gratitude

Gratitude is a sincere appreciation for blessings or help we have received.

Today is the last month of November, and it seems to me the entire month is a time where many people think of all their blessings that God has bestowed upon them.  My Thanksgiving was wonderful this year.  I got off work unexpectedly early, and was able to go with my husband to spend the night at his parents house the night before Thanksgiving.  I really enjoyed doing this as I do not get to see them often.  We stayed up late, caught up on events, and talked about preparation for the next day.  Thanksgiving day arrived and I helped Gerri prepare a couple of items.  One of my favorite things to do on holidays is take pictures of everyone (both planned & unplanned).  I think pictures are so important for memories and reflecting.  I realized that I had not shared many of the photos I have taken (most likely out of lack of time), but this year I decided to make a powerpoint of the best pictures taken of this years Thanksgiving.  I added music as a theme song and sent it out to members of the family.  Now I want to make powerpoints of  all the previous holidays as well as future holidays.

We all have so much to be thankful for and these are the blessings that come to mind when I think of all the things I have to be thankful for:

health
youth
My husband
family & friends
determination
the desire to give back & help others
The fact that I am graduating this week!
A job
shelter
an abundance of food & wealth
& most of all that I realized early on in my life that God was in fact there....

But it takes more that just being thankful.  Like many things in life, you must show how you feel through your actions.  For some reason I have always had some kind of connection and fascination with the homeless.  I remember when I was 16 going on a field trip to downtown Houston with my photography class.  While other students were taking photographs of the skyscrapers and building.  I was taking photographs of one homeless man who kept digging through the trash.  I was trying to figure him out. 

When I see homeless people now, I want to understand their story.  How did they get here?  Why are they here?  Most of the time I think it is due to mental illness unfortunately.  But even if it were do to some kind of self-inflicting vice....they still need help.  As long as I am not directly helping someone to hurt themselves (i.e. giving them money and then they go buy drugs with that money) I feel fine buying them a warm meal.

In fact there is even a homeless & sick man in the medical center that knows me by name.  I have bought him lunch a few times.  I have watched him over the years go from walking to wheelchair bound.  It is a sad progression.  The opportunity to feed the homless at the downtown library a couple of years ago with my friend Joey in celebration of my birthday was another eye-opener.  I want & hope to do so much more to help others in my new found freedom from school that starts in less than 2 months.

Harry Clarke & Edgar Allan Poe

I came across these beautifully intricate drawings that for me define "illustration" on Platform.

I couldn't pass up writing a post about these.  As you may or may not know Edgar Allan Poe lived from 1809-1849 in America and died only 4 years after the publishing of The Raven in 1845.  His cause of death is unknown, although theories certainly exist.  He has been credited with having an integral part of the American Romantic Movement, mysetery & macabre, and the development of the detective fiction genre.

Harry Clarke was an Irish stained glass artist who lived from 1889-1931.  He illustrated the stories of Edgar Allan Poe in Tales of Mystery and Imagination which was first published in London in 1919.  These original editions are now worth anywhere from $2700.00- $7500.00.  see here

You can see a few beautiful color prints that were done by Clarke here.  After the great success of Tales of Mystery and Imagination in 1919, a second book with additional color images was released in 1923. 

My question though is how did Harry Clarke end up illustrating Poe's stories?  I have not been able to find an answer yet....but apprently this art nouveau-esque style illustrations by Clarke was simply a way for him to pay the bills.  His real passion resided in his stained-glass work, which I hope to learn how to do one day myself.

A more detailed history of Clarke can be found here.

A Nurse

I usually don't go for all this "nurse" like stuff- but a friend of mine posted this, and I actually liked it and felt is summed up what it is like to be a nurse....

To all nurses out there, this is a well deserve pat in the back......."You're a nurse?? That's cool, I wanted to do that when I was a kid. What do you make?" "WHAT DO I MAKE??!!".... I make holding your hand seem like the most important thing in the world when you're scared. I can make your child breathe when they stop. I can help your father survive a heart attack. I make myself get out of bed at......... 5am (Or stay up all night) to make sure your mother has the medicine she needs to live. I work all ...day to save the lives of strangers. I make my family wait for dinner until I know your family member is taken cared of. I make myself skip lunch so that I can make sure that everything I did for your husband today is charted. I make myself work weekends and holidays because people don't just get sick Monday thru Friday. I make my self smile when taking care of demanding family members and patients. Today, I might save your life. I make a difference, what do you make?" REPOST if you are a or you love a nurse.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

— The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich