voluntary simplicity

...is a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living... the objective is not dogmatically to live with less, but is a more demanding intention of living with balance in order to find a life of greater purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction.

-- Duane Elgin

afternoon walk

up to the golf course




(my tracks)

waking this morning
curl up with coffee inside
snow is back

(at Tim's mom's house)

Christmas sparkles even in the rain

(Christmas day at my mom's house)

our kitchen window this afternoon

our kitchen window this morning:

my dad snowblowing, viewed from my sister's kitchen window:

la vaca con sombrero

two random videos I'm enjoying today:

Christmas goings-ons

at Dallywater's Tea Room:

asperity

a new word I learned,
that I like,
that I hope to use in a sentence soon
:)

fuzzy Christmas tree photos

what happens when Kim plays with the camera... I was trying to effect that experience of looking at the tree with your eyes out of focus, so that the lights become just glowing shapes. This is what I ended up with, using basic camera settings and no Photoshop - it's not quite bokeh, but I still kind of like it
(and the chartreuse curtains are getting replaced in the spring!!! I've got my eye on some lovely Marimekko fabric...)

Coming home from Canandaigua on Rt. 245 in the afternoon, we saw a huuuge rag-tag formation of geese making their way east... Against the backdrop of a metallic winter sunset, it was a stunning site - at first I tried snapshots from the moving car, then we pulled over and stopped to get out for better shots and hear all their squawking. But it was frrrriiiiikkin' frrrriiiigid (low 20s) with super strong winds that looked to be giving the geese a hard time too, which perhaps is why their formations looked so odd. So I waved the camera around as quickly as possible and jumped right back in the car - alas these shots don't do the moment justice at all - and there were a lot more geese than these photos suggest: