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White January
Unlike many previous winters, this year we’ve had beautiful white and frosty January. After the muddy and windy Christmas time it was a welcome change. One morning a few days ago I looked out of the window and saw a beautiful scene lit by early sun rays… I grabbed my camera and ran to the garden, the light and fog and colours felt wondrous and magical… We were lucky not to have many problems with the snow at the part of the Czech Republic where my family live, there were other parts that had to deal with serious problems, but the truth is that after several quite mild winters we’ve…
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My word for the year
It’s been my practice lately to pick a word at the end of the year that will accompany me throughout the following year and will help me to focus on some aspect of my life that needs to be improved, changed or thought over. I can tell you that it’s quite interesting to watch how this practice evolves and how these words come to me. For this year the scheme hasn’t changed. A few days before Christmas I was driving on my way to work and paying attention to the traffic when suddenly a photo appeared in front of my mind’s eye. It was a photo I took last year…
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Sexy
Put your hand up if you think you’re sexy. Well, I can’t see enough hands in the air… Why? Somebody might have told you that you’re not sexy and you believed them… But you’re sexy. Each and every one of you is sexy. Just believe in yourself. As you might have read in one of my earlier posts, last summer hubby and I visited the music festival Colours of Ostrava. The very first concert we chose to listen to was performed by Heymoonshaker, a pair of musicians combining excellent beatbox and raw, blues guitar. We chose their concert because we saw some of their videos on YouTube and they felt…
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Beauty of the simple
Last time I promised to show you another try of mine at a top-down-taken photo, something a bit different than the elaborate and colourful composition you could see in the previous post, and here it is: It’s a very simple composition and I expect that (some of) you might find it (a bit) boring. Yet look at the pattern on the towel, the shapes and lines created by the colander, the subdued colours… all the parts contribute to the whole which I find delicate and beautiful. When I posted a square version of the arrangement on Instagram, I wrote to it that “beauty of the simple makes you see a…
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Some things are simply meant to be
The other day my husband and I were shopping in a Tesco hypermarket in Pilsen. Inside the building, there were presented several large boards promoting books to be published, each side of the boards was devoted to a single book. There was always a paragraph or two presenting the book and its author but what especially attracted my attention were images of the book’s covers along with their drafts and other versions, it’s something one rarely has the opportunity to see. Who could resist having a look behind the scene? Several of the promoted books were written by Franz Kafka, a writer coming from a Jewish family who was writing…
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Beauty of the ordinary
On Friday we had what might be the coldest morning this winter with its -20°C, which equals -4°F. Actually, it would be the coldest morning in the 15 years we’ve been living in this village. I was a bit afraid that my car wouldn’t start because I was supposed to get to work and to get my children to school so it was a relief to hear the car making up its mind and waking into operation. The gear box was stiff and was moving with slow deliberation but we were on our way and that mattered. It was cold the whole week and we got plenty of snow but…
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Guidance and inspiration in one word a year
Several years ago I read for the first time about the idea of choosing a word for the following year, a word that is supposed to be an inspiration and guide rather than any kind of resolution. The word can represent something personal to be focused on throughout the particular year, something one wants to learn, develop or improve in, or it can represent a desired change in one’s life, a direction to be followed, a dream to be fulfilled… So many possibilities… But how do I choose such a mighty word, I asked myself, and couldn’t find the answer easily. Those following this practice recommended pondering, meditating, praying and…
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Gratitude
Amid these Christmas preparations I wanted to tell you that the other day, when I was coming home from work and was driving through a wood near our village, it struck me how much my life has changed recently. Partly from the outside and more importantly from the inside, but it’s all intertwined and interlinked, isn’t it? I wanted to add that there were times in my life a few years ago when crashing my car head-on into a tree seemed like a good solution to all the bad feelings and thoughts I had. I never tried, just let the idea in and out, but the depressive thought was there.…
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Thoughts on learning strategies
When you are learning something new, what’s your strategy? Do you mainly gather pieces of information, go through them quickly and then keep them in your laptop or (note)books for future reference or do you try and use them until you master them? Long time ago I realised that I belong to that first group of learners, I’m definitely a gatherer. Not of things but pieces of information. I have always been, since childhood. In this digital era I have plenty of files in my laptop containing articles on things like English grammar and vocabulary, photography techniques, Lightroom tips and manuals, Photoshop Elements tutorials… I enlarge my collection day by…
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Autumnal apple inspiration
Apples belong to every season, perhaps with partial exception of spring, but I have them connected especially with autumn. Many of their varieties turn ripe at this time of year or need to be picked and stored. I’ve learnt quite recently that winter varieties need to be picked in autumn but can’t be eaten until some time of their storage passes, even two or three months, it surprised me. When we moved into our house in the village, there were several apple trees in the garden but all the apples could be eaten at the time of picking and I hadn’t known it could be different until we wanted to…
