Procrastination

Well...as I was finishing up my post from Sunday, my external hard drive decided it was time to stop working.  Crashed.  It isn't even a year old.   If I remember correctly...it has about 10000 pictures on it.  No...they weren't all backed up because..

Well, I could blame it on the depression of winter.  The laziness that sets in.  The lack of initiative. My insistence of working out after work and the exhaustion as a result that keeps me out of focus. I could blame it on the relationship issues I am having right now that has me completely off balance.

But...

No...it is my own fault. I've been pretty good up until the past few months to keep things backed up.  I just didn't expect that such a new drive was going to create an issue.  I just started working with it in the middle of 2013 in order to move files off of my lap top to free up space and have a more portable way of taking my photos with me if I wanted to.

Winter set in and my photo taking slowed down and so I thought all would be okay.  Again...I just purchased the drive probably less than six months ago.

So...so...bummed.

I've taken it to a photographer friend that has special equipment and...it puzzled him.  I have the drive open now and will need to take it back to him to see if he can get it to read long enough to back the files back up on another external.  If not...it might take a bit more money to get it done.  Not a happy camper at this point.

I am just hoping and praying the next step will be successful..without a large expense.  I think for the most part things are backed up on another drive except some of the latest portrait shoots I did which are already published on my website.

My heartbreak will be the loss of the past two weekends where I did photo shoot field trips with some lady friends to Door County and Lake Michigan.  Of course, I could go out and try to reshoot but...the weather would have to be just right to capture the moods I did those days.  For once, I was impressed with the mood I captured.  I am always my worst critic...and now...I guess I can really be on my case about....

Procrastinating!!

It doesn't totally put a damper on my project of 'Finding Your eye'....just a damper on my ego, per se.

And just two days before this happened, I had deleted the pictures off of two of the cards that contained some of the photos.  Some are still on one of the cards.

My gratefulness from all of this is that it did happen now...in winter when I didn't have even a larger volume of photos that aren't backed up. Now is the time I have to rethink everything.  Reposition my workflow and get set up to have continuos back up and multiple copies.  It's just another expense.  An expense now that hopefully will save an expensive cost later if I really have to spend a lot of money to capture photos that I truly don't want to lose.

My dilemma now is...are my photos worth paying  a few hundred dollars to a technician to try to get them back?  The guy on my left shoulder says...absolutely not.  The one on my right shoulder says, absolutely...but see what is on the other back up first to see what truly is missing.  If I could pay for only the ones I really want to get back, I'm pretty sure the only ones not backed up that I would want are the ones that I took the last couple of weeks.

What would you do?  Pay several hundred dollars to get back photos that in the long run might only be for your enjoyment?

Wish me luck.  Friday is still two days away..so far away.

I am thankful it wasn't major portrait shoots.  So very grateful.

INSPIRATION Journal - 1

My Finding My Eye project talks about finding and identifying what inpires me with my photography passion.  I've gone through a lot of my 2012 photos, cleaning them out, selecting the ones that really 'touch' my emotion and have decided that it would be easier to note what doesn't inspire me.

The big picture...nature inspires me so much. What started my passion for photography?  Probably that which gets most mothers started...our children.  When my children were younger, we camped and hiked a lot.  I loved to take pictures of my children when they were 'discovering' the world.  That in addition to the memories I have of discovering the world at that age when I lived in the Northeast and roamed the forests of New Hampshire always kept nature close to my heart.

When I got more serious about photography and wanted to capture photos other than that of my children, I was and still am a big bird watcher so naturally my camera, in a way, became my binoculars..or replaced them to a certain extent.  Now when I hike, I have binoculars as well as one or two cameras with me.  Nature's attempt at keeping me in shape, I guess.

I captured birds and wildlife so much that there has been a point when I got 'bored' with it I guess.  That may have been due to a lack of scenery though.  Not getting out to new places to capture new birds and critters. They do still inspire me but I've had to add to my palette of subjects per se.  As one of my other large passions is gardening, of course, flowers became a familiar subject to me also.  Flowers in their natural surroundings.  Flowers in my gardens which consist primarily of coneflowers and sunflowers and daisy-like subjects.

My hunt for new subjects or just different locations to captures my feathered friends and floral buds took me to the woods discovering the trails close to my midwest home....and trails themselves trigger some mystical emotion in me that I'm not too sure how to describe.  Maybe it is the unknown that might be at the end or the surprise of beauty I find as I trek down the beaten path which leads to me further breathlessness of nature.

I can be inspired by color and textures and leading lines.  Maybe that is why trails fascinate me..because of the leading lines.  Fences. Railroad tracks..but not so much architecture itself unless it in itself is full of color and patterns.

In my quest to expand my horizon and perfect my landscape photos, I have fallen in love with the rustic buildings of old farms and historic or abandoned places, wondering what the story is behind it all. Focus on church steeples and windows and doors monopolize some of my photo shoot sessions.  The windows and doors fascinate me with emotion much in the same way that trails and roadways do.

Of course, there is my portrait passion for children and the elderly generation mostly because their expression and free nature make me laugh and smile as well as envy their 'free spirit'.

I don't know..what inspires me....or rather what doesn't. I have an overall inspiration and fascination to what the world has to offer in beauty and subject matter and it is through my lense that I am most observant of it all and most passionate about discovering the world.

I guess from here it is just a matter of defining my so called 'style'.

So take a seat and research, think, ponder and discover with me.

I would love to hear your comments on what you think my style is...what you like and don't like.  I will help me expand and grow and hopefully you in return will gain from it.

Because...

I'm stuck. I'm frozen. I feel so caged up.  My daily plans got 'replanned' by other people again.  I don't know why I can't learn how to say no...I have other plans already.  Because I don't want to be selfish?  Because I question whether it is the best use of my time?  Because ...she's my mom?  because...because...because..The. Worst. Word. in. the dictionary!

I woke up with so many good intentions.  I did get the wash started.  My 'roomate' left later than expected this morning which put me off track. Yes, my own fault. I shouldn't have let that delay me.  It's the cold.  It's the winter.  It's this being cooped up inside.  It has been an extremely brutal winter.  Very few days in the mid to high 20's to allow me to get outside...other than going to work and back or the store.  Even my poor Lexi is feeling the depression.   We wrestled on the floor for about an hour hoping that would exert enough energy to feel like we had accomplished something.

Mom came to visit and brought a dvd of Route 66 and another of a historic road in Detroit.  Fun to watch but just increased this cooped up longing of wanting to get out and do something.

I have photography projects I need to deal with.  I need to work out. The house needs to be cleaned although that will be done tomorrow when I am avoiding sitting on the couch staring at someone that creates no passion for conversation or activity...together..exciting...creative.

I've found another realtor to assist in selling my current place and to find a place a bit more suitable for 'just me'...at the same time still struggling with the decision...because I don't want to move?  Because I don't know where I am going when I do sell.  Because the winter has me thinking of moving south yet I've just started a new job and don't want to change again...besides they love me and depend on me and I don't want to let yet another person down.

Here..somewhere between my stomach and my heart...something stirs. A tornado of sorts. No...a hurricane of dangerous extremes.  Waiting to explode.  To stir things ups.  A cooped up lion waiting to pounce on creativity.  A beautiful sunrise waiting to wake up the monster inside.

The sun shines brightly through the windows.  The sky is gorgeously blue.  The white carpet is refreshing.  I open the door to let Lex out and the wind just blows me away and makes me want to sit on the ground and just cry. Curl up in the fetal position.  I think of taking a ride to only be disappointed when mom calls to say my brother just got back from taking a ride to town and there were so many cars in the ditches with the blowing snow and below zero temperatures.

I only have three and a half hours before my 'roommate' returns.  Three and a half hours to do something constructive without having someone else here that makes me feel guilty about not being fully attentive to them.

Okay....sigh.  Deep breathe.  DEEP DEEP SIGH AND BREATHE.

I mentioned kong and she's up off the couch..wagging her tail.  It's time for me to bundle up and suck it up...and wag my tail too.  Hello frigging freezin temps.....HERE WE COME.

Gratitude - 01/23/2014

I've fallen off the wagon with my gratitude notes as I've been attempting to 'rediscover' passions and make it through this frigid winter here in the midwest.  I know there are so many things that I am grateful for...so many things I don't give credit to that I should.

Today I am most grateful for my Son Sam Comardo who makes me very proud of all he has accomplished despite the bumpy road that life has presented him with.

I am so very very grateful for my best friends here in the Midwest - Holly and Jaime.  I don't know where I would be without them.

I'm not a real big fan of facebook just in the sense that some people think you are weird if you don't have a facebook page and I hate to find out important things in life through facebook instead of a direct person to person verbal communication but I am grateful for the wonderful little jokes and pictures that are posted that make me smile and feel good about the world we live in.

I am very grateful for the awesome employer that I now have...a complete turnaround from the last nine years at the previous place.  A. Complete. Turnaround.

I am grateful for all of my wonderful children that the Dear Lord has blessed me with!  They all make me very proud day in and day out!

Thank you Dear Lord, for everything and everyone you bless me with.

Finding My Eye

So often when reading photography blogs, taking on line courses, trying to find inspiration and creativity with this creative passion of photographing, people want to know 'What is your style'.  It is a question I ask myself quite often.  Trying to pinpoint one thing...or multiple  is not easily answered. I am now off on a project to 'Find My Eye'.  What inspires me.  Finding a 'theme, a rhyme or reason behind what I photograph...how I create.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it isn't just one thing that inspires me...unless I can gather it all up and categorize it all as...nature.  Even when 'the hand of man' enters the scene..it really is the simplicity of the natural surroundings that blow me away...tugging at my heart and soul.  I just want to jump up and down and scream at the top of my lungs to get every one's attention  and shout...'Stop!'  Look at the simple beauty that surrounds you...each and every day...in the simplest manner possible.

I wish this bench were in my yard, surrounded by what really is surrounding it (okay, maybe with a bit more warmth included) because it beckons me...to sit...and enjoy...the peaceful solitude of it all.  Taking away with the sound of the waves, all the stress and commotion that life throws at me.

I just want to sit and take a deep breathe in, let it out slowly....and smile!

This is the original picture of the bench overlooking the cold tundra of Lake Michigan in upper Wisconsin.  If it were warmer...it would have taken Superman to remove me from that spot!!

2B Logo Challenge

This was an wonderfully challenging lesson. I am not 100% satisfied with the end results.  I have a few things I want to change on it.  I used a logo I had professionally done for the center.  It didn't seem to be a strong enough file though to show up very well even before I added the vintage peel. I also don't have a full understanding as to why the center portion of the peel has a pink tinge to it.

I had taken a blogging course at one time where we had  lesson on how to create our blog button for people to grab and I kind of by passed that when other things pulled at my time.  I have an idea of how I can do it.  That will be the final thing after I fine tune this into the 'final answer'.

I learned a lot of new things by doing this challenge and I look forward to using them for future projects.   It only took me about two hours but that is because I kept going back and forth between elements and the lesson...pausing and redoing along the way trying to keep up.

The added bonus is that it helped me learn more about the tools in PSE 12 which I am just now starting to use.

Sad thing is....it's time to hit the hay and I want to stay and play!!

This grown up responsibility stuff can really get you down sometimes.  (Smiling).

Thank you, my Dear inspirational Kim.

Photographic Adventures

People do crazy things sometimes.  Rock climbers climb up walls of rock…straight up with only the security of a rope.  Hands protected with gloves.  Feet wearing special cleated shoes to help with grasping the walls assisting with upward and onward movement.  Skydivers jump out of perfectly fine airplanes, falling rapidly thousands of feet downward toward the hard surface of earth depending solely on that fact that some string will pop open a parachute assisting in a softer and safer landing.

Men fight alligators and crocodiles.  Race car drivers maneuver cars at extremely high rates of speed, around and around, trusting they will make the next curve, hoping the others will also.  People jump into Lake Michigan on New Year’s Day for the Polar plunge into frigid, frozen waters.

Photographers…well…we get up at all wee hours of the day to capture a sunrise.  We will stay out until all hours of the night to do some night photography.  Sometimes in the depth of the forest where city lights are non-existent.  We will hike for miles and miles to find the wildlife or waterfalls. We’ll climb mountains, although not necessarily straight up, to capture a view of the world, a cloud covered mountaintop, reflections in the water.

We do this carrying bags of camera equipment, laptops, tripods.  If we plan correctly, we will carry a headlamp light and gps unit and hopefully drinkable water and snacks to munch on. Sometimes we carry a flashlight in hopes to practice some light painting or some tea lights to light up a rock structure.

During the winter, we live for the snow…hopefully freshly fallen and sticking to all the tree branches or a morning of frozen fog on tree branches. We hike through varying depths of snow or during blizzard conditions to capture the beauty of weather.  Like the Polar plungers, we venture out to the frozen tundra of Lake Michigan with cleated shoes, to walk the uneven terrain of frozen waters to capture ice formations.  At wee hours of the morning.  In frigid temperatures that are even more frigid if  you venture to the side of the lake which greets you with what seems like hurricane force, arctic winds.  To capture the majesty of a barren tree.  Although these adventures may seem minimal to those more daring, believe me...the experience of capturing that which we are passionate about is just as much of an adrenalin rush to us.

This is what followed after our early morning trek to photograph nature made ice sculptures. A ride to one of the local state parks, Kohler-Andrea in hopes of capturing a famous photographic spot of winding boardwalks amidst sand dunes with the lake as  a back drop.

Well, it is winter in the Midwest. Thoughts of barren boardwalks are dreams.  I followed the trails to capture photos of exposed tree branches  and dunes covered with snow and even barren sandy areas.  In an attempt to capture something new and different and closer to the water, I worked my way to the other side only to be confronted not by sun and the forty degree temperatures that were predicted for the day, but gray skies and blizzard like winds that immediately changed our pale winter skin to frost bite rosy.

It wasn’t a lost cause.  I did come back with some pleasing photos. Not necessarily what I went for but some surprising landscape photos that actually seemed to capture the mood and weather of the day. (The above was my favorite).

Don’t let the weather discourage you.  Don’t stay inside because you don’t think winter has anything to offer. It does.  It’s own personality which offers up a complete different aura.  A change much appreciated by one that lived in the never changing seasons of the deep south for so many years.

GRATITUDE JOURNAL - 01/14/2014

Today I am thankful for the inaccuracy of the weather man who totally predicted snow that didn't happen

I am thankful for the invention of ice scrapers that allow me to be able to see my way home when the weather is icy.

I am, again, thankful for my mother that worries about me.

For my Best Friend, Becky, that continues to know how to make me smile

Thankful for old friends that tend to pop back in my life from time to time to bring me back to reality while also reminding me that fairy tales might still exist.

Winter Adventures

Saturday morning.  It is the weekend.  I wake to the radio screaming (so it seems) Bruno Mars at me, trying to tell me it is time to get up.  I hit the snooze and look to see it is only 5 am.  My body cusses at my mind asking myself, why..why did I even think it would be okay to wake so early for a photographic journey in the cold morning hours...on the weekend.

I hit the snooze again ten minutes later trying to figure out how I could maybe back out of this schedule.  After all...we were going to Lake Michigan for sunrise on the frozen waters.  Walking on uneven frozen waters has never been something I found very appealing.  Photographing frozen ice...not a big passion.  I have journeyed to Door County and done a bit of it but it was included with other stops of interest on the way...and we stood on land...not the frozen lake.

Well...maybe something interesting would come of the day.  We departed in the dark.  The sky was still overcast. No stars could be seen.  As we slowly made our way east a bit of light, colorful at that, started to greet us so hopes rose a little.

Colorful sunrises during the winter when there is a fresh blanket of snow and barren trees can be...is always very breathtaking.  It is a favorite time of the day for me and many days it is a pure miracle I show up at work.

We were running a bit later than some of the others that actually were going to be there at 5 am.  We started thinking maybe we left too late and worried we would miss the sunrise.  We arrived shortly after 7 am.  The sky had some colorful pinks and yellows to it and clouds still off in the distant.  We crept out on to the frozen water to find the right perspective to hopefully catch something.  We shot ice formations and chatted and waited.

The sun just didn't seem as if it really wanted to rise and hid behind the clouds. Surprisingly, when least expected, it popped out above the lower clouds and blessed us with a colorful sunrise.  The sky was painted reds, yellows, oranges and pinks.  The ice sculptures seemed to come alive.  I still didn't seem to have a lot of passion for what I was trying to capture so I didn't have high expectations of what i had captured but was glad I was experiencing the sunrise, regardless of the temperatures.

I learned a bit.  In the end, my photos weren't winners to many I am sure but I was pleasantly pleased with what I did capture.  After seeing some of the photos captured by others that were there, I know what I need to look for next time.  My concept of my photographic excursions is that if I can learn one thing from them, it is all worth it.

It still has not necessarily increased my passion for it but it has given me enough interest to continue to try in hopes that it will some day.  After all, I'm all for new experiences to help me grow in my creativity.

A Christmas Closeout

Another Christmas done and gone. The onset of the holiday season can bring a very mixed bag of emotions with so many people these days with all the retail and materialistic pressures and wants these days.  It takes so much away from the real meaning of the holiday.  A holiday which should so simply be a couple days or weeks filled with family and fun and celebration of one of the greatest moments of life ever.  Birth.  It brings the financial pressure of spending too much.  It brings the social pressure and financial worry on the opposite end of the spectrum of who is going to buy me something that I need to be sure I buy for.  How much money should I spend on them.  Sheldon purveys the exact feelings when he expresses not celebrating these things with gift because of the pressure of the requirement of returning the act but how to return it at the same level as what you have received.

My holidays are usually mixed with the turmoil of all of that in addition to the fact that my children are all thousands of miles away and the emptiness that exists with the absence of their presence every other year when I am not there with them.  Yet, there also exists the thoughts of times spent with my mother and brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors.  Decorating.  Baking.  Sharing.  Laughing.

And photographing winter in it's finest clothing. Part of my holiday decorating is to change out the photographs on my walls from fall to winter photos.  I even photographed and made my own Christmas cards this year.  That was awesome and will be a creative feat I do more regularly now.

Now...all of that holiday emotion is gone.  It is Saturday.  Christmas has gone by with the wind ..three weeks past.  Winter weather decorated the roads with ice last night and the road sides with vehicles and careless drivers in all directions.  Sideways.  Up side down.  Bumper to bumper.  On top of each other and twisted around each other. The sound of the clock ticking away whispers that soon it will be light out.  The sound of sprinkles hitting the ground tell me that the salt trucks are out in hopes of helping to save those drivers that just can't seem to figure out what it means to drive safely when there is a sheet of slipperiness on the ground beneath them  Another Saturday morning has robbed me of a wonderful sunrise with the winter clouds hiding the blue of the sky above.  The sun...not warm enough to say good morning with a smile on his face.

My Christmas tree stands in the corner saying...today...today is the day.  I am ready to retire for another year.  My branches are exhausted from the adornment of ornaments.  My feet are tired of standing.  The walls of the living room agree as they are tired of the claustrophobic feeling from everything being arranged closer together than normal with the addition of the holiday decor.

I,with the release of all the mixed emotion and commotion, am also ready to get back to a so called normalcy.  Added space.  A feel of cleanliness and open air.  Along with that comes the replacement of excitement that maybe spring will be near.  I remind myself that it is only January and although winter snow has been minimal this year, February is yet to come.  I hope that it will bring warmer weather than the abnormal 20 and 30 degree below normal temperatures that we have had this year so far.  If that means a fresh blanket of white at the foot of the trees, flowing down the hillside of the back yard, warming the frozen garden beds and Milwaukee river frozen waters, I am okay with that.  After all, warmer temperatures mean I can get outside and enjoy the beauty of the outdoors.  My camera readily awaits the attempt to capture black and white while also searching for the colors within that frame work  that will brighten our day.

Closing out Christmas.  Just the next step to winter creativity and spring anticipation.

Finally...Friday

Finally it is Friday.  It has been a long week since coming off of a few weeks that were only partial work weeks what with the holidays and all.  Someone should figure out how to spread those out at the beginning of the year.  We could always add a few in to the weeks that follow to give us that slowing back in process.

I couldn’t sleep last night.  It was nearly 1 am when I finally dozed off.  I hate those nights.  They always seem to fall on week nights.   Work nights when the next morning my alarm screams at me at 5 am.  I don’t remember one ever happening on a weekend night.

I have done quite well in the workout realm of things this week with my goals. I’ll go to the gym again tonight and thus will have completed three days at the gym and one workout here at home.  Winter weather in the extreme changed my schedule a bit.  In addition having to finally get my ears lowered a bit.  I finally found a hair dresser that knows what she is doing. It took me ten years of living here to do so. 

I have written every day even if it is not the most exciting stuff to read and I have probably lost a few of you knowing there are only a few of you already.  I know that is my goal for this weekend.  Finding my writing mojo.  My style. My subjects.  Something to interest you…someone…somewhere…somehow.

I have done some searching on the web which has only distracted me more than anything.   It doesn’t help that by the end of the day when I am attempting to be a conversationalist, I am mentally drained from my other ‘part time’ job.  You know…that one that goes from 8 am until 4:30 or 5.  I have to defeat it.  (She is not a very good conversationalist early in the morning either…I am sure you are all saying.)

I keep trying to write about me…my life…but realistically I can see how that would bore everyone because it kind of bores me also. Unfortunately it is not a total result of it being winter. It is just a result of, well…me letting it be.

This, too, must change.

We have heat wave coming our way this weekend. It might actually reach 40 degrees.  Woo hoo.  I will definitely be out and about somewhere.  The weather will still be a bit iffy with some freezing rain and rain and fog.  Sunday looks as if it will be  a day of ‘reckoning’.  Photo ops, here I come.  Now the feat is to be sure something doesn’t change that.

I feel my internal chakras really churning from lack of something.  It is as if someone has a hold of me and I am fighting to get loose.  Hopefully that hold is weak enough, or I am strong enough to pry the fingers loose. It truly is up to me to figure out how to speak up and say no when I should.  Discarding controlling people in my life has always been difficult and I have no clue why. I hate to disappoint people.  I feel selfish when I try to take care of my needs first.  I haven’t found the right people to compromise with?

So…one foot in front of the other…here I go to face the world again.

JANUARY 8 - Gratitudes

My number one thankfulness for today is that my Prius got me to work and back today despite the continued cold temperatures.

Thankful for the above 0 temperatures today.  What a thing to be thankful for, right?

My new hair salon person.  Wow...what a difference she made.

Thankful for my neighbor who recommended my new salon

Thankful for my handyman who fixed my pellet stove.

RANDOM RAMLINGS

I love my office space.  I love the quiet, all to myself spot I have created here.  A couple improvements need to be made like a real desk.  Currently I have an old kitchenette table that I use.  Not a full fledged dining table but one of those smaller sized ones that would fit into a little kitchen nook area.  It’s just a tad bit high to make my arms and hands comfortable with the key board.   Maybe it is the way my body is built because I seem to have the same problem at work. I can’t seem to get my hands in the proper position to be able to utilize the speed that I know I have for typing….without making mistakes.

A bit more organization is needed also.  Someone bought a small filing cabinet for me some time ago but they are pretty cheaply made and you can’t even open the drawers all the way. Once they are weighted down with paperwork it is even worst. I do question whether I have much use for them now in this so called paperless society – not.  What ever happened to that thought?  I don’t pack rat documents as much as I used to.  There was a point in time when I would keep years of utility and credit card statements.  I used to have to keep them though when I did my volunteer wildlife rehab work.  I don’t need to keep most of them any longer though.  Shredders are a wonderful thing.

I am a lover of owls…and several other bird species.  I would like to find some owl representation to sit in my space here to, well, look over me.  My lap top, of course, has a clock of sorts on it…but a real old time clock would be nice to sit in here also. I have a small vase of dried lily of the valleys from my gardens and I need to bring it back in.  It currently sits dormant in my photography studio ..another space calling for attention this winter.

Having this space that I have created for the purpose of allowing me to sit peacefully, thoughtfully for my writings has really helped in keeping my initiative up to get up an hour earlier every day.  Now, its only been three days…four counting today so I have, what 56 more days to go to make this a habit, I go with the people that believe it only takes 60 and not those that believe it takes 90.  Now..it is just a matter of finding what is going to get people interested in listening to me.  In visiting an communicating with me to make me feel that I have a purpose with all of this.

I find a good site on the web last night with lots of interesting activity on writing and blogging with wordpress sites.  I’ve considered going to WordPress but I don’t want to start all over again.  I need t figure out if there is a way to convert  my current blogspot to wordpress.  Does it really matter?  From gaining a community perspective?  No, I’m guessing it is more a matter of content of subject matter.  I know that is the main thing I need to figure out.

I have gone back and forth and included many different things and maybe that is okay.  I just have not stuck to it and so, my blog goes stagnant.  I love nature and gardening, hiking and travelling.  Those have always been my intent for subject matter.  I just need to figure out how to present to make people want to listen to me. I need to figure out how to ‘write’ it to make it interesting and attractive to people all over.

Today was just a rambling day as I couldn’t get my thoughts together on the other things I was going to ramble about. I apologize if I have bored you.  I believe you will have to put up with a few of these types of posts which are thought processes for me in order to move to the next step.  Practice sessions, per se.

My end goal is to blog about  photography, nature, wildlife,  gardening, trails in the area to hike, events to enjoy, and worldly travels with a dabble of cooking here and there.

Please be patient with me as I figure this blogging world out.

Really…I am a writer and a photographer.

Thanks for listening and words of your wisdom are always helpful.

Would you like you, if you met you?

I don’t do a whole lot with facebook.  I have it mainly to keep up with my children in Texas.  I also keep in touch with other relatives lives through it.  I do not condone having important events announced first that way…such as engagements, weddings but, I get over it.  I use it to promote my photography but not half as much as I shouId.  One of those goals for this year. I do browse through it quickly sometimes just to see some of the funny cartoons and inspirational messages that might pop up now and then.  So I saw this one and thought it was an interesting rather deep thought.

First, my daily mantra to keep things going….

I am a writer and a photographer.

My answer to that ponderous question definitely would change on a daily, or maybe just weekly basis.  Sometimes daily.  Some weeks I love myself extremely.  I believe most people like me when they meet me.  They don’t see the inside very much unless they are around me for awhile as I tend to keep things cooped up inside, letting them out on weekends when I sit at home, crying in front of some silly movie on the television.

I tend to let myself get lost in what everyone else wants me to be when it comes to having some relationship thing going on.  New years start and I try to gather my strength again to make ‘me’ better.  To find ‘me’ again.  Then that desire for Prince Charming starts again.  I do need to realize…that my Prince Charming looks over me every day and I need to love myself deeply, every day.

Yes….me…I love me when I meet me.  It’s that me that some others want me to be that I don’t like…because..it isn’t me.  That person…is …boring and stressed..and lost.

Me…I…am a simplistic, nature loving, giving person.  Yes, sometimes too giving but isn’t that the nature of being a woman, a mother?  I have been called a very patient person many times in my life.  I do find that I am losing that a bit .  Yet, when I think about it, it’s more so when I’m lost.  I get frustrated with everything.  I’m not happy.

I’ve often been told that I have a very soothing personality that balances everyone out. Calming. (pretty sure they haven’t seen me blow up. But then most people don’t.  I hold it in.  Way too long and then one day, I break down. I give up.  I make up my mind that things will change for me (maybe not a good change for the other person involved) but for me and there is no reasoning.  Do I regret those decsions? Sometime down the road maybe but I can only think of one of those decisions that I’ve made that I still have regrets for today and that was to move too far away from my children.

I love life.  Nature. Sunsets. The beauty of everything around that we have been blessed with.  I love to laugh and love to make other people laugh. I love to garden.  I love to help other people. I am a customer service rep (my secondary job – smiling) and I love dealing with the people to insure their ordering needs are met.  I love beng a person people can go to for things. I love doing little surprising things for people. Personal things that touch their heart and soul.  I guess..that is what I also expect from them in return.

So…the answer today…the answer this week (since I’ve been really good with some of my new year goals and aspirations) is, yes…I’ve met me – ME – this week and I like me.

Hello, Me. It’s good to have you back in my life.  I hope you will stay for a while because you are one awesome inspiration!!!