FINDING A HAPPY MOMENT

I have recently been looking for beauty in my neighborhood and to my dismay I have found nothing. I have been looking for the kind of beauty that blogger Friko has in her neighborhood. And if you've ever taken a look at her blog you'll know what I mean.

Now I suppose if I had a macro lens for my camera I might focus in on the very heart of a neighbor's flower and find something of beauty way down inside, but honestly, the apartment complex where I live is definitely not beautiful. In my better moments I compare it to a bunch of army barracks, and the environs are a place where a good Dorothy Lange photograph might have been taken. It's an interesting area -- lots of goats, a few dairies, lots of discarded tires and davenports along the county roads and high-power lines running aside the property but definitely not beautiful.

But recently, while trying to move my own pictures around on the new computer and putting them in folders where they will be easier to find, I kept coming across certain photos that made me really happy. So that's what i'm going to share with you today, along with a little description of them and why they make me happy. They are best when they are big, so if you double-click on the images maybe you'll see their specialness.


My youngest granddaughter, Justine, now 8, has always been a dramatic child. She was born laughing, but you'd never know it from this photo. Look at those eyes.


Our cat, Tigger, spent the last years of his life happily taking naps on the end of our couch. He died in September of 2008 and not a day has gone by that we haven't missed him. He gave us 18 years of happiness.


In a tiny village in Turkey called Kumbetkoy we stumbled upon this woman up on the side of a rocky hill tending to her grain. Her job was to keep turning it so the sun could draw all the moisture out. She was young, and this was her life.


Of course this picture makes me laugh. It is a "photoshopped" image of me, one I did when I was taking a Photoshop class and was learning how to use the various tools. I use it at Halloween for my Facebook account. (It's really what I look like when I'm not feeling well!)


I call pictures like this "Magazine Babies" as it seems to me that certain baby pictures are simply iconic and could be anyone's baby. But this is newborn Olivia, my youngest daughter's first child and my next-to-the youngest granddaughter.


One of my dreams had always been to go to North Carolina's outer banks, and when my cousin moved within spitting distance of Okracoke, my dream came true. We were shell-hunting the day I took this picture. I'm not even sure the house was occupied, but it was such a serene setting that as far as I was concerned it was just my cousin and me and the elements. Seeing this photo reminds me of a dream fulfilled.


Grandson Christopher is now 29. He will always look like this to me.

These photos make me happy.