And the Winner is...

Kaefer named a number this morning to find out who is the lucky winner of my Yosemite calendar.

It is... - drumroll please...

Susan at Windrock Studio !!!

Congratulations, Susan. Please e-mail me your mailing address and I'll send the calendar on its way.

Orange Please!

Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I decided that it is time to move on. This was a horrifying week, and I sincerely hope that it was the worst week in 2011. A HUGE thank you to all of you for your comments, prayers and e-mails - this has been so much help, and I know that one day Katie's family will feel the same gratitude for this wonderful community as I do (they already do).

But I think it is time to move on - and I'm convinced that this is exactly what Katie would like us to do, living life to the fullest just as she did.

I visited Inspiration Avenue just to check what their weekly challenge is, and it's an easy one - about color. Which is my color? Well, of course it's

Orange is bold and bright, daring and full of life, feisty and fun. It doesn't always fit in and it doesn't get along with everyone. It brightens up a dark place and is the light in spooky times. It's earthy and strong, powerful and magical; warm and welcoming. It stands out, is different. But it is also maturity and wisdom combined with playfulness, though sometimes plain silly.

I need more orange in my life, and I'm determined to get it!

Good-bye Katie

It is with a heavy heart that I have to tell you that Katie lost her battle this afternoon. She was surrounded by her parents and her younger brother when she peacefully passed away.

My heart goes out to her family and to the family of her fiancé, Jesus, who died from his injuries earlier. I hope it is of some comfort to them that now Katie and Jesus will be together.

Thank you to all of you who responded to the post about Katie below, and who prayed for her and kept her in your hearts and thoughts.

Good-bye, beautiful girl. I feel blessed that I knew you. Your laughter, your funny stories, your humor and quick wit will stay in my heart. They still make me smile.

God bless you, Katie.

Prayers for Katie - Please Read

This beautiful young woman is 25-years-old Kate Donahue. I took this picture of her on Thanksgiving 2009. Today, I am asking for prayers for her.

I met Katie for the first time about five or six years ago at her aunt Trice's house. She came here to become a nurse. She is a beautiful, very optimistic woman, who always put smiles on other people's faces and more often than not makes us laugh with the wonderful stories she tells. She is fun to be around and has lived life to the fullest.

About a year ago she moved to Seattle where she had found a good job in health care, and where she also met Jesus, to whom she became engaged last November. And although I have never met Jesus, I heard that he was such a nice and wonderful guy and that he and Katie were so happy together.

They flew to Puerto Rico for New Year's to meet Jesus' family and celebrate their engagement and the holiday. On New Year's Day they were at a family gathering when, according to police report, Jesus' uncle came into the room, splashed kerosene on everybody and lit them with a torch made from a stick and a fuel-soaked cloth.

Both Katie and Jesus were seriously injured (burns over 80-90% of their body) and brought to a hospital in the town of Florida, PR. Jesus' 17-year-old sister died as well as a 32-year old cousin, and later, his grandmother. Wednesday early morning, Jesus died from his injuries.

On Wednesday, Katie was flown out to the University of Miami Burn Center where she is still in a coma. She is clinging to life, but her prognosis is said to be very poor. She does not know that Jesus has died. She is a strong woman and a fighter, so we're all praying for a miracle.

This is where you come in. I'm asking you for prayers for Katie and her family as well as for Jesus' family who has lost four of its members. Katie's parents and brother are with her in Miami and we know that many people across the US are praying for her. Although I am not a religious person, I do believe in the power of prayer, and Katie needs all the prayers possible.

Please pray for Katie.

If you want to get more information and how to further support the family, you can go to a newly established Facebook page for her and Jesus here. There is detailed info and a regular update on the wall. I will update on my blog as well.

Thank you.

WOYWW - The Complete Disaster Zone

Hello dear WOYWWers, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a great start into the new year. I look forward to visiting more of your desks on Wednesdays in 2011.

Oh my... Just a week ago I came back from my vacation in the Southwest, when I found my work table exactly the same way I had left it (no little elves came in and cleaned it up) and still it is a mere mess. Let me rephrase this - my entire room is a total disaster zone!!

On the table:

And on the floor:

Honestly, there is currently only one way around the table and I haven't taken a picture of that (because it is also pretty crowded, but at least I can put my feet down without fearing to step on something).

This needs SERIOUS clean-up!!! 

Especially since I need to design my next class, "Cupid's Greetings" - surprisingly the class is already half full, so I guess it will be a go. Which means that I have to move my fat butt and clean up the mess, put away the Christmas stuff and get out the hearts and little angels with arrows... but no pink, I swear!

Some of you had asked to see the tags I did in my last class, here they are:

I got the idea for the angel tag in the upper right corner from Jozart during one of my WOYWW-visits to her blog, and one of Sir Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas gave me the inspiration for the tag with the birds.

If you want to see work tables that are either much tidier than mine or even messier (if that is possible), you can find a long list at Julia's blog, Stamping Ground. Enjoy the trip around the world!

Winter Desert Trip (1): Palm Desert

Palm Desert, El Paseo

In my post on the last day of last year I said that I would love to share our winter trip to the desert with you. This I will do step by step since I don't want to "flat you" with one super-huge post and endless pictures. Plus, I'm still sorting through the photos, so this is a work in progress.

Our original plan had been to go to the National Parks in Utah. Those belong to our favorite ones, we had been to all of them repeatedly, but we love them so much that we never tire of them. There are always new trails to discover and revisit spots we cherish. However, the weather forecast for the region was wet, wet, wet - we weren't really keen on that. We had hoped for snow since the Red Rock Country looks so beautiful with snow, but there wasn't any in the forecast. So we checked out which places were dry and sunny - Arizona and New Mexico, no surprises here. So we went southeast.

And happened to have a full day of rain while driving down I-5 through Central and Southern California! The closer we came to the south the heavier the rain became. The Grapevine area was terrible (and it was already dark at that time)... Driving through L.A. was actually way easier than I had thought and we arrived in Palm Springs in the evening. The next morning was dry (not for very long though as we got to know later on) and we decided to spend the morning in Palm Desert - wandering along El Paseo, a long boulevard with nice shops and interesting sculptures.

Kaefer's take on photography

The shops really did it for me. Although I am not a big shopper (most of the time), I love to look at interesting stores and their window displays.

 These are all sequins!

Finally I found an Anthropologie store - the very first one for me (there aren't any where I live). I pretty much got blown away by this one - the displays are so creative and beautiful (the prices, though, are not!), it's a mere pleasure to wander around the store and take it all in.

And even the utility boxes were painted! I loved it.

 I wish this would happen in my town, it looks so much more welcoming - to change something rather ugly into something beautiful.

My First Giveaway: A Companion for 2011

The idea has been going around my head for quite some time, but only in December I finally knew what to offer. I wanted to say thank you for all your lovely comments and that you come back regularly to my blog... so I was thinking of a giveaway, and of course it had to be something with my photography - and since this is the start of a new year, why not choosing a calendar?

I made a few calendars as Christmas presents - and one as my first giveaway (or "blog candy" as I so often read on other blogs, a name I love, makes me think of chocolate). Either way - giveaway or blog candy, this calendar is all about Yosemite, a national park I love with all my heart and I visit every year. Yosemite is one of the most divine places I know and I never tire of it. I especially love it in the winter when there are almost no crowds and quite some snow. It wasn't a stretch for me to come up with the idea of making a Yosemite calendar.

It is a 12-month calendar, one full-size photo for each month. The picture on top is one of the photos, and here is a sample page:



So, how can you get into the drawing? It's pretty easy.

- Just leave a comment to this post and you have chance #1 to win.

- Chance #2: Tell about the giveaway on Facebook, preferably with a direct link to this post. Leave a comment about this.

- Chance #3: Tell about it on your blog and link to this post, then leave a comment.

If you do all three chances you'd leave three separate comments to this post. This giveaway is for everyone, no matter where you live.

On Sunday, January 9th 2011, my daughter will pick a random number and the comment that matches that number is the lucky winner. Please make sure that I can contact you!

Good luck!!