise I’m not uploading all of them!

We leave for Texas tomorrow afternoon so have a great weekend everyone!

DanaPoint/Boat excursion/San Clemente photos:

Crystal Cathedral/Point Loma Lighthouse/ Sea World

Disneyland/California Adventure

Hollywood/Santa Monica

Grand Canyon

My ‘little’ brother, his wife, and my three nephews on beach in Santa Monica.

I’ve returned! Actually I got home about a day and a half ago but I had a ton of stuff to catch up on. The visit with my family was absolutely wonderful. My three nephews have grown and changed so much in the last 3 years. It really made my husband and I realize that we HAVE to get back to visit my family more often. It’s so easy to put things off, say we’ll go next year for a visit and then not get around to it. We can’t keep doing that. My nephews will be all grown up before I realize it and I don’t want to miss out on it all.

I think my family enjoyed the visit. We went to Disneyland & Sea World. We did a boat excursion and saw dolphins and sea lions in the ocean. We visited the Crystal Cathedral and Santa Monica Pier. We even went to the Grand Canyon. I have to clean up my hard drive before I can download all the photos but you can expect to see some Thursday night or Friday morning.

Oh that reminds me! I’ll be leaving again on Friday. My husband is being sent to Texas (Dallas area) for work and I am tagging along. We’ll be there about a week. I should be able to access the internet occasionally. Hopefully I’ll manage to put up a post or two.  I’m not doing so well at my challenge to post three times a week, but I wasn’t expecting to do any traveling! Sorry about that.

I will probably be on hiatus next week. My brother, along with his wife and son, is coming out here from Missouri for a vacation  & he’s also bringing my sister’s sons!! I haven’t seen any of my family in 2 1/2 years so I’m very excited, especially to see my nephews. Kids grow up so fast and I probably won’t recognize them. I was really close to them before I got married and moved away and I’ve missed them sooooooooooo much!! I’m excited to show them the ocean for the first time. We’re going to spend some time in San Diego, alot of time at Disneyland, and a bit of time here in the Beach Cities area. It will be wonderful and I’m sure when I get back I’ll have a ton of photos to share with everyone. Yippeeeeeeeeee! My family is coming!!!!!

How do you teach yourself to be disciplined, to do the miserable grown up things everyone has to do; like eating vegetables, taking vitamins, getting exercise, & doing jobs you don’t want to do? I’ve recently come to realize that I’ve spent my entire life avoiding things I don’t particularly like to do or giving the bare minimum effort so that I can just squeak by. I’ve often followed the path of least effort, building a cozy sheltered little world for myself with very little demands and unfortunately I’ve been able to get away with this for the majority of my life. You’d think that always finding a way out of doing stuff you don’t like would make for a happy life but actually it doesn’t because a lot of the things in life that you really want require WORK of some sort. Building a decent life takes work and discipline, two things I’ve never been big on. I don’t even take advantage of natural talents because what if I were actually to succeed at something? Success means work. It’s much easier to withdraw into daydreams. Lately though I’ve begun to realize I can’t just coast along settling for whatever comes my way just because it’s easiest. I have to actually get out in the world and put some effort into building the life of my dreams, building myself into the person I know I was actually meant to be. The question in my mind though is how to begin, how to break a lifetime of taking the easy route, doing whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, and generally being undisciplined & unfocused? Any suggestions?

This friday I didn’t get a chance to create a theme or edit a series of photos for photofriday. I was too busy seeing the Sex and the City movie, working on crafts, and going out for the evening with my husband. Such a nice day! So anyway, here are a few random photos I already had edited and stored on my computer. Enjoy!(or so I hope,lol)

Have a great weekend!

photo by Kathy Goedeken

My husband fell asleep early tonight and I snuggled up next to him to watch P.S. I love you (the Hilary Swank movie about a young widow coping with her husband’s death). Needless to say I found myself crying through a good third of the movie, but I did like it. The best part though was finishing the movie and having my groggy, sleep warmed husband roll over and wrap his arms around me. I am so lucky to have him. I remind myself of that every day. Life is too short and nothing is more important than love, especially loving and appreciating the people in your life. Nothing is better than being able to hug someone you love or just being able to spend time with them. Love is the most beautiful, terrifying, courageous experience a person can have.

My deepest fear is losing my husband. The thought of such a wonderful person being gone from my life gives me nightmares yet I know that someday, one of us will be left behind. I just hope that we have many many years together before that happens and deep in my heart I know that love really never ends. Death will someday separate us for a time but love is eternal. Each day I try to remind myself to be grateful for the small things: a hug, a smile, a word, the touch of a hand. I don’t think there’s anything in life more important than these fleeting moments.

“I don’t have enough words, but I want to wish to all of you: Try to find happiness in every day. At least once, smile to each other every day. And say just one extra time that you love the person who lives with you. Just say ‘I love you’. It’s so Great. So important.” Katia Gordeeva’s speech at Celebration of a Life, a tribute to her late husband/partner Sergei Grinkov who died suddenlyof a heart attack at the age of 28 while practicing for an ice skating show.

We just got back from a short visit to Sequoia National Forest, an impromptu trip just to escape from the normal routine and enjoy Memorial Day. It was really lovely, particularly since we got to see the redwoods while snow fell gently down on us. Granted, it was a bit cold and wet but still wonderful. I have never smelled air so clean and fresh. What a relaxing way to spend the holiday together. I love taking trips with my husband :).

For this weeks photofriday theme I decided to give you a glimpse into my world. I’ve spent alot of time photographing the beaches in Dana Point because we live just a short walk from there on the edge of Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano. It’s a very lovely place and I wanted to share a little bit of my world:) ! Most of these photos are a year or so old. I have a bunch of new photos I’d love to upload but unfortunately my photoshop program isn’t working tonight for some reason. I guess I’ll just save the newer photos for another Friday. Have a great weekend everyone!

I really love my husband

Just a quick update because I’ve challenged myself to post every Monday, Wednesday & Friday. What I really want to do is settle in and watch Roman Holiday which is about to come on Turner Classic Movies :).

Over at Inspire Me Thursday the theme for this week is Crayons, which inspired me to go out and buy my first box of 64 crayons in about 25 years. I also picked up a coloring book. As soon as I cracked open the box of crayons I was transported back to the age of 5. I absolutely loved the smell of crayons as a child. I spent a lot of time drawing & painting pictures of ladies in big flowered muumuu dresses (based on my grandmother I think) usually in gardens of tall flowers. I could spend all my time creating “art” and I didn’t limit myself to just crayons. I remember getting some inexpensive finger paints as a gift from one of my uncles when I was about 4 and loving it more than any of my other gifts. Sadly, around the time I went to school I lost my passion for drawing. I realized that I was drawing the same things over and over again and got dissatisfied. I had reached the limits of what I could figure out how to draw on my own and no one thought to try and teach me ways to create new things. I also began comparing my art to other peoples and I found mine lacking. Since I couldn’t figure out how to create the beautiful things I saw all around me and I felt that my creations weren’t as good as everyone elses anyway, I stopped drawing and painting. Around that same time I also learned to read and had a whole new love, this time for stories, and creating art fell by the wayside. Looking back, I’m sad that I never allowed myself to develop or explore my artistic side. I suppose that’s what I’m working on doing now. So anyway, thanks to Inspire Me Thursday, I bought a box of crayons and a coloring book and I colored a picture. About5 minutes into coloring I remembered another reason I stopped making art as a kid. I don’t actually like working with crayons. They never gave me the look I wanted. I like using paints, markers, & colored pencils much more. I also don’t particularly like coloring in other peoples drawings. Coloring books bored me. I did manage to force myself to finish the coloring page and then I decided to have some real fun and do something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid and accidentally left my crayons in the sun. I melted my crayons. Well actually I first shredded the prettiest blue crayons in the box, threw in a dash of silver, and then melted them. The resulting slab of wax is lovely and I did have a great deal of fun making it. I’m not quite sure yet what I will use it for, maybe I’ll cut it into a pretty shape or frame it or something. Haven’t decided yet. I did learn something from this exercise (besides that I don’t like coloring inside the lines). I want to branch out in my attempts at artistry. I want to try all the different kinds of art supplies. I want to play around and find what I enjoy making. And this time I’m not going to compare myself to others. I’m just going to enjoy the process.

My little creations with crayons, so far (may edit this tomorrow if I think of something else to try):

My attempt at coloring within the lines

Shredded crayons

Ocean Reverie, my melted crayon creation

Now I’m off to watch Audrey Hepburn charm Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. Such a lovely movie!