[Simplicity]

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. -Ansel Adams

*A photograph that I shot during a peaceful walk.

My Birthday

This wonderful drawing was done by my great friend, Herb Moore. Herb works for Walt Disney and is extremely talented. Thank you! :)

The rest on my birthday was absolutely fantastic! Thank you for all the messages, email and love!

Just a Thought

I relax on my patio and I see an empty hole--Stefan drained our pool to make a few adjustments. I wonder how many party guests will attempt to dive into the 12ft hole this New Year's Eve. I assume he plans on filling it before then! ;)

I am home today, so I placed all my houseplants outside on the back patio for a little morning fog misting. If anything, I am sure that the rubber tree loved it. I even placed the poinsettias out there. I hope to have a lot of tropical plants by Spring.



I have my new washer & dryer placed cozy in the laundry room. They really work quite well and I love the music they play when finished. We decided not to pay the extra $430.00 for the pedestals--we can surely lean down to get the laundry in and out. ;) Also, ignore the empty room; we still need all our things unpacked, and from storage.

I still have this cold and each night it gives me a terrible headache. Stefan said he was not feeling well last night, either. I hope he does not get sick, as well. Hopefully, it will go away soon!

We are planning a huge event in a few months,



Battle of the Bands, Horror Film Festival, Dance Competition, Fashion Show, Food, Zombie Tag and More while supporting Texas Schools and Universities! Come Join the party and break a world record! Feel free to check it out by clicking the image above!



(One of the fireplace mantels decorated in Christmas cheer. By the way, these are Blackberry images, so forgive the noise and whatnot.)

Our Christmas tree is almost finished--we are doing silver and blue this year. We hope to put a tree upstairs in the game room too, but not sure as of yet. Stefan hung a lighted wreath on the front upstairs balcony and ice lights all around the front of our home. Everything looks so beautiful, I love the holidays and all they have to offer!

I hope everyone is enjoying their week!

-Cher

[Novembre]

[Novembre] This is the piece that I sent, when asked to donate for the wonderful Tenderloin Health charity event below. I am honored.

Tenderloin Health

http://www.redcarpetsf.com/nonprofitnews/community-celebration-tenderloin-health.html

Honorary Chairs Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom & Director of Health for San Francisco Barbara A. Garcia, Host Committee The Honorary Willie L. Brown Jr., Former Mayor of San Francisco, Jane Kim, Supervisor District 6 and Bevan Dufty, Former Supervisor of San Francisco, District 8 at a Celebration of Community. We will be honoring The Sister's of Perpetual Indulgence, Estela Garcia of Instituto Familiar de la Raza and Ernest Andrews, Co- Founder of the World AIDS Task Force. The event will also have a silent auction and live entertainment; La Toya London, American Idol Finalist and Jimmie Reign, Singer/Songwriter. All proceeds will go to benefit Tenderloin Health.

Tenderloin Health's mission is to improve the health and overall well-being of the most underserved, vulnerable, poor and homeles residents living with or at the greatest risk for acquiring HIV/AIDS in the Tenderloin and surrounding areas of San Francisco.

Tenderloin Health provides housing, medical and dental services, in-home support, nutrition, pain managment, an arts program, case management, and emergency housing to over 8,000 unduplicated clients in San Francisco.

Of Significant Things

I adore the sea more than ever - it has always been a passion of mine. If I could, I would own a home beside it, so that I may sit and write poetry as Pablo Neruda did on early foggy mornings.

Pablo had a cottage beside the sea, but was terrified of being in the water. I think it great of him to put fear aside for a place that moved his heart in many ways. He wrote some of his best love poems there.

On another note, we have a yacht that we plan on restoring to its full beauty. I think it is 38 ft or somewhere close to it. Often, I imagine being aboard already, enjoying the water and all its surroundings.

The restoration is going to be a great learning experience. And I am sure, exciting. Just knowing that we restored our own yacht, redesigned the stateroom and so on, will make it much more appreciated. Unfortunately, it will not be even close to ready by the time our World Vin Cup event begins in Anguilla. Nonetheless, we will take as much free time as possible to prepare it.

That event is going to be extravagant. We go to Anguilla in December for a few days to meet up and polish plans. I look forward to it - yacht racing, great food, and even better company. What more could you want.

The best part? Exploring the islands, the culture, music, dancing, and the ocean! Oh, I cannot wait to experience the water and feel it smoothing itself against my skin.

The sea holds a place all its own within me - that will never change.

Massimo Tomasello

Left: my big brother in heart. He passed on Sept 3rd.

I will miss you, Massimo. Years of laughter will live deeply within me. ♥

Life & Love

“Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be. Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make our time and our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.” -Tom Head

Autunno

My favorite time of the year.

25 Facts You May Not Know About Me

1. I absolutely love everything about the sea.
2. My Great, great Grandfather was one of the 4 that founded San Jose, California. They were from Genoa, Italy.
3. I have been published over 120 times in all sorts of magazines.
4. I speak English, Italian, Spanish, some French & Japanese
5. I love Starbucks Carmel Macchiato.
6. My Grandfather was my hero and can be found in some history books.
7. I think some things are so utterly beautiful, all one can do is cry.
8. I believe beauty often goes unnoticed.
9. I do not trust easily. But when I feel close to someone, they have my heart for life. (Friends and such) - even if I do not always stay in contact every day.
10. I will never hurt a friend on purpose and am very loyal
11. I love the rain.
12. I love bell-bottomed jeans.
13. Candy is delicious and I will buy it if someone does not drag me away quick enough! ;)
14. My favorite car is the Audi that I bought and paid for within 2 months (all on my own). I like to be independent.
15. I love French nails (pink & white) and never try anything else.
16. I would rather go for a walk along the beach than to an expensive restaurant.
17. I believe in the power of generosity.
18. I love to be girly, but can fish like the boys.
19. I play piano.
20. I am soft spoken and know how to behave in any social situation. (Unless I feel bratty, of course!) ;)
21. I love to dance.
22. I love to joke around.
23. My older sister was struck and killed by a truck a few autumns ago, when she was trying to save a pup from the road. She was a teacher. I miss her.
24. 2 of my little brothers have their own musical bands.
25. I love to love.

Live for the moments

This kind of moment is only on loan, and it won't be too long till it leaves us behind. And when it's all over, I want you to know that I was with you, when I had the time of my life.

Contemplations On a "Summered" Night

[You are loved]

Does anyone really know what that means anymore? Seems we throw that word out there without any thought for circumstance or consequence. In some cases, others find it difficult to utter at all. And if we do say those words we should most definitely mean them. Seems a shame that at times we cannot live our lives with arms wide open. Nonetheless, I plan to try.

Sometimes my heart feels as if it were overflowing and I wish to tell others just what light they have brought into my life, but fear (as others do) the openness that may lead them away. Who would have have thought I would be here, right now, with so much love to give?

I have always believed that you should show your heart to friends and such. I would never want someone that I cared for (in even the smallest amount) to walk without knowing just how fabulous they are. I suppose that is why I simply let the words fall from my lips. If I am touched, be sure that they know.

If something or someone moves me I want them to feel the strength of this heart. I wish to share with the world what I see through my eyes. I hope that whatever it is that I share will make an impact on someone else as it had me.

A smile is contagious, we really should pass it on. Indeed, a child-like simplicity that can only make the "Heartlight" shine even brighter.

Never waste a second wishing the words you felt so sweetly had not tangled on the tongue. Tell (or show) your loved ones and friends exactly what they mean to you...

... for moments pass quickly and once they are gone, they are gone.

The Kiss

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. -Ingrid Bergman

Breaking Benjamin

Before you interpret this, I must divulge to you
all that is clandestine: his voice, a garden
always it exists in neat rows, lexis in the lungful
of forget-me-nots, the intricate identifiers such as skin,
accent, flesh; inevitably imitate events that slowly
pull faces as I pass the mirror.
& I spend seasons sleepless on his face, in the silhouette
of his body long after he’s laid it down. I scatter flowers
in breath--a deeper blue in the cherry, where I draw
his chest to a pause, carry him to the scents, each
so delicately decorated in the softness of rivers that utter
devotion. But his mouth is heavy. Indeed, I am speaking
of the tongue, of the nether sea, the vortex
in its garrote--no exit, a void, a lilac snapped shut.
& I cannot deliver. I lift his snowy lids, release the colors
into the sky, where simplicity permeates the air, & his lips
part affectionate, wet. I kiss his throat to pursue a sole
riposte, feel a constriction that tugs my hand, pulls me
back as the night that hangs nervous in the thickets.

-Cher

You Are Love

You are love...

(I kissed your lips this morning and picked a flower from a garden before it ever grew. I carried the flower to a pergola, colorful in the hours that bond us.)

There are night skies as I write, but I can only see sapphire. There are shores in the remoteness that we would walk if there now--we would breeze past the wintered curtains that insist on a chill, (or a feeling that snow has crept into the pane).

I press your poems to my face and breath your name.

And like your name, my ears are still submerged in the continuous sea of your voice like sand or shells washed into the sun-–every now and then pushed into the deep only to rise once more.

Your voice a stellar instrument, loving sounds or syllables that flood my flesh like a gentle rain. I want to be the cup that you sip from, the paper you write your most famous lines upon.

I long to be the hands that you gather snow in.

And if I cannot be your hands, I will take them, kiss them and say a prayer into the wind. I will gift you with a heart true above the reverberations of infinite butterfly flurry and sigh.

What I feel, sitting here is how deeply, bodily inscribed you are within me. All of my desire is for you, for you as who you are, here.

What you do to me emotionally and physically is totally unshakable.

You are love.

Draft II

Beauty is an experience

(A photograph that I shot during a beautiful Spring day.)

"Sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes.
We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under
tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves.

That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the heck out of never trying."

Disney's Herb Moore - Duffy MacTaggart

Duffy MacTaggart premiers in "Fairway to Elegance" at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance starting this coming Sunday, August 14th.

Herb Moore is on Emerging Magazine and we love his creative energy. Not only is he fabulously talented, but he has an award-winning attitude! We are proud to call him a contributor and friend!

Check him out on his own website Animation Soup!

Great additions to his site this past weekend, including the second episode of Cosmo Trip in "Son of a Beach!" and a great skype interview hosted by Brad Scott from the Naked Zombie Radio Show, from down under, on the Publicity page. Check it out!

Emerging Magazine's Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball

Emerging Magazine's Model Competition

Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball
Emerging Magazine's Top 100 Models
Male and Female Model Competition

Ollie Best, a contributor and competitor for our
"Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball"

Cristina Strelczuk Moreira, a contributor and competitor for our
"Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball"

Gage Robert Houser, a contributor and competitor for our
"Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball".

Nikita Penalosa, a contributor and competitor for our
"Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball".

Genevieve Peterson, a contributor and competitor for our
"Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball".

Tom Read, a contributor and competitor for our
"Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball".

If you are interested in competing in the top 100 model competition, please visit us at Emerging Magazine!

Have a great day!

Emerging Magazine's "Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball"

Kelliana Virkutis , a contributor and competitor for our "Global Models For Charity Luxury Ball". If you are interested in competing in the top 100 model competition, please follow this link. Thank you!

Arizmendi Bakery

Arizmendi Bakery

Stefan and I enjoy sitting outside, tasting fabulous breads. I adore their home made pizza, as well!

Lazy Sunday

We took the day and went crabbing, it was a lot of fun. I am actually pretty good, too! As long as I do not have to touch the bait, touch the crab, reel in anything or eat it, I am probably the best mate you can have on such an adventure! ;)