Christmas in July

Christmas in July, 2025

I’ve noticed a lot of Christmas in July this year. Hallmark movie marathons, craft shows, and holiday decorations for sale. I’m not one to squash another person’s joy . . . but I really do not want to rush through life, hurrying on to the next season. Can I just linger here in summer a little longer?

Polegreen Produce and Cat-Face Tomatoes

Cat-Face Tomatoes, Polegreen Produce, Mechanisville, Virginia, August 2025

We bought fresh Lima beans and homemade vegetable soup. And Hanover tomatoes. I had to ask, just exactly, what is a cat-face tomato?

Sometimes deep crevices and scar tissue will appear on the blossom end of the tomatoes. At first glance, the bottom side of such a tomato might resemble the face of a cat. This is a surprisingly common disorder found in vegetable gardens, but little scientific research has been done to definitively determine the cause of these misshapen tomatoes. The tomatoes are still perfectly fine to eat, just not quite as pretty as the grocery store variety.

Portrait Of A Photographer

Donna at Historic Polegreen Church, Mechanicsville, Virginia, August 2025

Every so often I want an updated photo of myself for this website. I’ve known people, and by people, I mean women, who have flatly told me that they do not include a photo of themselves or tell their age on their website because they do not think their age is relevant to their work. To their way of thinking, age should not have bearing on how their work is viewed or perhaps judged. Fair enough. But I see my age as a part of my evolution and integral to my creative work. An accurate photo is kind of like truth in advertising for me.

Of course, there is only so much truth I can take. I was happy to discover lots of portrait presets in photoshop to soften skin and texture hair and just generally smooth out those fine lines and wrinkles. This is how I think I look, and that seems like a good place to start.

Many thanks to my fine husband for taking 5 decent photographs of me and making me smile. I really want one of those cool portraits where I am not smiling, but instead looking pensive, but truthfully, I just look mad in all of those photographs, and not at all like myself.

If I could get married all over again, I’d do it here, at Historic Polegreen Church.

Historic Polegreen Church, August 2025