Lesson #11

(Some many recognize this as the quote associated with the movie The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button; I heard it through advertisements for the movie.)

Story behind this photo: Every other year, I go to Texas and stay on a ranch. It's been a family tradition since before I was born. This chair is in the cottage we stayed in last year, which had more than enough room for all of us.

I finally got to choose my own room this year at the cottage. I haven't really been deprived of this right, and we've never gone to this cottage so I've never had an undesirable room, however it's always exciting to get the first pick when it comes to decisions like that. Plus, it goes along well with one theme from my summer: Learning to stand up for my decisions, and not care for others and their feelings so much that I forget to care about my own.

A series of events caused me to look backwards on my life and think things like, "I should have said how I was feeling," "I shouldn't have volunteered to do that," and "that was really miserable, why did I do that?"

Someone on the ranch at Texas told me that I had been overextending my generosity.

What?! I thought.

But she was right! I had put so much emotional energy into pleasing somebody that I forgot that I needed to be happy, too. I've had a much better balance since then. I do things that are good for other people, but I keep my own feelings in check.

I'm also reading this really great book, You Can Be Happy No Matter What. I love it!

Lesson #10

Story behind this photo: On my last Cape Cod vacation, I was on the beach and the ocean looked beautiful. So, I walked out on this group of rocks to take photos. I even took a photo of the sign that said "Stay Off the Rocks", yet I was surprised when the lifeguard told me I was not allowed on the rocks (sort of a "duh" moment). She was very nice, though, and said she hoped the photos came out well and that they must look great.

But about 15 minutes later, I saw some people on the rocks, and they didn't get in trouble... :)

Lesson #9

Story behind this photo: I went on a school trip to Ellis Island in New York while we were studying immigration. This is a view of the ocean from the ferry we took to get to the island.

Lesson #8

Story behind this photo: These are some very tall trees that grow alongside a path to one of my favorite hiking spots (by which I mean one of the only spots I will willingly go hiking). I took this photo on a day when I was walking down the trail with one of my favorite people, Eternity!

My family has been a Fresh Air Fund host family for the past couple years, and Eternity is our Fresh Air child! She has a lot of personality. She's spunky, sometimes sarcastic, very silly, and awfully sweet. I adore her! She likes to be outside, but she really doesn't like the bugs. She's a good hiker and explorer, and is usually ready to try almost anything.

Lesson #7

(Sorry the author is hard to see; it's Micheal Crichton)

Story behind this photo: My friend and I entered a movie contest with a "green" theme; it had to be about the environment, recycling, saving the planet, etc. This photo is one we took while walking down the street on our way to the bottle and can redemption center. It was a 24 hour contest, so we spent one day, sunrise to sunset, filming. Then, into the wee hours of the night, we edited our movie until we really enjoyed watching it and met all of the contest's guideines and criteria. We were up until 4 a.m., when her brother finally got the movie to burn onto a DVD for us. Then we slept until 7 or 8, got up, and dropped the movie off at the local theater.

We went later that afternoon to watch all the movies. Ours was not a contestant for the first place cash prize of $1000; that award went to a local amateur film production company. In fact, we came in third, and not only were we a little disappointed that all our hard work was somewhatin vain, and that our film skipped while playing and was hard to hear, the man running the contest didn't announce my name; only my friend's. He sang her all sorts of praises up onstage, but didn't mention that I was her partner. She dragged me up onstage with her to take our certificate promising us $50, but the man never acknowledged my presence. It said both of our names on the DVD, in the credits, and in the introuction, and in the movie it was pretty evident we both took part in the creation. So needless to say, I didn't make friends with the man running the contest.

However, for a not-so-great experience overall, it did have its good points. It's always thrilling to stay up all night working on something you really enjoy, and especially when it's with a good friend. She and I both have personalities that want to take charge of every project; somehow we managed to achieve a good balance, and neither of us was in control or felt left out. Plus, we made some killer chocolate milk, coffee, and chocolate chip smoothies to keep us awake (and entertained).

Lesson #6

Story behind this photo: Every other year since I was born, I've gone to Texas for a week in July. One of my favorite things in Texas is the beautiful Riverwalk; the gorgeous trees, the lights, the stone bridges... This photo is of the walkway on the Riverwalk, but it isn't really this color.

Lesson #5

Story behind this photo: One day this summer, two of my friends and I went to a lake near where my mom works. She was going to be at work for the day and we figured it'd be more fun to swim than spend the day at home, so we got a ride with her. Turns out we were so wrong; spending the day at home would have been a better choice. It was freezing that day, and we spent the entire time trying to find a comfortable spot (impossible) and trying to stay warm (also impossible). In this picture, which was basically a mistake shot, is the boat that was on the shore, and my friend's hand holding her iPod.

Lesson #4

Story behind this photo: This is a shot of the wall in my room last April, including:

• my chalkboard, proudly displaying the words "life is good"
• my clock (I stuck the paper that said "be present" underneath it in a moment of inspiration and it's been there ever since)
• my VW Beetle sign, which I got in Amish country on a road trip two years ago

This was the layout on one of my walls before everything was rearranged by my friend the Feng Shui master. Everything got rearranged. Our Feng Shui process went something like this:

• We consulted books: Feng Shui by Nicola Jenkins (part of a kit that includes a pa kua mirror, too) and Soul Searching by Sarah Stillman (who was sixteen when she wrote it, can you believe that? It's a wonderful book.)
• I threw out loads of stuff, because clutter in the room adds to mental clutter. I kept things that are important to me, but now they have a place to be stored.
• We put my furniture in entirely different places because of the energy flow in the room (the bed should be far away from the door so it doesn't pick up the energy flowing in, but a desk would be a good place to absorb the energy, so it can be near the door.)
• There are certain elements that are supposed to go in each corner of the room, so we put small symbols of those elements in the room (like a small jar of gold flakes in the metal area).
• Each part of the room has a zone, which you can find on a Feng Shui map. The zones include things like "career", "family", and "personal projects" (among many others). So, using symbolic items, I added important things to those zones; I put stones in my career zone to encourage stability and solidity, family pictures in the family sections, a pair of candles in the relationships section (to encourage people being together!), etc.
• Having life is a great addition to the feeling of health and vitality in the room. We put a healthy plant (one that I can actually keep alive; it's not too high maintenance) in the relationship section of my room. My friend and I also got a betta fish to live in my room. I have cats, but I wanted an animal that would actually live in my room all the time to add good energy to it. We named the fish Buddha.

My room feels completely different now; it's amazing. I've had an easier time keeping my room clean because there is a place for everything. Things that are important to me are more proudly displayed. The room feels more open, and I want to be in there all the time! I don't know how much to buy into all of the principles of Feng Shui; they certainly make sense, but it's mostly the general idea of creating a peaceful space that matters, not all the little details.

Alright, I'm almost done, I promise.

The quote in this photo is one of my favorites. One time, my vocal teacher and I were talking about ideas of perfection (we seem to get distracted from singing sometimes and end up discussing the most interesting things), and she said that a teacher once told her, when she was talking about seeking perfection, that she had the wrong idea about what it was. He told her "perfection is acceptance of what is in the moment." Just hearing, saying, or writing the quote puts me in a place of presense. There is only now.

Lesson #3

Story behind this photo: I have gone on numerous Cape Cod vacations in my lifetime, and we have always gone to the same cottage. The cottage was small, which was good when I was younger, but with an additional vacationer this year, it wouldn't have worked. I remember our old cottage so well. Each of the twin beds had red comforters. The walls had dark wood paneling. The TV was one I watched many episodes of "Zoom" on back in the day. The man who owns the cottage told us that if shows ever didn't come in, we'd just have to whack the TV, and he demonstrated the whacking, which I thought was pretty much the funniest thing in the world. I remember getting sand in the shower after coming back from the beach (which was walking distance from the cottage). I am not a huge fan of change, in some aspects, so it was weird for me when, this year, we went to a new cottage, the one in the photo above. But I loved it! I made all new memories there... and I may have finally outgrown the old cottage.

I'm noticing something about the quotes in my photos that was honestly unintentional. This quote is about change. I put it on the photo because I like the quote and it fits well in the space in the photo. But I didn't think about how this picture of the cottage represented change in my life. And with Lesson #2; "If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits." My friend had to doubt her limits to go on that ride. I feel like this quotes are finding their way, perfectly, onto these photos.

Lesson #2

Story behind this photo: The carnival comes to our city once a year. I went with one of my best friends on the day this photo was taken. She did not want to go on this ride at all. I begged her and begged her to go on. I told her how much fun it was! I told her that it was not as scary as it looks. And eventually, after probably an hour of pestering, she agreed to go on it. And what do you know? She loved it. And then she begged me to go on it over and over and over. Funny how that works... :)

Lesson #1

I've started making a collection of "life lessons." I'm editing photos that I have taken, and putting my favorite quotes on them. This is the first in the series.

All of these photos (well, most of them) are ones that didn't look great originally. They were the poor outcast photos; the ones that can't be used for anything because, well, they're not the best ones. But with a little editing, they turn into something beautiful. And each photo has a story about the day it was taken... sometimes the stories are even better than the ones attached to the photos people pose for or the "perfect" shots of a scene.

Story behind this photo: I went camping on Cape Cod with my family, and from our campsite, you could walk through the woods to go down to this lake. There was one path we kept following that led us there and back, and we thought we would always be able to identify it among all the other paths near this lake. Well, one day, two of us walked down to the lake, and on the way back, we took the wrong path. We were halfway up some big hill before we decided we were lost. We ended up following the path all the way to the top of the hill, and walked right into somebody else's campground! We ran out of it, and checked the sign at the site's entrance to see what number it was. It was about five numbers away from our own site, so we walked down the road toward our own site. We walked right back to our tent as if we had just come back from the lake, on the right path, and nobody ever suspected we had been lost.