Deaths

I think I posted this photograph very recently, but here it is again, in honor of the sad death of my Jade plant. Aw! We're going to attempt plants again in the new apartment. Let's see if I can remember to water the botanical friends the way I remember to feed Craig and me. I read another chapter in the PS book, this time about lighting options, and so I essentially vignetted this pic (well, not really, as there is a vignette option, which I did not read about, but this is similar). I'm in serious need of a new photography transfer from the PC to the Mac. I'm being selective, so it's time-consuming. I only want my favorites to be shifted over. This weekend we fly to Chicago for Craig's cousin's wedding, and Annie is taking a plane trip with the intention of us spending time together in the air sans The Internet (so distracting, sometimes I wish I could just totally disable it for a few hours a night.) I will have the Photoshop book at one hand and Annie at the other, and together we will scratch our heads over photography and try to visually prepare for the Europe trip. I want my photographs to be very telling when we return, and I want them to be satisfying enough so that we can pick plenty to display on apartment walls and shelves and such. Europe is so exciting to me, but my biggest draw may just be the photo ops. I love New York a ton, and there are photo ops crawling on top of one another to be shot, but I'm itching for something brand new, something foreign and frightening and exciting and ancient, like the old architecture in Amsterdam, or the pillowy waffles (and brilliant chocolate) in Brussels, or the Eiffel Tower and its ability to elicit a swoon. Those places in Europe are fiction to me. I don't believe they exist, and I can't wait to be proved wrong! I can't wait to step onto a street and gaze across a canal with attractive landscape rising around. I can't wait to fall in love with travel again. I have felt that so many times, in Maine, in Canada, in Vermont, in New Hampshire, in England, in Mexico. I loved Charleston, I loved Nashville. I love small towns, I love urban atmosphere, I love seeing a different range of things. Today was one of those days where my elation over traveling was positively compounded by my elation to move to a neighborhood where we will be so ecstatic to live, to the point where I was just plain happy today. A very normal, regular and understandable happy. Life is good today. If it throws me for a loop tomorrow, I won't be disappointed. There is just so much out there. There are so many wonderful things.