Enter Our Photo Contest

Tired of winter? Warm up your heart by going through some of your family photos. You'll enjoy reliving happy times. Maybe you'll reminisce with your children about when everyone was young and carefree. Or remember just last month when you all gathered to celebrate the holidays together. You can savor the love all over again.

Photo (c) Andres Rodriguez/Fotolia

Then be a part of our special contest. Enter and you can win the right to download a series of unique pictures from Fotolia.com. They'll be the perfect fit for your blog, website or newsletter. You can even use them to spice up your Facebook page.

Photo (c) Ambiance/Fotolia


Fotolia.com hosts a wide selection of unique royalty free images and they have generously offered to share some of them with you as an introduction to their site. The winner of our contest will be able to download 1 photo a day, at no charge, for a 30-day period.

Photo (c) Tim Osborne/FotoliaHIp

How do you enter? Take some time and choose a photo of your family that means a lot to you. Email it to us at Mentors@HerMentorCenter.com and include 2 or 3 sentences about the emotions this photo evokes for you and why that is.

We’ll be choosing a winner and announcing it on our blog Friday, March 9. And you'll see the winner's family photo and narrative on our post that day. So what are you waiting for? Join in and tell your friends about it.

Photo (c) Pavel Losevsky/Fotolia

Mail your submission to Mentors@HerMentorCenter.com by Monday, March 5 and get ready for the chance to download 30 unique and FREE images.


And join us again on Wednesday for a chat with Mark Saunders about his hilarious novel, Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak. Mark will be available to answer your questions about his mid-life adventure when he dropped out, sold everything and moved to Mexico.

Photo (c) John Keith/Fotolia

Staycation Photos

This week and next, we will be highlighting photographs that have been taken on family staycations. In our monthly newsletter, Stepping Stones, we had asked readers to submit staycation photos with a note about them and why the pictures were significant. Here are two photos with descriptions about their meaning:


"We went to a local farmers' market to get some fresh produce. I always enjoy seeing the beautiful fruits and vegetables displayed. This time they were especially nice and I had my camera with me so I snapped away. I like my children to know that food doesn't just come from the grocery store!"


"Over the weekend, my husband and I went to a lake a few hours away to relax. The scenery was serene - green trees, blue sky, rich brown earth, gentle water - and we felt so peaceful. As I was taking pictures of the quiet lake, two men floated by, paddling a surfboard. They just struck me as a great combination of strength, agility, determination and tranquility."

If you, too, have staycation photos you want to share, send them to us at: mentors@hermentorcenter.com. To read more of our Nourishing Relationships blogs on Staycations for Sandwiched Boomers, click on the post title above. And to begin receiving your own copy of our free monthly newsletter, Stepping Stones, click on the side link to Free Newsletter and sign up - it's as simple as that.

Meryl Streep Tapped into her Creativity - how can you?

The Oscar buzz for Meryl Streep began a few weeks before her latest film, Julie and Julia, opened. And when I saw it, I knew why. Streep, 60, who has been nominated for an Oscar 15 times since 1979 and won it twice, plays the legendary chef and cookbook writer Julia Child. The movie, co-starring Amy Adams and directed by Nora Ephron, is based on a best-selling memoir by Julie Powell that began as a blog and became an international bestseller.

The tagline for the film is 'Passion. Ambition. Butter. Do You Have What It Takes?' Ask yourself that question. If your answer is 'yes,' this blog is a safe place to start. And you can begin by sharing your passion for photography or writing.



What follows is what appeared in the July edition of Stepping Stones, our monthly newsletter:

"Been to our blog lately? It's more colorful now that we've added pictures and videos to our posts. Look back over the past few weeks and you'll see what we mean. We want to include you, so we're opening up blogging at NourishingRelationships.blogspot.com to our readers.

Please share a favorite picture from your staycation or vacation and tell us why it is important to you. Email your picture, as a jpg file, no larger than 4 MB, to Mentors@HerMentorCenter.com. The photos and comments we select will be posted on the blog in September."

Meryl Streep has been tapping into her creativity for years now. And look where it's taken her. Give it a try. Scroll to the bottom of this post, click on comments and tell your story. Or email your pictures to Mentors@HerMentorCenter.com. We can't wait to see what you send in.