For the Beauty of the Earth

I have been loving early mornings.  I have been assigned to teach at 8am this semester, and I fretted all summer long, knowing that it would mean dragging myself out of bed at an unearthly hour - one of the down-sides of a longish commute and a commitment to hygeine.  And even though I am only teaching two days a week, I know that if I allow myself to sleep in on non-teaching days, I will hate myself on the mornings I can't sleep in.  So I have seen 5:30am every day for a week.  And I have to say, it is beautiful.

I have started running a bit earlier, and Monday morning was so beautiful.  There was a fog lying low over the fields, and the sun came up molten red-gold.  This morning I wanted to try to get pictures, but alas, no fog.  There were other pretty things to see, however.

Lillies heavy with dew.

Over-grown fence-posts.

Morning glories.  I know these are kind of considered a weed and a nuisance, but I am fond of them.  In junior high, our beloved band director nicknamed us according to...I don't know, some kind of word association that occured to him.  I was Morning Glory Hallelujah, Glory for short.  And that is what I was called for three years.  I think he would call me that today.

Red berries.

I think these are nasturtiums?  I'm not sure, but I like this picture with the fiery flowers and the hazy white house in the background.

It's September, one of my favorite months.  I love the change of summer into fall.  Everything begins to look burnished and ripe.  Mornings get a bit cooler and I think of camping.  Geese will begin flying like arrows.  I don't think it's hard to understand that God loves us when we see what He created for us.  So many good things - the promise of salvation, the relationships with our family and friends, and golden, late-summer fields, covered over with orange and pink flowers.

For the beauty of the earth

For the Glory of the skies,

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies:

'Lord of all, to Thee we raise

this our grateful hymn of praise

                                

                                   -Folliott S. Pierpoint, 1864

The England Album

I love taking pictures (probably inherited this love from my dad, who did some professional work, once upon a time, long, long ago). In England, I kept my camera busy. It's not a great camera - a point and shoot Olympus FE110 that I got for Christmas in 2005, but it does well enough for what I want - and besides, I think that good pictures have more to do with the person taking the picture than the performance of the camera - I've seen people with incredibly expensive, high-tech cameras take plenty of crappy pictures because they don't know how to use it. I also don't use Photoshop - I edit pictures primarily with Photo Manager and maybe some fun things with the free options on Picnic. Most of what I do involves shifting midtones and enhancing the contrast. Some programs seem to require a four-year degree, so I stick with what is simple and subtle improvements.

I printed the best pictures to put in a scrapbook. This is also another area that I didn't want to spend a ton of money on, and I also didn't want to work too hard. And, above all, I didn't want a cutesy scrapbook. I abhor cutesy. This turned out to be a fairly simple process, with a few basic items. I found a beautiful metallic brown 12x12 album with an embossed design on the front, and I used black paper. I framed pics using a white marker, and journaled on note-paper that I tore the edges off. Alphabet stickers, pre-cut cards for captions, and a few sheets of printed paper rounded out the materials.

I included post-cards, tickets, and brochures from the trip. I am pleased with the overall look. I have found that one side-effect of scrapbooking is the re-kindling of desire. I am already looking forward to going to England again. Maybe in a few more years...