Author: Julie

Mothers Day

This Sunday is Mothers Day and for the last 30 years, I have been without my mother.  For several years after my Mother died, I could barely go near a card store in the month before Mothers Day.  If I walked by the card section of a store, my throat would start to close up, my heart would start beating hard as I felt my eyes welling up with tears.  I would often have to run out of the store, experiencing some kind of panic attack.

Now, I just avoid card stores and the card aisles of stores most of the time, but the other day, while at Walmart, I cut through the card aisle to get across to the grocery section of the store. I wasn’t thinking about Mothers Day, and there they were….rows of Mothers Day cards.  I felt a tug at my heart and an overwhelming flood of grief. Yes, it’s been 30 years, but I’ve never stopped missing her, and I hope I never do, for if I stopped feeling that grief, then I will feel like I have lost her forever.

A few years ago, I participated in a writers’ workshop.  Every day, I would receive an email that laid out the topic of the day’s writing.  One of the assignments was to write about a day in time I would like to return to and I wrote an essay about my last trip to Jekyll Island with my Mother.  The details of the essay are correct.  I was pleased with how the essay turned out and I’d like to share it with you in memory of my Mom this Mothers Day.  You can read it here (entitled, “A Room With a View”).

The Indigo Bunting is at the feeder

We saw the Indigo Bunting at our feeder for the first time two years ago.  We missed them last year, but we’re delighted to see them again this year!

I snapped these pictures while standing at my kitchen window.  Thankfully, I have a really great camera that has a nice “window” setting and a great zoom feature.

SHARED: Flickr bought by SmugMug, which vows to revitalize the photo service

I’ve had a Flickr Pro account for several years now, and I’m glad to read this announcement this afternoon. In the last several months I’ve cleaned up my Flickr account and have started taking pictures with my good camera in my quest to become a better photographer. I’ve been uploading my better pictures to my Flickr account, which you can view here.

“SAN FRANCISCO — Flickr has been snapped up by Silicon Valley photo-sharing and storage company SmugMug, USA TODAY has learned.

SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill told USA TODAY he’s committed to breathing new life into the faded social networking pioneer, which hosted photos and lively interactions long before it became trendy.

SmugMug, an independent, family-run company, will maintain Flickr as a standalone community of amateur and professional photographers and give the long neglected service the focus and resources it deserves, MacAskill said in an exclusive interview.”

read more here: SmugMug snaps up Flickr photo service from Verizon’s Oath

SHARED: Facebook knows a ton about your health. Now they want to make money off it. – The Washington Post

I think this is pretty creepy. What do you think?

“Let’s say you like a Facebook page devoted to breast cancer survivors. It has been a useful forum for comparing treatment options with others who have dealt with similar health issues. There’s only one problem: Facebook has now categorized you as a patient, and you constantly receive precisely targeted ads about cancer services available near you. They are showing up on your computer screen at work, for all your co-workers to see, right when you’re up for a big promotion.

Many users experience a version of this scenario when they receive creepily personalized ads while browsing on Facebook. When those ads follow users onto sites outside Facebook, it feels like an invasion of privacy. But how do you regulate data privacy in an age of big-data black boxes?”

Read more here: Facebook knows a ton about your health. Now they want to make money off it. – The Washington Post