There is nothing as nice as a candle’s glow on a chilly winter’s eve. Unless, maybe, it’s a candle glowing in a pretty, handmade mosaic candle holder made just for you. My husband Patrick learned to mosaic in Italy, and he created these pretty holiday candle holders this year. It took a lot of trial and error, but they came out quite nice!
Today’s Many Muses Musing prompt is GLOW. Tomorrow’s prompt is MAGIC. Come on over and join in!
I’m musing on relaxation today over at Mortal Muses, hop on over there to see the crazy photo where I actually took my camera into the bathtub to capture the shot I had in my head. Oh, the things photographers will do to get a shot! I had to think ahead and move carefully so as not to get my camera wet, but I got the image I wanted. I am quite proud of it.
I took these photos a while ago because I wanted to remember this lovely, large bathtub we have in our apartment in Italy. I’ve been totally spoiled by this tub and will miss it terribly when we move home. I’ve found there is nothing better than a soak in the tub to relax me if I’m stressed or to warm me up on a cold winter’s day. I’m scheming to someday figure out how to have one put in to our house in Oregon. 🙂
A last note: Don’t forget that you can still enter the giveaway today. Tomorrow morning I’ll announce the two winners.
Happy Monday everyone!
Patrick came home with this candle last week as a gift from the second graders he reads with at school. Brandon was dying to light it but I made him wait until I could take some pictures. He had to wait several days, because at the time I was sick and didn’t have the energy to do much more than sleep. When I was ready, he was happy to be my photographer’s assistant.
So here it is, a bright and shiny candle today, brought to you by me and my trusty assistant. Can you make out our apartment, in reflection?
Today’s 9 Muses Musing prompt is SHINY. Tomorrow’s is SHARING. I hope all of your Christmas wishes came true yesterday!
One of the things that I love about Italy is how restaurants look. It’s completely normal to have tablecloths, wine glasses, cloth napkins and candles on the table. It’s just the way things are done. Any self-respecting sit down restaurant will have a nice table presentation, like this one on a back street in Venice, inviting customers to stay.
It makes meals here in Italy feel special for me, since growing up the only time I saw these things on the table were either going out to a really fancy restaurant (where we were dressed up and had to be on our BEST behavior) or a very special dinner at home. Mom’s china, my grandmother’s silver, cloth napkins and candlelight. Those are the things that dress up a table to me.
When is the last time you ate by candlelight? Just that one little thing, a candle burning on the table, can make a normal meal a little bit magical. Try it out and see.
Today’s prompt for 9 Muses Musing is CANDLE. Tomorrow’s is SNOWFLAKE. Have you been playing along?
I’m having a heck of time this month. You see, I’m a joiner. And there are all of these things to join in November, just calling to me! But I’m trying to resist, because I have a busy month that includes a lot of personal projects I want to do, instead of joining something that doesn’t get me closer to my goals and dreams.
It started with Art Every Day Month, which looks so fun. I mean, I create most every day anyway in some way, this is right up my alley. But I’m resisting, because I don’t want to focus my creative inspiration and efforts just to meet a self-imposed deadline every day when I have so much else going on.
Then there is NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, which inspires you to write a post every day on your blog for the month of November. Hey, I do that most of the time anyway! But not committing this month, which includes visitors and travel and the busiest, longest work week of my entire year.
Along the way I ran into 30 Days of Gratitude. What a wonderful way to uplift and celebrate the month of November, than to be grateful, for 30 days? But then that focuses me on one specific topic… and again a whole 30 days of commitment to it. Can’t do it.
On my internet wanderings I bumped into Digital Detox, which sounds like a wonderful week long little way to simplify your life if you want to participate, and then November in Black and White. Hey, I love black and white photography. But wait, that would commit me to a whole month of it. Right now, when I have other things I’m focusing on. OK, so no.
Thank goodness I don’t have any idead for a novel, or NaNoWriMo would be calling to me too.
I hadn’t realized that I was such a joiner until I find myself struggling to resist joining in to all of these things. The communities they create are so fun. The things you gain by doing these activities is so worthy. As I read some of my favorite blogs I feel like I’m looking longingly into the windows of people at a party and I’m outside in the cold. But I remind myself, no, I can’t put myself through this right now. Because for me, what’s worse than being outside looking in? Joining something and then not being able to follow through. I beat myself up, because I committed to something, darn it, I should follow through. Instead, I’m choosing to stay sane this month, without adding extra pressure.
So to satisfy those urges to join, I’ve decided to create KaNoJoMo – doesn’t that sound fabulous? It stands for Kat’s Non-Joining Month. This month, I am not going to join or commit to anything that is not on my personal priority list. I am going to resist, walk away, focus on my own stuff in the limited time I have available. I’ll just wave at everyone else through the window as I walk by, give them a thumbs up to let them know I support what they are doing.
Want to join me? Haha – I tricked you! You can’t join me! That’s the idea, no joining. It’s a personal decision, one you can make too. No monthly or weekly or daily challenges or commitments to other projects if that is not right for you. Only commitments you make to yourself. You don’t need to announce it to the world (as, ironically, I am doing), you just have to make a personal choice. You don’t need permission from anyone else but you, and you don’t have to apologize to anyone for not joining.
Week 1 of KaNoJoMo is already over, and I survived without joining anything. Whew. Only 3 more weeks to go…
Today’s photo is from Saturday evening in Venice. *Sigh* I love Venice. Still.