Work has been challenging for the past two months. It is the busy time of the year at work and this year was exceptionally hectic and presented situations I had not seen in the past. I work for a company where one set of employees are seen as the face of the company, I am, on the other hand one of those who work behind the scenes trying to make sure everything runs smoothly and troubleshoot issues customers or employees may have. Working with people, dealing with their anger for whatever reason translates directly over into my work with animals and also teaching. I find I have more patience to deal with animals and their issues, it forces me to make sure I am clear with what I am asking and I know my limitations when I get angry. I have learned over the years that I need to listen with an open mind and heart to hear what the person or animal is asking in order to be able to respond appropriately. Let me say in closing this paragraph that I for one am happy the holidays are over for another year.

The top picture I took when we had a bit of freezing rain one afternoon. I loved the way the ice lay over the leaves. As the day went on the temps rose and the ice quickly melted. It is one of the times living on the peninsula of the eastern shore of Maryland helped keep the weather moderate. So far this year we have had mostly rain. The second picture is of the wee little bit if snow we did get one morning. Nothing like my older sisters who live in New England have at the moment.

I would love to be able to say I took the bottom picture. However, it was taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts forty five years ago Christmas Eve. I watched a video NASA put together telling how the astronauts came across the sight, would you believe it was by accident?? They were performing a roll maneuver with their capsule when the earth came into view. The earth had been in view four previous orbits but as the windows were not facing that way they did not see it. NASA included the astronauts original voice recordings of the flight and when they came across the view if earth. The excitement in their voices and how they worked together to get the photos they did was kind of cool. Three photos were black and white and they really wanted a color photo of the earth. It took them a moment to get the film changed and they thought they missed the shot but there were two windows on the capsule. Nothing like today’s space station with many windows. It is one of the most iconic photos ever taken and is one of my favorites right up there with the pale blue dot that Voyager took many years ago. The Cassini spacecraft also took a really neat picture this past July of Saturn, part of its rings and then you can see the earth and moon in the distance. Mind you they are small but what a picture. It amazes me. I just love photography here on earth or on outer space.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday and it was all you hoped it would be. I am hoping to write and post more now that work will be more manageable and I have almost recovered from a bad cold.

Here is the Saturn picture with the earth and moon. Photo credit is NASA as was the Earthrise photo.