The Gift of Compassion by Sue Jones

Compassion is such an important gift to have and it is equally wonderful to find that gift in others.
On the Kindness Blog I share another story from the loss of our angel.

Kindness Blog

The best definition I have ever found for compassion is “to suffer together”.

I am of the belief that in order to be able to show compassion for another human being you must have suffered yourself at some time in the past. In the past few weeks, my family have suffered the tragedy of losing a premmie baby. During our suffering, there were many around us who showed compassion but the most amazing example of all was that of a midwife named Anne.

When my daughter in law went into premature labour a mere hour after her and my son had moved back to Queensland from Melbourne, I was concerned but hopeful. I was blessed to be able to hold my daughter-in-law’s hand, speak encouraging words and support both her and my son during this time. Medical staff began invading the room, however Anne kept me informed every step of…

View original post 616 more words

Monochrome Madness – Week 39

Since my last MM post, I was tagged in a Facebook ‘chain mail’ type thing to post a monochrome image each day for five days.
This was right up my alley as I have a bucket load of monochrome images. Funnily enough it was the photos of family members that I changed to monochrome that evoked the most comments with my most popular post being a photo of my late grandmother.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, photos really are snapshots of life and are capable of evoking so many emotions within us.

Not Always Perfect

I am a week behind in my reading of the blogs of others once again and have come across the Photography: 101 prompt of “Moment”.
My friend Karen shared some photos that she had taken of dolphins playing off the bow of a boat she was travelling on. She snapped the photos quickly without having the time to adjust the settings on her camera rendering the photos technically imperfect. But that is okay because the photos still captured the joy that seeing these creatures frolicking in the bow wave created within her.

This thing called life

is a wondrous thing.
We rise each morning with a blank page (day) spread before us to do with as we wish.
How we choose to react to the circumstances of the day is entirely within our own hands. How we spend our time is once again wholly ours to decide.
Life is what we choose to make of it.

Improving Your Life – Week 2

So last week we were challenged by Cheryl Richardson in her book “Life Makeovers” to look at the past year, make a list of our accomplishments and then give ourselves a pat on the back for our wonderful achievements.
This week we are going to step forth and do something else.I must confess that I haven’t read this chapter until this morning so I’m as clueless as those doing this along with me about what our next step is……

Convoy for Jorge by Sue Jones

I was so thrilled to watch this all unfold on Facebook and it was me who tagged Melissa. Speaking later with Melissa, she was overwhelmed by the experience.
I had the best time taking photos of the trucks on the day and by taking Master Four (my grandson) with me, I was elevated to ‘Best Ma’ status for the next day or so. 🙂

Kindness Blog

When Lisa Welch from Jimboomba, Queensland (Australia) was struggling with what to gift her son, for his upcoming 10th birthday, she was stumped. Her little boy Jorge has a disability. Born with Corticol Dysplasia, he is non-verbal and his brain functions at the capacity of an 18 month old child. Compounding this, Jorge also has severe Epilepsy suffering multiple seizures each day.

Lisa had noticed that during the drive to school each weekday morning, Jorge almost jumped out of his seat with excitement every time they passed a big truck on the road. This was what gave her the idea to put a post on the local Scenic Rim Facebook Sell It page, asking for a person with a truck to visit their home for an hour and possibly take Jorge for a ride.

Within minutes Melissa Whelan whose husband Tom drives a big rig was tagged. Melissa who happened…

View original post 1,131 more words

It never rains but it pours….

Literally.
Well at least in some parts of Brisbane and surrounding areas if not in our own town.
Yesterday the first of this summer’s ‘good’ storms began with the sound of distant rumbles at about 1.30pm.
The Garden Gnome was out polishing up our pride and joy (Anna the Holden Kingswood) so that he could escort a young graduating couple to their High School Formal this afternoon. He came inside for something and I asked whether I was hearing thunder. He replied that he thought so and that it was awfully black out toward the border ranges so I looked up the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) site and sure enough there was a line of storms along the border however there was another storm cell that looked as if it might come in our direction.
A while later, the GG came inside and mentioned that there were some good lightning strikes to see.
I set up the camera and went outside. Bombed out on photos but man we were entertained by some amazing lightning.

Monochrome Madness – Ranunculas (and a thankyou)

This week I have dug into my special folder of images converted to monochrome that I keep on my desktop to find this shot for Leanne and Laura’s Monochrome Madness challenge.
This photo was taken back in September at the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers.
I love the play of light on these ranunculas.