beyond cinderella

With the New Year in full swing, I’m hearing a lot of talk of folks making resolutions, and/or setting new life goals to improve their life and/or improve themselves. Some folks want to lose weight, quit smoking, start a hobby or take up a new one. All of these things are good and healthy things to do to improve health and create a better lifestyle… Some folks are in search of discovering a way to make what they already have better or more perfect…

One of the most important life lessons I ever learned, I learned from our daughter, Shantel. Being totally blind, Shantel is not at all into anything being perfect. She is however very much into everything being functional. She always tells me that if she waited for things to be “perfect” in her world, she would never be able to function at all. She said “you just have to accept that not all things are going to be perfect, but they can still be beautiful, have purpose, and be functional”.

One of the reasons I love living in Arizona is because I feel so at home, and find such comfort, and beauty, in the Sonoran  Desert. I am most impressed with the beautiful and mighty saguaro cactus. I am always fascinated with the distinctive differences from one saguaro to the next.

Today, as I was out and about practicing with the camera my frissy loaned me, I decided to focus my photo session on the perfect imperfections of the mighty saguaro cactus. I thought about my daughter, Shantel, as I was capturing each and every one of these perfectly imperfect, but beautiful saguaro cactus. Take a look.

The saguaro in the center of the picture is beautiful and graceful standing tall and proud.

But not all saguaro’s look quite so graceful. This one looks to me like the old lady in the shoe who had so many children she didn’t know what to do…

OMG, this is one of my favorites just outside of the park. To me it looks like someone ridding piggy-back, and I can almost hear it saying “gitty-up, Go!

All I can say for a caption for this one is “stick a fork in me… I’m done”.

So many funny shapes and sizes… I could spend all day looking for more!

Use  your imagination on this one…

When I looked at this one as pictured, I thought it might be saying I surrender,,,

But when I took the picture from this angle, I immediately thought it should be named spirit woman. What do you think?

My caption for the next picture is Twins. What would your caption be?

All I can say is a big Thank-you to our daughter, Shantel, who taught me to see the beauty in imperfections…And, a BIG THANK-YOU to my Frissy for loaning me one of her camera’s, and teaching me to see the beauty in the unexpected, and in imperfections… I hope I did you proud Frissy…

Just like the beauty in nature is not always perfect… See the beautiful imperfections in everyone you meet that make them perfect, and don’t just walk by, and miss the beautiful imperfections in nature, or in the people you meet.

Thank-You Shantel, and Frissy, for showing me how to appreciate the beauty in perfect imperfections..

Stayed Tuned!