A new project....

I haven't been blogging enough lately and I am going to use this as my excuse. Right around the first of the year a friend told me about a photography project called 365 Project (www.365project.org) where you take one photo everyday for a year. You can start anytime and document a full year. I thought that if any year in our life would be an interesting one to document 2011 would be it. We started the year in Matagalpa viewing scarecrows stuffed with firecrackers on New Year's Eve/Day and in May we will travel back to the US find a house to rent, a car to buy, and hopefully by the end of the year be settled back into a "normal" life in Renton with our family and friends. I also really want to have some cool pictures of our time in Nicaragua and this project gives me the excuse to get out there and do it everyday. Knowing that I have to post one picture on the website and eventually it will be in a photo book for posterity is a good motivator for me.

I don't have a great camera. I have a Casio Exilim 10.1 megapixels point and shoot camera that I found (literally) before we left. It replaced our Cannon Powershot because it's smaller and lighter and doesn't need real batteries. So because my camera isn't great, I have begun playing with photo editing software. I have been using Picnik.com mostly because I find their site easy to use and I like the effects that they offer for free. I have also been reading their blog posts highlighting Picnik users and seeing what others (much more talented than I) are doing with Picnik. It's been fun to see how people think outside of the box when it comes to photography.

So this is why I haven't been blogging much lately. Feel free to keep up with me on the 365 website. http://365project.org/runnergirl131/365/2011-01 I will be posting everyday (or at least catching up every 2 or 3 days). I am trying to take pictures of the things around us here in Matagalpa and the kids too, when they let me.

Things are going well here for us. Joe is doing some website development for some triathlon companies. The kids and I are doing school and looking into volunteering, in some capacity, with a program called Familias Especiales. FE serves the families of children with disabilities here in Matagalpa. They train mothers to reach out to other mothers with children with disabilities and encourage them to come to the center where they offer physical therapy, school, recreational activities and education for the parents. The center has the only park built for children with disabilities in Central America. My kids love the park. They also run a yogurt making business, a repair shop where they keep the park maintained, fix and build wheelchairs and fix anything that they can. They run a recycling program (unusual in Nicaragua, unfortunately) where they process the recyclables and use them to make piñatas, gift bags, cards and other crafts to sell. These business employ people with disabilities. This is a great program in a country where people with disabilities are likely to stay in their houses. We are hoping to be able to work at the center but we aren't sure how. Right now it's summer vacation in Nicaragua so school doesn't start again till early to mid February for most schools so we won't be able to work until school is back in session.

That's what we have been up to. Check out my photos on the 365 site and hopefully I will blog sooner than later. http://365project.org/runnergirl131/365/2011-01

Oh, and in reference to my last post, I am on day 29 of my Bible in a year reading plan and 7.3% complete. I am a little ahead of schedule and it feels good. God is good!