Here are the befores and afters.

First up, a shot from Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida:

Another Animal Kingdom shot:

This shot from EPCOT had so many things wrong with it:

But a little straightening, and some cropping, and voila:

And to think I almost deleted that one.

I wasn’t crazy about this next shot when I took it:

But now:

And a last one of one of my favorite local views…the change isn’t dramatic, but I do think attending to thirds makes it better:

Better:

Thanks Scott,  for another lesson!  I will go back to more of my “garbage” shots later.

We were “young”…I had just turned 23, Zan was 25. Both fresh out of college. (And I mean fresh…both of us finished in December.) I remember quite clearly my bridal shower that had taken place the day just three weeks before.
“So, where are you working?”

“I have been waitressing part time at the Country Club.”

“Oh, well, where is Zan working?”

“Well, he hasn’t found a job yet.”

“Where are you going to live?”

“Well, we haven’t quite figured that out either.”

And then the looks of concern.

“Don’t worry! We’ll live in the rent-by-the-night motel on Route 9 if we have to.”

Uncomfortable laughter.

But I meant it. Somehow, we knew we would be okay and that it would all fall into place. I look back and wonder why I wasn’t scared out of my mind…but I wasn’t. We were excited to start our life together and the idea of failure never crossed our minds.

As it turned out, it all did fall into place. Zan got a full time job as a care provider at a residential facility for handicapped adults (we had plenty of experience after our summers at Camp Wilton…see this post). I started a new full time job as a teaching assistant at my old Middle School (complete with full health benefits! Yahoo!) the Monday before the wedding, and continued working nights waitressing at the Club. And the week after the shower, we put our down payment on an apartment in Saratoga Springs, NY. The monthly rent was more than we had hoped to pay, but again, we simply knew we could make it work. On New Years Day we shopped for our new furniture to be delivered mere days before the wedding, and by this time nineteen years ago, everything was in place and ready for our new life.

Of course, things weren’t perfectly smooth leading up to the actual wedding. I was in the Emergency Room a few days prior needing breathing treatments and steroids for a horrific asthma flare…we had spent a day moving in boxes and unpacking our kitchen wares. Little did we realize that a cat had “illegally” been residing with its owner in our new apartment. The cat food under the radiator was a dead giveaway. I am deathly allergic to cats. Thankfully, our landlord sent in a crew to thoroughly steam clean the rugs a second time, and sent a cleaning crew in to scrub every nook and cranny, along with painting the entire apartment. All ended well.

And then there was the fact that the bridesmaid who was going to wrap our long stemmed roses for our bouquets didn’t order the flowers, expecting that I had taken care of that small detail. Have you ever tried to order six dozen long stemmed red and white roses the Friday afternoon before your Saturday morning wedding? I was laughed off the phone a couple of times until I reached a local florist who said, “No problem. What time would you like them delivered?” I could have crawled through the phone and kissed her.

And little did I know that my bridesmaids had to spend time secretly repairing their dresses before the wedding because of the shoddy work done by the dressmaker. We had their dresses made fairly inexpensively…apparently I hadn’t yet learned the lesson “if a price seems too good to be true, then it is.” They valiantly tried to shelter me from this news, but it became glaringly obvious when they were ironing their dresses the morning of our Big Day, and I noticed some stitching in the middle of the skirting where it looked like scissors had cut a four inch line in the middle. “Don’t even look,” they said, steering me away from the ironing board. I knew that story would be saved for another day. My sister was wearing her large bow off her dress (remember this was 1993…bows were still fashionable….I think?) on top of her head by the end of the day. Ah, well the dress looked better without it come to think of it.

The wedding itself? Oh, what a cherished memory it is. I will never forget the moment I stepped into the Church and looked around. Nearly everyone I cared about in the same room at the same time…simply an overwhelming and beautiful sight. The Catholic Priest who baptized me, married us and shared the altar and pulpit with Zan’s Pastor from the Lutheran Church…that in itself was a beautiful thing. Then the party…oh, what a party it was! Our reception was at the Canfield Casino in Saratoga Springs…you could look up the hill at our new apartment from the building. We ate and ate, and drank, and ate and danced and laughed and cried and danced and ate some more. Well into the night, I remember seeing Zan grab a tray off the Italian pastry cart and take them around to people at the tables. I’ve never been to a wedding with so many people on the dance floor. We extended the reception two extra hours because everyone was having such a good time. Our wedding party and my family were the last to leave at 11:00pm, taking with us memories to last a lifetime and very sore feet.

Tomorrow we celebrate nineteen years of marriage…we are proud of the life we’ve built and never could have guessed at the trials that have made us stronger and joys that have blessed us through the years. We are so very fortunate. Maybe we’ll even throw another party some day, adding to the guest list all those friends and family we have added along the way. Oh, what a party it will be!

Or this:

Or even this:

All of them beautiful, and I’m sure that attention to this rule at the right moments helps make them so.

I can’t say that I attend to this rule thoughtfully, but I do think I tend to apply it naturally. I don’t use the grid lines….in fact, I don’t even know how to turn them on (she says somewhat shamefully) but I suppose I must “see” them in my mind’s eye as I shoot…maybe??? Or maybe not? In truth, I don’t consider rules with my head when I shoot…I just shoot. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s not, but I think we can over think these things sometimes.

But let’s have a look, shall we?
First, an older favorite taken in Saratoga Springs, NY. Although the subject is centered, the horizontal planes follow “the rule” so I think it works as an example, don’t you?

An early morning sunrise in Ocean City, NJ:

A shot from the Adirondack Balloon Festival, taken two years ago:

This is Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando, Florida. This one is debatable I think. Some would say no, it doesn’t work as an example because the focus is up the center aisle, but I still see thirds, again working horizontally. What do all you experts out there say about this one?

And two favorites from Ocean City, NJ taken this past summer.

None of these shots were cropped, so I will go and do that next. Maybe I’ll pull a Karma and offer up more than one challenge post! In any case, you have plenty of time to jump in and participate! Stay tuned for my official entry.

I used to believe that the theme of my life was “patience.” Every big experience seemed to point to my need to learn patience. I could go on and on with examples including family challenges, life choices, and personal difficulties that for so long seemed to point to this central theme.

But then came 2011.

It has presented me with what is perhaps my biggest personal struggle yet…learning to live inside a body that not only needs, but demands tender loving care. I am not good at putting my needs first…maybe not even second or third. And now I must put my body first or all the rest goes to Hell. There’s that patience theme again…or is it??? I think maybe not.

In 2011 I have come to believe that I’ve been missing The Lesson. All these years I thought I needed to learn patience. I now believe God has been trying to teach me a different and much deeper lesson. Perhaps He has been trying to teach me to relinquish control…reminding me that life cannot be controlled or predictable…that it is in the letting go that life can be truly lived, love can be freely given, faith can be wholly realized. Not only am I not “in control” but I must learn how to release my illusion of control and simply trust that all that is outside of it is, in fact, in much greater hands.

This year has forced me to a place of no control. At times I have felt like someone else is operating my ride and won’t let me off no matter how loud I scream. But at the same time, 2011 has christened me with glimpses of what relinquishing control feels like. It is difficult to find the words to describe it, but I have felt it…moments of pure peace where I let go and float on a wave of calm understanding. The moments are brief, and I can’t access them easily yet, but they are there. When I can quiet my mind and shut out the noise they are there.

God hasn’t been trying to teach me patience. That is a trivial thing I continue to work on. He has been placing challenges before me that point my Soul to something deeper.

Trust.
Have Faith.
Relinquish Control.
Breathe.
Live.

Hello 2012, and a very Happy New Year to you all! May it be one filled with many moments of calm understanding for all of us.