I have a 'Pocketful of Sunshine' . . .

"Take me away, a secret place

A sweet escape, take me away . . . "

- Pocketful of Sunshine , Natasha Bedingfield

Yep, this space...

feels like a secret place, early upon the dawn

at the first sign of life

when the darkness turns to light,

and out of blindness comes sight.

As you are reading this,

I AM here,

with friends,

braving the cold

not just because I can

but because I have to

this place IS my stillness

my peace

my calm...

my sweet escape from the chaos of life

my center in the unevenness

in this space everything is right

everything is good, and sooo many possibilities exist

{KK 411 & 99}

THIS, is my pocketful of sunshine

that I carry around in my soul.

So thankful for this!

Love, Kim

sharing with Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, Song-ography
Communal Global

A little beach time . . .

"Every time I stand before a beautiful beach,

its waves seem to whisper to me: If you choose

the simple things and find joy in nature's

simple treasures, life and living need not be so hard."

- Roxas- Mendoza

Well, I haven't been here regularly lately . . . it's summer.

Summer means the house is a little busier, everyone is home,

and I'm finding it hard to be at the computer as much.

And that's a problem because I'm still taking photos,

and waaaay behind in editing.

And honestly, although I'm not unhappy, life just seems a little hard lately for many reasons

and when that happens I seem to want to spend a lot of quiet time on my front porch.

...at least until the mosquitoes drive me away.

We have managed to make it to the beach a few times in the last few weeks,

and gosh do I love spending time there!

This particular day, you could actually walk on the shore. This has been a record year for seaweed,

but you won't find me complaining about that. 

It's always fun to learn something new....you know those little holes along the shore where you see bubbles coming out of? Well, this is what lives in there, ghost shrimp.

And it's always fun to dig for sand crabs and watch them bury themselves again. They bury back in backwards so that they can use their antennae to feed.

The seagulls watch me carefully . . . 

And I learned a lesson...make sure the sea critters have buried themselves fully before standing back up

or they become snacks.

I wanted to let you know that I have not forgotten about my monarch series, I promise, and hope to

get that back on track soon. I have been sharing some short videos on instagram though and you can find me at kimatpickingpoppies.

And I almost forgot . . . It's my turn over at Focusing On Life today . . .and I'm exploring the possibility

that what we see through the lens might involve metaphors for our lives....join me?

Until next time,

Love, Kim

sharing with Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday

Wake up a little earlier . . .

"Life is too short," she panicked, "I want more." He nodded slowly,

"Wake up earlier." - Dr. SunWolf

I've really never been a particularly natural early riser, you know without an alarm, however I do quite enjoy setting my alarm for this. . . .I hope you aren't tired of sunrises yet!

1. At some point the sunrise time started going backwards, getting earlier. Just a few weeks ago I remember it being at 7:19, tomorrow it will be 7:09. So by the time we 'spring ahead' on March 9th, the sunrise time here at my spot will be at 6:35. But I don't think they take into account that we turn our clocks ahead so will it really be 7:35? Hmmmm. This sunrise was on Sunday and this shot was with my 50mm lens and I had a little fun with slow shutter speed and camera movement (I'll share those later).

2. I wonder . . . you know that saying what a difference a day makes? Do you think they said because they watched the sun rise two days in a row. . . because what a difference a day makes!! This was on Monday.

3. THIS, is why you never leave right away after the sun rises. Because if you're lucky, someone will show up to go wade fishing and give you a silhouette photo op.

4. Do you think seagulls can smell french fries in your pocket?

5. Why yes, yes they can. And they will bring their friends and relatives. Tip: throw the french fries in front of you not up in the air above you unless you have on hat. Not that I know this from personal experience or anything, but I have keenly observed when others have not been so lucky. ;)

Oh, and this was back at the same spot I started at in the morning. I had gone to the nursery and then to the butterfly garden, which looks terrible since our hard freezes, and then to lunch across the street for fresh shrimp (and french fries).

I hope you have a great weekend and remember, wake up a little bit earlier!

Love, Kim

sharing with Little Things Thursday, Thursday Favorite Things, Random Five Friday, Friday Photo Journal

Beach happenings. . .week in review

"To live is so startling

it leaves little time for anything else."

- Emily Dickinson

In fact it actually leaves little time to clean one's house!

But hey, I don't think I want to be remembered for that anyway....

I was able to get to the beach twice this week, once on my birthday and once with a friend.

The birthday on the beach was well, a bit of a bust as it rained.

But later in the week my friend and I packed snacks and drinks, books, journals and of course

my handy dandy blue kids net, you remember that one.

We left fairly early set up our chairs, and umbrellas and had ourselves a grand time.

Eating, talking, relaxing, playing . . . rinse (literally),  and repeat.

And it was quite an eventful week at the beach . . .

This was Sunday morning, the birthday edition sunrise . . .

{Shoot.edit.submit}

It seems when I get out that handy dandy blue kids net (lol) I always make a few friends, and they are always quite a bit younger. Together, the three of us caught 375 hermit crabs with a few olive snails thrown in!! I put a few in my make shift glass aquarium and holy cow, one came straight out and took over the shell of another crab. Although this was much to the demise of that other crab, and he struggled for awhile trying to get him out all the way. I'm sparing you the photo and the details as interesting as it was. . . and yes you

are welcome!

They were all put gently back from where they came.....

As I was taking these pics of the hermits, I hear, "he got a shark".....

yes, I dropped everything to go look, well not the camera. It was a very young Bonnethead shark.

They can get up to 5 feet, but average around 3 feet, and are timid and not dangerous to humans.

AND, I just had to hold it . . . it was pretty amazing and its skin was a bit sand papery. He needed some

help staying above water until the water could wash back into his gills

I watched this guy practice his balancing act for the beach Olympics . . .

. . . and the seagulls take a bath.

But then, you see something that makes you go hmmmm . . . at first I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but I scooped it up with my net and was quite perplexed to see this poor red eared slider, a fresh water turtle, floating in the ocean, a very salty body of water. So I rinsed him with some fresh water, had a photo session and found him a safer home. Isn't he just adorable?

This year on the Galveston State Park beach, the vegetation is in abundance with these little yellow flowers and as I was looking for shells I spotted this tiny, and I mean dime size tiny butterfly looking for a snack.

{Flower Art Friday -I used Bonnie's (pixel dust art) painterly texture and love the effect I got on this}

And for Photo Art Friday the theme is doors, and in keeping with my beach theme I used doors from a church in Galveston and overlayed an image of pelicans with some clouds. I used a Kim Klassen texture sunkissed, and two from Pixel Dust - etched in stone and painterly, removing the textures at 100% off the doors in a way to accentuate the crosses. I thought the pelicans were perfect with church doors as they fly with such grace and the hint of clouds remind me of heaven.

"Heavens Grace"

Can you believe it's August already? My kids start back to school in a matter of weeks, and my son starts football camp for high school next week. We are a huge high school football fan family and in fact my daughter has the countdown at 21 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 40 seconds until the first football game.

And one last note, about a pesto called Ernesto, as in Tropical Storm Ernesto. It's on track to become a hurricane by Monday and currently in the Caribbean but it's a bit early to know just where in the Gulf of Mexico it will land. If the high pressure system currently in my area of the gulf stays then chances are it will most likely take a turn for Mexico. This is the time of year when hurricane season starts getting really fired up as the water is very warm, especially in the gulf which is what gives fuel to the storms to grown into major hurricanes. Keep your fingers crossed for all of us here in the gulf!!

Until next time,

Love, Kim

XO

   

   

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Ummm, here we are, and I feel like there is no way another week passed.

A week where I didn't do very well hunting, so after a day on the beach today

I'm throwing a hail Mary in that direction for my prompt interpretations.

And they are . . .  

{ wrapped }

To protect with covering . . . a hermit crab with a shell for protecting.

{ your Sunday best}

{ time together }

Looks like they were having just as much fun checking things out on the beach as I was finding crabs.

{ tell me a story }

I have to say it is heartwarming to know that even parents in the wild get a little frustrated with their

youngin's from time to time. This is actually an adult and young seagull and the 'babe' is pretty much

just begging for food, loudly and persistently.  So lets just say it's mom, she regurgitates her food, baby is happy for all of a minute. This keeps on, the baby screams, she feeds it, rinse and repeat. Until she just

gets fed up and I guess in seagull fashion puts her screamer in a big time out. It was quite comical to watch.  

{ love or couple }

The writing is on the wall in the sand . . .

{ duplicated }

. . . as in a reflection

I'm looking forward to how everyone interpreted this set of prompts, see you on the other side!

I hope you're having a great relaxing weekend, and keeping cool. Yesterday the

feel like temps were 109 in the shade!

Love, Kim

XO

 

  

Foto Friday - Taking flight

Flight:

1. the act, manner, or power of flying.

2. a number of beings or things flying or passing through the air together.

The week has been an incredibly busy one, more than normal. You see last spring I was approached

by the Athletics director and asked about starting up a boys athletic booster club. I did. I am now the president (deep breath), and it is quite an undertaking! It has consumed about 40 of my hours this week as

there is much to do before school starts the week after next. T-shirts, concessions, raffle tickets, volunteers

to sign up . . . the list goes on. So this means that other than this past Sunday I haven't been out with my camera and am now having separation anxiety! 

So, I know you're wondering why did she give me the definition for flight, and I'm getting to that I promise. After our executive board meeting tonight (wow, that sounds important) I finally had a chance to work on this post. I sat down for the first time to look at my pictures from the weekend when I got a response to a comment I had left on the blog of someone I'm now happy to call a new friend, Erin at treasures-found. Yesterday was Erin's birthday and at the end of her post, she asked a couple of questions and in order to be entered into the drawing for the things with wings giveaway she asked that you answer one of them in the comment section. 

Who gives you wings to fly? Who kicks you out of the nest? Who nurtures your soul, encourages you, makes you want to keep going? Do tell!

To which I replied:

 I must say that my wings have come from many places, but God gave me my first set of wings - a set that I find myself afraid to use. He always keeps them mended when I have a bad landing and I'm working on using them with confidence. See the thing is, strangely, I am not afraid of falling, but of soaring. I am working on that...

And her response:

I am glad that you gave the glory to God and acknowledged that you DO have wings. But I believe first and foremost that we are CALLED by GOD to be CREATIVE. God wants you to use those wings. To keep them folded and tight is to deprive the world of the best that you have to offer! We each need to find our creative calling and trust that we can soar. Because in the doing, especially when we are afraid of the unknown, the creating is bringing you closer to God because that is what God meant for you to do!

You can imagine my aha moment when I realized the connection between our conversation and these pictures that I took on Sunday.

 

When you have come to the edge of all that you know 

and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown,

faith is knowing one of two things will happen:

there will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.

-Patrick Overton 

We are each of us angels with only one wing,

and we can only fly by embracing one another.

- Lucretius

More than anything else the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement

that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination.

-Wilbur Wright

Don't believe what your eyes are telling you.

All they show is limitation.

Look with your understanding,

find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.

-Richard Bach

Linking this photo with favorite photo of the week contest and fabulous friday.
(This photo won top five for fabulous friday!)
 

I am reminded this week that there are no coincidences, but a fate, a bigger plan that brings people together and when we stop long enough we can see it. That when we pause just long enough that there are lessons about life, yours and mine that are everywhere for us to learn.

And just as God made each of us unique He also gave us a unique set of wings with individual specifications on how to use them, and that no one else can do it for me. I have to just jump off the ledge knowing He will mend them should I fall and that there are also those who have gone before me who are willing to help me spread my wings - and for that I am grateful!

So today I want to thank all of my family, my friends past and present, and all of those who have touched my life even if it was only for a fleeting moment. Some of you don't even know how much wind you put beneath my wings just by showing up here to pick poppies with me, and I thank you!

I hope you have a soaring weekend
Much Love, Kim
XO

Linking up with the hollie rogue for more photo friday fun

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