Weekly Photo Challenge: Thankful – a time to be thankful, and a time for reflections – to my fellow bloggers, family and friends

This post is in response to the Weekly Photo Challenge : Thankful

Slideshow

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This is our Thanksgiving long weekend, a time to be thankful, and a time for reflections.  It is indeed a very timely and appropriate title for this week’s photo challenge.

What should I be thankful for?

What do these photos in the slideshow and the gallery  represent?  If you click the slideshow and also the gallery below, the caption of each picture will appear and tell you briefly what it is about.  But why?  What do they tell you about me?  It seems to be all unrelated, but they are.  They are all meaningful to me.

My blogs and blogging experience:

Let me start from the last six pictures which represent the six blogs that I have created in WordPress.  Blogging has now become the “staple food” of my “food for thought”  in the last six months.  My first blog is “from curiosita to…” which I featured the Thinker, Rodin’s sculpture at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  I made that page a static one, because I really like the Thinker, which I believe pretty much represents me, a thinker.  I quoted the book, “How to think like Leonardo da Vinci” on that post.   Just today, a fellow blogger told me that she likes this book.  I was so thrilled to hear that, because she did remember this post when we chatted about her recent post which I liked.

After having started my first blog, very quickly I created my other five blogs in WordPress: “food for thought“,  “falling in love…with art nouveau”,“Exploring Turkey and Greece”, “My Notebook”, and “Healthy and Happy”

After three months of blogging, I posted a post called Three Months of Fruitful Blogging in “food for thought” . This is what I wrote as my conclusion of 3 months’ blogging:

” My passion is actually in arts, but I found that the interesting posts that I posted (I really think they are very interesting) are not as attractive to many readers than a simple dish that I made. I must say that I am quite disappointed in my arts related posts. I did spend much more time on my arts posts but they were not as welcoming as food!”

Thankful to my fellow bloggers for my six months of gainful blogging:

What happened after another 3 months? I found that it is not because of the contents of my post or the subject matter.  Fellow bloggers will be more aware of my posts if I am part of some challenges like this one: Weekly Photo Challenge.  This Challenge has enabled me to expand my readership to a wider audience who may become interested in my blogs after they have read some of my posts under this category.

I did make some friends who have similar interests and who are interested in discussing about certain subjects such as art and music, photography, architecture, travel etc.  As to cooking, I am lagging behind.  It seems that the readership of  “food for thought” has not expanded much.  However, my friends and family who are not my fellow bloggers, do follow “food for thought”.

I am very thankful to all my followers and fellow bloggers because I have learned so much from all of you.  So far, I have got three awards from my fellow bloggers, and another one just came up on Thanksgiving day.  I really want to thank all of you who have been so supportive throughout my six months of blogging experience.

Thankful for the opportunities to travel, to appreciate arts, to entertain, and to be entertained:

The other pictures in the slideshow and the gallery represent a summary of my main activities this year.  I did not take any major trip this year till the end of November, when I will join my family and friends to visit Argentina, Brazil and Chile.  As I have been extremely busy at work this year, I only took a few short trips for business meetings or conferences to Denver and Los Angeles.  I did have some short breaks like a fun trip to Las Vegas to celebrate the Year of the Dragon, and a short cruise to Alaska as part of our family reunion.  I also had good friends and relatives who came to San Francisco to visit.  I did spend one or two days taking them to museums, and historic places, and to dine.  I enjoyed very much the museum visits, opera, concerts and ballet as I subscribed with family and friends to these major art performances.  I am very thankful that I did have these opportunities to entertain family and friends, or to be entertained, and to appreciate arts in an affordable fashion.

Thankful to my family and friends, for their support, love and care:

Finally, the first picture here shows the Thanksgiving dinner we had last night.  Our big family celebrated Thanksgiving together with relatives and close friends.  This is the most thankful moment.  I am very grateful to have a loving and supportive family, and a few close friends who are very special to me.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

Sincerely yours,

Denise

Please click any picture to start seeing the gallery with captions on each picture.

Thanksgiving dinner, 2012. It was a dinner made of tender love and kindness, primarily from my sister Sil. Family and close friends celebrated together this wonderful holiday with love and care.

San Francisco Opera House: a panoramic view inside the Opera House. I watched many of my favorite operas here with family and friends.

A work meeting in Los Angeles, November, 2012. It was a very productive meeting. I created another blog on this event.

2012 is the Year of the Dragon. A friend invited me to Las Vegas to celebrate the Lunar New Year, February, 2012. I posted the dragon pictures on a post in this blog, and the chocolates on another post.

Conference at Denver in July, 2012. The picture shows the Big Blue Bear. I wrote the first post on this blog about the Big Blue Bear.

Family Reunion Cruise to Alaska, Sept, 2012. This picture shows the Glacier at Glacier Bay. It was a wonderful cruise with my brother and sister-in-law visiting from Australia.

LA LIVE, an entertainment complex in downtown Los Angeles. Although I came to LA many times, this was the first time I visited this complex and dined here. Nov, 2012.

Palace Hotel in San Francisco – My favorite place to bring out-of-town guests, friends and family who came to San Francisco to visit.

Asian Art Museum – a modern art installation called “Breathing Flower” of the exhibition “The Phantoms of Asia” , in May, 2012. The art installation was at the San Francisco City Hall compound, with the City Hall as its backdrop.

Inside a Japanese cuisine restaurant in Alameda, November, 2012, a favorite dining place in this area. The owner of this restaurant is a lovely Japanese lady who is 87 years old.

My first blog in WordPress- “from curiosita to..”. This picture shows Rodin’s “The Thinker” at the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

“My Notebook”, my blog on arts, travel photos, and anything interesting. This picture was initially posted as the blog’s header. It displayed the windows at Belvedere Palace, Vienna.

“food for thought”, my food blog. This is a picture of “swimming shrimps”, one of the favorites of my readers!

“Exploring Turkey and Greece”, my travel blog. Most of the photos were taken by my friend Link. We traveled together with a group of friends and family.

“can’t help falling in love…with art nouveau”, my blog on art nouveau. This is a well-known art nouveau architecture in Prague.

“Healthy and Happy” , my blog on wellness, healthy living, body, mind and spirit. I was inspired by many articles that I read about health, nutrition, scientific research, and wellness. Due to competition for time, I have been very behind. It is such an important subject matter, that I cannot write without further exploration.