Resuscitated

In 2005, I had a chance to go to Turkey with a number of people from Hillsdale. It was an amazing trip in many ways, and I took an enormous number of pictures along the way. Unfortunately, I took all of those pictures with film camera, and didn't have digital copies made along with the prints when I developed the film. All of my Turkey pictures have thus languished in several boxes, instead of being in a convenient folder on my computer, where I could look at them frequently.

Just the other day, though, I found a company that scans negatives very inexpensively, so I took over a ridiculously large stack of negatives, and presto! Now I can look through pictures from the trip on my computer. Hurray!

A study in violets

On Monday, I planned to head downtown to drop of library books and run a few other errands. Walking out the door, though, I discovered that it was raining a bit. Not feeling like walking in the rain, I almost put everything off until tomorrow. I'm so glad I didn't! Along a fence, I discovered a colony of violets. They were a little battered, but still very pretty.

Vistas

(Yellowstone National Park)

Sometimes you just need to look at wide open spaces for a bit.

In the beginning

(Scripture in stained glass in Oxford, England.)

...was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God.

John 1:1

Saturday ritual

My resolution for 2009 was to start a coffee habit. Prompted by a ridiculous number of runs to Starbucks, I went out and acquired a coffee grinder and French press, intending to make coffee every morning and to preempt the coffee shop visits. As with all good New Year's resolutions, this instead completely stopped my coffee drinking in its tracks, and all of my shiny new coffee accouterments languished.

Since starting teaching in the fall, however, I have rediscovered Saturday mornings as a time to relax and enjoy a slower start to the day. Now, coffee has now become an essential part of this Saturday morning ritual. I look forward to it all week!

Strife

(Mural on a temple wall in Luxor, Egypt: conflict is nothing new...)

When we were in Egypt a few years ago, one of our guides asked us, since we were Americans, if we were Christians. We said that we were. "So am I," he responded. "Please pray for the Christians in Egypt. It is very hard and there is a lot of persecution here." As I read about the current conflict in Egypt, I pray that God will use this to further His glory and protect His people there!

Waterfalls

...are beautiful.

(Oregon)

Light and shadow

(Students' table, Oxford, England)

"Oh look, another picture of a plant," remarked Benjamin the other day, while reading my blog. I like plants. I see a lot of them on my walks and compulsively take pictures of them. Today, however, in honor of my husband, I am posting a picture that does not contain a single plant. Ta-da!

Blue, black, and white

(Springfield, Oregon)

Dew

An unusually heavy fog a few days ago left dew everywhere.