My mom, Jonni Greene, is here to visit me for the holidays, and I thought it would be great fun to sing a few songs together. So, here we are singing The Christmas Waltz, The Christmas Song, and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. It was wonderful to share the love of music — and each other — with my mother this evening! And it’s neat that we can share it with the world as well.

On this day after Thanksgiving 2010, I would like to share with you a variety of regional signs I have seen for this holiday. Do you have other signs for Thanksgiving? Please create a Video Response to share them. Thanks!

I continue to take photographs and share them on Flickr. Some of my recent adventures include hiking Camelback Mountain for the first time, a weekend getaway to Jerome, going to the Arizona State Fair for the first time in the five years that I’ve lived here, going “full frame” by trading in my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and EF-S lenses for a used Canon 5D, and meeting a longtime Flickr friend from Brooklyn who visited me and my husband with his husband. It was great to bring the online life and real life together, and we all really hit it off. There are several other photo sets I’ve posted in months since my last blog post as well. The best way to keep up with what I’m up to in a visual way is to follow my Flickr photostream.

I’ve also really gotten into Facebook this year. I don’t add people I don’t know as Friends, and I don’t have a Fan Page, but I do enjoy keeping up with my friends through status updates, photos, videos, links, etc. I am sort of the designated photographer at gatherings of friends and coworkers, so it’s always fun to upload an album from a shared event and tag everyone in it who’s on Facebook– which is most of them. For a while there, I was spending a couple/three hours a day on Facebook, but I’ve cut back because I have so many other priorities. I felt I was neglecting my photography and Flickr social circle for a while there, so I’ve returned to spending a bit more time on that. One thing I love that Flickr added in the last couple of months is People in Photos, which allows you to tag your Flickr friends in photos the way you can tag your friends in photos on Facebook. Those friends have to be Flickr members in order to be tagged, so it’s most useful for photos from FlickrMeets; that is, when a group of photo geeks get together to go on a shooting spree. Not necessarily good for your neighbor’s family’s Thanksgiving party unless they’re all Flickrites themselves. Thanks to this new feature and my general hamminess, I can now point you to photos of me on Flickr. As of this writing, there are over 900, though I’m not sure they are all public!

Like many people, I also got my Twitter account this year. At first, I was frustrated with it and with the way some people twittered “too much.” After a while, I just learned to accept it for what it is. I must admit I only occasionally log in to check up on the people I follow, and I don’t follow a lot of people to begin with. I don’t really care how many followers I have or how many updates I’ve posted. I’m in no hurry to send my thousandth tweet or garner my thousandth follower, though I wouldn’t put it past myself to announce the milestones when they hit.

In addition to sharing my life publicly on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, I created my profile on LinkedIn this year to network with other professionals and share my professional achievements. My greatest professional achievements this year have been coordinating the Purple Communications booth and interpreting pool at the 2009 Arizona RID State Conference, being promoted to Video Interpreter / Trainer at Purple Communications’ Arizona Communication Center, and representing Purple as an interpreter at the National Black Deaf Advocates conference. Outside of my work with Purple, 2009 was the first year I developed and taught ASL interpreting workshops. I know I’ve already shared some of this in this blog, and I’ve even castigated myself for perhaps going overboard in tooting my own horn, but at the end of the year, I must say that I have a feeling of pride. I have been through some dark times in my life, and when you’ve been through that and come out on the other side of it, you cherish every win.

Tonight is the beginning of Chanukah, the eight-day Festival of Lights. I look forward to lighting candles, exchanging gifts, frying donuts and potato pancakes, and going to a party or two. I do think that, in some ways, the holiday season is the most wonderful time of the year. I love both Chanukah and Christmas for the festivities, the colors, the lights, the social events, the cold, dark nights, and yes, the gifts.

What do I look forward to doing next year? I hope that next year brings many more opportunities for me to train video interpreters at Purple Communications and in my own interpreting workshops. 2010 is a year for RID regional conferences, and I plan to submit presenter proposals in the hope of teaching my workshops at at least a couple of them. There is also the Conference of Interpreter Trainers in 2010, which I hope to attend and possibly present at. The National Alliance of Black Interpreters is hosting their conference right here in Phoenix in 2010, and I do hope to be a part of that as well.

What I wish to do in my personal life in 2010 is to show my family how much I love them, to show respect and support to my friends, clients, and colleagues, to take on new challenges and new adventures, to be happy relaxing and being, and to dive deeper into this rich experience we call living.

Each of us is whole and complete, a heart that beats at its own pace, a light that shines in the dark. Whether or not we have a Valentine today, we can love ourselves, love those who love us, and even love those who don’t. Though we be apart from each other, we are a part of each other.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is a photograph of blue LED icicle lights taken through a wide heart-shaped aperture with the Lensbaby Composer. I turned the manual focus ring so that the little lights were out of focus enough to became spectral highlights in the shape of the aperture they shone through.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

This is a photo of a neighbor’s lingering holiday lights taken with the Lensbaby Composer with a heart-shaped wide aperture. The manual focus ring was adjusted to place the lights out of focus and create spectral highlights that appear as heart shapes due to the shape of the aperture.

NOTE: Thanks to you, this photo hit Flickr’s Explore pages! You are welcome to blog it, download it, print it, share it, etc. All I ask is that you not use it for non-commercial purposes only & give me photographer credit, e.g. “Photo by Daniel Greene.”

I sing this Christmas song and simultaneously express it in signs from ASL (American Sign Language). I purposely adapted some of the hand-shapes to create sign-rhymes. While no song that is simultaneously sung and signed is truly ASL, I do hope that I have created something here that can be enjoyed by both hearing and deaf people. I also believe that people of all faiths can appreciate the hope that each newborn child brings: that he or she may help to heal this world.

I am a Jew who loves Christmas. To me, Chrismastime is a season, not a celebration of Christ. I do not believe that Jesus was the messiah. Personally, I do not believe that there will ever be one Messiah; instead, I believe that each baby born brings with him or her a great hope that he or she may help, in his or her own way, to heal the world (tikkun olam). The Nativity story, while I do not take it as fact, resonates with me deeply because of its miraculous romanticism and its underlying themes. Both Christmas and Chanukah convey a message of new hope, light in the darkness, and the triumph of good in the world in spite of hardship. I believe that the themes of Yuledide can be appreciated by Jews, Christians, and Pagans alike because — face it — both Christmas and Chanukah were religious overlays to Pagan holidays in the first place. So, maybe I should just say that I love the Yuletide! (Even though I don’t identify as a Pagan.)

All labels aside, whatever your religion, may you enjoy this time of year and may it bring you a renewed sense of hope!

P.S. These are the Woodland Santa and Pine Cone plates designed for Sakura by Debbie Mumm (© 1998).

P.P.S. I’m so glad that my new 28mm lens allows me to sit at table and take photos of my food with onboard flash! With my 50mm prime lens, I would have to get up from the table and stand over my food to take a photo of it, and with my 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens, I would have to add even more weight to an already heavy kit (since that lens is so heavy to begin with) by piling my 430EX hotshoe flash on top of it all. So, I now have a lightweight photography setup for going out to restaurants, taking photos at the table of food, friends, and family, etc. I’m excited about the possibilities!

…of all those who have died in service to the United States of America.

I almost kept this post to just that first sentiment, “In memory of all those who have died in service to the United States of America.” But that would be too safe. And I can imagine being criticized for copping out and pandering to blind patriotism.

Yet I know that many Americans’ patriotism is not blind at all, but rather… forgiving. I am reminded of a story my Granny Greene recounted. She spoke of a woman she had known who worked for the USO during World War II. She said, “When you walked by a young man in the canteen and he patted your fanny, you just smiled and kept on walking. That’s patriotism!”

And that’s what many of us do– smile and keep on walking. We know that countless numbers of men, and now women, have died in battles we wish had never begun. We know that the current war is not a popular war (and I use the word “popular” not only in the sense of “well liked” but also “of the people” because many American know that this is not our war, but a war waged by politicians either we didn’t vote for or we regret voting for). And we know that some people make it hard to be proud to be an American. And yet we forgive these deaths, these wars, and these people. We smile and keep on walking. We are proud to be American not only because of everything that is American, but in spite of things we might not quite approve of.

I believe we have more reasons to be proud of our country than to be ashamed of it. And we must always remember that no matter whether or not we believe in war, our countrymen and countrywomen who have died in wars deserve our gratitude and our honor. We cannot know what it is like to fight in wars unless we have fought in them. But we can remember the inestimable value of every human life and have the deepest respect for each individual who gave his or her life for America.

And let us not allow patriotism to blind us to the value of each and every human life lost on the other side as well. Our enemies are not necessarily evil, at least not down to every last person who has fought us in honor of their country. We must remember the fallen not only here, but there as well. We must force ourselves to have some compassion for the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons who have lost their beloved family members to these wars.

And we must work toward peace for our sake and for theirs.

Regardless of whether or not I approve of the current Administration or the current war, I still respect and thank our troops, both past and present, for their service to our country. The same goes to our allies.

I actually went to my college interpreting job this morning and didn’t realize until I saw the empty parking lot that there was no school today. I had forgotten it was Veterans Day. On the way home, I decided I had to do something to honor veterans. Taking and posting a photograph, writing and posting this short note– these are little things, but these little remembrances are better than nothing.

I would like to see a world without war, but in the meantime, I accept the reality of war and I take this moment to remember those who fight in wars– heck, even our enemies (especially the innocent bystanders who lose both lives and loved ones). May we all forgive and be forgiven, and may we please find a way to lasting peace!

Tech note: I used a Speedlight 430 EX to make the flag in the foreground (which was in the shade) stand out against the flag in the background (which was mostly in the sun).

Inspired by the Camera Toss phenomenon, I swung my compact camera by its wriststrap in front of my electric menorah a few days before Chanukah started. It looked so festive, I decided to save it for the New Year.