pauses&clicks

The Structure of Our Lives

Posted by pausesandclicks on 09/06/2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: family support, grandkids, Houston, Hurricane Harvey, weekly photo challenge: structure. 5 Comments

As empty-nesters my husband and I are quite used to having structure in our lives.

We’re creatures of habit and although he travels for his job, which adds a certain amount of change to every week, even that is predictable. We have routines, we follow the same protocol every morning, our evenings have a rhythm.

Our life is structured. So structured that we aren’t even aware of it.

Until it isn’t.

Our grandchildren have been at our home for almost two weeks now due to their parents having the foresight to send them away from Houston before Hurricane Harvey descended on them. Their dad is a volunteer firefighter and stayed behind to do what firemen do in a storm. Their mom stayed behind to save their home. Their other grandma, not really knowing exactly where she was headed, hastily packed everyone up and left the city with an hour’s notice.

And so the structure of our lives disappeared into the storm.

It has taken not just us and their other grandma to keep it all together, but a network of friends and diversions.

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Nothing is the same for us or for them, either here or in Houston. Our son worked for days on end, swimming through fast moving storm waters in the dark of night to rescue people while his wife battled the storm alone. At the end of it all they were exhausted and broken-hearted for the devastation around them. They miss their children. Here, the kids don’t have their friends close by, don’t have their familiar toys or their dogs, don’t have the structure in their lives that they’re used to. At three, five and nine, they’re missing their parents, the little ones, especially, not having the experience with time to grasp the difference between two weeks or two months.

And so love has become the foundation, the structure that our days are built on.

Through it all we found time to smell the roses.

And hug a tree with Tita.

Most importantly, we’ve been deeply aware of, and have been thankful for our blessings and the fact we live close enough for them to be with us.

And for this…..just two more sleeps until their parents arrive. 🙂

Now excuse me while I go pick up some legos and clean up the, thankfully, washable markers the two little ones just colored themselves with while I wrote this blog!

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A Week That Lacked Corners

Posted by pausesandclicks on 08/30/2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: buffalo, buffalo traffic jam, Colorado, flooding, Houston, Hurricane Harvey, prayer, South Dakota, weekly photo challenge: corner, wide open spaces. 5 Comments

My week started out in Colorado and South Dakota where, although I looked for corners, they were decidedly lacking.

The landscape was more about wide open spaces and meandering trails.

And this kind of unique traffic jam, definitely not like the ones most of us are accustomed to on the corners of our cities.

Beautiful Distractions

Posted by pausesandclicks on 08/23/2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: birds, birdwatching, cardinals, hummingbirds, red-headed woodpecker, weekly photo challenge: ooh shiny. 15 Comments

I’ve not succeeded in luring bluebirds to my yard in Louisiana but this makes up for it.

The whole back of our home is windows and these lovelies often catch my eye….beautiful, fleeting, elusive…..each one of them eliciting an “ooh, shiny!” response from me.

Feeling Drenched

Posted by pausesandclicks on 08/16/2017

Posted in: art. Tagged: graffit, the power of water, wallace lake dam, water, weekly photo challenge: elemental. 3 Comments

On this August morning in Louisiana my weather app reads 92 degrees with 88% humidity at 8 a.m.

This would be why I’m not a fan of the South in the summer. This would be why I avoid being out in the elements at this time of year. This would be why air-conditioning is my friend and why I wasn’t looking forward to being outside for even one photo session.

However, I had a relative who was giving birth a few days ago and all through that day, as I was praying for her and thinking about her, images of water kept playing through my mind. Although it’s been 28 years since I last experienced it, I still very vividly remember the power I felt when my water broke and the process started, that rushing of the water.

Which turned my thoughts to a local dam I found by accident the last time I lived here, so I went out in search of it, remembering the rush of water flowing through it’s man-made barriers in an attempt to harness and control that particular element.

The search did not disappoint.

My memory also served me well in knowing this was a place often frequented by people with spray paint in hand and although graffiti has little to do with the elements, my camera also turned to the evidence of themselves they’ve chosen to leave behind. I suspect visiting this place might be a sort of rite of passage to high schoolers in the area. Perhaps that, in itself, is a sort of elemental pull to this place.

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This entire photo shoot took all of 15 minutes and I was soaked with sweat by the time I was finished. Yep, I’m not a fan of experiencing the elements in the summer in Louisiana.

Headed up to South Dakota in a few days….highs in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s.

Places with those kind of temperatures in August are my new happy place.

The Patina of Time

Posted by pausesandclicks on 08/09/2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: aging, experince, patina, weekly photo challenge: textures, wrinkles. 9 Comments

My sister texted this photograph to me yesterday. That’s her on her wedding day and me peering through the screen door. I think it got both of us thinking about the passage of time.

Which turned my thought to both buildings and people.

A foundation is poured, walls are built, fresh paint is applied.

In youth our skin is taut, supple and untouched by the years.

But time intervenes and both new buildings and our bodies become canvases painted by time. Continue Reading

Alone Time

Posted by pausesandclicks on 08/02/2017

Posted in: Military Life. Tagged: being alone, civilian/military friendships, Facebook, friends and family, Good Morning America, military relationships, morning coffee, weekly photo challenge: satisfaction. 3 Comments

I had dinner with a special group of people last night in a raucous restaurant, people who have become family over the years. Some of us connected to each other in this city because of the fact that we didn’t have family near, some of our group being the ones who do, but who accepted us as family initially because they supported the military but eventually because we all fell in love with each other.

I know, sounds odd, that particular use of the word love.

Yet we’ve left many such “friends who became family” throughout my husband’s career.

Montana Rustic Rip Rap

Posted by pausesandclicks on 07/26/2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: abandoned cars, Great Falls, Missouri River, Montana, montana rustic rip rap, rip rap, weekly photo challenge: unusual. 4 Comments

I saw a lot of unusual things this past week in Montana but this sight along the Missouri River at sunset (the timing of said sunset, also being unusual at 10 p.m.) won the prize.

Riprap, as rip rap, rip-rap, shot rock, rock armor or rubble, is rock or other material used to armor shorelines, stream beds, bridge abutments, pilings and other shoreline structures against scour and water or ice erosion. It is made from a variety of rock types, commonly granite or limestone, and occasionally concrete rubble from building and paving demolition. It can be used on any waterway or water containment where there is potential for water erosion.

Time Capsules

Posted by pausesandclicks on 07/19/2017

Posted in: Military Life. Tagged: bulletin boards, collections, memorabilia, memories, refrigerator magnets, weekly photo challenge: collage, what we remember. 7 Comments

I’ve never outgrown my love of bulletin boards. I had one in my room when I was growing up and I continue to hang them in my home to collect the things that come my way and catch my eye as I move through my life.

Refrigerators count too. What ends up on them is a bit more transient, as they tend to collect things that I need to be reminded of in the near future so notes, etc. tend to go up and come down as events pass by.

The refrigerator in our new home has a wood front and isn’t magnetic. As a result, I hung a magnetic board in my back hallway so I could continue to enjoy the magnets I’ve collected over the years.

Those Who Carry Us

Posted by pausesandclicks on 07/12/2017

Posted in: Faith. Tagged: church, faith, gratitude, mass, thankfulness, weekly photo challenge: bridge, weekly photo challenge: delta. 9 Comments

I didn’t write a blog post in response to last week’s “delta” photo challenge because my muse failed me. I looked the word up to try to gain insight. My husband and I talked about it’s meaning in relation to mathematical statistics and I read other’s posts about growing up in delta regions but just couldn’t grab hold of a connection between my experiences and the word.

Posting wasn’t the only thing I almost didn’t do this past week.

I almost skipped going to mass on Sunday. My husband and I had co-hosted a party on Saturday night that had been many months in the planning so waking up Sunday morning and heading out to church didn’t happen. In the back of my mind I knew 5:00 mass that evening was out there but honestly, I didn’t expect to go.

But I did. And there, five days past the day I normally post my blog, I found my delta.

The Relativity of Time

Posted by pausesandclicks on 06/28/2017

Posted in: Uncategorized, Why I Make Pictures. Tagged: berry picking, blueberries, Frierson, Shuqualak Farms, summer days, weekly photo challenge: transient. 3 Comments

Forty days is a very long time if you’re waiting for something. Forty days is forever if you’re in a hospital bed. Forty days is much too long if you are a family waiting at home towards the end of a long deployment. Forty days and forty nights for Noah, on an ark with all those animals? An eternity!

But forty days are transient when it comes to blueberry season at Shuqualak Farms, a short window of time when the berries are ripe for picking at the start of a hot Louisiana summer.

The farm has been there for a very long time, an institution in Frierson, offering years of memories to local families, who return year after year to pick the berries and enjoy the complimentary and decadently delicious blueberry popsicle offered while the berries are being weighed and paid for. The farm itself is the opposite of transient but that window for picking….you have to be aware and go when the berries are optimal.

Yesterday did not disappoint.

Besides coming home with a full bag of delicious plump blueberries, this image presented itself towards the end of my visit. It’s what I enjoy the most about photography, finding that one fleeting, transient moment in the middle of all the others.