After four years of battling stage 4 colorectal cancer, Sanjay left us on Tuesday early in the morning. I have no idea how to parse it all yet. All the funeral prep and events kept us busy, kept me going, but now having laid Sanjay to rest on Saturday, it’s quiet. How do you see someone, a regular part of your daily life, since you were born and then they’ve gone? He left a lot of great memories…his illness left a lot of painful ones. The sum total of his life was just amazing, still, even though it felt short. What I can take away at this moment about his death isn’t at a place where it makes any sort of sense. However, the amount of people who showed up for the family, and the strength of my family itself, has left me with a sense that things will be alright. I am so grateful for all the people who actually showed up. It was a great showing of people who demonstrated that they cared by being there in many different ways. I came home to flowers, I had tons of phone calls and texts checking to see if we were managing or sending an encouraging word.. people sent us dinners and came knocking. My family in the aftermath still met together day after day to be with one another, to take turns being pillars at this downpour of a season in life. It really highlighted the valuable relationships in my life. – my true friends, my real family. It is wonderful to see who I can count on – who cares about us – who really cared about Sanjay. It was SO many people! I am so so grateful to them and for them.
We came home from our 5 day trip to Houston to find that our Cherry tree had bloomed. When we bought this house last September, we had no idea what kind of cherry tree it was. Turns out it is my absolute favorite species – The Double Blossom / Yaezakura! I had to spend some time absorbing how beautiful it was and took a lot of photos!
I went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens a couple of weekends ago and got myself some Tulip fever. I picked these up at Costco and have loved watching them bloom, since! The rain today was a nice touch.
Snow is a rarity in Atlanta so a few inches of the stuff really lifted our cold-dampened spirits! Â Check out these few photos – of us, and friends, enjoying some New Hampshire cocaine. :)
We picked up a Canon 5D MK IV in the Black Friday sales last week and I took it for a spin. Particularly, I’d been curious about the upgraded autofocus that’s been lauded across many blogs for the past few months. After using the camera on birds, handheld, at the telephoto end of the lens – I am sold. This thing focuses considerably better than the Mk III. The center focus point of the 61 total points just surely locks on – with greatly reduced misses. When shooting small birds, it’s rather tricky to get them in focus – they love moving, they hop around and flit from branch to branch. I often have just tenths of seconds to get my shot – if the bird even faces me for the tiny fraction of the time it’s checking its surroundings. I came out with at least double the number of usable shots I could have expected from the Mk III. I can’t imagine what this is going to help me do for fast-paced wedding shots. Also- the live view autofocus is utterly stellar and I’m really enjoying composing my shots in the back panel for low to the ground or up-high vantage points. Overall, a winner! I can’t wait to take it on my next adventure.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends! This year has been a whirlwind of events for us and looking back, I am just so thankful. This year we have been blessed by buying a new home, which has cut my commute down from 60-75minutes to just 15 minutes one-way and made the commute for Jeremy much less frustrating. He gets to work in about 30 minutes. It has changed our day-to-day lives.
Jeremy turned 33 this year and we had a birthday/housewarming party and filled our home with friends from 6months old to 65 years old. We love our wide range of friends and are grateful for them. My family has come and filled our home too. It was just filled my heart to watch the kids play in our backyard and everyone have a good time together. We wanted this home to be a hub for friends and family to drop in for good food, good conversations, and plenty of places to lounge around. :) Truly this home has been a huge blessing to us already in the 2 months we’ve had the privilege of living here.
This year, We’ve made a couple of new friends along the way and spent loads of time with the good people we seem to find in every corner of our lives. We are so thankful for the many people who invest in us and our relationship with them. We also think of those without many of the blessings we have that we were simply given and as the holiday season is now in full swing, we hope to invest more time and love back into our local community – a task made easier with our new location and space.
If you’re reading this, I hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving too – with time to mull over your own blessings ( maybe over loads of food ).