The Day the World Didn't End

"Smile, it's the end of the world."-Matthew Palath

21 December 2012. The day the poor misunderstood  Mayans are accused of predicting to be the world's end. Anyone with half a will to investigate would find out that all they actually predicted the end of an era. They also did not account for the 514  leap years we've had in their calendars, the date their last rock ends on would actually have been some time in June. Or, as many a humorous cartoon relates,they merely ran out of space on their giant oreo cookies and everyone is being overly dramatic. I personally believe that if the Spanish hadn't wiped the Mayans out they would have finished their calendars

Despite all the predictions we did indeed survive the 21st and had Christmas after all. As the 31st approached, another misconception made a few people somewhat nervous. The popular movie 2012 made quite a few people think the end was nigh. What people seem to forget is that the world didn't actually end when the movie did. Everyone just somehow ended up in South Africa, where the Drakensburg and Cape Town somehow came together to create the perfect holiday destination. Really, that is not the end of the world.

Indeed it was not. Here we are on the first of January, alive and well. We survived 2012. I survived my first job, living in a boho cabin a minute from the beach, working as a photographer at a kid's camp 8 hours away from home. I survived living alone in a nice little granny flat. I survived my sister getting married and moving to Australia. I survived moving to Canada. I have almost survived my first winter.
We all survived apocalypse jokes and the sudden influx of zombie related everything. It was a close call, but we did survive the hashtag invasion on Facebook and the disturbingly large amount of fancy filtered photos of everyone's lunches,coffee mugs, feet and faces, thanks to Instagram.

Luckily, life is not all about merely surviving. In 2012 I completed three things off my bucket list. I went on an unpredictable trip, getting on a bus and then a metro train with only a vague idea of where I was going. I ended up getting a job and having, thus far, the very best time of my life living like a hippie in the small town of Zinkwazi in KwaZulu Natal. I was a camp counselor for a short while,then got promoted to photographer. I got paid to walk on the beach and take photos all day. While I was there I completed another item on my list: swimming to back-line. I could barely do anything but doggy paddle but one morning before the sun came up, four of my fellow counselors (three of which were life guards) and I walked down to the beach and plunged into the warm Indian ocean. As the sun came up, we reached back-line and floated in the now calm water. It was the most epic moment of my life.
 In July, I ticked off the third item, Go to Canada, when we moved to Quesnel.
I made a huge amount of unlikely friends.We started a youth group at church. I got my L. I may be a driver yet.
Last night I built a puzzle with my mother and went to bed at 1. Not the most exciting New Year's, but I've never gotten very excited about the new year. it is, after all, just another new day. All the same, Happy New Year cyber space. :)

White Christmas

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmases be white."-Irving Berlin

White Christmases were once a thing that we heard about in songs and saw on Christmas cards and in movies. We often joked about brown Christmases, when all the grass had died from the heat and the flowers had shriveled up in the rockhard flower beds. There were certainly no serene yards and frosted up windows to take photos of. While I will always miss the heat and the feel of home associated with a South African Christmas, my first white Christmas was indeed very picturesque and movie-like. 

Instead of dragging out the old plastic tree, we hunted and chopped down our own pine. (No one told us that decorating a real tree would be such a painful, complicated process.)

Instead of sitting in the garden to cool down, we huddled under blankets and watched Elf. Instead of  watermelon,fruit and cream there was hot steam pudding and custard for dessert. 

Right now words evade me and I am void of any profound Christmas quotes so I will let these pictures (and their captions) speak for themselves. Merry Christmas cyber world!

Christmas lights downtown Quesnel.

Homemade Christmas decoration.

A blurry, green picture of Jesse and our tree.

Pre-Christmas snowfall.

Name card holder.

Frosty mobile.

Bauble.

Zoe popping the cork on our fizzy apple.

Our street at about 4 in the afternoon.

Sparkling snow.

Christmas lights.

Snowy chainlink fence.

Black and white apple tree.

The last of Summer's grass.

Footprints going across the deck.

Our Life Group's last meeting before Christmas.

Beautiful Babies

Our 10 Cents

"Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the Lotto."-Bill Watterson

26 October 2012. Approximately  20:07.

I left the noisy group of Rock Band players and went outside for just a moment, to see if any of the snow I'd seen falling earlier had actually landed on the ground. Everything I'd seen before had melted as soon as it came into contact with any earthbound objects.

The air was warmer than it had been earlier that night and there was a sort of eerie silence . And a thin layer of fluffy white covering everything I could see.

It's something I can't quite explain,that brief moment of beauty and intense silence, shattered by the rest of the people bursting through the doorway and my first snowball fight. It was as if I had stepped out of the door into a completely different world. For once I did not have my camera with me and I saw things through my natural eye as opposed to my mechanical lense.

When I woke up the next morning, the fluffy blanket had melted away considerably and patches of grass were showing through. It snowed for a few hours, tiny crystals floating from the solid grey sky, but the weather was too warm for much of it stick. Even though it wasn't nearly as beautiful as the night before, I did take a few blurry shots of our 10 cents worth of winter. Considering the fact that this is still Autumn, this is the first of many snow posts..

Tree in the backyard.

The view from my bedroom.

Snowy pine.

End of Autumn with the beginning of Winter.

Footprint.

Driveway.

Snowy berries in the neighbour's yard.

Blurry attempt at capturing the snow falling.

52 Project, Week 5

Week Five's theme was definitely the most challenging theme so far. I don't own an underwater camera, nor do I particularly like water. Luckily, I have a sister and a few friends that do enjoy being submerged in this watery wonderland.

My friend Tyler,swinging under a waterfall.

Zoe, getting in touch with her inner mermaid at Blue Lake.

Caleb Johnson,getting ready for his synchronized swimming demonstration

Synchronized swimming,in honour of the Olympic Games

My shadow,under the water.

Zoe, connecting with her water baby self.

52 project, Week 4

Week Four's theme is energy. It took a while to find photos that correctly captures this description. I decided to post photos of movement; kinetic energy. My subjects themselves are some of the most energetic people I know.

My sort of cousinish thing,Jordan. (Brother-in-law's brother) Stress release while on holiday at Klipkraal after the wedding.

My brother, Jesse,before falling on his head.

Determined boy learning how to surf. Or jump.

My friend Falcon,spinning fire. My slow shutter speed let me pick up his movement as well as that of his poi. So much energy was put not only in performing but practicing and perfecting this skill.

Carl and Rochel landing a jump during a photo shoot I did for their engagement. They had amazing energy,putting up with my crazy photographic demands for hours on end. Energetic jumps,energetic smiles,beautiful,lovely energetic couple.

52 Project,Week 3

Week 3 out of 52 brings one of my favourite themes: Macro. Out of all the settings on my camera, I definitely favour macro. Designed specifically for close ups, this wonderful setting allows you to capture the finest details of the smallest things. Fantastic.

A dandelion under the sprinkler.

A chrysanthemum.

A half-blown dandelion.

Cayla, my pseudo sister.

Dewy spiderweb on a miniature tree.

Spiderwebs in the grass.

Daisy and the coke bottles.

Some type of daisy,perhaps?

Daisy and the bottles again,from the top.

The perfect dandelion.

Sheet music in an old church in the historical town Barkerville.

A mushroom.