Category: Daily Prompt

An Ounce of Home

Daily Prompt1 Comment on An Ounce of Home

An Ounce of Home – You’re embarking on a yearlong round-the-world adventure, and can take only one small object with you to remind you of home. What do you bring along for the trip?

This is an easy question for me to answer – I would take along my ugly doll that my wife made for me. In fact, it’s already in my daily bag! I like to pack light and my ugly doll probably doesn’t even weigh an ounce, but it would remind me of home, or more specifically, of my family.

I’ve lived in several different places, and it’s hard to really know which place I would call “home”. I’m thinking that there is more meaning to “home” than just where you return to every night. I like to think that “home” is equal to a happy place, and that happy place would be where my loved-ones are. Hopefully they would be with me for the round-the-world trip, but if not, this homemade ugly doll would remind me of them.

There’s a song by Everything But the Girl (one of my favorite bands since 1984) that this Daily Prompt reminds me of. It’s called “One Place” and one of the lines in the song is, “In the end if you take care, you can be happy or unhappy anywhere.” I really believe this is true. I guess the saying “Happiness comes from within” has some truth to it. It isn’t the external situation that causes happiness (or unhappiness), but the determining factor is your interpretation and reaction to that situation. With that in mind, I’ve been trying to look for happiness and a positive angle no matter what situation I am in at the time. Is this part of “living in the moment”?

Homemade Ugly Doll
Homemade Ugly Doll

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Terminal Time

, Daily Prompt2 Comments on Terminal Time

Terminal Time – You’re at the airport, your flight is delayed for six more hours, and none of your electronic devices is working. How do you pass the time?

Ugh, all my batteries are dead! So… I reach into my backpack and pull out my sketchbook/notepad and either sketch what catches my interest, or work on a blog post, a story, or ideas for a story. Speaking of sketches, if you don’t follow Hamahouse yet, his Instagram feed is wonderful! It’s full of cool (and quick) sketches he does, and a photo of the sketch with subject in the background. I wish I had his talent!

I went to art school from High School through college, but I am not a good illustrator. I have always envied people who can draw. It’s something that many people misunderstand about creative types – a graphic designer, painter, sculptor, etc. is not necessarily good at drawing. I remember once in a drawing classes in college, there was a particular student who could accurately sketch just about anything that was in front of him. His sketches were technically accurate in proportion and lighting. His work was amazing! Our instructor (whom I greatly respected) said he had a real talent for drawing, and said she wished she had that talent. That kind of stuck with me… that a talented painter might not be great at drawing. By that time in school, I knew that I didn’t have that same level of talent in drawing, however, my instructor’s comment gave me inspiration to keep up with what I was specializing in, which was painting. I must say though, that it is a little deflating when I have to admit to someone that I cannot draw so well, even though I have a degree in art.

At any rate, here’s a sketch I did while at one of my son’s piano lessons. Not nearly as cool a Hamahouse’s, but I am trying!

A Sketch at Bay's Piano Lesson
A Sketch at Bay’s Piano Lesson

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Longing for Gravity

Daily Prompt1 Comment on Longing for Gravity

Longing for Gravity – You are on a mission to Mars. Because of the length of of the journey, you will never be able to return to Earth. What about our blue planet will you miss the most?

One of my favorite types of photography is landscape photography, especially landscapes that feature beautiful or interesting clouds. Although I am sure I will be able to view unlimited amounts of photos via electronic communication, I will miss being able to actually take them and post-process them. These days, the post-processing (in Lightroom mainly) is maybe 80% of the fun of photography for me. I see the camera as just a tool to capture the light, so I can get that light into the computer to do the post-processing. Although I am sure there will be interesting things to photograph on Mars, I’m sure it will lack the diversity of our home planet.

You can see some of the photos I have made at my Flickr page or Instagram feed.

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Snapshot Stories

Daily Prompt3 Comments on Snapshot Stories

Snapshot Stories – Open the first photo album you can find – real or virtual, your call – and stop at the first picture of yourself you see there. Tell us the story of that photo.

Tamago Sushi Shirt
Tamago Sushi Shirt

For this Daily Prompt I opened up my Flickr stream (which hasn’t seen a whole lot of activity these days, and found this photo I took of myself wearing a sushi shirt. The shirt was a gift from my oldest brother, who visited Japan recently with his son. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? If you are not familiar with sushi, this one is called Tamago, which means Egg. It’s a good kids’ sushi actually, but my wife and I also enjoy it, usually towards the end of a sushi meal since it is sweet.

I don’t have a lot of photos of myself since I am usually behind the camera and I don’t particularly like selfies. So… when I do take photos of myself, my face is usually hidden!

You can learn more about Tamagoyaki at Wikipedia.

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Climate Control

Daily PromptLeave a Comment on Climate Control

Climate Control – The idea that the weather and people’s moods are connected is quite old. Do you agree? If yes, how does the weather affect your mood?

Yes, I do believe weather affects people’s moods. For myself it is very simple: the sun cheers me up, and the lack of sun brings me down a bit. The perfect weather for me would be sunny, with some clouds to make the sky interesting, and the temperature hovering around 90°F. It’s probably a bit warm for most people, but I love it. On the flipside, I really dislike cold weather. Maybe a day is okay, but any more than that and I am missing summer!

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.