Blog It Forward

.what inspires me.


A blog mash up by sfgirlbybay, Victoria {blogging goddess}

When I asked her how she could have possibly organized all of this....and stated that my brain would be a puddle of goo…she calmly said, mine is.

I don’t know how she did it, but somehow she has organized some 300 bloggers into one giant mash of bloggid-ness. {click here to see the line up} The idea was to share what inspires us on our blog and then link back to the blog who posted before us and to the one we are passing it on to. On Friday, Good Measure graciously passed the keypad on to me.

So here I am sitting up on a Sunday night (now turned morning-1am) needing to write about what inspires me and being in one of the least inspired times of my life. Could it be the copious amounts of grey has invaded my senses and is now nestled snuggly around my shoulders… or could it be the fact that I am yet again in a ‘transition’ Whatever the reason, I am so grateful to Victoria. This project is giving me the perfect reason to re-connect and refocus my thoughts.

*blink* *blink*

ok, so maybe this shift will take more of an effort than I am used to. Maybe I’ll start with a list.

The ocean. the crest and crash of a wave… the hiss when she pulls herself back unto her.





The sun. oh that glorious gorgeous ball of light + heat, without which we would not exist.




My friends. who live to the edge of what they know and go just one step beyond.

Music. the pulse, the rhythm. the sounds that go so deep within me I feel like I’m in vibration with all life.

Movies. The paring of acting + music + the visual. I am transported. 'Given to fits of delight and anxiety, fear and pain, laughter and joy.

In one moment, an ache to reach out and stroke a tender cheek, a longing to hold the one that is wounded or rage at the one who did the wounding..

A well choreographed movie will take you where you didn’t know you could go. Will make you feel what you didn’t know you could feel. Will open you to a life you didn’t know existed two hours before.' {taken from a post I wrote a while back entitled 'colors'}

Animals. I have always felt more at home in a pile of puppies than with a heap of people. The spirit behind the eyes is what I love.




Summer. Heat. growth. abundance. the smell of a hot day brewing in the sunrise. wakens my spirit and pulls me out to dance in a dew covered park.



There is SO very much more. When I step out of my rut, which thanks to this mash up I have, I remember that life inspires me. The gorgeousness of a lamppost against the shimmer of the hot pavement, a conversation with a friend, the snore of my kitten, a old glass coke bottle. We each have things that inspire us more that others. Whatever it is that inspires you, today pour yourself a little cup and take a sip.
Here are some more random nibbles before I toss this on it's way.



the potential of a spring day




my nephews



Now I hand this over to gwyneth paige|couture letterpress {YUM!} Enjoy her daily feeding of gorgeous images.

Thank you to each and every blogger who is participating...you ALL inspire me.

Here is todays list of blog it forward sites

* swoonette * La Dolce Vita * theyellowhouseintheU * seek and find design * darcy rogers * paper & thread * bread of many * mocking bird * a diary of lovely *

.peace.laughter.merriment.

Portland| Two Tarts..maybe Three

My lovely and dear friend, Miss P, is a foodie through and through. She makes her own cheeses, has a wheel of brie in the 'cooker' as we speak and loves the simple joy of making a meal for her friends.

When I photographed the Leve charity ball this past December Miss P and her husband accompanied me. Leve was raising money for Growing Gardens, a fantastic organization that 'digs at the root of hunger'. An organization I knew she would love to support.

There were many ways to contribute at the event but after a few turns around the floor, Miss P found exactly what she wanted at the silent auction table... "Spend a day of cooking with Two Tarts!"

Two Tarts is a yumm of a bakery located on NW 23, and this would be a day spent cooking with them... learning their ways, mixing the goodness..licking the spoons. Miss P put in her bid and walked away.. but when the bidding came down to the wire, she and her husband were a flurry of hand signals.. she in the corner..he standing next to the clipboard.... higher?...higher! She won of course...don't you always get what you give your utmost attention to?

Anyway, this past weekend she finally had the opportunity to put on the hand crafted apron and get up to her elbows in butter and sugar. A LOT of butter!! In fact the largest block of butter I have EVER seen...15 lbs! I just about fainted from joy.

I couldn't stay very long, but did stay long enough to see those huge hunks of butter make a ultry large vat of lemon curd. *swoon*

A BIG thank you to the fun + friendly folk that work there...you guys are delightful! Thank you for letting me hang and drool.

adoption| portland pets need you

i tilt my head to the left cuz I don't hear so good in one ear...but I know I could hear you say you loved me..




'oh you look nice...I go home with you, yes?"

My love of all things furry (yup even tarantulas) stretches back as far as I can remember.

I learned to walk by helping myself up on our Collie's tummy and then her back, as I grew. When I was 4 year old, I shared my backyard mud-pit + my bathtub with our duck Chipper (the bath was a one time gig. It did not work out well at ALL. Warm water + 1 duck = a whole lotta poo) Chipper was my T.V. watching buddy, he would sit on the arm of my panda rocking chair and we would watch Sesame Street and the Electric Co. together. Still, he was a duck. I kept a roll of toilet paper close at hand to clean up his 'messes'.

Animals have always been my best friends...I simply can not imagine what my life growing up would have been like without them. They gave me so much. I am the woman I am today because of the lessons I learned from them. Compassion, gentleness, kindness, to sit & listen quietly to a purr...

To live a life without a pet is simply unfathomable to me. I will always have at least 2 to 3 helpings of baby furrs running around my home.

I guess that's why pet adoption & rescue is so important to me. I know the joy and richness that a beloved pet can bring to your life... and to your childrens lives. I know that without our voice they have none.

Since I started working with Dogstar and Theresa, I have seen at least 30 cats and 6 or 7 pups find their forever families.

In fact EVERY animal I have posted on here and on my FB account has been adopted. So a big THANK YOU and WHOOO Yah!

With that, I bring you the latest dose of adoptable cuteness.

Please SHARE the link and leave a comment, it helps more than you know!!

{if you want to see more photos of the furry kids...you can go come on by the FB side of life. facebook.com/heaven.mcarthur}

THANK YOU!!

mikey + gina | portland engagement

mikey serenading his lovely bride to be







As they dance in the hall where their reception will be held, Portland graced us a bit of sun.







tippy toes.. tippy toes!





I met Gina over a counter, exchanging cash. She was my favorite bank teller. One day as we chatted, I looked down and saw the most beautiful ring.

"Oh, are you getting married?" I asked. All at once my professional bank teller became a giddy girl so deeply in love she shimmered. Her joy about her upcoming wedding was contagious and I left humming a sweet little tune.

We continued to chat whenever I went in, about dresses..venues...etc... and each time she talked I was swooped up into her happiness. On one particular such occasion I happened to mentioned that I was a photographer and if she had any questions about that aspect to surly let me know.

I think her next question might have been, "Are you available for our date?!"

We met for coffee and I learned the Mikey + Gina story. It is one of the sweetest love stories I have ever heard. I swooned just a teeny bit. They were best friends for years. Watching as they each dated other people..broke up...dated... broke up..

Finally one night as they sat and talked their way into 2am, they realized that the one constant had been each other. They were the love they had been looking for all along.

They are dorky, cool, awesome, funny, hip, silly and everything else that I find adorable and perfect. Is it possible to adopt a fully grown couple?

Their wedding day can't get here fast enough. I am doing the hurry-up-and-get-here tap dance. I am so blessed to be witness to a completion of one stage their lives and the beginning of the next.

While editing their images I had a sweet smile sneak in. It took up residence on my face for the rest of the afternoon. I hope their love gets on you a little bit too.

*squeals of joy*

See you two soon.

risk

--------------------

December 31st, 2009

ISO set to 1000 and aperture at 1.4, I risk taking a really crappy picture. “I don’t want to get up out of my chair right now”, I exclaim. “I don’t want to take a picture!” But the voice/force that is not yet done speaking, that is not yet done ‘using’ me, pulls me up out of my chair with a heave and sends me to fish my camera out from it’s snug Christmas trip packing. I did not go quietly, I complained bitterly as I shuffled into the living room and retrieved what I was commanded to.

Some days it is not a matter of feeling the inspiration but of stepping aside so that the stampede of thoughts can come thru. It builds up behind the dam of noise and daily living until I sit quiet, long enough for it to squeak a pinky toe in and then it’s all over...I really have no choice but to let it finish.

So now I sit... photographing a pile of yellow papers in the dwindling daylight letting ‘it’ finish.

It started nudging through as I walked home from my morning cup of coffee. Snow sloshing under my feet, the words started to form. “Argh, not again! Why are you coming now? Can you not wait until I get home? I have no way to record you right now.” So Instead of my usual process of allowing it all to form and sweetly mingle right then and there... only to evaporate. I tried something new. I asked it to come back when I could give it a voice. Something I learned from watching Elizabeth Gilbert in the TED talks. {she is brilliant}

To my surprise...it backed off.
--

Now sitting at my small desk, distant jazz thumping in the background and a world of white expanding before me I give ‘it’ a voice.

"Come thru the winter light of my window. Come thru the scratchy sound of my pencil against the paper. Now is your time. Now what would you say?"

I look out.

Lavender clouds drift. Robins flit & perch trying to regain the comfort of spring. A Train whistle blows. The soft snore of a sleeping kitten shushes the room. All combine to wrap my brain in a cushion of color and push my hand to write.

Fingers pressed hard to hold the paper steady. My thoughts leap and bang against each other until they tumble one by one onto the page. They have been silenced for so long, that they trip over themselves getting out of the starting gate and then heap into a puddle before me. My task now, to assemble them into some reasonable order.

--
40. 40 is on the way. A fact that has not totally gone un-noticed by me. But nonetheless a fact that I seem to be in a shocking bit of denial about. It is barreling down on me like a heard of bison across the plain and I say, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that quiet, soft squeaky noise..? “

Don’t get me wrong, I am excited for 40. I am beyond thrilled to be out of my 30’s. I didn’t like going into them, being in them, or even the sound of them. They were the hardest years of my life. But somehow the excitement of turning 40 is being beaten back by my reality. My life at 39 does not fit the expected reality of 40.

It’s not that I am not where I thought I would be, although I am not, it is more that I am not living the collective vision of what I SHOULD be doing or have accomplished by 40. I have to admit to myself, to my family, to the society at large that I don’t fit the 'mold'.

But ‘fit’ or not, this is what and who I am right now. This is who I bring into this new year, to this new moon appearing and disappearing behind the blur of dark clouds.

I take a breath and look up to see the stack of paper before me heaped against my cup. They are my manifest. This voice inside that pushes until I absolutely have no choice but to let it come out. Whatever fever this is that takes my hand and pushes me to write, it is no longer willing to lay silent. Through scratching pencil, clacking keyboard, smooth goosh of pen on paper... how ever, when ever, now ever... it will be expressed.

So what do I want for myself as the new/blue moon rises on my 39th Winter? I want a life of joy, a life filled with the rush of expectancy, discovery and awe. I want a life of Truth. To know the Truth of me. To look on this world with God’s eyes. To get angry, to be hurt...to laugh, to love.. To feel it all and not silence any aspect of it. I want to live through my fear. To know it will come but that it does not have to dictate my direction. I want to take risks.. to try when I do not know the outcome. To do.

I want to be completely grounded and playful on this earthly plane as well as steeped in the mystical realm of the universe. I want to be in possession of the ability to plan. I want to have the freedom that great amounts of money will bring, but I do not wish to pursue it.

I wish to pursue my joy, my vision, my laughter, my love. I wish to share this vibration of awe that washes over me.


-deep breath-

I look at again at my ever growing pile of yellow & ‘lead’ and feel my heart skip a beat. The light spilling in through my window is breath taking... The colors, the shapes, the glow of the whole scene makes me slightly giddy. I can taste it.

As I shift my gaze past the pile of papers, I see the once snow peaked rooftops exposed as the last tastes of snow slip to the ground.

Trees born bare, exposing what thru the flourish of death we could not see. There is a peace in winter, a hush and a stillness that gives rest to a world busy with itself. It is as much of a gift as the cornucopia of summer and the splashy boldness of fall. It brings me to a place of hushed reverence, of darkness and exploration that in the spring, will bloom.

This is the winter of my 39th year. And I am ok with that.

As I sit letting the last bits trickle thru, I hope. I hope that you know... wherever you are, you are enough.. Whoever you are, you are a gift. I hope that you live this life as though you matter, because you do...more than you can ever know. No one sees like you, no one feels this life as you do. Share it with the world and we are all the richer.

So much love, light & play I wish for you.

In Gratitude,

Heaven