John Wade Koontz Photography, Part II!

Here is an update on my Uncle Wade's photography :) He is entering some of it into the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's photo contest--so hopefully you'll be seeing it in a calendar soon!

What I love about these photos is that they come from life--they are a window into my uncle's strolls (and paddles and rows and kayaks) in the parts of the world he's blessed to see. The world is full of wonder, color, adventure, and peace. I hope these photos will help us remember that and maybe start to see and appreciate what our own walks and paddles have to offer us.

Here is a bit of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature" that I love and think goes well with these thoughts and images:

"The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is undubitably made up of some twenty and thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their land-deeds give them no title."

The most precious parts of this earth are for any who will look and see.

I hope these photographs bring you joy, peace, and even laughter! Thank you again, Uncle Wade!

A Few Good Things to Do!

Here are a few NGOs and other cool things I've found lately :) It always makes me smile and feel a little balloon of hope pulling me upward when I see again and again that there are so many people in the world trying to do good, trying to help each other, trying to live well, trying to love. There might be a lot of trouble, but there's also a lot of hope. The hope-makers are just too busy doing good to pause and tell people about it all the time perhaps :)

1) beadforlife.org This is an NGO centered in Uganda where Ugandans make and sell beautiful homemade beads from recycled paper and use the profits to help build homes, provide education, and more--it's awesome! I heard about it through Nick Kristoff's NYTimes blog (which you should all totally check out at kristof.blogs.nytimes.com, by the way!)

2) wegivebooks.org If you go to this website you can read all kinds of cute kids' books online for free! (They have Corduroy, Madeline, and more!) For every book you read, a book will be donated to a charity of your choice (they give you a couple literacy oriented programs to choose from)

3) thehungersite.com you just click and sponsors donate food---that's it!

Thanks everyone! I'll try and add things to this list later :) Does anyone else have some to add? I'd love, love, love to hear about it!!!

-Sierra

PS - Here's a good quote to tie in with all of this:

"The more we serve our fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls. We become more significant individuals as we serve others. We become more substantive as we serve others—indeed, it is easier to “find” ourselves because there is so much more of us to find!"
-President Spencer W. Kimball, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/193170.Spencer_W_Kimball)

*photo of young woman from beadforlife.org, photo of children from wikipedia

John Wade Koontz Photography

My great-uncle Wade is a photographer by hobby. The other day I was looking at his photos and it struck me how many of his photos were of almost the same scene---the view of the river from his back yard in Maryland. And yet, each photo was so different and each was beautiful. It made me think of how lovely and dynamic the world is. It also made me think about how we might not feel that where we are in life is very exciting and yet if we look, even one single view can bring us all sorts of beauty :) Even the smallest slice of life can be rich. We just have to be a little patient and keep our eyes open, too ;) Thanks Uncle Wade!

Small and Simple Things

Yesterday I saw that someone in my apartment complex had left their car lights on. The first time I saw it, I thought, "Wow, I really hope they'll come out and see that before the battery dies..." I wished I knew whose car it was but I didn't and so I went on my way.

An hour or two later, returning home at about midnight, I saw that the car still had its lights on. I went through the same patern of thought I'd gone through earlier. When I was almost to my door I thought, "Too bad there's nothing I can do." And then I felt a thought pop into my mind: "Well, there is something you can do, if you're willing to do it." Based on where the car was parked, I knew it probably belonged to someone who lived in one of 12 apartments. Earlier I had thought it would be too much effort to go knock on every door. But then I realized that if I really cared, this wasn't such a hard thing to do. Besides, I was worried that maybe the owner would be in a rush the next day and would need a car that worked--not a car with a dead-as-a-doornail battery. It was late, though, so I said a silent pray that I would be helped to find the owner quickly. The first two apartments I passed had no lights on so I decided not to knock. The next one I saw did have lights. I knocked. Two girls answered and they told me they thought the car might be their roommate's. One girl ran down to check. I started heading downstairs to knock on other doors just in case. As I was doing so, the girl who'd gone to check came back---it was her roommate's car! Feeling a happy sense of peace and lots of gratitude, I went home to sleep.

What I thought was going to take a while took only a few minutes. I feel like God helped me knock on the right door right away and helped the roommates to still be awake, too. Some of you might think that sounds silly, but I believe God cares about even the tiny struggles and cares in our lives. In fact I know it. I have too much evidence not to :)

As I'm reflecting on this, it makes me think of one of my favorite scriptures:

"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.
And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls." (Alma 37:6-7, Book of Mormon)

One of the most beautiful parts of life is that God helps us be angels to each other if we're willing and even sometimes when we don't realize it at first :) Does anyone have any experiences like that?

Thanks for visiting!

Love,

Sierra

A Potentially Embarrassing Confession ;)

Ok, so you know how women used to have a "hope chest" filled with things like tablecloths and sheets for starting their own household/family one day? I have one. But not exactly. What I really have is...a collection of children's books! I love children's books and I love to read and collect them :) I probably have about 20 of my own right now!

Some of my happiest memories from childhood have to do with people reading to me. I remember visiting my Nana's house and climbing up into her big brass-knobbed bed where she would read me tales from the Arabian Nights and poems about witch and fairy spells. Then we would talk and play word games until she fell asleep and I poked her to wake her up and then she fell asleep again and I poked her again and then she fell asleep AGAIN and maybe then I finally gave up and went to sleep, too :) (I know stories are supposed to help kids fall asleep but I think it usually does more for the grown-ups...for me the stories were so exciting--who would want to sleep?)I also remember my mom and papa reading to me all of the time. When I was really small my mom says that my dad would come home on his lunch breaks and read to me in our big blue chair every day while my mom fixed lunch. I can't wait to read to children of my own!

I like books that are cute, books that are silly, books with great illustrations or beautiful words/stories, and books with good lessons :) I'm pasting some pictures above from amazon.com of just a few books I really like. My mom probably read me "Jillian Jigs" a thousand times! It's about a girl with a big imagination who comes up with adventure after adventure but never quite manages to clean her room. "Max's ABC's" is a new one I found where the story is told of Max's pet ants escaping and becoming true ants-in-your-pants, eating his cake, sharing his bubble bath, and more--so fun! I love "Ping" because I love ducklings and I love China--this is the story of an adorable little yellow duck's adventures on the Yangtze River. The last one, the dragon book, was another of my favorites when I was small. A boy has a pet dragon (though his mom refuses to believe it) that grows and grows and GROWS as he eats more and more pancakes :) It's very cute! I remember I chewed up the corner of our copy at home--the pancakes in the book just look that good ;)

What are/were some of your favorite children's books? Why do you think it's important to read to/with children? Thanks for stopping by!

PS- One of my dreams is to write some children's books of my own one day :)

I love clouds!

I don't have any statistics to prove it, but I think I just might love clouds more than any other person on earth :) I don't covet the spot, though, and welcome everyone to join me in loving the artwork of the sky! Almost everyday clouds make me happy (and maybe everyday) including this minute as I look out the window :) (Today the clouds are like peaceful white whales traveling slowly across the sky). Here are a few memories and thoughts about clouds (and some cool pictures from wikipedia). Feel free to share your own happy cloud experiences ^u^

*Sometimes in Provo the sky is covered in cloud bread-dough--all puffy and white and lumpy with little cracks of blue sky

*Sometimes I see some amazing clouds that look like ripples on water more than puffs in the sky---maybe the clouds are paying homage to what they're made of?

*Yesterday huge, dark, swirling clouds rose up in the west like a tsunami bringing lots of rain. They were awe-inspiring--like a symphony in air.

*I like to look at clouds and find shapes :) Pedro says humans are always looking for faces (evidence of how much we want to connect with people). I think it's true, although I've also seen a lot of dragons...I'm not sure what that says about what I'm looking for teehee

*I like when I see random little clouds all alone, like they've snuck out to play and frolick in the blue

*I love when misty gray clouds creep through the canyons in the mountains or when they cover the mountain tops leaving one to wonder how high the mountains go

*Looking out the window of an airplane onto a field of clouds and cloud castles is like visiting an enchanted world :)

I'll leave it at this for now so I can go study for a music 101 test on the Baroque period :) I'll try to write more often, too! Maybe even an ode to clouds! Oooh! And here are the other photos!