more lovely photos from the internet......

here are some other wonderful photos from different blogs, sites, etc. please email me or leave a comment on my blog if you'd like to know where i found these. hope you are having a really nice day!! Summer is still here, so that's a good thing! Have fun! Debbie

prayer

for a long time i've wondered what i could do with my blog. you hear about so many people having wildly successful blogs, some even go on to be made into movies.....like "julie & julia", which i absolutely loved! i think it would be wonderful to be that successful and i know i would love that, because i get very lonely on my own so much, wishing i had more contact with people (i'm looking for a job right now). hearing from people on my blog is always so exciting......someone out there is actually interested in me and listening to me! but mostly, i think it would mean more to me to touch people's hearts......to actually help someone feel better in their day, in their life. if i could do something that would really benefit someone else, that would be good, to me. i'd feel like i was doing something truely meaningful and real. so i thought i would start sharing some thoughts with you, whoever you are out there who reads my blog, occasionally, every day, whatever. (thank you to each one of you!) i want to share some prayers......thoughts and wishes from my heart that i send out to the world, hoping they might help someone, because i know when someone cares about me, i can keep going. let me know what you think. if people actually benefit by my prayers enough, perhaps i will start a new blog......just for prayers. thanks..... i know the world is complicated, and it is filled with so many people and animals and endless questions and confusions and shouts of joy, but God, i know it is alright, too. i am grateful that every day i can wake up, look out the window and realize i am alive, i'm actually alive and i have another day to see what i can do. thank you for that. thank you for each person who walks on this earth, who struggles, who smiles, who cries and who wonders. especially thank you God for those who wonder about you. those who wait to hear you gentle voice and feel the comforting reassurance that they are not alone. they sometimes tell themselves that if they were the only person left on this huge earth, you would still be there with them. i know that's true. i've always felt you near me, God. i am not afraid of you, but feel comforted and healed by your gentle, kind presence. i know that you are aware of each one of us. i don't know how you do that, but it doesn't matter. i know you know us all. i want to pray for the children of the world. i especially worry about them. how fragile they are and how terribly vulnerable they are. please protect them, God. please watch over them and keep those who would harm them away. please teach those whose minds are lost and confused that they must not hurt the children but they must walk away to a place where they can be healed and mended, like a broken doll needs loving care. please let us cherish the voices of the children, their laughter and their warnings of the future......it is in their eyes, unspoken words but loudly proclaiming our destiny, the work we must do to take care of each other. help us God to learn from children......how to be kind again, how to be sweet and forgiving and funny and understanding. children are like you God. they are innocent and wonderful and wise. help us to listen to the children and follow them......and follow you. please God, heal our hearts. take away the contention, the fear, the worry, the sadness, the hatred especially. how is it that we hate each other......what begins this terrible illness of malice and distrust. please take it away and make is disappear forever. how wonderful this world would be if we could just be kind again and care about each other. please help us to stop just walking by the pain and the loneliness around us and turn to those who are reaching out.....and help them. we would be so much the better for it. the ground we walk on would sing and the air we breathe would sing, songs of happiness. how the world would change if we could stop long enough to care for each other. thank you God, especially......i know we do not thank you enough for so many things. for everything. you give us everything; help us to remember that. thank you for our smiles, our energy, our ability to work, to laugh, to see, to feel. thank you for the beautiful earth you created for us......the most amazing creation, ever evolving, ever beautiful and wondrous. thank you God for our families, for our mothers and fathers, for our children, for our cats and dogs and birds. the list would be never, neverending......if we were to stop to thank you. thank you for forgiveness, for friendship, for the healing power of love. please help us to truely love one another, to have in our hearts the feeling of childlike caring. thank you for those who teach us......those who suffer make us remember that life is not easy, life is extremely difficult for some. please lift those people up out of their struggles and help them to succeed, to reach their dreams. thank you for the people in this world who are really doing something to help others. please bless their efforts and their hearts. thank you for honesty in people and trust and the faith of those people in this world who never give up. please, most of all, God, help us to love one another. help us to stop fighting......can that ever happen, ever? i believe it can, i keep believing that someday people will finally stop fighting, stop hurting each other and just give that up. that they will grow so weary of war and oppressing others and trying to gain everything, that they will cry like a child and say "i am tired. no more. i am going to stop this life of pain". please tell us in our hearts with your most gentle voice, God, that we are good, that beneath all the noise, the hurrying, the closed ears and eyes.....we do know what is good. please help us with this, God. you created the most incredible earth for us and filled it with amazing, beautiful animals and people. please help us to cherish that, to treasure that more than anything else. help us to remember you God. to talk to you again and to listen to you. you are not angry. you are just waiting, like any father would, for us to come back to you, wherever we are, to talk to you and to tell you what we are feeling. i hope and pray that we will do that. i know you miss us God. we miss you, too. we miss heaven and the quiet beauty and love that is there, but we are here now and we can make this world like a heaven, too. beautiful, kind, happy and filled with love. please continue to help us God. i know you will. you are our father in heaven. thank you for being there. i know you are there. thank you.

Our trip to Washington and New York, from one coast to the other!

We just got back from an unbelieveable trip......making this our most favorite summer ever!!! I had been so sad that we hadn't had a real vacation in such a long time and then it turned out that we were able to go to Washington and to New York!

We went to Washington first, to see my Mom who lived on the Long Beach Peninsula, near Astoria, Oregon. I hadn't seen her in a year and a half, so we had a wonderful visit! My brother was there from Japan as well, so we got to see him, too. He's a real character and so much fun! My niece and her children and my nephew were also there and my older brother and his girlfriend, so it was an incredible time together; very sad to leave. I wish we all lived closer somehow.

We also drove up to Bellingham, near the Canadian border and visited with Mike's brothers and their families. It just makes you so happy to spend time with your family; they are the most important people in the world!

Then we drove back home to Salt Lake, but while we were in Washington, we were invited to exhibit our art work in Brooklyn, New York. So, several days later, after going through all of our best artwork, we packed everything up and started our drive to New York. We left at 4:30 in the morning so it was an adventure. Mike and I had always wanted to go to New York but were terrified of going, so now we had a real purpose in going and we were so excited to show our work there.

The trip there was unbelieveable!! We went through Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvani, New Jersey and finally arrived in New York. Nebraska through Ohio had so much corn, hundreds of miles of corn! I've never seen so much corn. Such beautiful, amazing farms. What a wonderful experience it was to see all of that. It really helps you to appreciate how hard people work to provide for everyone in our country. It was hot and humid, but we got through it. Arriving in New York was total madness! At first, I was ready to turn right around and go home! People live in this chaos, I thought! Crazy! But, after a while, I was ok. I suddenly realized we were fine, although there were millions of things going on all around us. Mike said it's like if you have 20 actors go on a stage and let each one of them do what they want......that's what New York is like. Thousands of people, cars, building, horns honking, pedestrians, bridges, streets going 100 different directions. It was amazing, though, how it all worked somehow. We started unloading our artwork and later showed the curator our sculptures, little furniture and characters and then took a break while they went through our paintings......

Will tell you more a little later. Here's some pictures of our first day there at the exhibit. The exhibit will be there in Brooklyn for a month. We are so excited about it.

Debbie

My little fairy furniture......