There's a day devoted to nearly everything. That said, there truly should be a day devoted to photos. They are as close as we can come to preserving moments small and momentous—and in my opinion equally important in different ways. Well, today is that day.  In honor of World Photography Day. I'm offering a few tips related to photos.

Backup. Backup. Backup. Do you have backups of all of your favorite photos–even the ones in old photo albums that may not have been digitized? If not, start now! Make sure you have at least two copies, preferably one that lives off-site in case of an emergency. 

The Backup Bootcamp course teaches you how to do this and organize your photos. (It relies on the cloud.) If you prefer localized options, external hard drives are a great solution. If you are feeling overwhelmed and want someone to start the process for you, here is another option for organizing your photos.

Taking better photos. I've always been a big believer in learning. That applies to photography too. I'm currently taking The Magic of Moments through Ali Edwards. For a deeper dive into the combined world of photos and storytelling, also consider Lens of Joy.

Use your photos. Put a photo in a frame. Make a photo book. Start simple. I also love Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom class. I think I first took it in 2007. The more comprehensive paid class is currently on-going and isn't enrolling new students right now. However, this mini self-guided class is available for free and teaches the guiding principles designed to get you using your photos and thinking about them in new ways. It is likely very different from any class you've ever taken on the subject. 

​Stacy loves finding creative ways to use photos. Here are some ideas. Here is one more.

And if you need more reasons to do something with your photos, read this: The Most Published Generation Will Have No Photos in Ten Years by Photographer Mike Yost. Thought it was published in 2015, the article is still very relevant today.

Those who know me know that I don’t dwell on the things I can’t do. However, when the world makes it nearly impossible to do some of the things I CAN do, that is when I get frustrated. Here are some of those things…

I’ll start with the one that made me think about this topic again. 12 South Farmers Market Peach Fest. First, you have to understand that I love peaches, perhaps more than any other person on the planet. I was born in a state second only to California in peach production—and it may not be the state you think. I love fresh peach pie on my birthday (or any time!), peaches and oatmeal for breakfast, and peaches served almost any way. You would think having a Peach Fest in a park not far from my home today would be cause for celebration. You would be wrong. You see, I went to the first Peach Fest in 2015 with my mother and two friends. We had a good time. My mom and I returned the following year minutes after opening—only to find the handicap spaces full with people parked illegally and no other options for parking our oversized van. So back home we went. Getting out is no easy effort. It takes planning and can test my endurance. So to go back home disappointed and empty-handed was…well, there are no words. At least I had none left to say. It was a quiet trip home.

Since then I have tried sending emails to the organizers, posted on their social media, sent them private messages. I have NEVER received even one response. The most kindness I received was from a vendor who makes wonderful pies, who expressed her sympathy and said that she hopes to open her own pie shop and make it accessible to people with disabilities. Our world truly needs more people like this. 

Today is Peach Fest AGAIN, and I’m not going. Fortunately there is an accessible fruit and vegetable market down the street that has wonderful peaches. We may get some of them and have our own celebration. (Thanks to a sweet friend for letting me know they carry peaches from my favorite state.)

Now for the issue that truly tugged at my heart for a long time. I can handle stares from people because I look different. I don’t mind answering questions about my disability because that’s how people learn. The one thing you don’t get warned about is the silent and unprovable discrimination you encounter. I was fortunate to have parents who valued education. I was fortunate to have a university in my city that made numerous accommodations so that I could go to classes, a mom who drove me back and forth each day and spent more time in the library than I did searching for books I needed for papers I needed to write. After six years, I had a graduate degree and was ready to take on the world. Well, STOP. You see, I was unprepared for a world that didn’t look past my disability. I thought teaching would be a field where people would be more open in addition to being something well-suited to my skills. I had interviews. I worked as a substitute and didn’t get calls back to any of the schools except the one I attended, as some of the teachers knew me and what I was capable of. It was so discouraging because I always knew one thing: I wanted to work very badly, and that should have been enough. I became a part-time substitute teacher for the school down the road and a part-time tutor, as self-employment was my best and only apparent option. I enjoyed the years I spent teaching. In hindsight, all the more because my disability progressed and I can no longer do those things. (Honestly, the thought that one day I might not be able to work never occurred to me.)

Looking back, I don’t think any of the people I encountered purposefully treated me different because of my disability. So part of my purpose in writing this is to ask you, my readers, to be open to the fact that people with disabilities do have something valuable to contribute to the word. We want to be part of it. If you encounter a person with a disability, know they don’t want to be treated as an inspiration or something extra special. They just want to be given the same opportunities as everyone else. We just sometimes need a little extra help from you to get there, whether it’s an open mind or a willingness to see the things that unintentionally make our world a little smaller.

I've always believed there is a lot we can learn from others, and know that my viewpoint isn't the only one out there. As I'm about to turn 52, I'm sometimes more jaded than I was at an earlier age, and in others ways more content and sure of myself. I also know firsthand that the voices of people with disabilities aren't often heard because we are a silent minority sometimes dealing with health issues, social isolation, and other things that need our attention more than speaking up. So today, I'm turning my blog over to other voices.

This is the time of year when my thoughts turn to fairy gardens. A few musings for the curious…

First, I’d like to believe that fairies do exist. They get a reputation for causing mischief, though I think they just want to enjoy the natural world and do their own thing. Before I started growing tiny gardens, I visited Disney World with my young niece. She asked if Tinkerbell really existed. I said, ‘Yes, she’s just very tiny,” much to my sister’s dismay. I came across this quote many years later, and I think it sums up why I said yes. Madeline L’Engle, most well-known for writing A Wrinkle in Time, said, “But if I knew everything, there would be no wonder, because what I believe in is far more than I know.” I’m all for keeping our sense of wonder no matter how young or old we are.

What is the difference between a miniature garden and a fairy garden? The terms are often used interchangeably. Technically in a miniature garden, everything is done on a miniature scale—miniature plants and miniature accessories, all in proportion to each other. A fairy garden doesn’t have to ascribe to set standards. One can use miniature plants or full-size plants and mix ratios. Sometimes I use larger accessories and sometimes I use small ones. Sometimes I use larger fairies and sometimes smaller ones. Sometimes I don’t use any fairies at all and imagine visitors coming to my enchanted spaces, especially at night. 

How to start? I started relatively small, with a multi-tiered container garden. I think starting small is a good way to start. But as those who know me well know, I often go “all in”. So the gardens grew. Don’t ask me how many I have this year! I’m not even sure I know. The stores where I get my plants had some new things, so I confess to getting carried away with the possibility of testing some new plants in my gardens. I’m curious to see how well they do. I also plan on spending a lot of time on my little deck this summer. 

Where to find plants and cute things? These are some of my favorite online places to shop. You can also find miniature accessories at craft stores and garden centers. Garden centers may have some miniature varieties of plants, though if you wish to "go small" with your plants, then I recommend a place that specializes in plants for miniature gardens. They will have the best selection and advice. 
Miniature Gardening
Miniature Garden Shoppe
Two Green Thumbs 
My Fairy Gardens
Little Hedgerow

A few extras you may want to include:
Fairy Berries - The tiny balls of glowing goodness are truly special. They are battery-powered, so I don't recommend running them all of the time! The linked site sells them in bulk, but you get 10 times as many for the price of one package normally!

Solar fairy lights - No need to worry about battery packs or if they are waterproof

And UV spray to protect your accessories from fading in the summer sun. Don’t learn what I learned the hard way. Available at craft stores.

And finally, a link to my Pinterest board for more inspiration.

If you read this and it inspires you to grow your own fairy garden, I would love to see how it turns out.

It was just about a year ago that I wrote my first and only post referencing the pandemic. It certainly wasn’t the easiest year of my life (our lives). It certainly isn’t over either, taking into account both the worldwide picture combined with the fact that it’s very risky for me to take the vaccine because intramuscular injections pose an enormous threat to people with my genetic condition—that is how my jaw fused when I was nine following a dental procedure.

So why am I saying, “It wasn’t all bad.” Well,  I try my best to look at life in shades of gray instead of black and white. And I try to focus on the positive aspects when I can because it makes the more difficult things more manageable. Don’t get me wrong—there are also plenty of times where that doesn’t happen. Again, shades of gray.

Here are some things that made life more bearable this past year, as well as some lessons I’ve learned.
Card-making. In the last few years, I’ve enjoyed making hand-made cards. Well, truthfully I help instruct my mom and part-time caregiver to help bring these creations to life. It’s not always a process that goes smoothly, and it certainly isn’t the easiest way to send someone a card. (Or as said on a stamp set, “This card cost 10x more than a store-bought card because #onlythebestforyou” and “I came, I crafted, you’re welcome”, which in its own way appeals to my Latin scholar self—not sure if that was intended as a reference to "Veni. Vidi. Vincit...I came. I saw. I conquered." or not.) We are getting better at the process though. This was one of our earliest methods of coping with the the uniqueness of the past year.
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Bringing back the blog. Okay, I haven’t been the most regular writer and hope to change that this year. Writing has always been something I’ve enjoyed, though as with card-making it takes time and a lot of thought. Practice is the only thing that makes it easier, and it allows me to express what I’m feeling, which is a valuable thing.

One Little Word. Since 2011, I’ve participated in an online class called One Little Word. Last year my word was play. Maybe not the easiest word during a pandemic. My album isn’t done, but I have done the prompts:) This year my word is rhythm. My guiding quote is, “Take heart. Breathe deep. You are free to find new rhythms here” by Morgan Harper Nichols. Without this word in my life, I might have never learned about a tongue drum—named for the carved tongue-shaped grooves that create its different tones. Anyone who knows me knows that I am an extremely thorough researcher. I looked into these special drums that require no musical skill, but I hadn’t purchased one—until this past weekend when I broke out of my home for my first fun outing, outside and masked (mainly because of lung restrictions that keep me in the high-risk category and the fact that there are usually lots of people at craft fairs). I was looking in a different direction when I heard a sweet sound that I thought I recognized. I turned around. Yes, a tongue drum. Yes, I bought one after asking lots of questions. In fact, I bought a slightly dented one, something I wouldn't have considered beforehand. (You really can’t tell unless you know where to look). And as an added plus, my mom finds it relaxing to play and the artist is making a special attachment that I can use to attach it to a belt and place it in my lap so I can play it myself. Apparently, he has done that before. I never would have thought of that either. You meet amazingly wonderful and talented people at craft fairs.

Mind-body work. While I’m not the biggest fan of the fact that social media tracks what we search and where we go to provide us with targeted ads, sometimes that does have an upside. I get chronic headaches. I can have good days, bad days, good weeks, bad weeks…you get the picture. My life is often controlled by either headaches or my attempts to keep them under better control. In summer 2020, I saw an ad for a pain-relief app, which uses educational audio, meditation, somatic tracking, and journaling prompts to help people with their symptoms. It’s really designed for people with no structural issues or medical conditions who nevertheless experience chronic pain. I decided to take a chance anyway because a. I don’t have headaches or pain all of the time and b. not all people with my disease have headaches or chronic pain. So theoretically I could gain some benefit. What would it hurt to try? The app helped a bit, but what has made a bigger difference was taking a 3-month online class in the fall, followed by working individually with a mind-body coach whom I found through one of my classmates. (I just began that journey in March.) It’s still very much a work in progress, but my symptoms didn’t develop overnight either. One of the best things to come out of the experience was a sense of camaraderie with my "classmates". We still meet once a month. One of my group members also has a wonderful blog on Facebook that’s full of insight. (And when she's able to travel again, I assume it's also full of stories of her walks across the United States to honor veterans.)

Grace towards myself and others. The pandemic has had the unfortunate downside of making it easier to judge other people. That person is living life in fear. That person is being so careless. I admit I took great offense to people saying I’m living my life in fear (not me specifically) because I and my family made what we felt was the best choice for us and stayed home except for grocery shopping, which seemed safe enough and allowed my mom to get out of the house once in a while. I admit that I had strong feelings when I saw people do what seemed like unsafe things at the time. I’m trying to do better.

Music. I occasionally go to concerts, though it takes a lot of effort and planning. Downtown Nashville doesn’t have lots of places for oversized vans with wheelchair lifts. And I have to hope I don't get a headache or at least hope it's bearable. The pandemic has been a true blessing. This past weekend I attended 4 concerts in a 24-hour period with better seats than I could have had if I had been there in person. An added plus is that the lead singer (now also a solo artist) of one of my favorite bands in college hosts multiple concerts a week, selecting a charity for each one and taking requests for songs. I also love that his “regulars”, known affectionately as squirrels because they can distract him from playing sometimes, chat with each other during the concerts.

Virtual traveling. Okay, for me this was actually a thing before the pandemic. I called it “virtual vacations”. I would research different areas—my favorite may have been the North Pole vacation suggested by my niece many years ago. Apparently, you also really can take a trip to the North Pole! In 2020, I got to attend my first family gathering of families dealing with my medical condition in 20 years, as the annual meeting was held virtually. There’s simply no substitute for the sense of community created by being with other families who understand exactly what you go through on a daily basis. Here is another one of my favorite pandemic “trips”: I went to Keukenof Gardens in Holland, which even during "regular" years is only open 8 weeks per year because it takes nearly a year to plan for its beautiful spring blooms. In 2020, no one was able to visit in person. If you love gardens, the videos are breathtaking.

Pets. I’m not sure who got the better end of the deal. Pets who had their families around all of the time or the people who loved them. Enough said.

Letting go. Of so many things, whether it was cleaning out my craft closet or the more hurtful feeling that I am a burden. That’s an understandable feeling when I am dependent on someone else to help me with nearly everything in my life. Instead I often needed to remind myself that much of life is both give and take and that there are things I can do to help others as well, whether it’s computer-related things (one area where I am independent) or helping bring out creativity in others. The last year has just been so tough, especially knowing that my family has sacrificed a lot to keep me safe during the pandemic. I know everyone was at risk to some degree, but not as much as I am with my limited lung capacity. That has really brought back these negative feelings in a way that I don’t usually dwell on. This song became my unofficial anthem of the year.

Meal deliveries and supporting small businesses. I think the past year has been harder on my mom than anyone else in my family. Getting meals delivered on days when she was especially tired was a lifesaver. It also helped us support local businesses. And as much as I love the convenience of Amazon, this past year was the year I really took a close look at how important local businesses are to a sense of community. 

So what have you learned to appreciate more or what lessons have you learned this past year?
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FOP affects each person differently. While there are certain similarities among people with FOP, there are as many differences. It is impossible to predict who will be affected minimally and who will be affected more seriously and more rapidly. There is one certainty about FOP: it is progressive. It also has a way of sneaking up on a person when least expected, at a time when the complacency of everyday life has set in—just at the moment when the latest limitations no longer seem the worst thing imaginable.

This begins a phase which I refer to as "When the wanting is not enough" because wanting the pain to stop and wanting life to return to the way it was, is not enough to stop the pain or to stop life from changing. But ultimately "When the wanting is not enough" is not about resigning yourself to the fact that you are not the one in control of your own body; it is recognizing that things don't always turn out exactly as you had planned. It is about accepting things so that you can go on living. It is not an experience that is reserved only for people who have FOP and other disabling diseases, but it is one that people with FOP must deal with earlier in their lives and on a more regular basis.

What is the hardest part about having FOP? Sometimes it is the pain. Sometimes it is that only one in two million people can understand what you are going through. Sometimes it is knowing that you are often dependent on someone else for the little things that most people take for granted. Small victories—such as surprising my mom on Mother's Day when I was 12 by dressing myself for the first time in my memory (and maybe ever)—sometimes count for much. In general, however, I think that FOP is probably harder on parents and other family members than it is for the person who has FOP. I do not remember what it was like not to have FOP. So, although there have been times in my life when I wished my condition would go away, I really cannot picture my life any other way. For me, I think the hardest part has always been not knowing what the outcome of a flare-up would be and how much motion might be lost. It is hard to make necessary changes to one's life until these facts are known. The interim period is one of fumbling in the dark and struggling to cope.

FOP controls my body, but it does not control my life. I know that I am a stronger person because I have FOP. Dealing with FOP has given me the self-knowledge and strength of conviction that some people never find. We all have certain strengths, certain weaknesses, and certain problems that we must overcome in our lives. Unfortunately for me, my weaknesses are the visible kind. They are the first thing people see and occasionally the only thing that people see. Fortunately, the people in my life expected nothing but the best from me, and as a result, I have expected nothing but the best from myself. 

In what might be the ultimate irony, rather than hindering what I can do in my life, I think that I have accomplished more because I have FOP. Or at the least, I think my life has more meaning because of the path I have chosen, a path influenced by my own life experiences, good and bad. There are two accomplishments of which I am most proud. One is my career as a teacher and tutor, though not because of any doubts on my part that I could do it. I figure that if I can get through FOP, I can get through anything. The other is my participation in the International FOP Association, a support group for families dealing with FOP.

At times, my decision to become a teacher surprises me. Throughout college and almost to the moment I applied to graduate school to obtain a Master of Arts in Teaching, I was determined not to be a teacher, mostly because , at that time, people assumed that is what a person who majors in English and history should do. Also, from personal experience, I knew that adolescents, often caught up in their own worlds, can be unwittingly cruel to a person with a disability. At least that was my own experience. (I wasn’t teased, though I did feel ignored and overlooked.) To make matters worse, I was (and in many ways still am) painfully shy and afraid to reach out to people for fear of being rejected, or out of determination not to be a burden to other people. My high school years were at times bearable and at times miserable. I was determined to distance myself from those years. I also knew that teachers were overworked, underpaid, and sometimes under-appreciated. In the face of these cold, hard facts, I have since decided that I did not choose teaching as much as it chose me.

As a teacher, I was pleasantly surprised at the open natures of many of the students I taught. If given the opportunity, they were not afraid to ask questions of me. ''Why can't you sit down? Is FOP painful? How many people have FOP?'' In all seriousness, a student once asked me whether I sleep standing up. I easily answered questions about myself, questions I wish my classmates years ago had the courage to ask. I find that such questions served as a means to get past my disability. Undoubtedly, the hardest question a student ever asked me was ''Did you like it as a student here?'' during an occasion in which I went back to teach at my old high school.

I used my past experiences to make myself a better teacher and tutor. I tried to have compassion and patience, which my peers often lacked. I looked for strengths in my students before I look for signs of weakness. I aspired to teach them that they can do anything they set their minds to do if they wanted it badly enough. I gave them my best and expected nothing but their best in return.

The other thing in my life of which I am proud is the role that I played in the IFOPA. It all started rather inauspiciously. In 1989, I knew of no one else with FOP. Now I know of hundreds, many of whom I have met personally at IFOPA family gatherings. And when I was first diagnosed with FOP, my family was given very little information. As a result, one of the first things I wanted to do when I found the IFOPA was to ask if I could start a resource center for families. Little did I know that would later lead to writing and editing guidebooks and newsletters, publishing and managing a website, coordinating an e-mail discussion group, answering e-mails from all over the world, and coordinating international meetings.

A discussion of the impact FOP has made on my life would not be complete without mention of the impact it has had on my entire family: my parents, a younger sister and her family, and myself. I know it has been hard for them to watch me in pain and not be able to do anything about it. At times they have all made sacrifices for me. When I was younger, there were times when my sister did not get as much attention as she deserved because my needs were more pressing. If there is anything I regret, it is that my life affected hers so much. There were many times when my parents put aside their own needs for mine. My parents have often served as my arms and my legs, doing for me the things I could not do for myself. It is only because of them that I am where I am today. I sometimes feel extraordinarily guilty that I demand so much of their time. At other times, I am selfishly torn between their needs and my own. When I was diagnosed with FOP almost 45 years ago, none of us knew what lay ahead. Thankfully, we took things one day at a time. I am not sure if you can take FOP any other way. I think we all learned a lot in those early years about what we could handle. Together, we have done our best to see a world full of challenges, rather than a world of problems, a world with possibilities, rather than a world of limitations.

P.S. This is an older family photo because it's often hard to get my entire family in the same place at the same time AND in the mood to take a photo at the same time. It remains my favorite family photo after all these years.

Most people would have a hard time imagining life with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), an extremely rare genetic disease in which bone grows in muscles and connective tissue, leaving joints of the body frozen in position. In a sense, the body is forming an extra skeleton. Having lived with FOP for most of my 51 years, I would have a hard time envisioning life without it. FOP has brought great pain, many tears, and sometimes alienation from a world that seeks perfection in life. FOP has also taught me some important lessons about myself and the world in which I live. I readily admit that my feelings about FOP depend a great deal on how closely I feel its presence as a silent enemy within my own body. Yet at all times I cannot help but think that the worst parts of my life are intricately tied to the best parts of my life—that my struggles have made the good things in my life count for more.

FOP can strike as a result of trauma—bumps, falls, injections, and surgeries can lead to an FOP flare-up. FOP also strikes spontaneously. There are also times when, despite obvious trauma, FOP does not appear. In other words, I never know when or where FOP will show up. Was it something I did, and something I could have prevented? My parents likely worry about such matters to protect the child they created, and I can understand that. I think about that sometimes too. But if given a chance to lead my life over again, I think I would still make the same choices, even the choices that hurt me in some way. I don't want to be so afraid of getting hurt that I forget to enjoy life.

Though it might sound strange, as a child I never thought of myself as different, even though there were certain physical things that I knew I was unable to do because I could not raise my arms. One particular incident stands out in my mind because it changed all of that. One day, when I was 10 years old, my teacher saw me sitting on the sidewalk during recess while the other kids played a game called two-square. To play this game, two children bounced a ball back and forth in a grid until one failed to hit the ball. The teacher convinced me to try it and told the other students to "go easy" on me. This special instruction soon proved to be unwarranted, as I quickly turned into a very capable player and even moved to a four-player version of the game for a bigger challenge. It was the first time I had done anything physically challenging in my life, and it felt good. 

My parents encouraged me and painted a court in the garage where children from the neighborhood would come over to play after school. Then, on the last day of school, I fell, injuring my knee. I did not give the incident much thought, for at that time I felt that it would take a much more traumatic event to bring on an FOP flare-up. I soon learned how wrong I was. That incident possibly started a painful four-year cycle in which I lost the motion in my left hip and knee (I say possibly because the initial injury seemed to resolve after a summer). By age 12, however, I had to rely on crutches to walk. I also lost the sense of innocence. The childhood feeling of invincibility that many children seem to hold onto until adulthood was gone. I learned just how simply and quickly things could change. But even if I could turn back time, I would still choose to have the experience—despite the pain—both physical and emotional. My memories of playing four-square mean more because of what I have gone through since then. 

And, amid the pain and tears, I was introduced to the person who remains my friend an amazing 40 years later. Our friendship is one of the few relationships in my life where I have never felt guilty about being needy, dependent, and demanding (of attention and time) because she chose to be my friend both because of and despite my disability. And I did not need her so much as we needed each other. We recognized a loneliness in each other that can be common at that awkward age. She enjoyed helping me, whether it was carrying my books or making me laugh during a flare-up cycle. I never felt that she was doing these things because she felt sorry for me. Because of those things, I was able to open to friendship and being there for her as well.

Coming up: Part 2

Why I started this blog. When I was planning my kindness challenge, I gave all team members a checklist of 50 acts of kindness. I quickly realized it would be helpful to have a place to go to get more information about some of them. Most of them are relatively easy to do, though a few were more unique (as are all of us!) and required a bit of advanced planning. I wanted to make the experience as friendly as possible. A website. A blog. Yes!

At various times in my life, I thought about creating a website and blogging—at least after it became a thing. I wanted to share information about life with a disability and my life with a rare genetic condition in particular. Yet there were already places to learn about FOP and a guidebook to read. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel.

So I waited until an idea came to me. My blog would be a place to share kindness and little pieces of my life that I hope others might appreciate. I am the first to admit I haven’t been great at showing up here. I’m still a work in progress. This year one of my goals is to revitalize my website and blog. 

I’m starting with the project that was one of my favorites during the kindness challenge. One of the items on the list of 50 was to “create your own act of kindness.” My team got a bunch of glitter, water bottles, and set out to make calming jars. Originally designed with children in mind (thus their other name of time-out bottles), they made us feel calmer and happier and we wanted to spread the joy. Here is what we wrote on the notes we distributed with them: "The is a mindfulness jar, also known as a calming jar. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we're doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed my what's going on around us. Shake it and watch as swirls of glitter move at their own graceful pace from one end of the bottle to the other." Download a set of the notes that are ready to print if you would like to spread some glittery kindness around.

There are a lot of different instructions out there. These instructions worked best for us. 

​And thank you to my teammates and all others who participated in my little challenge to add more kindness in the world.