A New Day, A Different Way The creative and photographic endeavours of a woman trying to add color and beauty to her world.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.  ~George Eliot

I absolutely adore my pets, they are such an important part of our lives.  I think it is simply the unconditional love and acceptance they give us.  Where else can you find that?  Perhaps it is due to their short memory span but I also find animals show us the perfect example of "being present" and "in the moment".  When I scratch my dogs ears all he is thinking about is how good that feels, he isn't worrying about work, house cleaning, grocery shopping or any of the day to day things that clutter our brains.  

The truth is I too could curl up in a sunbeam and have a nap, the problem is most days I simply won't let myself do it.  



This is Sam, my cuddle buddy.  He is an overweight Shit Zhu who still manages to be perfectly content with his physique and who doesn't ever beat himself up for eating that extra Milkbone.




This is Trixie, a more recent addition to our household.  She is a sweet and gentle 12 year old lab/rotti cross.  Her ambitions in life are the pursuit of breakfast, supper and a 15 minute walk.  If she gets that she is at peace with the world and everyone in it.




This is Lexi my part-time dog.  She means so much to me that my ex-husband and I share custody of her.  She comes for sleep overs and often goes to work with me.  She is happiest on a hot summer day when she has her kiddie pool full of water to play in. 




Now I am not sure this guy has the unconditional love thing mastered, his love seems to be contingent on his food bowl being full.  But this is Max our asthmatic Siamese cat.  We adopted him when he was 8 months old because no one else wanted him because of his health issues.  I still say now he saw us suckers coming a mile away but we love him and while I don't know anyone else who would put up with a cat that sneezes all over their house we love him.

The difference between friends and pets is that friends we allow into our company, pets we allow into our solitude.  ~Robert Brault

I also wanted to acknowledge that I have my first follower on my blog.  Thank you for taking the time to look at my photos and read my blog.  This is a very new venture for me and somedays I really wonder if I have anything to say or post worth someone's time but I certainly do appreciate you. 

This afternoon we grabbed the camera and our snowshoes and went for trek across Echo Lake.  We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful area, people from all over the world want to live here and yet sometimes it is so easy to take it for granted.  I was trying to follow the advice of the inspirational Irene Nam and this weeks assignment for the Simple Soulful workshop to see the beauty in everyday things.  With that in mind I snapped the following photographs of our afternoon.

I have often found the view from the back windows of our house to be very beautiful and I have tried to photograph it many times but unsuccessfully.  In the summer the full moon rises directly over that lovely little white house.  Perhaps by the time this summer rolls around I will be skillful enough with my camera to get the shot I want.  Today however I was determined one way or another to capture the beauty I saw.  I played with the shutter speed and aperture until I was able to get this shot which showed the detail but still caught the glow in the neighbour's windows.  I was happy enough with this shot to put away the camera and go to work. 

It snowed here most of the day, big fluffy flakes.  I tried to capture them with my camera but for the most part I was not successful, I will have to try again on another snowy day.  But this evening as I was looking through my photos I found myself drawn to these pictures of birds.  Perhaps because I would like to fly away somewhere warm and tropical but alas I do not have the wings...at least for now.

I have been spending a lot of time with my camera lately working hard to try to increase my knowledge and skills.  Tonight I took a number of the photos from Monday's Wandering Neighbourhood and forced myself to take the time to edit them all using Picnik.  I would rather take photos right the first time than spend time editing them later but I really want to learn to do more with my photos.  So without further ado here are the edited photos, some are duplicates of the last post and some are new.

In her beautiful blog Mocking Bird, Vancouver photographer Amanda Gilligan does a feature called Wandering Neighbourhoods.  Today I was going downtown to meet an amazing new friend and instead of driving as usual I decided to walk and do my own wandering neighbourhood. 

Unfortunately once I got to the coffee shop I forgot to turn the camera off so it was dead for the walk home but I still got a few shots I was happy with and I have posted them below.