Category: gratitude

An Ode To The Shortest Month

Yesterday, in the midst of the weirdness and woe, there was also something magical to note.

After severe rainstorms and plenty of freezing weather, Monday was this clear, sunny, warm, beautiful day.

It was, I think, a hint of what’s to come: February.

Yes, I said February.

The second month of the year. The shortest month of the year. February is a beautiful month.

In February, winter is not quite over, but spring is not quite here. In February we start to see the brilliant yellow of blooming daffodils against the monochrome hue of stormy skies. Daffodils are the harbinger of warm sunny days to come. They gives the cold body hope.

I believe the daffodils and tulips and the snowfall of Cherry Blossoms in February are meant to keep us going like the carrot at the end of the stick. The “something wonderful just around the bend” that help the human soul stay willing to endure the cold and damp days that are yet to be endured.

In February, Punxsutawney Phil pokes his burrowing animal’s head out of the ground and lets us know the score. The planning can begin.

The ground begins to thaw. Birds start to think about coming back this way. There is hope.

Heck, February is also the birth month of at least three of my favorite people (wait, four! Just thought of another).

I appreciate we’re still a good two weeks away from February, but I’m looking toward the second month of the year with a secret anticipation.

In other words…I’m flat tired of winter.

But it’s more poetic to speak of daffodils and warm days.






**Footnote: I purposefully ignored the “holiday” in February. I’m grateful to celebrate every day with my beloved, I don’t need a certain day set aside.


Photo by Andrea Kratzenberg and used royalty free from stock.xchng.


Pandering

Today, I’m going to pander to the keyword search.

Oh yes I am…pander a go-go.

You know, it’s an odd thing to look at the visitor stats for my little ol’ blog and see what exactly brings folks around.

I’ll have you know, the NUMBER ONE reason people visit my blog is because of a single post I did on the geometric wonder known as the trapezoid.

I’m not even kidding. “Trapezoid” is the number one most searched keyword for Oh Fair New Mexico.

I think I may have helped schoolchildren around the globe by posting a photograph of a trapezoid in real life, my former office building.

Here it is:



There is she is, folks! A trapezoid! In real life! Right there!

Trapezoid, trapezoid, trapezoid (<- Now I'm just baiting the search engines....) What is a trapezoid? (< - still baiting) In case you don't know what a trapezoid looks like, I have something for you:



Ain’t she a beauty! An isosceles trapezoid! That’s HOT!

Why all the pandering? Well, I recently noticed via an image search that some kindergarten class in Washington DC has robbed me of my trapezoid-based SEO.

Oh hell no!

I’m taking back the trapezoid.

Love the trapezoid! Embrace the trapezoid!

If you’re a Brit, enjoy the trapezium!

There…that should do it.


Sometimes The Answer is Clear

Yesterday, when I saw that this week’s Theme Thursday was stairs, well, it didn’t take much for me to choose what to write about.

If yer talking New Mexico and yer talking stairs, then naturally…yer talking about Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe.

It is a stunningly beautiful and magical place.

For those unfamiliar, in the 1850’s the Loretto Chapel was being constructed, and when finished the Sisters of Loretto realized that, for whatever reason, no one planned a staircase to get from the floor of the church to the choir loft.

In addition, the chapel was made pretty small, so any staircase built would have to manage the impossibly small space.

The sisters were distraught at this situation and out of money for construction, so they prayed mightily about it. Legend has it that a man with carpentry skills arrived at the chapel and spent about six months creating an elaborate staircase that still stands today, the left without being paid.

The staircase is made from wood not native to the area, makes two full 360 degree turns with no center post for support, and uses only wood pegs, no nails or glue.

The chapel and the staircase have become busy tourist attractions and the chapel is also a very popular place to get married.

I’d hoped to be married there myself, but logistics were too difficult between California and New Mexico.

Enjoy a beautiful photo of the “miracle” staircase, one of my favorite destinations in the great State of New Mexico.



Loretto Chapel



Photo taken by user jfelderh and found at travel.webshots.com

iBienvenidos! Welcome! Come on in!

Snacks and beverages are over there, games and fun stuff are out in the backyard.

Please, come in! Friends, family, casual passerby, you’re all welcome to the brand spanking new home of that venerable ol’ blog called Oh Fair New Mexico.

Thanks for helping me move, I owe ya one!

After almost four years and a thousand posts, I decided it was time to move to a self-hosted blog. All the cool kids are doing it.

Heck, the New Year seemed like as good a time as any to launch my new address.

To help get this blogwarming party started, I wanted to give my readers a gift, and so I decided to read another New Mexican folktale as my first post in the new location.

Readers of the original Oh Fair New Mexico will recall that I did my first folktale reading back in June. I had so much fun, so I decided to go again.

This selection is called “The Orphan Boy” and is taken from the book Cuentos de Cuanto Hay, Tales from Spanish New Mexico

The story collection is published by University of New Mexico Press, and was edited and translated by Joe Hayes.

So, without further ado, I welcome you to “The Orphan Boy”, as originally told by Porfirio Roybal of Jacona, New Mexico.

If you’d prefer to just read the story yourself, click here.

Or, to listen to my read, click below. It runs just over ten minutes. Player opens in a new window.

Karen Fayeth reading The Orphan Boy



Story was recorded using Garageband with some relatively low-tech gear, but it gets the job done. If you are an audiophile, I guarantee this recording will make you nutty. Read the .pdf instead. Let me know if you have any technical issues.




Perthpective

What’s that old platitude, something like “you’re not the best judge of your own work?”

The more I give over to my creative side, I keep learning that lesson over and over. I think I have a good eye for editing my own work, and of course I’m usually wrong.

I’ve also learned that the best way to really see something objectively is to give it time.

Time is the great mediator.

(wow, I’m chock full to brimming with platitudes today!)

Anyhow, I got to thinking about this recently while sorting through my iPhoto library. As an amateur photographer, I take *a lot* of photographs. This is the advice of my friend, mentor and teacher, Marty Springer, so I follow her advice.

But this means my iPhoto library fills up fast with fair to middling to downright awful shots. Since all of this dreck was slowing down my iMac, I decided to save the photos elsewhere and start again.

Oh, and also…my New Year’s resolution is to get better about tagging all of my photos as I download them so I can search more quickly.

So in cleaning out my old photos, sifting through the pile, I came across the shot at the end of this post.

The Feline had climbed into the laundry basket that was lying on the ground, so I grabbed my camera and took a few snaps. I considered them throwaway photos. Less than throwaway. I downloaded them to my iMac and never looked back.

But something about this photo…it really works. It was taken probably two or more years ago when I was just learning my camera and had no idea about depth of field. And yet, the depth of field is what makes this photo interesting. It’s not a perfect photo but it’s also not bad. A little imperfect Photoshop adjustments and I’ll be damned…not too bad at all.

Because not only with time comes perspective, but also…I can learn some lessons from three years ago me. The one just learning about photography. The one who just snapped and didn’t think.

A careless shot can be magic.

I guess that’s why my photography teacher tells us never to delete photos. “You never know” she says.

click photo if interested in seeing a larger size

Photo by Karen Fayeth and subject to Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.