Open to Delight – Catching up

Life has been very full the past few months. Delight has shown up  many times and in many places.  Noticing delight and the things that spark it has become a habit for me even if I don’t always capture it with the camera.  That’s really the purpose of taking the photos in the beginning.  Somehow, we feel that if we photograph something it is more tangible.  But after a while, you just notice and capture the moment of delight in your mind.  Noticing, being tuned in to the delight is the important part.

Still, as I was clearing off my phone camera the other day, I found all these images that I’d captured simply because they represented a moment of delight.

A colorful dinner and evening shared with good friends:

Finding a restaurant, while traveling, that offered gluten free pizza!

Enjoying this gluten free,  truly delicious pizza with fontina cheese, wild mushrooms, and caramelized onions!  Total delight!

Our daughter arrived with her family for the holidays (a major delight!) and brought me this box of my very, very special, very favorite chocolates. 

When I was at New Skete Monastery for my beginners’ photography retreat in October,  I purchased this delightful cheesecake from the nuns and tucked it in the freezer to enjoy for Christmas dinner.  Incredibly wonderful!

I’d totally forgotten about this image of the Alps that I captured as we were leaving Switzerland after our last visit to family there.  Often when flying to or from,  some or all of the mountains are covered in clouds, but on this day you could see the whole range quite clearly. 

What a delight to see perfectly uninterrupted blue sky!  That is a rarity in my part of the world but enjoyed it while visiting Atlanta for a PPA conference. 

We have a beautiful Pin Oak tree in our front yard that has stood witness to most of our family’s life together.  A few years ago, we had the tree trimmed and saved a larger branch to have something created from it.  Just before Christmas we were delighted to finally get the 3 items that my wood artist friend, Carl Stoner, created with that wood.  This lamp and the 2 vases, gifts for our adult children, will be constant reminders of that tree no matter where we are.  

And of course, the shenanigans of our squirrels have continued to delight.  The squirrels shimmy up the wind chimes, pause at the top, climb up onto the bracket, sit for a few seconds, and then take a flying leap over to the suet feeder, a distance of 4 or 5 feet.  If I shew them away, they come back again and again, most persistent are they. Our older grandson took extreme delight in this and spend a great deal of time sitting on the countertop and laughing hysterically when they jumped, then wanting them to do it again.

These images are in no particular order and don’t come close to documenting the many moments of delight over that past few months.  They simply serve as a reminder that delight is right in front of us much of the time if we are open to it.