New York and Philadelphia book

This is a virtual copy of the photobook I made for my trip to New York City and Philadelphia. Have a peek!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Visit Shutterfly.com to create your own personalized photobook.

A Tribute to Daisy

The daisy-hued labrador
who once danced,
face turned toward the sun


now withered
on searing metal tracks
pale petals drift across the taconite
caught in eddies of melting snow.


* * *


It's been over a year now since my family's beloved young labrador retriever, Daisy, was hit by a train. It was a traumatic experience, but I finally feel like I can write about it. I took this photo of her only a couple of hours before the tragic event.


She was the smartest dog I've ever known, and loved to be with everybody, young or old or anywhere in between. Sometimes it seemed like she thought she was a human. She would sit on your lap if you let her, even though she was several times larger than a cat, and she would play fetch for hours if she could get you to cooperate. She never whined or barked for attention, and yet when the vacuum or the broom was nearby, she'd growl something fierce until it went away. She loved to chase squirrels away from my mom's birdfeeder, and she would sit at the deck door waiting for the rodents to appear.


When I was home alone, she would follow me around like a second shadow, keeping me company and making me feel safe. I loved to go on long walks with her in the woods, watching her antics and laughing at her boundless energy. She was able to cheer me up with her goofy frolics and happy face. I've never known such a truly happy dog.


I'll miss her, but now I'm able to remember the good times I had with her. I thank God for his gift during those years, and hope that perhaps one day, when I arrive at heaven's gates, a daisy-colored dog will be there to greet me with her happy smile, frolicking in celestial meadows.


~~~~~~~

A Compass to Point the Way

For my birthday, my parents gave me this lovely brass compass. Cool, huh? It came in the mail today. Now my head is full of exploration and quests and sailing ships and steampunk-ish adventures. 

These words were in the card they gave me:

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

May this gift always remind you of your true compass, the Word of God.

It's a good reminder.

March for LIFE!

Yesterday, my sister and I rode a bus from our church to the State Capitol building to join the rally against abortion. We met our mom down there (she came from work), and marched around while "Amazing Grace" played on the speakers. About 6,000 people came to show that they valued human life... including unborn lives.

The Governor spoke, as well as several other important pro-life activists in our state legislator. It was awesome to hear that several small steps of progress are being made on behalf of the voiceless. But we need to keep praying that abortion will be made illegal.

Some verses (ESV):

"You shall not murder." ~Exodus 20:13

"For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance:

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there were none of them." ~Psalm 139:13-16

A New Adventure

I have taken the leap and created a new blog.

Evergreena's Journal will continue to be my "main" blog, for my poetry, writing stuff, and other creative endeavors. I've done some things with photography here. But I began to realize, especially after seeing Hannah's new project for the year (which you can visit HERE), that I wanted to do more with photography.

The new blog is (tentatively) called The Adventures of Evergreena and Her Camera. You can visit it at camera-adventures.blogspot.com  It's still under construction, but I would love it if you would comment on it and follow me there.

What I Gave for Christmas

Instead of focusing on what I got for Christmas this year, I’ll tell you what I gave to other people, since that was more exciting for me this year.

To my parents, I gave audiobooks that they can listen to while they are driving. Both books are radio drama done by Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre. To my mom I gave “The Hiding Place,” and to my dad I gave “The Screwtape Letters.” (Did you know that Andy Serkis is the voice of Screwtape? He’s insanely creepy!)

 

For my oldest sister, I got a candle. But this is no ordinary candle. It’s an artificial one that flickers either yellow or blue, and to turn it off, you just blow. And you also blow to turn it on. :)

For my next oldest sister, I made a recipe box, collaged with cooking-themed papers. She’s a great cook and loves culinary arts. I made recipe cards to go with it.

To my brother, who has his blog here, I gave the game Risk, but with a twist. It’s set in the year 2210 A.D. He played it with our cousin on Christmas night (stayed up until 3 in the morning!), and they both like it better than the original Risk game. Then I played with him… and lost. But I will triumph eventually!

And for my youngest sister, Hepzibah, who blogs at Beauty of Christ (among other places), I made an altered book about fairies. The book used to be "The Thousand and One Nights," but now it is all about fairies, with lots of colors and glitter. It’s my second altered book, and I learned a lot of new techniques for this project. This is probably the present I worked on the most. She loved it, and kept flipping through the pages in delight. I’ll try to post some pictures of it soon.

And for the whole family, I made a photobook. The title is "Faces: Looking Closer at the Personalities Around Us." You can view it here.

Snapshots of My Autumn Life

A tree fell on our house a few days ago. The wind was pretty strong that day, and we didn't know it, but the limb was rotten. It made quite a clatter. I thought the cats had gotten into the dishes and broken a few, but alas, it was our maple. And I wanted to build a treehouse in that tree! I guess it's a good thing I didn't. (We made a movie instead.) The tree guys came and chopped it all up and put it through the TREE SHREDDER! *wince* Terrible. Just terrible. And they didn't stop there! Oh no, they had to cut down two other trees near our house! Of course, those were dead already, but I feel like we're losing trees right and left. Last time a storm came through we lost Gandalf and part of Treebeard (now he looks ever so much more like a real Ent).

Anyway, that's the pain of autumn storms.

A few nights ago was the first frost, so we raced down to the garden after dark to save the food! We covered my dad's (GIANT) pumpkins with cozy quilts and I picked my herbs. My dad also had a ton of tomatoes, so we filled two whole boxes of 'em and brought them indoors for safekeeping, a.k.a. canning. My mom has been busy making pizza sauce and salsa. And tonight we had sausage tortellini soup with fresh tomatoes and basil and parsley. Mmmm... perfect for cold weather!

I felt like taking a nap this afternoon, but when I climbed up my ladder to my loft bed, this is the sight that greeted me. Five innocent* cats had already claimed my bed, and there was no room left for me. So I was forced to lay on the couch instead. I know, I'm hopeless. I can't even fight off snoozing cats for my rightful place.

*Sarcasm.

The muted colors of early autumn...

And last but not least, a makeshift cover I created for my upcoming Christian fantasy/sci-fi novel, Bluewillow, that I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. More on this soon!

Musings on a Shy Grasshopper

This evening, while I was watering my white pine sapling, I saw the sun shining on the wet needles and I ran to get my camera. When I came back, I noticed that I had a guest. A grasshopper had taken up residence at the very top of my little tree. I tried taking a picture of him, but I soon discovered he was camera-shy! He kept moving around to the other side of the branch to hide from me. But I just walked in a circle around my tree until he finally stopped hiding and let me have a peek at him.

I'm not very fond of insects. Yet as I looked at this tiny, frightened grasshopper I saw beauty. The almighty God of the universe created and cares for all seemingly insignificant bugs because they please him and bring him glory. God knows how old this hopper is, and how many stripes are on his body, and what he sees with those dark eyes. God gave him a place to perch in a nice young tree, away from cars, robins, and other potential dangers. God provides food and water and warm weather, and the grasshopper lives to give God glory.

Jesus said, "Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!" and "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you!" (Luke 12:24, 27-28)

I admit that I often feel about insects the way this grasshopper felt about me-- I'd rather just hide! But if God loves bugs, maybe they aren't so bad after all. And if God so cares for a tiny insect, how much more will he care for you and me!

A New Cover for My Novel!

I was out taking senior pictures for my brother and my cousin this afternoon, and towards the end of the day, we discovered a tunnel under Main Street and I instantly thought of my novel. I handed my camera to my brother and made him take MY picture for once, as I ran through the tunnel.

Then I brought it into Photoshop and played around with color, levels, and my new "tech" brushes. And voila, I became my main character, Kimble Haansvoy, STEW agent 1121!

(Click to see a really large version) What do you think?

County Fair Project #2- Photography

I turned in all my open class pictures today. *Gulp* It was a lot of work to select, print, mat, and enter all 29 photographs. And the fair registration website wasn't working right, so I had to fill out almost all the entry labels at the fairgrounds! But it was worth it, because I love it so much.

I'm only entering one picture in 4-H. It's of some seed-pods that grew by our pond. Here it is:

I'm hoping to go to the State Fair with photography this year, but there's a LOT of competition. I'll have to wait to see if I get picked. In previous years I've gone to State with performing arts (piano), self-determined (a display about writing a novel), and fine arts (a large-scale digital collage I made in Photoshop). Now I'm shooting for photography.

County Fair Project #1- Photo Book

I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at my projects for the county fair! This is my photo book "A Jaunt into the City: Exploring Minneapolis with a Camera." I'm going to enter it in 4-H photography.

Click here to view this photo book larger

New Camera!

One of my passions happens to be photography, specifically of nature and animals. Unfortunately, for two years I've been stuck with a hand-me-down digital camera that has no zoom, is all automatic, does not respond well to lots of light or very little light...and has only 1.3 mega pixels. Yeah. I'm not exactly complaining -I got a lot of good pictures out of it and I learned a lot- but I think it's a good time to upgrade.

After months of saving pretty much all the money I earned while working at the library, I finally got the camera of my dreams- a Canon Digital SLR, with 12.2 mega pixels! I got it on Saturday, and I used it for the first time yesterday, taking a Grand Total of 294 pictures in one day!

The difference between my old camera and my new camera is incredible.

It's the difference between this:

And this:

(Click on a picture to see a bigger version)

Both are pictures of the same subject: fiddleheads in spring. Can you tell which picture was taken with my new camera?

Yesterday a chickadee flew into our sliding door screen and fell to the deck rather dazed and befuddled. It took a long time to recover, and while it caught its breath I picked it up and set it on the railing, out of our dogs' reach. Then I grabbed my camera while the poor little thing was too shocked to notice me and started taking close-ups.

Seeing this tiny, living piece of God's handiwork at such a close range gave me a new appreciation for the complexity of Creation. God designed the intricate feathers, bright eyes, and sharp claws of this little bird, and many people don't even think twice about this common songbird. And God cares for the needs of this insignificant creature that lives outside in the storms and droughts and heat and cold all of its life. Jesus reminds us, "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Luke 12:6-7)

This is why I love photography: I am constantly reminded of the complexities of God's awesome creation, and that none of this could ever happen "by chance." I am always eager to head out into the woods to see the world in a whole new perspective- through the viewfinder of my camera.