A SMALL WORLD

This morning I went to a website with hundreds of incredible photographs,
of couples and children, weddings, and pets.

CLICK HERE

to take a tour.

I looked at one that looked so familiar (in Paris at the Louvre) and then another,
a zinnia with a bumble bee on it. It was not mine, but could have been.

I then flipped through more, faces I didn't recognize, but places and pets that could have been in anyone's photo album.

One of a woman of asian descent posing with Mickey Mouse made me think about just how many people venture even to that magical place to stand with Mickey Mouse and say "cheese".

I clicked on the link entitled "SOUTHERN", expecting photos of the Southern US and found photos from South Africa, the South of France. How naive to think that every site should be a reflection of the United States.

This week we learned just how small our world is, and how much we all have in common as our weak dollar trickled across the globe, bringing markets down across the world.

There was a soldier standing in a hotel lobby with a machine gun. How often I have seen that in Europe, but rarely here, except when at our hunting camp, with Frank and his arsenal.

We don't know what the future brings. Will we too have to arm ourselves to survive some depression-era revival of fear and turmoil? Will riots plague as they did in the seventies if food grows short?

Our country is in a time of transition, many of the photos that are posted, of places we all dream to go, are farther in the distance, with higher fuel costs, with necessity being placed higher on our priority lists of things to do.

I have been blessed to have traveled early, and still I have only experienced a fraction of the incredible things to see and do on this planet.

While we may not be able to venture far these days, we can take a visual tour through sites like Picasa, and we can plant our own zinnias and pumpkins and watch them bloom.

This morning I watched more than a dozen redbirds dodging a huge bluejay in my back yard just outside of my studio window.

Maybe with fewer places to go, I will find the time to capture them on canvas...or maybe even just on film.

What little slice of heaven do you have hidden in your backyard? Snap it and send it in, they welcome your photos!

Have a blessed day! Remember the small things, they are the things that matter!

Allison