I have a brand new friend. We met because it was meant to be, that I am sure. She found me and now we are connected. Her story touched me as I know it will you. Her newly published book “Take my Hand” (hope and help for the journey) is written with truth and heart, her personal journal of her journey with breast cancer, written as to a friend. When we met we clicked. After shooting a few photos of her face for her book jacket I asked her frankly if she would want me to photograph her breasts, she said yes without hesitation. Unplanned, personal, vulnerable, raw. Call it whatever you want. Brave. This woman is a believer and has a story to share that will touch your heart. Thanks to Beth for being so open and incredibly brave with me.
Beth
Have you ever heard “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”? Not many things can make me speechless but this photo does. When Maggie asked me about taking the picture, I didn’t hesitate. It is a powerful statement. What does it say to you? To me is screams, “I am strong, I have overcome, I am a survivor, I have been beaten but not destroyed”
If you would like to talk about your journey, I would love to talk to you. You can contact me at hearmyheart02@yahoo.com or visit my website at hearmyheart.net.
“Take My Hand: Hope and Help for the Journey” is available through www.bookstore.westbowpress.com
I think it is very important to share~ this post could effect someone suffering as Beth did. Please pass the link along by clicking the share button below or email ~ thank you!
Maggie
I just melt around new babies…silky smooth skin with soft peach fuzzy loveliness ~ be still my heart 
please share the sweetness~
to see belly pics click here!
I drive a mini van. I have been shlepping kids around for 21 years and have had several different model vans. The only way I keep my “cool” factor is that I have encased the vehicle in bumper stickers along both back windows~ at stop lights I am reading material for folks bored while they wait for the green signal. Some people give me the “thumbs up” or just smile and wave…I have never thought of having another “ride” really. I guess in about 5 years when my youngest heads off to college it will be another story. For now, I am pretty content buzzing around with the last kid in tow, (nothing like a load full of giggling girls….I miss that.) My friend Tracy will understand, for it’s her house I usually go to spill all my woes about life and motherhood. We sit at her table and watch her youngest play with old toys handed down by other mothers who went thru all the same things before us. They just don’t make toys the way they used to either! I am very much in transition mode in my house. Changes going on with all members of the clan. Including me. With all the changes and growing going on, the van keeps me feeling in control somehow. It’s reliable, always there. It doesn’t go unless I say so.
“The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.”
― Anna Quindlen
have a great weekend~ and if you are shlepping kids here and there~ enjoy every minute. Time flies.
Maggie
please share post below~
There are times I wish I lived by the ocean….times when I miss the east coast in general. Home. I miss that we can’t hop in the car and be dipping our toes into the salty water in less than an hour…or climbing a mountain and looking across beautiful New England. It usually happens in the summertime when my mouth waters at the thought of whole beautiful Lobster roll and big fat homemade ice cream cone:) Summer just takes me back and I guess it always will. Shutting my eyes I am lying on a striped beach towel on a rocky little patch of and sand in Maine, waiting for the clouds to part so I can get some sun! Lemon juice in a bottle for my hair, a bologna sandwich, PRELL shampoo (hello 1975!) so I can wash my hair in the lake…I get so nostalgic this time of year. It can just take one whiff of Coppertone ~…
well…that is where my mind has been wandering this morning as it is very hot here in Oklahoma today. I am blessed in so many ways and am happy to be right where I am even if the beach is really far away~…. lately I just feel good being home, here. Content to sit and look at the blooms in the garden, happy to be blooming where I am planted. I started a book yesterday and could not get past the first page~ a poem. I read it three times…more to come on that. I am getting in book mode.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
Khalil Gibran
please share post~
I just sat down and had to shut the back door because of the lawnmower in the distance. Then I got up and opened it again. Ahhhhh, happy hum of the lawnmower, birds flitting around my garden putting a little choir together they are this fine morn~. Happy Summer. I think I finally feel like I am ready to whip out the shorts and dive in. Not sure why its taken me this long to get in the groove, but it has. This weekend I am focusing on nothing in particular. I am not going to look at photos on the computer, not going to work. I need a computer break. I will however take pictures of some flowers and possibly take a long walk along the river….my bathing suit is hidden, so I might bring that out and dust her off. I hope whatever you end up doing this weekend is relaxing. . . that you find your lost groove or if you never lost it you send some my way! Here comes Summer~….ready, set…go!
“Summer Afternoon”
“the most beautiful words in the English language.”
Henry James
please share~ thats what its all about, thanks!
Maggie
Thursday, June 6, 2013 Posted in families
I was looking for a quote and could not find one appropriate enough for this family & shoot. There’s a whole lotta love & really good energy going on here, thats all I can say. Had a GREAT time with them. Goose bump material once again. I love shooting people like this~ a big thank you to them for being so relaxed, themselves and for making me laugh. Here are just a few I loved…
oh man, I can imagine their family dinner table….I think I might have to invite myself over ! …this is why I love what I do, right here.
Pass it on~ share away folks. Thanks a bunch!
Maggie
I shot these about 2 weeks ago & the little belly bump is now a newborn baby girl I LOVE last minute shoots~ Posting just a few pics…been having computer & upload issues!!!
So much fun with this family~ sweetest kids ever!
omgoodness…
I think our Oklahoma storms are done for now~ finally…. looking forward to the possibility of some sun & seeing this newborn girl
please share~ Maggie
These two (step bro & sis) will be celebrating a B’na Mitzvah soon. They were super fun to shoot…comedic by the end~. Darling!
these are a handful of my quick favorites~
pass it on.~
I cannot tell you how much these guys remind me of me & my husband in the early years! I always love shooting them and feel so blessed to be following their life story thru my photography. In the wake of sadness with tornado news, may this bring a smile to your face as it has mine today. Happy to have worked on these all day~
Oliver~ full of personality & smart as a whip
..let’s see if mom notices how high I can climb..
keep your hand flat…..
hmmmm. What is this large creature?
cheers~
a boy, a stick…water. They go together.
sweet baby Finn~…and his sweet Momma.
getting tired…
done
I will never get used to tornados. (I think it began with Dorothy swirling about in her little farm house in Kansas, they have always frightened me.) Who knew when I was watching the yellow brick road on TV as a kid in New Jersey, that I would end up living in tornado alley…? Beautiful wide open spaces, warm and friendly folks…skies as big as the eye can see~ and tornados. We woke to thunder this morning, the skies still grey and unstable looking but we are the lucky ones not hit by the path of the awful storm that hit Moore , Ok. All I thought of thru the night is how blessed I was to have a soft warm pillow and my house and family safe. You feel completely powerless as you wait out these storms…you sit with the news and hope for the best. I can only pray today for the people suffering. That and donate in any way possible. My heart is heavy.
please share the faith~
by Maggie
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