Artsy Me

I love it when I get a chance to be artsy with my photos.  These families gave me free reign!  Crazy moves, dramatic colors, color pops!  What fun!

Until my next photo musing...

Headshots from the Heart

Jimminy Cricket (however it's spelled), kids can look so darn fabulous... I love these two kids--inside and out!  Youthful spirit captured forever!

and his "little" sister...

Until my next photo musing...



Families are so fun!

I met with a great family last week, and they horsed around happily while I snapped away!  The weather gave us a tiny challenge...as in, imagine it being hot in November in Florida!  Everyone hung in there, and I think they got some great family shots for the "card!"

Until my next photo musing...

Fur Babies

A beautiful woman and her adoring pups!  This was an ambitious task, but most of the pups cooperated!

 

Until my next photo musing...

A 95th Birthday Party...

...and look who I found!

Until my next photo musing...

October in Florida...

I had the opportunity to do a family shoot at the beach a few weeks ago and it was awesome!  The kids had fun, caught some beautiful light and ended up the day watching the sunset.  Ahhhh, Florida life!

The rocks were a perfect backdrop for this fabulous family.

All in all, it was a beautiful day at the beach!





Until my next photo musing...

The Color of Light

One of my assignments in my photography class this week was to capture light.  Light is so important, and can make or break an image.  Too much (overexposed) and you have washed out a photo, too little (underexposed) and you have lost the details.  I watched light around my house throughout the day before I settled on my source of light--my dining room window.  I (lazily) have kept my Christmas bling on my chandelier, and watched as the sun came through the window and hit the facets of glass. Bam.  The colors of light!

Blue

My grandmother's bottle, and my mother's favorite color.  My favorite color too, as long as I can look at it at the beach--in the sky and in the sea!  Blue was my prompt for my photography class today, and I like the way this photo turned out.  It is a little moody, a little perky, and yet has a calm feel---

If your child is struggling with schoolwork, read on...and share...

That picture, that one up there, makes me cry.  My daughter is reading a book.  On her own.  If your child has never struggled to read, then this blog post isn't for you--but it may be for someone you know, so bear with me.  I try to write less than more on here, but this is too important not to pass on. 

Do you know someone who has been told that their child is suffering from the symptoms of ADD? Things like:
o difficulty paying attention to details and tendency to make careless mistakes in school or other activities; producing work that is often messy and careless
o inability to sustain focus on tasks or activities
o difficulty finishing schoolwork or paperwork or performing tasks that require concentration
o frequent shifts from one uncompleted activity to another
o disorganized work habits
o failure to complete tasks such as homework or chores (i.e. miserable homework time)

Well, that's my daughter.  Well, was my daughter.  I look at the picture up there, and I am amazed.  I did a lot of research on how I could help her, and medication seemed to be the only way.  I took her to the eye doctor, and it turns out she has 20/20 eyesight. Great. She can see far away and she can see up close.  It wasn't an eyesight problem...

Then someone mentioned vision therapy and a developmental optometrist; a doctor who has special schooling and focuses on, well, focusing, or “vision.” Not isolated focusing, but eye tracking, eye teaming, and peripheral vision. All the things that we take for granted (if we can see!)

I started to think back, and remembered all of the things that scared her: riding a bike, swinging on a swing, going off a diving board, jumping rope, catching a ball, laser tag, dancing in dimmed lights to a disco ball. All of the normal things that kids love to do, and typically do with ease and without fear.

After doing a lot more research, I decided to give it a try, as I had nothing to lose. I believe that ADD is a diagnosis of elimination, and I wanted to eliminate a “vision” problem. Note I didn’t say “eyesight” because I already knew she had 20/20 eyesight. I also requested that the school psychologist do a battery of tests, and as it turns out, she has very high cognitive abilities (+90% ile), and is in the -1% for visual motor skills. "Motor" was the key word that gave me hope--motor skills can be impoved with exercises.

Eight weeks ago, we embarked on our vision therapy journey, and with the help of Robin Beniot and her book, “Jillian’s Story,” Dr. Allison Falden at Healthy Eye in Ponte Vedra, a team of great teachers at school, and a lot of vision therapy homework, my daughter caught a ball for the first time 6 weeks ago. Dr. Allison taught her to catch the one that “wasn’t fuzzy.”  Imagine that. I never thought to ask her "How many balls do you see?" Silly me. ;-)

She now knows that when her eyes are tired, she sees two (double vision) and she needs to rest them, and knows how. She has learned to “hard focus” when reading to force herself to see only one chunk of letters (words) and has improved beyond my wildest dreams in her academics, and consequently her motivation and self concept.  A dream domino effect!

We are still on our journey, but I felt it was time to share, so that maybe, just maybe, someone who is struggling to find the answer to a child with similar difficulties might find success with vision therapy.

Disclaimer: If a child has ADD/ADHD, then vision therapy may not be the answer, and likewise, if a child has trouble focusing because of vision, then medication may not be the answer. No promises, just hope…

Time...

Time goes too slowly when you want to wish it away,
Time goes too quickly when you wish you could stay.

Time doesn't wait while you "get it together,"
Nor does it quicken like a change in the weather.

It is patient and consistent, ever ticking away,
The pendulum of existence, by night and by day.

Take your time, and use it, with great thought and care,
Suprisingly and knowingly, it will not always be there.

Musing: Blue

I am adding to the pool of images over at Bliss and Folly today...for lots of reasons.  1. Blue is my favorite color to see (although pink and red and orange are my favorite colors to wear--at the same time!) 2. The color blue brings me peace, and groundedness, and 3. A special someone informed me that my blog was sorely neglected.  I agree.

The picture that gives me my all-time favorite blue-ness was taken on a hooky day from school last year.  Yep--just impulsively took the girls out of school, packed lunches and went to the beach--all by ourselves.  Whats your favorite blue picture?  Link up at Bliss and Folly.