My Dad

With having celebrated Fathers' Day this week, a scrapbooking group list I particapate with asked us to share pictures of our dad. This is the photo I shared as it is a favorite picture of mine. Here is the story behind the shot....

I was traveling in Peru with my father and sister Lois. Our group was in the Amazon Rain Forest of Peru and were visiting a small village on the river. This woman Maria came out to greet our boat , bringing her 2 pets with her. One was a parrot and the other, a three toed tree sloth. We were all invited to hold each of the animals, the sloth being the most popular. Holding him was like getting a hug from a live teddy bear. As the sloth was being passed around my father came up to me and asked me to get a photograph of him when he got his hug. "Of Course," I replied. Then someone went to pass him the sloth and he said, "Not with him!" And then my dad proceded to grab Maria and hug her, laughing harder than I have ever seen him laugh. When I see this picture it reminds me of a moment when my dad showed us another side of himself I had not seen before, his silly joking side. Of all the amazing things I saw on that trip This was truly my favorite moment.

Happy Fathers' Day Dad, I love you.


PS..Thanks go to Shelby for figuring out how to use our scanner so that I could post this picture.Thank God for smart kids.

Inside and out

Here you can see the mud room. Jay is planning on making me a bench for the area but until then I just put a big old chair to fill the space.

This is the view of our house from the base of the front lawn. Jay has landscaped it beautifully and I just love pulling up to our finished house.

The bathroom

Jay hates the color of this bathroom but hey, its my room and I love the bright color. I used subway and hexagon tiles and old style fixtures. And of course a little artwork finishes it up. No mirror but I have my priorities straight..photos yes...mirror- that will come.

more room

The first couple of pictures I posted were of the main croopping space- my tables and paper storage. Here is another storage area and my photo gallery...I love having a place to hang some of the hundreds of pictures I take.

My cropping room

I have been remiss in posting photos of my "play" room. Last year I posted a lot of photos of the building scene but forgot to show the finished space. SO..here is my dream room. There is plenty of space to hold all my stuff and lots of room to grow. I am still working on getting everything organized but here you go...

Neighborhood drama

This past weekend I was sitting on my porch reading when I smelled a barbeque going. "Boy, where was my invite?" I wondered. Then the fire chief goes flying past my house. And then there goes the cop car. "Hummmm.... maybe that wasn't a barbeque?" Next come 2 fire engines. Gee, where is Kyle when you need him? With all his radios, I always know what is going on but no, today he was at school. I ran in and told Jay and Shelby about the trucks and they ran down the block. I, of course, ran and got my camera first. Thankfully it was only a neighbor's shed that was up in flames...nothing major was lost. But a bit of excitement was had by the whole neighborhood.

Mothers' Day

I had the best Mothers' Day this year. After church my whole family came with me to the NY Botanical Gardens (along with 8 million or so other people) to walk around and spend time together. I also warned them I was bringing my camera and tripod and that they would just have to suck it up..it was my day. Here is a family shot, maybe this year's Christmas photo. The other picture is a shot I took while zooming in my lens..fun stuff

Arlington National Cemetery

Ok..I think I have this figured out,when Picasa changed formats I started having problems posting my blog. I spend time writing and then go to post and it all disappears. But I think it will work if I stop trying to add so many photos in one entry so here goes...down to 2....


A couple of weeks ago I drove down to Virginia with my dad and oldest sister to visit T and her girls. They are entirely too adorable. The main reason we headed down there was that on Monday of last week my dad's friend, John, was being buried at arlington National Cemetery. John had been a prisioner of war during WWII and was able to have a gravesite in DC. I had never beed to a true miitary funeral before and was so moved by the whole tradition. Now I have never been much for burials and all but this was such a moving final acknowledgement of a man who sacrificed much for our country. These photos are from an earlier burial that we saw while waiting to meet up with John's family and I cried through the whole service..I was so moved. I am so proud to see how w!!ell our military takes care of their own. God Bless America!!

Pongo and Perdita

Now I know that to most people Pongo and Perdita are a pair of dogs from Disney but to me they will always be this pair of ducks. Every year, just about at this time (early spring) a pair of ducks show up each morning at our pond. They are the sweetest couple, swimming around in this little pool of water when there are so many true ponds and lakes all around us. But each year these two come back for a little alone time at our pond. They don't stay long, just a couple hours a day for around 2 or 3 weeks, but I have come to love seeing them. Somewhere along the way I started calling the Pongo and Perdita (maybe 3 years ago) and so that is how they are known to us. Most days Perdy swims around with Pongo watching out for her (they seem to be aware that there is a camera crazy female living in the house.) They are my true first sign of spring and I look forward to seeing them each year... now if only we could teach them to poop in the neighbor's yard!

I'm BAAAAACK!!!

Ok, I have been a Lazy Blogger. I haven't even thought about my blog in a while. Then this morning I read a great blog and then I went out to the Celery Farm and I feel renewed. so I am back, just like the pair of ducks in my pond, just like the birds in my trees and just like the plants that are starting to bud. I have missed being outside and walking at the farm. This morning the birds were singing so loudly I almost wished I could have turned down the volume. I was struck by the different calls and wondered why a bird as pretty as the cardinal has such a lousy little Peep instead of a beautiful song. I heard a red wing black bird make a call I had not heard before.. I think he was cat calling a pretty little finch a tree over. The ground was muddy, the air was cool and I was so happy. So here are a couple of my first views of spring.

Yeah, I am still alive

I wish I could write that I have been somewhere incredible and that is why I have not been blogging but the truth is I am just a victim of the winter blues. Every year about this time I start wishing I was a bear and able to hibernate for a few months. I want to sleep late, I want to go to bed early, I want to take naps.... all in all I just want to sleep. But I am not a bear and my family is taking issue with my continual sleeping so up I get, Laundry I do and I just wish it was spring already. Did the groundhog see his shadow??

That said this past week the gourmet club meeting was at my house (and Lora's) and we did cooking with chocolate in honor of Valentines' day. The menu was excellent- baby greens with a citrus dressing (cocoa nibs get sprinkled on top,) Medallions of beef with Rosemary sauce (cocoa is in the sauce,) Roasted butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter and bittersweet chocolate sauce ( Big yum!) and 2 desserts- white chocolate raspberry sauce over raspberries, and chocolate nibs napoleons. Oh and chocolate martinis too. The food was great and I love cooking with the women on Thursdays. This is the closest that I get to the communal feeling of life in Assasetre. Now I am longing to get back to Ghana...maybe I can sleep the entire flight there? LOL

getting caught up

OK, Here it is the 20th of January and I have not gotten out of November and Ghana, so Goodbye Africa and Hello Christmas. Christmas this year was a little tough. Just like my blog I was definitely still in a Ghanaian state of mind and buying gifts for people who really don't need anything was dificult. A lot of charitable donations were made this year in people's honor rather than handing them a scarf or new pair of socks and underware. Decorating the tree was a family event as you can see below, I the one behind the camera so you know I was there. The big discussion is icicles or no icicles- Jay is a tinsel man whlie the rest of us are not. Secretly I was glad he could find no tinsel on his shopping trip but later found and bought 5 boxes of them that he never runs out of the stuff. If some tinsel on the tree makes this man happy so be it, I don't mind vacuuming it up for the next 3 months ;)


Jay makes sure the lights are evenly spaced on the tree.

Kyle is happy that this line of lights was working... we definitely need to go out next year and get some more lights. We prefer the old fashioned big bulbs and we have more that don't work now than ones that do.

Shelby makes like a reindeer, or maybe it was a moose.

One reason

This photograph is just one of the reasons why I travel. On my second day in the village James and I went out for a walk. There was a lot of excitement from the people as we walked around... visitors are rare. My camera stood out and the calls of, "White Lady, White Lady, Photo, Photo," began. As we passed the small market one woman came up to me and the kids told me she wanted me to photograph her with her mother and her children. after I took the shot I turned my camera around and showed them the image I captured. This was the first time the older woman had seen her image this way and was very excited. I only wish I had a second camera around to have caught her reaction.. It was priceless. That's OK though because I will always remember itand that's what really matters. It is those small moment connections with people that I love. Sharing something new, or maybe something old with people, a realization of how we are all the same no matter where we are from is worth the money and time spent and the discomfort that sometimes accompanies travel. I pray that there will be many more opportunities waiting for me.

More kids

How beautiful is this little boy? I just love his eyes. He was around a lot while I was in the village but never spoke to me. I wish I was good at learning languages but that is definitely not a gift given to me. I just thought this kid is one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen.
And this little boy always was looking at me as if I was a science experiment. He had this way of tilting his head as he looked at me and I wish I could have known what he was thinking. Maybe I am better off not knowing though.

More favorite pictures

OK..I know I have not been really good with posting things here and people have been asking...sorry. The holidays came and all and Blogger has switched to a new format and I can't seem to get more than one or two pictures up at a time and got toally fustrated after writing a whole story and downloading pictures and then having it not post...but enough of my whining... I am learning and now I will just create a few posts rather than one. Enough of that..

I totally fell in love with the kids of this village, actually I have always loved the kids I have met in Africa but on this trip I got to spend more time with certain kids and they now hold a very special place in my heart.

This little girl is Rebecca, one of Cosmos' daughters. She is 5 years old and thought I was fascinating (read like a science experiment.) I don't think she ever met someone like me and I just made her laugh. It was neat to see her warm up to me as my time in the village lent on. In the beginning she would just stare at me but by the time I left she would stay close to me. The best part is that neither of us really understood the language of the other, but that didn't really seem to matter. Friendship really doesn't have anindividual language- its universal.


This little boy, I never learned his name, was so adorable but he never quite warmed up to me. He would cry and hide any time he saw me. He had never seen anyone who looked quite like me (not many white people have ever been to the village and certainly not any in his memory.)It presented a dilemna for him when I would be playing with the kids on the porch. We would all be singing and laughing and he wanted to be a part of that but it would mean he would have to come somewhat close to me. What's a boy to do? He started out by standing on the outskirts and then eventually would move in a little closer. Now he never was one of the kids coming up to me to feel what my light skin felt like but he would join us on the porch as the week wore on. I was amazed when he subjected himself to getting photographed my me..a true testament to the power of peer pressure. I wasn't questioning it...I was thrilled to get his portrait to remember him by.

the heat

I just wanted to share how hot I was while in Ghana.... I took this photo on e of the first days I was there. Yes, I know this is not the most flattering shot of me but it is true to how I felt at the time. when I look at it I can see how much I felt the humidity. But here is the amazing thing about being there... even though I was hot and sweaty, I would soon forget about it. While looking at this picture I could imagine I was totally miserable but I wasn't. You just kind of think..gee its hot and then you get over it. But I didn't want to forget so voila... you have this picture

Favorite photos

I have been really lax in posting lately...actually I have just been lax all around. I thought I would just post a couple of my favorite pictures of people from my trip.

This girl was excited to have me take her picture. She came looking for me. I thought she was proud of the way she was carrying all the pots on her head... I was impressed... but that was not what she was excited about. She wanted me to capture the image of her with a kitten. It is funny the things that create excitement in our lives. The grace with which she balanced those pots was amazing to me but was everyday to her, having a kitten was a special event for her but was commonplace for me.

OK, For some reason I am not getting things to work on my blog...maybe it is the universe telling me I really should be taking care of the laundry or something so I will just post this and work on more later

This says it all

This picture is by far my favorite of all the shots I took on this trip. It speaks volumes about the situation in this small village in western Ghana. As I was walking arounf the village one day I came across this boy standing by a tree watching the kids from the school playing soccer (futball to them.) It just looked like he was standing there dreaming about being able to go to school and play with those kids. The reason he can't go to school? His parents cannot afford the 22-24 dollars a year for his tuition. Schools are not free in Ghana and it is impossible for many parents to raise enough money for their children's education. It breaks my heart. 

Market place and cooking

Wednesdays are the big market day in this area (Actually I think it is that day in almost every area I have been in, I wonder why that is?) We headed over to see the market that first wednesday that I was there. You could definitely buy cassavas- they were all over the place. But then again it is the main part of Fou Fou and everyone eats Fou Fou each and every night in Ghana so it is no wonder there was so much of it at the market. Plantains too.


These are palm fruit which is used in a palm fruit soup. There is a lot of pounding needed to make both palm fruit soup and fou fou

They let me try to help with the palm fruit soup but as I almost turned over the container twice as I pounded the women quickly got the stick out of my hands

Makiing fou fou is not always a happy thing but this woman made nice for the camera. 

Church of Christ Assasetre

The main reason why James was going back to Assasetre was to see the completed roof on the church there. Two years ago, on his first visit to the area, he was saddened to see the beginning of a church structure that the people could not afford to complete. He returned to the states with a burden to raise the money to finish it. The people of his church in Ohio and the one he grew up in in Kentucky rose to the challenge and gave enough money to roof not only this church but the one of John's in Half Assina. Pretty amazing. last yerhe went back to Ghana and brought them the money. And now here it was another year later and the dedication service was going to happen. You will see that the church is still not what we would call complete. The floor is still just dirt and the walls have no plaster but now people can worship there out of the glaring African sun or heavy rains. I hope to go back one day and see it all the waythey envision it but I know that it is not really the building that is important but the message they share there.