Tag Archives: challenges

Photo challenges

I love photo challenges. I love being pushed to use my camera (be it my DSLR or my phone) every single day.

Over the last month, over on Instagram, I’ve participated in the #bloggerlifechallenge. It really challenged me at times and made me think outside of the box a little bit. As a result, I’ve noticed a definite improvement in the photos I’ve been taking.  (Hat’s off to Kara at The Knight’s Place for putting this one together. @theknightsplace I seriously enjoyed it more than usual.) As such, I don’t want to stop.

I went out on a search for a photo challenge for November. I found a few, but none really seemed to fit me. So for the first time, I made my own. This time, instead of it just being on Instagram (and shared to my Tumblr page) as I usually do these challenges, I’m going to correspond these photos with NaBloPoMo — National Blog Posting Month.  I’m determined to not only take a photo every day, based on this photo challenge, but I will write a blog post about the photo. It might be short. It might be long. But this is my goal.

November Image Challenge

I don’t expect anyone to join me, but if anyone should choose to do so, I would be honored. I’ll be using the hashtag #MusWidNov2015 for all the social media posts of these images.

Crossing Paths

Surrounded by friends at my husband's birthday party a few years ago.

Growing up, I used to say that sometimes I felt like I’d already crossed paths with the man I’d marry some day. I just didn’t know him yet.

Had I crossed paths with him? I’m honestly not sure. The time line of when I visited Nashville the first time and when he moved here is a little fuzzy. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. But it was something I always had fun thinking about.

I still think about that sort of phenomenon from time to time. In the last few years, as I’ve made friends around Nashville, I’ve ended up shaking my head in amusement. How many people I, today, call friends that I once saw on stage at some concert back in Texas. I have to laugh to myself how back then they were just some musician, and I was just some fan in the crowd. Today, I call them friend.

It seems like every time I turn around, I am meeting someone new that makes us both go, “How did we not meet sooner!?” due to mutual friendships we discover, or we can pin point being at the same place at the same time. We probably stood side-by-side at some point, but we were each just a face in the crowd to each other then.

We are all just a face in the crowd to someone, and its so strange to think how that stranger could some day come to play a key role in our life. As I look at photos of old friends with their new friends, I find myself wondering how they met that person. How did they come to know each other?

As I marvel at the friendships I have to day, I find myself wondering about the ones that are still to come. The ones that come with new jobs and raising kids. The ones that come from organizations and seminars. The ones I find on Twitter and in the Blogosphere.

I straddle the line of introvert and extrovert these days. It kind of depends on my mood and the situation as to which way I lean. Either way, though, I’ve found myself craving the relationships I have with people. The boost and joy I get from interacting with others.

We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.
—Virginia Satir, family therapist

We all have a need for each other, and that person standing beside you on the elevator today may some day be your daughter’s best friend’s mother. The guy stuck in traffic beside you on the interstate might be your co-worker in five years at a new job.

Who knows! It’s fun to think about and wonder. It makes you look around and pay a little extra attention to the people around you. It might make you reach out and just make a new friend on your own, for no real purpose other than you like their jacket.

It’s all about the people around us. Take a minute today and take stock of those people. See them as a person with a story… not just another human being trying to make it through this “rat race” we call life. It just might make your day… and theirs.