30 Day Photo Challenge: Close Up

These are two pictures of Charlotte at the end of a wonderful day. She played, danced, laughed, screamed and now it's time to just chill. I love these quiet moments.... talking, cuddling and just being together. I am hanging on to times like this before they disappear....her teenage years will be here before you know it!

This is another Audrey Hepburn quote I like (I adore her, ya know!)

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles". ~Audrey Hepburn

30 Day Photo Challenge: Something You Made

This is my picture for DAY 5,032. Please don't kill me for posting 8 BILLION pictures for this challenge over the last 24 days...I only have 6 more pictures left and I can't give up now! But back to me...I like to give framed art as gifts and this is my latest gift that I have given to my sister and my parents: YOUR NAME with the letters shaped liked interesting objects in nature, art, fashion, design, old barns etc. You can buy them for over $100 or I MAKE THEM! Today, I decided to give a gift to MOI and I just LOVE all the letters. My mom and Dad named me Ashley because there weren't a lot of "Ashley's" back in 1968 and they wanted something unique. ASHLEY is an Old English name that means "A Grove of Ash Trees"....wow! Trees are symbolic of love, wisdom, rebirth, strength, redemption, friendship, bounty and encouragement, so I will take that!

I love this quote about your name....

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”

30 Day Photo Challenge: Hands

This is a picture of the hands of Charlotte and her cousins. Molly and Meg.  Every summer, at Folly Beach, I bring my big bucket of nail polish and I give the girls "Mani's and Pedi's" before we go on the beach.  Together we create bright colors, stripes and dots on their fingernail canvases!  We have been doing this fora long time and It has become our summer tradition.  Years from now, this picture will change.  Their hands will grow, their fingers will elongate and some will even have long nails.  It will be the hands of young ladies.  Hands that hold boys hands, hands that dial phone numbers and text.  Will they still allow me to create masterpieces on their grown up fingernails?  I really hope so....

"It will be gone before you know it. The fingerprints on the wall appear higher and higher. Then suddenly they disappear. - Dorothy Evslin"

30 Day Photo Challenge: Something You See Every Day

This picture is a wedding present given to us by my Aunt Frances and my cousins and I treasure it! I look at it every morning, in my kitchen and I am reminded of the amazing story attached to it. This poem was originally stenciled on the walls of a Scottish Castle. When one of my relatives was visiting this castle (I believe her name was Lucy Holladay), she fell in love with the words and wrote them down. She was so inspired that she stenciled this same poem around the foyer of our historic family home, Prospect Hill, in Mineral Virginia. I think it was very uncommon for women back then to get up on ladders and paint, but evidently, she was an extraordinary woman and she had a vision. Our old family home is now "The Littlepage Inn" and is rich with history.

www.littlepage.com/history.htm 

The poem, the story and the history have inspired me to make my own wedding and birthday gifts for my family and friends. My version has a pen and ink live oak tree and the words around it. This truly is the gift that keeps on giving and it all started in a Scottish castle!

30 Day Photo Challenge: Eyes

My great grandmother woke up one morning and realized she was blind. Can you imagine? Our eye site is something we don't think of, often, but we do SO much with our EYES. Our day begins by opening our eyes to a new morning, we read, we stare at computers, we watch our children, we cry, we love, we witness daily life and miracles everyday and then we close our eyes for sleep at night. I love what Audrey Hepburn says about the eyes:

“The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides".

30 Day Photo Challenge: A Picture in Black & White and then Color

You know how much I love sitting on the front porch, having cocktails, listening to music and being with friends. My sister gave me the tablecloth and my friend Tracy just gave me the cutest twinkle light lanterns. This picture makes me very happy!

"I want to inhabit my life like a porch" (from Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Welles)

30 Day Photo Challenge: A Post It With Something Written On It

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.  ~ Maya Angelou