For the past week I’ve been craving nature. Simple remedy: Go to the lake and fish.
This morning, however, it felt necessary to go to the backyard and listen to the birds, listen to the drops of rain falling from the leaves, and take some pictures of beautiful mother earth.
The Amazon is on fire, and my soul aches for our planet.
Here are some pictures of the beauty that surrounds us, daily.
Get out there people, while we can. ❤
“Aruba, Jamaica… Oooh, I want to take ya…”
Bet that’ll be stuck in your head for the rest of the day/night!
Family vacation in this beautiful place was wonderful. Hot, definitely hot, like 90 degrees hot, and windy (so you would think you wouldn’t feel as if you were melting..) but MAN that sun was intense! Perfect for getting a perfect tan. 🙂
I have to say that being a beached whale is one of my personal favorite things to do, and at the all-inclusive Divi Tamarijn the rooms are right on the sand and the cool ocean is literally four steps away. That, was the best part. We had some hiccups along the way, it started with my broken duffle bag the second I went to step out of my house.. Then we had the screaming child upstairs once we got to the Divi who we could hear the entire afternoon because of an open balcony door, and perhaps another one was the construction going on during our ‘relaxing vacation’.. And maaaaaybe another thing was that the food wasn’t as good as we were led to believe(it became a joke between us all that my food was going to come out the worst, which it did every, time!!!), BUT, as always, we found the silver lining along the way. That’s what my family does, we find the bright side.
We got to see awesome reefs, different fish than what we have here in Florida, we swam through some wrecks off shore and we got to experience a different culture with Indian and Dutch influence. We found an amazing little spot called “Westdeck” that was right on the water with the friendliest staff and extremely chill decor – it’s one of those places where you can bring your catch if you’ve gone fishing and they’ll cook it for you however you’d like. We also enjoyed dinner at LG Smith’s Steakhouse; my pork chop was the best thing I had eaten the entire vacation. Another cool thing we did was drive around the entire island, from top to bottom (it’s only 20 miles from the southernmost to the northernmost point, and only 6 miles wide!), laughing the entire ride to the stone bridge, the ostrich farm, the Lighthouse.. Great times.
Lots of inside jokes along the way, lots of memories made. I hadn’t traveled with my brother out of Florida in over 8 years so I was extremely grateful for that opportunity.
If you get a chance to vacation in Aruba, you should. There are plenty of markets to shop at for trinkets, plenty of beautiful views, a great Lighthouse to go to, along with friendly people and a pretty safe atmosphere.
These photos were taken with a waterproof Nikon CoolPix camera that I bought specifically for the trip. They came out better than I thought they would. Woo!
This is an exerpt from the album created on my Facebook from my travels to France this past December/January.
As I recently posted, I had lost my father and my grandmother within three weeks of each other, but I was blessed enough to go on this journey, which helped me start to get through everything.
** Photos will continue to be added as I edit them, there are still about 1200 I need to go through! 🙂 **
“What a surreal ending to 2015 and beginning to 2016. Lots of laughs yet so many tears. Two of the greatest people in my life left this earth, leaving a gigantic hole in my heart and soul.
However, such is life. You must keep moving on.. Open your eyes and mind to the world around you.. Look for the signs.. Everything will be alright.
Every day is a blessing.
I am so grateful for the support while I’ve been away and re-establishing pieces of me, of my soul.
I thank those who I saw on this trip to France and who opened up their world to me.
And I thank my dad and my grandmother for giving me the opportunity to even begin this journey.
It’s all divine timing.
Lots of love. <3″
“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca
“Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” — Peter Hoeg
“You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.” – Dr. Seuss
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To travel is to evolve.” – Pierre Bernardo
“If you can’t live longer, live deeper.” – Italian Proverb
“Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’” – Lisa. St. Aubin de Teran
“Life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone…It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?” – Donald Miller
“Travel brings Love and Power back into your life.” – Rumi
This past December during my final semester of college(hooray!), I took a photography class. I wanted to make sure I actually knew what I was doing with a camera instead of just always having to set it on “auto”, you know?
Here is the result of my class, my final portfolio, which was titled “Living In The Light”, and the Artist statement to go along with it.
“Art is essentially our interpretation of the world around us. For me, photography has become an outlet of creation which I have learned to manipulate through the lens to truly capture specific moments and objects of life which most of the time may go overlooked. Sure, every individual looks at a piece of art and can think of it differently, however, I believe through my photographs the subject of tranquility is very direct.
The use of nature and light throughout my images is prominent and is very obvious, which is why I title this work “Living in the Light”. This has several meanings to me in my personal life, so gathering images of the outdoors, gathering images of flowers, animals, and light, all to me portray the ability we each have to create peace on this world, to live simply throughout our daily life, and to cherish even the smallest little lady bug that lands on our hands. I have learned that life is very precious, and beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. We have the ability to open our eyes and see the wonder of the world, and while you look at my photographs, I will not let you let it pass you by.”
Souls Of Latitude 
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