March Personal Photo Challenge

Today is the day for the March Personal Photo Challenge, and this month's theme is words and letters. Once again, I'm late to the party! I didn't think I was going to be able to participate this month as I haven't been taking many photos lately, nor did I feel like braving the wicked cold temps we've been having lately (ha- all winter) to go out and search for inspiration. So, I thought, I'll have to look back through my "archives" and see what I can find, even though words and letters are not something I photograph very often. Then ... my laptop crashed. Don't know what happened, but it seems I need a new hard drive.  So guess who has lost all her photographs from the last number of months (unless they can possibly be retrieved from the old hard drive. Fingers crossed...). All I have for the past 8 months are those that are on my current memory card.. Anyway, enough of my tale of woe...



Here is one photo still on my memory card, taken in Florida in January at a craft market in Jensen Beach. I could not resist the colorful signs. I didn't buy any but the booth owner gave me permission to photograph all I wanted. Are they not the cheeriest most colorful signs you have seen in a while? Lots of words, and interesting letters here...






I decided it might be quicker to try and find a few more photo possibilities around the house this afternoon than spend hours searching through archived photos. But what to photograph?  And then it came to me.. my mother's handwriting. One's handwriting is very personal and I've always thought that both my mother's writing and printing were beautiful. When I look at her penmanship I can actually see her hands in my mind. Hands that worked hard all her life, both as a nurse and a mother, and later a business owner. Hands that played piano, knit countless socks, mitts and sweaters, hands that made bread every week, hands that gardened and did needlework, rubbed backs and wiped away tears. Hands of love. This is an old recipe book of hers in which she wrote all her favourite recipes. You can see this was a popular cake as the page looks "well spattered". I saw her use this book almost daily as a child, in fact when she taught me to cook, this was always the book I looked through for a recipe to try.


After she died, I found this book of hand-printed poetry - I had never seen it before. She wrote poems she liked in it, as a young woman, and later on, she added poems clipped from the newspaper or a magazine. I think her printing is lovely- as a nurse in the 40's and 50's, good penmanship was important in charting and keeping records. Too bad young people today are not made to practice penmanship. Keyboarding skills seem to be more important. Another skill/art that is being lost....

All photos are "as is" straight from the camera. No edits, no tweaking... I use a Pentax K20D.

I am linking to Donna's Personal Photo Challenge. Why not stop by and see what others have done with this month's challenge?


Peace,
Linda

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace." ~ Buddha