june 8

on the road to the Cape
got Outside Guy on my lap and joey's driving
life is good :)

june 5

June 5th, Tuesday...

using my phone and photoshop to shoot myself :)

back in the office...

first day back...
during my vacation, i made a commitment to myself that i would move the 'operations' back to the actual office, as opposed to working from the couch in the living room.  i got in that habit when my mother got sick and solidified it with the photo-hunt-word-of-the-day. 

3+ years of bad work habits, after 22 yrs of good.  that has taken a toll, adding stress to my life every day.  i need to eliminate that stress.  so i am back in the office, hoping this time it will stick :)

and i have fingernail polish on.   been a long time since i had pretty nails :)

June 4th, Monday

intentions :)

the challenge this week, at beyond layers, is based on a word that kim posts each day. 

thursday, the word was INTENTIONS. 

well, my intention with this blog was to photograph myself daily for a year, in hopes of discovering who i am, inside and outside, at 57 yrs old.  

and then, to post them here so i can chronicle-ize my year :)

i have taken the photos almost every day, but the posting... not so much...

so again, i catch up.  

and i re-commit to the goal. 

it is one i believe in.

May 31, Thursday
last sunset of the cape cod part of my vacation.  minutes before the bugs ate me alive...

May 29, Wednesday

i was playing with the self timer and this was after a mad dash to get in the shot...

makes me laugh out loud, everytime i do this :)

May 29, Tuesday    flipflops at the beach...

May 27, Sunday  going to dinner at Alberto's with the bean :)

May 26, Saturday   ride home from P-town :)

May 23, Wednesday

waving to myself on the ride home from work...

May 20, Sunday...alone at the cape

 

May 17, Thursday...in the parking lot of a Target :)

May 14, Monday...

geese are all around me, outside the pic :)  

it was raining and i LOVED it

May 12, Saturday

after yardwork, loved this day



monday morning...

hanging on and letting go...

    quote by barbara deAngelis

a bit behind...

i think i am over-committed...
i keep taking self portraits but my plan to post it every day has gone to hell.
so i am going to catch up bit by bit, and then get a better plan put together.
this is important to me and i think i will learn a lot. 

May 3, Thursday...
reflections in the evening :)










May 2 Wednesday...
surrounded by cats, joey's chair empty...my first night in the house without him since 2008. at least this time, he is at cape cod, not the hospital... :)

May 1, Tuesday...
i went for a ride, looking to photograph the word 'distance' for the photo hunt word of the day.  i needed it bad, it was a pleasure and i got nothing as far as pictures.  i was ok with that.  i think the photo hunt is pushing me over my limit...not sure yet

April 30 Monday...due date for chairman's award - quite a relief to get that behind me!  i finally got home, sat down on my couch and did not want to take another picture for a while.  but i did and isnt it lovely :)

April 29, Sunday...

time to go back to work.  drove hundreds of miles and got lots done but was wishing i wasn't working.  it was one long day...

April 28 Saturday... time for bed...

April 27, Friday...

shadows on the beach, as vacation comes to an end ...

April 25 Wednesday...i spent thursday taking pictures - tons of pictures, to submit to the chairman's.  i don't believe any of them were of me.  however on wednesday, i took lots of me and marilyn :)

April 24, Tuesday... 

this was a wonderful day, i loved it. we took pics all day long, very few were good but we had a great time.  and the wind was absolutely awesome!

plus we watched a shoot for a nautica catalog on the beach in chatham. 

and got a great shot in the bathroom window :)

April 23, Monday...

if i stayed married the first time around, this would have been my 35th wedding anniversary.

many years ago, i looked in the mirror at my life and realized i couldn't live this way and had the wisdom and courage to leave. 

i honor both decisions on 4/23 each year -

i am proud for having gotten married and proud for having left.

for what is is worth,

i believe i am now caught up.

i took many pics and will post differently going forward.

its not about consecutive days, is it? 

 it's about who i feel i am at this point in my life. 

or maybe it's about who i see myself becoming...

this is a work in progress and i am still working out the plan :)

 

in a fog...

April 22

starting the day, in a fog.  i think i like it like that :)

five full tanks...

this was one busy week.

from the weekend at the cape, to a bruce springsteen concert in NY, to three days of commuting to rhode island, i moved around a lot this week...

Sunday April 15

Joey and I spent a lovely day at the cape.  we putzed around the house, shopped at home depot for stuff to putz with around the house, went to an early dinner and collapsed on the couches from too much putzing.  it was mutually decided that the day was perfect.

Monday April 16

marilyn and i are big bruce fans :)

we're not in the same league as a lot of springsteen fans that have been to 30+ concerts, but we have gone to maybe 15 concerts.  we've driven to jersey, ohio, buffalo, hartford, boston, albany and have loved every concert we've seen. 

we've been in the front row, we've been in the back row and we've even driven to his house in new jersey more than once.  (and almost got arrested for 'erratic driving' when we thought we saw him on his front lawn one time, but that's a story for another day...)

so we were pretty excited when we got tickets for the wrecking ball tour.  

but come monday, when it was time for me to drive the 4 hrs to albany to meet marilyn

and go to the concert, i was close to aborting.  so was marilyn. 

we were both exhausted from too much work, and a springsteen concert was going to demand some energy.  but we mustered, thinking maybe it was just what we needed to feel young again.  and we were right - it was, as always, outstanding.  our seats were terrific (thank you, marilyn!!), the music was better than ever, and bruce was completely engaged with the crowd, which makes for a great time.  they ended with a tribute to clarence clemons and the night was complete.

and we got our 'concert' picture, the one we've taken for every concert we've gone to :)

Tuesday April 17

the day after the concert, we woke up exhausted. 

after reading kim klassen's challenge for the week to take some time for yourself,

i decided to take tuesday off. 

yay!  there is nothing like an unexpected day off to change a girl's mood :)

and her twin too :) :)

so we wandered around her garden for hours before i drove home to CT,

and then on to the cape.

the weather was beautiful and life was good. 

i got lots and lots of pictures of flowers, or marilyn, of marilyn and jim. 

but at 10pm at night, i realized i never took a self portrait. 

and i was over the picture-taking at that time

so here are my toes. 

Wednesday April 18

i love to drive. it's one of my favorite things to do.  my plan for the week was to work from the cape, commuting the hour into providence each day.  i didn't bargain on the construction on the bridge from the cape to the mainland.  every morning, i had an extra hour of commute, driving the backroads to avoid the massive traffic jams.  it made for a rough week.   five full gas tanks later, and a whole lot of marie-behind-the-wheel self portraits, i'm glad to say i am not driving far today...

Thursday April 19

another favorite thing to do - sit on the couch, television on, playing with pics on the computer.  when joey thinks back to this year, i believe he will see this image...

whether it's at the cape or home in enfield, there's a computer on my lap, my phone and the remote are nearby, and somewhere there is a cat or two...

Friday april 20

i've become only a shadow of my former self...

weekend relief. . .

time away from all the busy-ness...

i can breathe again...
smile again...
be me again :)

friday :)

it was not an easy week.
and there's much to do
before the weekend feels
like it can begin.

but i squeezed in some time at the river and it was awesome. 

maybe the weekend already began :)

April 13

a better day :)

brush from kim klassen :)

April 12

no comment

the day started off wrong.

the day did not get better as it went along...

nothing awful happened...

it just kinda sucked.

on to the next...

:)


April 11th

the way home...

work day over, time to wander home...

April 10

365 project

something about the 'beyond layers' challenge this week hit home to me in a big way.

it's all about self portraits this week and, for most photographers, cameras only feel right when they're pointed somewhere else. i am no different.

but somewhere in all the words i read - all the posts, the blog entries, the comments - i found an important and personal message.

i need to know who i am at 57 years old.

i am older, my hair is gray, my skin is wrinkled and my stomach is getting far from flat. as i type this, i have on two pairs of glasses. so that is what i look like.

but who am i?

i have documented my life over years of picture-taking. but i photographed my surroundings, the world as i saw it. i love those pictures and sure, they are a record of who i was as i photographed them. but all of a sudden, it seems very important to take pictures of me, of who i am right now. i want to know who i have become...

maybe its the strong feeling of time passing that's making it seem important.

or maybe it's more about the 'lost' feelings i've had lately - where do i go from here?

my 'career' defined me for more than 33 years, but i am not as interested in it as i wish i was.

i don't long to garden like i used to, even HGTV isn't the draw it used to be.

spending a year, seeing the outside and the inside of myself, documenting my life... this seems important right now. it feels like, if i do this, i will not only record a year of my life, i will impact this year in ways yet unknown...

so, since this is feeling pretty important right now, i called my twin sister to see if she would play too. and she felt the exact same way and she is going to join me on the journey. which is one reason why i love her; we are on the same page, almost always :)

i don't quite know where to put my pictures so i am adding this blog in hopes that it turns out to be the proper place to record my year. if not, i will move it elsewhere.

for now, here i go...

this is from last week, i felt this urge to document my day for some reason

and it is now a starting point for my year.

April 5

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April 9

a walk at the river road in longmeadow.

my favorite place and a perfect way to start this project...

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