Tag Archives: random musings

Pause

The fact that tomorrow is a new month AND the start of Lent gives me a great excuse to pause and blog. I’ve failed to post for over two weeks because, frankly, I’ve just been that busy. My husband and I actually had to forcefully block out Friday afternoon to spend time with one another.

But as I always say, being busy is a good thing — as long as you remember to take time to breathe. I’ve been trying to do that in the evening lately, putting the laptop away and saying, “Its okay if I don’t blog today. It’s okay if I don’t edit those photos today. I need to find peace.”

08/52 : Looking

And its helped. I’ve battled with a bit of anxiety for the last few months — I blame it squarely on the world today and the sheer overwhelming levels of negativity I keep experiencing online and in the real world.

I don’t deal with negativity well. At all. And as such I’ve found myself fighting with small panic attacks (that I’m quickly learning to work my way through), and my muscles and joints feel like I’m 80 years old with arthritis. I’ve self diagnosed it as stress-induced tension, and I’m still working on stopping that.

My goal for Lent is to really focus on being positive and more peaceful. Work hard to get the job done, but if it falls short of a deadline I’m not going to beat myself up so hard.

I am without a doubt my own biggest critic. As such, I’ve spent the last week and a half editing and re-editing photos I took for an event. I’m still not satisfied with them, but I realize they are as good as they will get. Will the client be happy? I hope so. I’ll send them off tonight after I look through them one final time.

Part of me keeps reminding myself that I am always — always — harder on myself than anyone else could ever be. Part of me realizes, though, this is a lesson learned that I need to upgrade my equipment to match the job I’m trying to do. My husband wouldn’t play a concert on a learner Casio. I can’t do professional jobs with a learner DSLR.

All this being said, this coming Sunday I’ll have a triple-sized Photo Share. But for now… I’ll pre-share a couple photos… and once again say its okay to pause, take a moment, take a breath, and then continue on…

Bradford Pear

Picnic by the lake

Looking for focus

img_20161201_014159I’ve done a lot of writing this year… I’ve just failed to complete most of it. My blog’s post feed has had many drafts never see the light of day, most eventually just getting deleted.

The reason for that is that I feel like I have been lacking focus on all of those posts. My mind running around in twenty different directions, wanting to write about every little nuance of a train of thought… only to get derailed and frustrated. Scared of the comments I’ll get.

2016 has been an interesting year, full of ups, downs and plenty of straight stretches of just keep on, keepin’ on. And as we enter the last month of the year, I find myself needing to focus on so many little tasks I’ve let just ride through the year. My to do list of things I’d like to get done before Christmas is a little overwhelming.

But, my mom told me about how at mass this last weekend, the emphasis was on it being the season of Advent. We are in a time of preparation. And a great way for me to prepare for Christmas is to get all these things off my back that I’ve just procrastinated handling. All these things that are subconsciously holding me back from enjoying the season.

One thing that’s weighed on my mind, though, is how I’ve neglected this blog. My goal for December is to post EVERY day in preparation for Christmas. Some days it may only be a photo or two. Other days, maybe I’ll take my chances and be more candid than normal on my thoughts about the world. Who knows. But I want to write. I need to write.

Last night, I watched the special movie Christmas of Many Colors and I bawled though the end of it. I couldn’t begin to tell you how badly I needed to see that. I was literally doing the ugly crying thing at the end. Pretty sure that had my husband been home, I’d have scared him.

Understand, being married to a man who is working with the touring industry — be in when he’s playing music or driving bus — December (and January, and February, and often March) is a scary time. The touring just stops, and so does our bread and butter. But somehow, someway, over the last 10 years we’ve pulled through. Sometimes its been just relying on friends and family to help us. Other times it comes out of the blue, and we can make our mortgage and put food on our table. Yet the start of every December, this stress creeps up. How are we going to do this again?

We will get through this winter once again. One way or another it’ll happen. We always do. Some people would call it luck. Others would just call it good networking. I choose to call it faith that He will provide. And I will be ready to accept any gift he gives us to get us through the winter.