August Break

 

Day 1: morning light

Like the years before, I participated in the August Break meme on Instagram, hosted by Susannah Conway. Every day for the entire month of August we show a photo that fits the prompt of the day. This year I participated almost every day, but I don't want to bore you with a barrage of photos. There are not quite half of them that will get their "moment of fame" on this blog.

Day 3: Handwriting. I have some old family letters that I keep in my grab-and-go box. This one is from my great-grandfather to one of his daughters, written in September 1919. This daughter was my favorite grandaunt. The letter is written in Sütterlin, the old German writing, and since his handwriting is quite sloppy, it is difficult to read. But what a treasure to have!

Day 6: I'm reading. I discovered this book "Little Stories of your Life" by Laura Pashby through an online friend, and I'm loving it. The focus - as the title suggests - is on the little things, how we can write and photograph them and thus create mindful and thoughtful storytelling. It is a wonderful tool to slow down and pay attention. The journals next to the book are composition books that I altered and serve as my daily journal and as the notebook for my little stories. One day, some of  these stories will be posted in this space, but for the time being I am writing them in German. I have always loved creative writing, but it flows best if I write in my mother tongue.

Day 8: favorite taste. This was a tricky one! There are a lot of tastes I like and don't want to miss (like hearty dark bread), but when it comes down to it, it's chocolate. Whenever we are in Germany we buy several of this coffee cream chocolate (you get them at Aldi Süd). I haven't found anything like this in the States (nor did I find really good Nougat).

Day 10: yellow. This sweet little wildflower on the grounds of Hailes Abbey fits the bill.

Day 13: 6 o'clock. I simply assumed that it's 6 o'clock in the morning - and this is what I see early in the morning when I come down. Cats - none of them mine - waiting for me to feed them (I told you here how this came to be). White and orange Kibeau in front, big fat King Louie (who steals their food) next to him and Otis in the back. I still haven't figured out how to discourage Louie from coming here even though he by now knows better than to go on eating from the cats' bowls when I turn up. 

Day 15: unicorn. Lacking a real unicorn, I had to rely on Kaefer putting a sugarcone to her forehead. I took this photo four years ago in Ireland - it's still one of my favorites. This is also for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Day 20: clouds. Oh the drama in a cloudy evening sky over the North Sea on the beautiful isle of Sylt, one of my most favorite places in the entire world!

Day 24: three. An excellent opportunity to showcase the seedpods of the poppies from my garden. They are quite photogenic, don't you think?

Day 26: oranges. This is a fruit for the cooler season. It's always fascinating to see the orange trees heavy with fruit in the Central Valley and behind them you see the snow covered mountains of the Sierra. Winter in California! Having no oranges right now, this is an old photo from some years ago when I was trying to do still life photography.

Day 27: little. A word open to interpretation. I decided to go for "when I was little". I was a happy little girl. We didn't have much money - refugee families are not blessed with a ton of money -, so it was special to get a ride on one of these moving animals. We had visited my grandparents (my grandma is behind me) in Timmendorfer Strand where they had spent a short, low-key vacation. I still have a few memories of this day. Sometimes I long for this innocent childhood happiness, that for me ended when I started 5th grade (which in Germany is the beginning of high school in many Bundesländer (states)).

Day 30: evening light. Again, I opted for an older photo. This one was taken on Christmas Eve in 2015 when we were driving along Interstate 25 from Sante Fe to Golden in Colorado. It was one of those college trips that we took before Kaefer's high school graduation. This is the moon rise over the enchanted land of New Mexico. We were very lucky to be close to an exit ramp so we could leave the interstate and safely take some photos.