I started a new photo/travel project a few weeks ago, a project, called Thirty One Thresholds.

Quite basic in its undertaking, the project encourages me to get out of the house. (A coping method when life gets a bit overwhelming, I morph into a hermit!)

Once out of the house, I go somewhere, almost anywhere, camera in tow, and consider the many thresholds I cross – literal or metaphorical…  Not a lot of rules. Keeping this low pressure and easy…

As I wrote in the first post when exploring the start of this project, I’m not sure what nuggets of wisdom I’ll discover or exactly what  I’m looking for… but I’m willing to believe I’ll find what I need to find — or it will find me!

Since I began on December 1st, I have visited a Mustard Museum (for fun and amusement), a tropical paradise in Madison’s Olbrich Gardens (for the illusion of summer and warmth), a walk in the neighborhood (which is as far as I could make it that day!) and a state capitol building (in search of spaciousness and the grand gilded art of an earlier time in architectural decor.)

Fun. Warmth. Tiny steps. Space. Art. A good start!

Last weekend I went to Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor history park that offers a glimpse of Wisconsin life — historic farms, artisan handcrafts, heirloom gardens, daily routines in rural Wisconsin in the mid to late 1800s.

A docent was baking gingerbread cookies at an old wooden table, the surface scattered with flour, a treasured rolling pin, cookie cutters hand fashioned from scraps of tin, and dark gingery dough! Though the time period was off by a few decades, the ginger cookie baking scene was reminiscent of the countless days I spent baking with my grandmother and great-grandmother.

What a perfect threshold to walk across.

Hands warmed by an open fire. Hearts warmed by memories of the best of childhood times. And, as a bonus,  just-baked ginger cookies to enhance the memories.