happy new year

This is how I'm spending my New Years Eve.  Somebody, please find me a date!

the green light

Tai always looks to his big sister for the "green light".  He watches her eyes, and knows exactly when there is a squirrel in the yard.  This is his way of getting a head start on chasing it up the tree.  

driving rain

the courage to start

The miracle isn't that I finished.  The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

                                                           - John Bingham

Today I did 60 ground to overhead lifts and 360 single-unders (jumping rope) in 15 min.

And then I collapsed.

winter clean

my video storage room before

and after.

Feels so good.

Meteorlight

Today, the sun set at 4:25pm.  This means that if I don't exercise the dogs before I go to the gym at 4:00, I am stuck running them in the dark.  Enter the Meteorlight Dog Ball!  I tried it out for the first time tonight.  The dogs (and I) love it!        

reflect

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve

Before

After

Nothing beats Mom's Scandinavian Christmas Eve dinner!

toy head tree

A few years ago, I started a very strange tradition.  It was inspired by a tenacious young border collie by the name of Tai.  He was extremely jealous one night as I was trimming the Christmas tree, and kept dropping fragments of dog toys at my feet.  As the night went on, I accumulated quite a pile of treasures.  Pieces of rope.  Lizard feet.  Hedgehog hats.  As I stopped to admire his work, I noticed an abnormal number of heads.  Just for fun, I decided to stick them in the branches of my Christmas tree.  This would accomplish two things, I thought.  1)  It would keep Tai from picking up the heads and depositing them at my feet again.  2) It would speed up the Christmas tree trimming process.  Little did I know, it would actually look stylish.

I've had people come over to my house many times, and complement me on my tree, never noticing the unique ornaments. So as long as I have mangled dog toy heads lying around the house, I'll keep the tradition going.  I have a feeling it will continue for a very long time.

blue

Feeling a little bit blue today.


A hike with the dogs is always a good remedy.

vintage

where the elves hang out

I always wondered where they stayed during the off season.

Feliz Navidog

my muse

Claire

playing with sheep

We took the dogs herding today.  Ray showed expert style.


Tai still needs some practice.

remarkable

My niece, Lauren, turns 20 on Sunday. 
She's one of the most remarkable women I know.
Love you, girl.

late night

I

Couldn't sleep last night. Sugar and I hung out by the fire and watched Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  Being45 means nobody tells you when or where you have to go to bed.  

therapy

today's therapy

the "do"

the do

Two things I love most about getting my hair done at Brassfields
* the wonderful scalp massage
* always engaging conversation.
Thanks again, Michael.

on a wire

on a wire

While playing frisbee with Tai and Sugar in the field today, I noticed this pair of sneakers hanging from a telephone wire.  I have always wondered what it meant.  Is it some adolescent right of passage?  A secret sign only understood by UFO's?  There was only one way to find out.  Google.  I found a few different explanations. 

1) The shoes increase wire visibility for low-flying aircraft.
2) It is popularly believed that tennis shoes hanging from utility wires signifies a place where one can buy drugs.
3) Another folk belief holds that boys who have just "scored" for the first time, throw their shoes over a wire.

Let's just say - you won't be seeing tennis shoes hanging from a telephone wire in front of my house.

wrap it up

gotta wait 'till Christmas

I trimmed my tree, and wrapped most of the gifts tonight.  Although I noticed a few of them had been mysteriously opened.

Kizmet

watch out!

Kizmet is in the house!

let's dance

 

let's dance

In memory of my dear friend and soul mate, Annie Boulet, who passed away on 12/9/2009.  She gave me this lawn ornament for my birthday the year before, and it's graced my garden ever since.  I think this is what Annie is doing right now - holding a big, red, heart shaped balloon, cruising for adventures around the universe.  Love you, Annie.  Still missing you more than ever.

heads or tails

Annie

Annie's cross wall

410 after 10:00

410 after ten

It was a beautiful foggy, frosty morning.  Driving home from agility practice, this bank of trees caught my eye.  I whipped out my iPhone.  As every good photographer knows, the best camera is the one you have with you. 

Asadao birthday party

banana birthday

My brother, Mark, took a photo of me taking a photo of my birthday dessert tonight. (Dinner at Asado in Tacoma). His pic turned out better than mine.  (:

Today, at 3:47am, I turned 45 years old.  45 is an interesting age.  It’s somewhere between “I can see my whole life in front of me” and “where did I leave my bifocals?” Even without glasses, I can see 50 pretty clearly from here. 

Yet my age feels strangely comfortable to me.  At 45, I care more about people, and less about what they think of me.  I have stopped trying to “find myself,” and started creating myself. At 45, the gap between who I want to be and who I am, is getting smaller.

This year, I’ve decided to embrace my 45ness.  I will take one picture every day that I am 45 years old, and post the photos on my blog.  My hope: to capture one special moment every day that celebrates what it's like -        
                                                                                                                                          

                        

 

I thought my 45th re-birth might be a good place to begin, so I woke up at 3:47 a.m. to capture it.

                      

word of the day

Today's word of the day: Patience

We finally made it to Addis Ababa, after a short refueling stop in Khartoum, Sudan.
There were two, small, adorable children kicking the back of Lauren and I's seats much of the way. I finally turned around and gave them each a small beanie baby stuffed animal (which I always have in my backpack for moments like this). Unfortunately, I think they started fighting over who wanted the the purple lizard, and both immediately began to cry. Oh well. I tried.

When we got to the airport, the security officers demanded that I leave my video cameras in their storage area until morning, when I could bring them back a letter from the Ethiopian consulate approving the filming permit. I tried every trick in the book in asking if I could take equipment with me. We spend nearly an hour arguing over options. (At least I thought we were arguing over options. In reality, the ONLY option was for me to leave my equipment there). I even told them I would bake my famous chocolate chip cookies and bring them in the morning. Didn't work.

Tomorrow will be another long day.

on the road again

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to lisa's world piece. Obviously, I'm not great at updating my blog, but I do my best to bring it back to life when I'm traveling. It's February 3rd (February 2nd for my West Coast friends), and I'm sitting in the Amsterdam airport waiting for my flight to Ethiopia. I'm shooting a story for World Vision, documenting their water projects in south western Ethiopia. I've been to Ethiopia before, and am anxious to catch up with my friends living there, but more exciting for me is that my niece, Lauren, is traveling with me. I can't wait to see Africa through her eyes! We'll be in Ethiopia for 8 days, and then will be heading to Kenya for a short safari in the Masai Mara before returning home.

This is Lauren....

She is an amazing young lady, and a really awesome photographer. I'm looking forward to seeing where her eye takes her on this trip.



The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful. We sat in the front row, so we had lots of leg room.






















And our stewardess, Sherry, was very entertaining. She told us where to buy stylish boots in Amsterdam, where not to eat in Shanghai, and how to stay away from Zombies in Ethiopia. Apparently, she just read the oral history of the Zombie War. I'll be sure to stay away from anyone grayish in color with really big teeth.


After arriving in Amsterdam, we headed up to the KLM lounge for internet and cappuccino's. After plugging in all my mac gadgets, I looked up to see a guy in a green kilt sitting at a desk across from me.

Be glad that this photo was taken after the fact. The first time I looked up, his legs were open. Let me just say that he wasn't wearing boxers.