life lessons: Under The Influence - My Life In A Nutshell - 07/05/14 01:17 AM
Writing about the five people who have most influenced my life is like walking through dimly lit, dusty aisles of an ancient library to extract tidbits from time.  It is, in the end, easy of course.  It starts in my early years, at the knee of my father whose mantra and life path was "Do unto others . . .," and became an integral part of who I am.  The simple precept of the golden rule seems so abstract to many people I encounter on a daily basis as I navigate life from my "advanced wisdom."  I remember hearing early on … (33 comments)

life lessons: ActiveRainPhotoBloggerContest - It's All In The Way You See It - 05/09/11 04:37 PM

This was to be a typical home shoot in preparation for putting a house on the market but it turned into so much more.  I fell in love with this tree on the sloping front lawn.  There was beauty and grace in its delicate blooms, a strength in its structure despite the difficult terrain in which it grew, and it was different.  All you had to do was look past the sparse foliage to appreciate it for itself.
It made me think of the greater world and how we tend to look at people and things that we perceive as different.  How many times do … (14 comments)

life lessons: December 7th, The Day My Lacey Died - 12/07/10 12:36 PM
It is with profound sadness that I sit here, having said goodbye to my sweet Lacey, at 3:56 this afternoon.  Anybody who read my holiday miracles post knows the story about my girl, who came to me when she was no more than a little puff of cottony down at 8 weeks old.  I find it hard to believe that almost eleven years have passed between that day and this. 
Just a year and a half before Cagney and Lacey came into my life, I lost the last of my four previous dogs, all within the space of a year.  I … (20 comments)

life lessons: Think Twice - That Just Might Be A Life Or Death Decision - 08/27/10 03:37 PM
First there was the story about Frank Ryan, the plastic surgeon in California who died needlessly, tweeting about his border collie moments before he went off a cliff.  Then the news of Laurie Manny's untimely death yesterday, after suffering severe salmonella like symptoms that went, in the end, untreated because she didn't have health insurance.  Both incidents are disturbing enough just for the loss of these vibrant souls long before their time.  On a deeper level, I have to wonder if they both were avoidable.  Ryan's surely was.  There is nothing on earth compelling enough to induce someone of sound mind … (9 comments)

life lessons: Spring Fresh -- A Time of Rebirth and Revitilization - 04/04/09 09:07 AM
I love spring, always have.  Maybe it's because of the dreariness of winter, the fact that everything looks just a little bit grayer and the world (at least in this part of the northeast) seems to stumble and occasionally come to a dead halt.  With hopes raised in March, knowing that even an errant snow storm this late in the season isn't likely to take hold for very long, I feel much like the seedlings taking root, ready to burst through the soil.
It's a time of rebirth.  The early flowers adding much needed color to the landscape, with a promise of better … (12 comments)