I’ve been doubly tagged recently, for two memes. I figured I’d combine them into one post, since… well, why not?
The first is David Airey’s “Face Behind The Blog” (tagged by Dawud Miracle), a chance to look behind the scenes of a blog you read and see who the person is that’s typing on your behalf.
The face behind my blog is a rarely-captured one, to tell you the truth! Most of the photos I have (digitized ones, at least) are of my family, and since I tend to be the “guy behind the lens” as well as the “face behind the blog”, I have many more pictures of my kids than I do of me. That said…
Family is, obviously, the largest aspect of my life. Here we are at some family outings, including DisneyWorld (when Sara was four months old), bowling, at Hershey’s Chocolate World, the DC Zoo, and more.
Gardening is also a passion in the family, although I tend to do the ‘heavy lifting’ jobs, and my wife Laila does most of the plant tending. Here are the girls picking strawberries, and us washing off some of our lettuce, spinach, and arugula.
Being in the great outdoors is a favorite pastime of mine, so you’re seeing glimpses here of hiking, sand sculpting (which I got into when we lived on Florida’s Gulf Coast), and playing with the kids.
And last but not least, there’s family downtime. Here are the girls hanging out, me giving two-day old Yasmin (who’s now 7) a smooch, Sara covered in blueberries, and our 2005 Halloween costumes (that’s me, the pirate, in the back).
The second meme is Terry Starbucker’s “What’s In Your Glass?” (tagged by Director Tom), a creativity-enhancer based on Terry’s namesake blog, “Ramblings From a Glass Half Full”.
Terry asks four questions, which I’ve paired with my responses:
1. How full is your glass? Overflowing!
2. What kind of glass is it? A “looking glass”
3. What’s in the glass? You, me, and world of possibility.
4. Reasons for #1, #2, and #3…
I say, “overflowing,” because when I feel the question, I feel my heart. And my heart feels like it’s tapping into an abundant space of love and generosity, overflowing with hope and joy.
So, that immediately gave rise to the idea of my glass being a ‘looking glass’ — to see what I see when I look in the mirror of Monk at Work.
And when I do, I see you and me together, in a world of possibility. I believe the sky is the limit when it comes to creating love-centered businesses, and bringing your spirit into the world.
Now in memes, the tradition is to tag five other people. I’ve done that before, but what I’d rather do this time is encourage you to take one or both of these memes and make them your own, on your own blog. (And if you don’t have a blog yet, this would be a great reason to start one.)
Images by David Airey, me, Terry Starbucker, and Striatic (by Creative Commons license).
And thanks to all who have commented on the previous post so far: Dave Schoof, Stuart Baker, Jeff, Jean Browman, Jennifer Louden
Adam – it is always fun to be able to put a face with a name. You have a cute family. Also, I really like your creative answers to the Starbucker meme.
Isn’t Hershey fun? We are hoping to get there sometime this summer. It is by far one of the cleanest, most family friendly parks ever.
Nice collages of photos, Adam!
Thanks for taking part, and for linking through to my original post.
Nice to see a clean, easy-to-read site layout here too.
All the very best.
Hey brother. I love seeing the photos of ya’ll. Can’t wait til we have a chance to get our kids together.
Thanks for the link love.
Char, thanks — you can tell I’m ga-ga for my girls…
We live about two hours from Hershey, and stopped by on the way to visit relatives. It was winter, though, so we only saw the “factory” part. It was nice, but I remember being a kid and going through the actual factory in their California facility… that was fun. The smell was intoxicating.
Thanks David, I think it’s a great meme idea. Glad you like the layout; it’s a DMiracle creation.
(Speaking of the man…) Dawud, you bet — we’re going to just have to plan a trip to come visit, once you put your kitchen back together and Baby #3 has arrived and is settled.
Yeah, we have a tradition now of tearing up our house once we get pregnant. With A’esha, we has just bought a fixer-upper and had begun tearing it apart. just before we got pregnant – though we both knew she was coming soon.
With Ahmed, I decided to gut one of our bathrooms – down to the studs. Replumbed, re-ran electrical, replaced subfloor and flooring, etc, etc…really it’s a whole new bathroom.
So now it’s the kitchen/dining room. We’re (read: I’m) doing a major kitchen reconstruction – expanding the kitchen and merging with the dining room. I knocked out a wall, moved eletrical, tore up flooring and most of the cabinest – and the god-awful soffets. Now, much more room…of course, no cabinets yet. Gotta get done before October.
Hi Adam! Love the photos, and thanks for participating in the meme. Yes, the sky is the limit, and if all businesses could be love-centered, this would be much, much better world. All the best.
Dawud, you’re a crazy man. I say that in the most loving way, of course.
Either that, or you’re the KING of external deadlines!
And thanks, Terry; love does make the world go ’round. (either that, or gravitational inertia…)
Adam… I love the collages. You’ve done a great job of sharing your life in photos. I think I’m a bit jealous of the Hershey visit. We stopped at the Hershey store in Times Square when we were there and that was unreal. I can hardly imagine the factory.
Thanks, Dave — don’t be jealous of the Hershey visit. It’s fun, sure, and it was really neat to learn about Milton Hershey’s philosophies and social programs (amazing stuff, really), but Hershey chocolate, in my opinion, lags way behind others (Callebaut, Scharfen Berger, those Endangered Species bars, anything 70% or above, etc.)
Oh, and we didn’t even see the actual factory — I think you can go take a special (read: pricey) tour, but the free version is more disney-esque. I’m not knocking it, but the actual tour is pretty cool (my parents used to take us on factory tours of all kinds of places on family vacations).
Wow – what a great post.
You have a beautiful family. Your pictures are just awesome.
Dawud – nice to get a slice of your life in this read as well. Although we haven’t met, I feel as though I know you from our emails, Mark and Adam.
Anyway, Adam, you’re doing a fab job with this blog and I’ve shared it with many others.
And here’s to all the Heart Centered Businesses in the world. . . LaChayim (which means To Life in Hebrew)!
Hi Adam,
You have wonderful photos of your family and your 2 beautiful girls are cute. Looks like you travel a lot.
Thanks, Char, I appreciate it! (the sentiments and the sharing of it with others)
And thanks, Rammel, although I don’t travel all that much (used to, and may again, but I’m in a low-travel period
), we’ve got good photos from our travels, which helps.
We’ve also lived a lot of places… the pics from Portland, Sarasota — we lived in those places when those pictures were taken! With any luck, though, stay tuned for more photos from exotic locations…
Adam,
I LOVE these images; you and your family are beautiful (My only wish is that they were clickable so that I could see larger versions; I’m “blind in one eye, can’t see in the other”!).
It’s awesome to experience more of your human-ness and how you are with your family. It comes as no surprise to see the abundance of love, connectedness, gratitude, and sheer happiness come overflowing through the images; this is already self-evident on every page of Monk at Work.
I also am moved by your overflowing-and-looking-glass imagery, where you include ME in your (our) looking glass.
I feel that connection, Adam; you’re one of my heroes.
Love and Light –
Tshombe
Thanks, Tshombe. I’m working on a photo album, which will have larger-sized photos for you.
“Hero”?As long as I don’t go on a pedestal, I’m fine with that… I’m just a monk like you, brother. 
Hi! I posted Face behind the Blog to follow your meme.. do visit my blog and give comment, thanks
Lonely hurts