I’ve really been enjoying the wonderful photos and accompanying prose that my dear friend Megan has been posting over on her blog Indigo Midge each day since she started blogging a month or so ago.  Her obvious pleasure in capturing images and thinking about why they are so meaningful to her has really inspired me to have a go at a “photo a day challenge” myself.  Although I started blogging as show-and-tell for my sewing and crochet endeavours, I figure that since it is my blog I can post whatever I like (with good manners and consideration for others, of course).    So if you’re not so interested in my photo-a-day-challenge efforts, feel free to scroll quickly through these posts!  I am no photographic whiz, and am actually much more focused on why the images might be important to me than their technical merit.  We’ll see what happens!

I’m starting off with “hands”.

There are a few things that I notice in this photo.  The manicure – something that rarely happens.  I had the opportunity when Clare was at school yesterday and Stella was at childcare to treat myself to a manicure and pedicure.  It felt like an extravagance, and I guess that it was.  But it was lovely to spend a little time on me.  And I notice my manicure in contrast to Clare’s short bitten nails.  I used to bite my fingernails too.  As short as Clare’s, even shorter.  I stopped biting them when I was in grade 5 or 6.  I wonder if she will too.  Her little hand is so small, and so smooth and young.  Mine show my 43 years.  I am so grateful to have full use of my hands, enabling me to do the crafting that I do.  Around 15 years ago I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and one of the areas that was particularly affected was my hands.  They were swollen and stiff and sore, and I feared that I would have major joint damage and lose the ability to do so many of the things that I love to do.  I was lucky.  Treatment worked for me, and I am in remission.  But every now and then I feel a twinge or an ache, and know that things could have been different.  I am so grateful for my hands, and for the hands of my children in and on mine.