It all began about 48 years ago when I was a beginning graduate student.

A new “WOW! This is fun!” activity. As you readers know, I love working with images. I have enjoyed editing photos using Picasa collages and Photoshop Elements, and making images ”come alive” with pop-up cards and stop-action animation. Now I discovered something that combines images, editing, movement and the fascination of seeing the immediate results on my computer screen.

I was in a kitchen care aisle at Bed, Bath & Beyond a few days ago when I let out a shriek, “Yayyyyyy!” I had found the sponges I was looking for. I bought the last three packages they had. I had already tried Ralphs, CVS and a few other stores.

These sponges are unique.

Here comes another essay about what excites me visually. This time it’s not about 3D or pop-up cards, but about a 2D image sent via my Gmail.

This week my wife and I chose photos of my daughter’s wedding to be placed in a Shutterfly photo book..

I was twenty years old. It was 1960. I never will forget Mr. Fields, my professor of Speech. He taught me to love words. He taught me to make lists of vocabulary words. He taught me to enjoy learning the nuances of word meanings and derivations. His method of assigning end-of-semester grades was to send out post cards to each student. Each card had one word it. The initial letter of the word indicated the grade he assigned. My postcard said “Acumen” – now, understandably, one of my favorite words.

I love to make picture books using photos arranged in Picasa collages. I made several such books for my grandson, Evan.

Well, this evening at the yoga class, I almost touched my forehead to my raised knee while lying on my mat. I was inches away. I thought, “If I DO touch my head to my knee, I’m going to let out a cry such as ‘Yahoo!’”

I don’t mean really seeing you for the first time, but seeing an image — a photo — of you for the first time.

We just got two new sets of dishes: They are mostly all white, with a small amount of decoration. Our old sets were much decorated.