Serendipity

Looks like I've made it to the big 2-Oh!  Without further ado, I'm counting the use of a tripod as my new number 20.  It was a most fabulous gift from wonderful friends - and I look forward to using it more and learning some new techniques along the way.

In the meantime, it allowed me to get a group shot of my family over Christmas - the first in about umpteen years.

I have to work some at arranging people, but just getting them in the shot and looking content was a major victory. What an awesome gift!

Christmas did bring me a couple spots of sadness this year, but was mostly very pleasant. R was, as always, such a sweetheart to me... making sure he and I stopped for a little solid us time in the midst of a very active week that had some potential landmines. A little sushi on Christmas Eve, and a little cocoa and chocolates on Christmas day, before getting together with people went a far way to make the tough parts so much sweeter! I'm so blessed to have him!

Speaking of tripods, what serendipity that the theme for the first week of the 2014 Photo 52 challenge was me, myself, and I.  When I suggested that as a theme, I had no idea that I'd actually have the help of a tripod!

Even so, trying to get a photo of myself - or something that represented me - proved difficult. I tried a number of different things and I was just... awkward, all around - until this one.

Me, myself, and I: Photo 52, Week 1

I'd had the tripod set up in our living room on New Year's Day, trying different things. R didn't know I'd changed the set-up when he came out of the kitchen munching on some New Year's goodies. I'd set the camera on 10 second delay - 3 shots in a row. This is the second one it took.  In the first shot, I look super startled by R's appearance right in front of it, and in the third shot he'd realized that he walked in front and he looked super startled, but this one was just too cute. R felt so bad because he thought he ruined my shot, but he actually made it, because this middle shot was so cute to me. Unexpectedly, I had my shot!

As I wrote with my introduction to the new Photo 52 group when I posted the photo, I know too well how life often does not go the way we hope and expect, but this photo totally illustrates something else I know very well - that so much of the joy and humor and wonderfulness of life is equally unexpected. Whatever else is, I'm incredibly grateful for such vast quantities of unexpected joy. So this photo, like so much of life, is not what I'd planned... but I'm going with it.

When I posted it in the group, one of the ladies used the word serendipity - what a great word!!

As for this shot, I guess this isn't really serendipity, since the moon comes out every night and the city is always there, and it was in my work parking lot... but in the moment it really took my breath away so it felt like serendipity.

Sadly, when the highs are below zero, I'm not dedicated enough to get out of my car and take a photo, so this doesn't really do it justice - but it was just gorgeous that night. And cold, very cold. The most I could do was roll down the window and snap from my car. Still, cold to the bone though I was, the moment felt magical.

So, all in all, 2014 is off to a good start. Here's hoping that it will hold many more unexpectedly wonderful things for all of us.