The Journey Begins

Welcome to 2018.  The first day of the year and the first day of Journey 2018.  This is where I will be keeping track of a 365 photo project I'm participating in on Facebook.  There I'll post the photo I take for each daily assignment, but here I hope to delve more into why I took each image as well as so much more throughout the year.

This year I'm taking the time to work on me.  I plan on spending more time this year photographing what I love, crocheting the things I want to make, reading fantastic books that I choose, and working on making ME better in every way possible.  It's going to be a long journey, probably a stressful journey at times, but hopefully also a fun and enlightening journey as well!

The first assignment for Journey is to create an image that represents your name.  I chose to create an image that represents what I was named after.  My great-grandmother.  Or more precisely, her maiden name.  I feel like my name is a family heirloom.  I'm honored that it was given to me because it came from an amazing woman! 

The cookbook in the photo was one of hers.  There are a few notes on several pages, but I always flip to the inside of the back cover every time I grab this cookbook off the shelf just to see her note about which page "giblet gravy" can be found on.  It was a Thanksgiving staple growing up!  The teacup tree is something I was very grateful to get passed down to me.  There are several little china teacups with the set, but I only unpacked one of them for the image.  I long to keep them out all the time, but with two kids and a giant dog running the house, I just couldn't stand to see them get broken. 

Every time I see these cups, I picture my great-grandmother sitting at her kitchen table drinking her International Delights French Vanilla instant cappuccino from the little tins.  We'd have cup after cup with her sitting at that little table.  My great-grandfather would be there eating his burnt toast because that's the way her actually preferred it.  And their dog, Jenny, the world's fattest dachshund, would be sitting in her chair in the dining room staring out the window.  Just holding that tiny fragile china teacup transports me back to that house in that kitchen with the greatest people I have ever known.  And I was lucky enough to be named after one of them! 

So that's where my Journey begins, decades in the past!  Now let's see where it will take me!