#MyMovingLife a local college the next town over is taking the rest of my camera equipment and photography books.

Achievement unlocked. One man’s trash* is another man’s treasure.

*only this isn’t trash, and I kept it from becoming that. May it help raise up future photographers.

.

Oh! And in my hubby’s family stuff that came to us from his mom, I now have some old Russian treasures to clean up, including a Samovar and Menora - which at first I thought was a candelabra before two more pieces came out of the box and I said “this is a menora! I guess you really do have some Jewish DNA!” (My niece found out about that from a DNA test.)

A treasure box of items. Which I don’t want necessarily keep (except for a small basket). Now comes the hard part. Finding their new homes.

#MyMovingLife

Hubby & I got what I call the garage attic (large space above the garage) cleaned out today except for the few things we are keeping (golf clubs, cooler, a few sports items, mostly). My spirit feels so much lighter!

Tomorrow I pack up some camera gear I got a quote for. And continue trying to find a home for miscellaneous other photo studio equipment (gonna try the art museum which has photography classes and a local college that has the same). 🤞

Letting go of stuff is freeing.

Left for a ski weekend with friends. I don’t ski, and I truthfully would rather be home with my doggie, who knew we were leaving and tried his best to come with us, dropping his toy right next to my purse as he saw things being packed into the car.

Luckily, I have a friend who loves sitting for him and sleeps over. He’ll have fun. Me, maybe a little. I do these ski vacations for my husband. But a lot of them have been a bust. Rainy; people getting sick; pipes freezing and loosing heat. 🤷‍♀️

Believe there is good in the world.

Be the good.

Hiking the trail system behind our home, I realized that it was probably the last time I would hike here. The brook crossings are getting harder when the water is high - typical of winter and spring - and we are moving in the spring.

It was a satisfying walk, as it seemed Buddy and I were the only ones to have hiked here since the last snow. We saw plenty of wildlife tracks tho. I took a photo of the trail before me then of the footsteps I left behind. A metaphor for my time here on this land.

Just returned home from my daughter’s house for the weekend. Watched my grandson play basketball; my granddaughter tried to convince me to play “the floor is lava” and I told her that I didn’t think that was the best game for me (I’m sure you can imagine the gist of it, and I’m 63) but I’m flattered that she thought I could; my son-in-law has become inspired to learn to cook vegetable dishes (my cuisine); a great weekend, but there’s no place like home. 🏡

I paid for a Grammarly subscription for the first time this year (before that I just used the free version). The extra analysis has actually helped me with revising some of my meandering, conversational sentences.

Yesterday I got this notification from the app. They sure pegged me!

This is how an English Shepherd sleeps. 💤 #dogsofcoso

I found this photo today (and I’ve also completed what turned out to be a week-long project dealing with all our non-digital photos in albums and boxes and frames).

You all can probably figure out this is a photo of a hamster. But he’s not any old hamster. His name was Felix, and he was my pet when I was a pre-teen. That means this photo is 50+ years old and my older self is really touched that my younger self took and saved a photo of her hamster. I could feel that little girl’s heart, today.

He finally got his wish.

I’m doing a 30-day yoga challenge (with my sister). We’ve been doing great, only I do best exercising in the mornings and I ran out of time this morning. So I fit the routine in before bed.

My dog, however, wanted me to knock it off and go to bed. First he tried his telepathy, staring into my eyes. Then he laid on my blanket. Then stuck his nose in my face, licked my arm. As a last resort, he knocked over a piece of firewood to try to break me from my yoga trance.

This dog cracks me up.

Our first snow of the winter (I’m in MA). About a foot (we live in a mountain town so slightly higher elevation and usually get a bit more than surrounding towns). So pretty but it will all melt away in Wednesday, when it’s getting up to 50 degrees. Grrrr.)

Headed out for a quick snowshoe in our yard and woods with my doggie.

In purging and packing (I have through March but I’m doing a little each day so I hopefully don’t hit panick mode and can do this with intention), I decided to tackle what I feel is the hardest task - photos in frames and albums. It is a hard as I thought it would be but to get on the other side of this will be a huge release.

In some cases I’m just removing photos from their old, deteriorating frames and packing them up for future consideration - maybe even before we leave if I have time.

One more thing. I believe we all try to do our best. There’s just a lot of brokenness in this world.

I mentioned this to my hubby and and he replied, “did he ever raise his voice to anyone?”

My relationship with my mom was the hard one for me. And though I left many of her behaviors behind, I did my fair share of raising my voice as a parent, I think. But, also, nurturing, which I didn’t get from her. We have a decent relationship now, mostly because I keep choosing to forgive. I see her now as not getting what she needed as a child, and I was determined to break that cycle with mine.

It’s interesting that the parenting we learned and internalized as a child gets passed down through generations. My SIL came from a family that yells at each other. I have seen that, now, in his parenting. Luckily, my daughter is there to show him a better way. Prevention, redirection, praise for the desired behavior, appropriate consequences (this is a toddler).

I got in my car realizing that I don’t remember my dad ever raising his voice to me. Called my mom to confirm. Man, I was blessed.

Oops, this was supposed to be attached to a post about David Soul passing away. Wishing him the best on his journey to the beyond.