The View From My Window

"A View From My Window" is a series of watercolor paintings I created during the COVID-19 lockdown. The series began when I joined a group on Facebook that has members from around the globe who post a picture of the view from their window. I found myself transported around the world to the most beautiful sights. I asked permission of each photographer to use their image in a painting, and the series came to life. This portfolio shows a display of the painting I made and the photograph I chose. Each piece touched me in a different way. I selected out of thousands of pictures the following 40 images to paint. They range from places like California, New York, Idaho, Nova Scotia, South Africa, Denmark, Italy, Germany, and more. I found myself transported to other lands while painting these pieces. They brought me peace during a difficult time. This series depicts the beauty in the world seen during the dark time of a pandemic.

What do you see from your window? This #OwnVoices picture book from Brazil offers a firsthand view of what children growing up in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro see every day. A vibrant and diverse celebration of urban community living, brought to life by unique, colorful illustrations that juxtapose brick buildings with lush jungle plants.

Willow has dedicated her two-and-twenty years apprenticed to a renowned shaman. The wheels of change have been set in motion, just as the oracle predicted they would. Her people have scattered to the four winds as anti-Romani tension flares, wagons are burned, and lives are destroyed. Trade, once the livelihood of Willow's nomadic family, has now become too dangerous. The marauders have returned, and this time, someone in her innermost circle is targeted and attacked. As her training comes to an end, Willow must shoulder the mantle of lead shaman. Determined to keep her loved ones safe, Willow agrees to journey to an unknown land to care for a gravely ill sovereign. As a lead shaman, Willow is a confident and skilled healer, but affairs of the heart are uncharted territory. Will forbidden romance in the palace cost her everything? In Patricia J. Gallegos' The View from My Window, we take a fantastic journey through violence, wisdom, and love, and we will come to root hard for Willow. After all, the fate of her people rests squarely on her shoulders.

Birds. Flowers. Flowering shrubs. Changing seasons. Changing skies. These can be seen outside author Rachel Jolly West’s window every day. It tells her creation is alive, and she realizes we may often take it for granted. In The View from My Window, West shares how it’s more than watching the neighborhood from the window. It is seeing creation through God’s eyes. In The View from My Window, Rachel Jolly West offers a collection of stories that shares what she sees outside her window and how God speaks to her through nature. Have you ever seen your inner beauty through a gerber daisy plant? Have you heard God tell you the meaning of a fallen tree on your hike through the woods? Have you watched birds at a feeder searching for seed, and God opened your eyes to the spiritual experience and meaning? In this devotional, West encourages you to sit on the porch, on the beach, at your favorite window seat, or wherever your comfort place is, and let God meet you and share his wonderful creations.

If you're the outdoor type who simply enjoy taking pictures to share with others, then this is the perfect pastime for you. I simply call it 'Finding Beauty In Your Own Backyard.' Others may call it 'Bird Feeder Photography.' During the present pandemic, this is the perfect filler to occupy your time during lockdown or Shelter-In-Place. This is mostly a laid-back diversion that does not require an expensive camera or years of experience. It only requires a general knowledge of photography, a creative and imaginative eye, and lots of patience. This book 'was not' written for photographers. It was written for the average person who enjoy taking pictures of birds especially at feeding time. Do you want to have a most unforgettable experience? Go ahead and set up a birdfeeder in your backyard. Next, prepare yourself to be delighted because this is an experience you will not soon forget. You are guaranteed to capture some of the most fantastic photo images of birds imaginable.

In A View from My Window, Marjorie's poems run the gamut from childlike innocence to adult maturity on through older age. Themes range from skepticism to deep faith, from playfulness to dead seriousness, from admonishing the wayward to acceptance of people in all condition of life. In the collection of poems, no topic is too mundane or too minute to expound upon e.g., a ray of sunshine or a garden gnome. Marjorie writes poignantly about excessive eating and weight gain, loss of loved ones, relationship problems, loneliness and despair, as well as exuberant joy in nature, friends, family, travel, and memories of bygone days. Upon reading the poems, one can tell that Marjorie enjoys life, even with its heartache and uncertainty, and that she is a keen observer of people. Marjorie Curtis was born and raised in Aliceville, Alabama. She presently lives in Greenwood, Mississippi.

"If you have what I think you have, you may only have six months to live," he said with a serious look on his face. I was in shock. What was he was saying? I felt fine and could not imagine for a moment I could die within six months. The doctor said he was quite certain I had iris melanoma, an extremely rare, highly lethal form of eye cancer that grows around the iris. Once it has grown all the way around the iris, it quickly spreads to the liver and throughout the body. My best chance for survival-if the cancer had not yet spread-was to remove my eye. This book follows my life during a six-year period and contains some of my journal entries and post-surgery pictures. I recount my experience with eye cancer, which includes testing and diagnosis, eye removal surgery, the recovery period, my prosthetic eye fitting, adjusting to single-eye vision, the complications, a second corrective surgery, and a second recovery period. Along the way, I reflect on my life prior to my diagnosis, including my teenage pregnancy, my struggle with depression and anxiety, and my mother's battle with cancer that began two decades before mine. My close relationship with my fiancé, Gary, is evident throughout my story. I describe how patient and accommodating he was while helping me navigate through a life-altering, life-threatening illness. When I was facing the possibility of a second dangerous cancer scare, we decided to get married and Gary became my son's legal father.

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