Pausing Life for a Moment...

Today I was honored to Pause life for a Moment and guest post over at JDaniel4's Mom.   She became a wife and stay home mom to one little boy after nearly 20 years of teaching. She's a wonderful storyteller and I know you will enjoy her blog as much as I do. And I just love the idea of pausing life for moment and giving thanks for the blessings that too often get overlooked in the busy work of our everyday lives. 


And one way I love to do that is through photos...


I love photos.  Always have.  I love taking them, looking at them, framing them, showing them off.  But I think what I love most about them is the way they magically capture and freeze a moment in time and how I can dig them out (or flip through them with a click of a mouse these days) and instantly be whisked back to another place and time in my life.  


Some of them remind me of being a child....in the 70's. Like this one, for instance, conjures up the fond memory of the excitement and anticipation I felt on Friday afternoons in elementary school because I knew it meant I'd soon be seeing my dad, stepmom, Lynne, and stepsister, Stephanye...

We called these our Hee Haw pants!

Then there are those that remind me of my adolescent, coming of age years in the 80's...

Sportin' some helmet hair and high waist shorts at Six Flags Over Georgia

My big hair flag days

Photography Club, senior year of high school 

The ones from the 90's and early 2000's that remind me of becoming an adult, a wife, a mother...

He's thinking about it 

Bele Chere Festival in Asheville, 2001

Then there are those  that were taken in the first couple of years after tragedy and loss struck our lives.  I look at them sometimes and  remember how much strength, faith and prayer it took to get through the days and how we gradually learned how to live again, smile again, laugh again...

sweet smiling faces

Pawpaw Paul and Dracen at the beach

Christmas 2004

There are those that remind me of finding love again and of becoming the family we are today...

"Piggy ride backs"!

Dracen snapped this shot on our one year dating anniversary, 12/07 
(that's Devin's hand and camera getting his shot!)

June 28, 2008

And then there are those most recent ones that I will find priceless in just a few years (okay, probably not even that long) because they will remind me of the life we are living right here, right now, today...

first day of 3rd grade!

first day of 7th grade...middle school!!!

And, of course, there are so many oodles and oodles of others that I couldn't possibly get through in a day, much less a blog post, but knowing they are there at my fingertips...or buried in the bottom of a plastic tote under a pile of clothes in my closet...is just one of those little things that make my heart smile. 


What is something that makes your heart smile?  And in what ways do you slow down and pause life for a moment? 


**Please don't forget to click over and read my guest post at JDaniel4's Mom! :)