Luggage saga continued:

Long story made very short, our luggage spent 3 days in Vienna, Austria before it finally made it to us in Rimini, Italy.  It made for a miserable three days while waiting for it to get back to us.  Yeah, I think I'll be having a chat with Delta.  Luckily for anyone reading this, enough time has passed so that I'm bored with this story and I'm ready to move on.  : - )

Next post will be about men in Speedos; the good, the bad and the just plain wrong!

Italy in June (2012)

After months of planning, on May 31st we headed for the airport to start our Italian and Croatian holiday.
We flew from San Diego to L.A. and then from L.A. to Paris.  In Paris we would catch our connecting flight to Firenze (Florence).  Well, that was the plan anyway.  Also in the plan was for our luggage to accompany us along the way - ultimately ending up in the same place, at the same time as Bill and me.  Silly, silly delusional girl!

As sometimes happens, our flight leaving from LA to Paris was delayed 1 1/2 hours - at the gate, after we had boarded.  The problem would now be that we would probably not make our connecting flight to Firenze.  Normally I would not really care because, after all, a vacation is an adventure and the most fun is had when you "roll with it".  This time though, I had made plans with a friend to meet in Firenze at the airport and I had no way to reach him and let him know of the delay.  I felt sad knowing that he would be waiting and maybe thinking I changed my mind.

So, we arrive in Paris and we had, in fact missed our connection.  We had to wait another 2 hours but finally got our new flight and were on our way to Firenze.  We arrived about 4 hours later than originally planned - our luggage didn't arrive at all.

To be continued...

Bill asleep in Paris airport

Letting Go

This morning at 6:35 AM my baby boy left on a jet, headed for Great Lakes, IL. It doesn't matter that he is 20 years old, he is, and always will be, my baby. I miss him like crazy already.

Yesterday his father and I watched him swear his allegiance to our United States Constitution and become a member of the United States Navy. I am so proud of him and I know he will rise to the challenge and preform his duties with honor and excellence. I'm excited for him as I know this will open a whole new world to him and allow him to become the man I know he is meant to be. That is what I know to be true, intellectually.

The mommy in me, however, is having a hard time with all this. For the past week especially I have been reliving his entire childhood; wondering if I gave him enough of me and my time. We read stories before bed EVERY night since he was a year old or so, but did we read enough stories? We played with Legos and built things, but did I do it often enough? We played with, well, we crashed matchbox cars and had battles with G.I. Joes, Ninja Turtles and Transformers, but will he remember all of that? Did I bake him enough cookies, make him enough of his favorite peanut butter and honey sandwiches (cut on the diagonal) and make his chocolate milk just the way he likes it? Was I a good enough mommy? This is what I am agonizing over right now. That, and wondering if THEY will take good care of him. Will his bed be comfortable? Will he be warm enough? Will he like the food? Of course I know the answers to those questions will be: No, No and No. I will learn to deal with this, probably not as well as my son, but I will try.

The week before my son's first day of kindergarten, the teachers invited all the moms for a get acquainted visit. They told us what our child's day would be like, showed us the playground and signed up the mommies that would be willing to help out in the classroom from time to time. At the end of the hour one of the teachers brought out a book to read to us. I don't think any book has ever had as profound an affect on me... ever. I can't even think about it now without choking up. If you are a parent and have never read this short children's story, or if you know a new parent and they don't have this book yet, get it for yourself or for them. I know in a week or two I will pull it off the shelf and reread it, probably a few times, and have my self a good cry or two (or four or five). This is the book, it's by author Robert Munsch, "Love You Forever". You will have to copy and paste this URL to your browser, or do a google search on your own so that you can read a snippet of the book on line. Go ahead, I dare you, just have some tissues handy.

http://books.google.com/books?id=7ep09WAFbDwC&dq=love+you+forever+by+robert+n.+munsch&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=FSdhS52zC5HQtgPW8pm-Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false

New Starts

I think most people can remember how they felt at the beginning of every new school year. The excitement that came with a new teacher, new classmates and more importantly, knowing that you would be learning new 'things'. You could put the previous years behind you, ticking them off the list, because this was a fresh start and a chance to do even better than the year before.

For me, I took comfort in knowing there was a beginning, a middle and an end. A deadline, if you will, to get things done. Now, I'm not quite sure why I liked this framework as I've always been a procrastinator. Maybe it was knowing that if it wasn't a stellar year, it would end, at a known point in time and I would have my glorious summer to get over it. Then of course, with hope springing eternally along, I would have yet another year to start all over again...

Well, it's been ages since I was in a classroom, with deadlines and goals spelled out for me. But like most everyone, I've set certain goals for myself over the years; some accomplished but most not. I have a million excuses for why I haven't attained some of these goals but the bottom line is, it's on me. We make choices, for a myriad of reasons, but the fact remains, WE make the choices.

So here I am, at a point in my life where I feel free to make some choices that I've been afraid to make before now. It's very exciting, a little scary ( no, really, it's a lot scary) but I'm going to jump in and do it.

If you're interested in what this might all be about, I invite you to follow my blog. Yes, I really will keep up with it, if for no other reason than to keep myself on track and accountable. So, to misquote a line from the the movie "All About Eve", "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

Connecting

Since I first decided that I wanted to have a blog attached to my website I've been trying to reconcile exactly what the connection between the two mediums might be.  Sure, a lot of people have both, which is what first made me think it would be a good idea, but what exactly would be my reason for having a blog?

Many times blogs will be instructional, or at least informative, about a subject matter; such as photography.  I knew from the beginning that would not be any part of what my blog is about.

I am a technophobe.  (Wow, that must be a real word because spell check didn't underline it!)

My method of photography is a combination of things learned and things instinctual, mostly instinctual I think. What I have learned I have learned by doing; not by reading a "how to" or having someone just tell me "how to" do it.  With photography, if I have to think too much about what I'm doing, the magic is gone and I no longer feel what attracted me to the subject in the first place.  Anyway, I would never presume to be able to teach anyone anything about photography so you won't find that kind of thing here.

*******  It should by now be clear to anybody reading this that it is impossible

               for me to "get to the point" in anything remotely resembling a normal                        amount of time.  Also, my paragraphs aren't necessarily real  para-

              graphs.   If you're an English major, I apologize for any pain this may be                   causing you.  If you're reading this and you happen to be of the male                           species,  I know that my style of writing may be especially painful for you               but, somehow, that gives me a certain amount of pleasure.  ; - )   Just  

              teasing!   *********

So what is the point of "Tori's Darkroom"?  I think it will be a way to show who I am using words instead of images.  That is to say; when someone views my work, I hope they can get a sense of who I am from the pictures I make and now, through my blog, I have another way for people to know who I am as a person.  There might be a lot of reading between the lines but that makes it more of a puzzle (and who doesn't like puzzles?).

I think I've always been a fairly open person, but damn, this is the internet and that's a little intimidating.  Of course, that's supposing that anyone reads this and that would seem fairly egotistical, so maybe I will just write it as though I'm writing to a friend and see what happens...

Up and Running, hmm, well, walking for now.

My website, http://www.ToriNelson.com, has been unofficially up for about a week now.  There have been some things that I felt needed to be changed before I really started spamming my URL.

They are being worked on now and I hope to have it all ready to go by the end of the weekend.  ( I seem to be saying that a lot)

One of the changes I've made was to delete what had been written in the "Who I Am" section.  A friend told me I sounded so boring that he would probably not bother looking at any of my images.  Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but he really is a friend.  He was right too.  I guess I'm just not comfortable writing about myself, my "accomplishments", why photography is such a passion with me and why everyone should clamor for my art.  I actually had something else written before the site went online but that same friend previewed it for me and said I sounded scary ( I've been known to be a tad bit sarcastic ); so for now, until I come up with the perfect wording, that section won't have anything but a link to this blog.

One of the other things I heard from the few people who commented on the site was that having to go to separate galleries for B&W and color was annoying.  Okay, I'll concede that.

I wasn't thrilled with the way it looked anyway so now B&W and color thumbnails will be together.  Well-not now- but by the end of the weekend for sure.

Getting back up on the horse...

It's not that I got thrown really, it's more that I stopped riding.  That is to say, I stopped actively marketing my photography.  It's been about three years since I had any work in a gallery, participated in any shows or even offered my work for sale.  But the time has come to get back out there and pursue my ambitions - again.

I have spent the past few years taking care of more pressing matters than photography.  I never stopped photographing but I didn't seem to have much time to do anything with it.  Now though things seem to have settled down and I feel more free to create and share my passion with others.

I took my first step out last weekend by being part of a group show in Riverside, CA.  My friend Matthew Blais organized the show (and did an incredible job!) and included me and 7 other really fine photographers.  We had a great time, learned a lot, sold some work and got to meet some very nice people.  Now I'm ready for the next one!

I will have a new website this week sometime, I hope.  I would really like it if you would send me any comments or suggestions.  It will still be the same address:

http://www.ToriNelson.com

I thought it might be up tonight but I thought wrong.  Oh well, by next weekend for sure.

Okay, well, this concludes my very first blog post ever.  It's a little strange and feels a bit like I'm talking to myself.  I'm sure I'll get used to it.