Ein Kleines Foto

Last Christmas I got this cool Bokeh Kit from Photojojo. Turns out I did not have the skills to use it. 🙂 However, after a year of learning about bokeh and a bit more about how to use my camera, I decided to give it a whirl. I think this is the best photo from my first attempt. It only has a couple of lights, but it is just a better all-around photo than the others.

This photo has the best lights, but isn’t a great all-around photo.

I’m thankful that photography gives me a creative outlet, and I’m excited to play around with this technique more.

Part of my daily routine (hopefully yours, too) is brushing my teeth. This little guy holds my toothbrush for me when I’m not using it. My friend Sarah gave him to me several years ago. I love him because he reminds me of her everyday.

Living in Vienna has definitely given me an appreciation for transportation. Our city has a fantastic public transportation system. My favorite way to travel here is the Strassenbahn. You can just sit back and take in the sites of this amazing city.

OK, so I’m cheating a bit on this one. I definitely didn’t take this today. I took this 3 1/2 years ago on our honeymoon. We went to Paris where we got to see lots of great artwork. Of all the things we saw, the art we were most amazed by was Monet’s Water Lilies. These pieces are housed in the Musée de l’Orangerie which was built specifically to show them off in the best possible way. I had no idea how huge they are! I’m so thankful that we were able to go to Paris for our honeymoon and also thankful that we were able to see incredible artwork like this.

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving with the senior class. It was a great time! I’m grateful that we got to celebrate with these students who will be scattered around the globe in the coming year. It was fun to share an American tradition with them, and it was wonderful to hear the things they are grateful for.

One of the traditions at our house is the Thanksgiving Turkey. Each year, every person we celebrate with writes down what they are grateful for and places it as a feather in the Thanksgiving Turkey. We have a Thanksgiving journal where we write down who we spent Thanksgiving with and where we celebrated. Each year I glue all the turkey feathers into the book so that we can look back at who we’ve shared this celebration with as well as the many ways we’ve been blessed over the years.

The students had the great idea of creating a thankfulness tree to keep in their homeroom classroom as a reminder of all they are thankful for. This picture is of our Thanksgiving Turkey with everyone’s feathers, and my leaf before it got glued to the tree.

Yes, my closet is organized by color. Anyone who knows me is most likely not at all shocked by that. Anyway, I am really grateful for clothing. I’m grateful that this past summer when we were in the States I got to buy some cute new clothes that I love.

As I was thinking about being grateful for clothing, I though about taking a picture of my comfy green sweatshirt, or my favorite shoes, or one of my nerdy t-shirts. Then I thought about which clothes I’m really grateful for, and I thought about some of the things I have that belonged to my grandmother. When my grandma passed away, my mom and I had to spend some time cleaning out her closet. One of the things, well four pairs of things actually, that my mom gave to me were my grandma’s dress gloves. I don’t wear them very often because I really am a jeans and t-shirt kinda gal, but when I do get dressed up, I’m grateful that I get to wear something that reminds me of someone I love so much.