Food (For Thought) Friday

We have all heard the old adage, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."  There are, however, a few little known corollaries: 1) Unless you already have a sour stomach.  2) You have no means by which to make lemonade.  So then what do you do?  You admit defeat and move on.  So is the case for Tracey and me this week.

You may remember that in Tracey's Monday in Michigan post, she said that Harry had been battling a nasty stomach bug.  The good news is that, last I heard, Harry was on the mend...because the bug had moved on and was now doing its work on Tracey.  There was no cooking or photographing going on at her house.  This is probably a good thing since the recipe we may have gotten from her might very likely have been for toast once or twice removed.  Not a pretty picture!

Weber and I have been in Delaware going through things at my dad's house.  When we were here in January, we spoke with the local auction house about taking most of the large furniture and some Delaware specific art for an auction that was held in February.  When we arrived at the house last Monday, it was immediately obvious that they had literally cleaned house, a good thing in many ways.  As we wandered around, I started noticing little things that were gone that I had no idea that they would take...the cup towel hooks in the kitchen, knick knacks, fireplace tools...nothing that I wanted particularly, but I was a little surprised to see them gone.  We got ourselves settled and were heading to the grocery store for food for the week.  (I am trying to be good with sticking to my healthy eating.)  And, ingredients for my contribution to this week's Food Friday post.  As we were walking out the door, Weber asked me if I thought perhaps we should check to make sure that the auction  house had not taken the kitchen appointments.  It was a good thing that he asked!  We had no pots and pans, no everyday dishes (The china was here because I am taking that for my girls.), no sharp knives, and only a very limited number of pieces of everyday cutlery.  Once the short-lived initial shock wore off, we were able to laugh at the situation.  I have had to face the reality that the house here, which has been part of my family for fifty years, is no longer a home.  And, I also had to face the more serious issue of I was not going to be able to fulfill my half of the commitment to Tracey and to all of you.  That was a tough reality for me to accept.

We mentioned in our very first post here that Tracey and I are both only children; that is one of the things that initially drew us together.  Only children often are characterized as being spoiled brats.  Trust me when I say that neither of us feel that that was our experience.  We both grew up feeling this almost overwhelming burden to never disappoint.  When you are an only child, you are your parents' only hope.  There is no one kid will be the sports star and one the artist and one the valedictorian.  Everything that our parents hoped that their child would be was up to us to become.  This week, we both had to admit and accept a level of defeat here.  Even though in both situations the circumstances were beyond our control, it was a tough thing to say that we could not do what was expected of us..  Maturity does help paint a more accurate picture of reality and we came to realize that there was absolutely no way that would accomplish our normal Friday post schedule.

If you have forgiven us and stayed with us this far today, we have a special treat for you!

Tracey and I met through Capture Your 365, a nurturing community of photographers striving to document our everyday life by taking a photo a day.  Katrina Kennedy is CY365's founder.  Not only does she, and her creative team, provide us with daily prompts to help us achieve our goal of a photo a day, she also offers various photography classes throughout the year to help us push ourselves and improve our photography skills.  In April, Katrina is beginning a seven month online course entitled Practice Portraits.  You can read the details of the course here.

But wait, there's more!

Katrina has given us one pass to this class to give away to one of you!  Yep! You have the opportunity to take this awesome class for free.  All you have to do is leave us a comment on this blog post letting us know that you would like to take the class.  We will select a winner randomly next week so that you have plenty of time to get registered before the class begins on April 6th.

This is great opportunity to learn about and practice taking portraits in the company of a supportive community of photographers and with a fabulous instructor!

Just leave us a comment!

And, if you don't win the free pass, you can still register for the class by visiting the Capture You 365  site.