not-so-sticky

Less than a week ago, April 19, was my little sister's birthday. If she were still alive, she would have turned 25 this year. This is hard for me to wrap my head around because in my head, she's still this silly teenager. I can still see her sitting with her back to me, facing my computer, with her head phones blasting. She didn't know I had entered the room and was loudly singing in this god-awful voice that horrible "Genie in a Bottle" song. I couldn't stop laughing. Sometimes I 'google' her name to see if I can find someone who may have known her, someone who might be able to put some puzzle pieces together for me. I know that must sound ridiculous but there seems to be answer for everything else on the internet. What surprised me is that instead of finding someone who knew her, I found her directly - something silly and light-hearted she had written in a guest book as a teenager. The Geocities site didn't look active. I wondered how long I woul...

My youngest children will never know what it was like to have to wait for film to be developed before you can actually 'see' the picture you took. Subtlety, technology has creeped up on us; digital photography has nearly replaced film altogether - at least, for a non-professional like me. I haven't quite given up on my 35 mm completely. Before my trip to Frost Valley, I bought 3 rolls of B/W Kodak film. I only used 1 of them at Frost Valley because I needed the instant gratification of digital. I mean, what if all of my photographs turned out horribly? So, I stupidly ending up taking duplicate shots of nearly everything.Last week, I was taking some shots of the kids in the yard with actual 35 mm film! and after I took Lily's picture, her first statement was, "Let me see it!" It must seem completely bizarre to her that you can't actually see the photograph for a few weeks let alone while you're taking it... One of my favorite things as a child was to l...