This one is just to vent because I need to vent today

Blegh.

I'm uninspired, discouraged and in a funk. You know what kind--the one that makes you want to chuck it all in and start all over. No, no, no, I'm not chucking in my life...just my hobbies. Mainly just the writing and photography. I'm discouraged with both to the point of just letting them go so that I don't have to work at either of them anymore. I've no direction in either hobby and therefore no goal, hence nothing to write about or take pictures of. It's the same old question I've been asking myself for the last few years: "Where exactly do I fit in here? Should I even be pursuing these hobbies? Why am I even pursuing these hobbies?"

I used to be good at one of those (all those years ago) but, I let it go for far too long, I think. Raising kids and cooking meals and cleaning house got in the way and the pencils and textured paper got put away somewhere. I lost my groove, my mojo. I thought I'd found it again back in '07 when I was kicking some serious ass writing news stories for a radio station...but then life changed dramatically and I had to put all that stuff away again.

I haven't been able to start up again and I've never been able to quite get into the photography thing. I've loved photography since I was 16 but I'm just not that good at it. I'm stuck between snapshots and uninspired photos and I just can't seem to drag my carcass up to the next level though I keep trying.  But why do I keep trying?

I remember when I was young and full of piss and vinegar and if someone told me I wasn't good enough I kept trying to just to prove them I was. Where did that person go? When did I lose that piss and vinegar? When did I become such a chicken shit? When did I get so scared of failing? I never used to care but now it's as if I'm so afraid of failing that I end up not moving at all. Is that what getting old does to you? You get so conscientious of your every move that you end up never moving again?

*insertdeepbreathhere*

Oh, I know eventually I'll kick myself out of this funk and get moving again. I'll develop a new goal for the old hobbies and pick up the pencil or the camera once again and try to find a new perspective. But for now, let me wallow in my self-pity. I need to get it out of the way before I can start anew.

Them Barns

A different view of that barn from the other day:

Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies...

Here's the rest of the barn from yesterday's pic:

Glimpses

There's a barn on one of the back roads between the river and Cazenovia. I'd seen it a few times but this time we stopped to get it's pic:

Happy Feets

I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying this but it seems like the feet are getting better these days.  Let me fill you in:

I've been seeing a podiatrist for pretty painful plantar fasciitis on my right foot. (Mind you, this has been going on since March, to the point of making me curl up in a ball on the couch, whimpering in self-pity). He first taped my feet, then molded them for orthotics. A couple of days later I developed a cyst on the ball of one foot and we talked about draining it. The day I went in for that, he felt around the cyst and stated he'd rather I went in for an MRI. Just to be sure. He said cysts there are uncommon and he wanted to rule out other stuff. I agreed. I mean, I'd rather have an MRI than a needle poked into the ball of my foot.

I gotta say, the MRI was fun. I'd had a stressful week at work so I got to relax and listen to some good tunes while the machine jack hammered it's way around my foot. By the time I went back to see the doc to get the results, it was clear that this bump was indeed a cyst and that it had popped on it's own. It has since filled and popped a few more times. Ugh!

I received my orthotics the same day as the MRI results, but, as luck would have it, not one pair of shoes I own fit properly with them inside. I've either broken them in so that they now rub where they never used to or the shoe is so tight it hurts just to wear it. So, I spent two hours in a shoe store trying on pair after pair with the orthotics in them and found two pairs I could wear to work that a. weren't tennis shoes and b. were semi-comfortable. Sadly, I returned both pairs the next day because when I tried going up and down stairs with them in my house it became evident that neither pair was going to work. Back to the shoe store I went where I traded both pairs for a cheap pair of "dressy" tennis shoes. Dr. Scholl's no less. They are comfortable, though.

I finally made it out to the mall a couple of days ago where I found a decent pair of Clarks at Macy's that I've been wearing for the last couple of days. Yep, I paid a small fortune for them but I think my days of Payless shoes are over.

This evening, as I sit here and type this I can tell you that, for the first time in a very long time, my feet don't hurt. I would certainly call that progress!

It's been tough breaking in the orthotics and I'm only able to wear them half a day at a time still but even that little has helped tremendously! And for that, I'm grateful. :)

I leave you with a pic of an old car we came across in Cazenovia. The junkyard we wandered through was filled with these old cars--nothing "newer." While it was a little sad to see so many great cars of the late 40s, 50s and 60s there, I'm glad they have a home...if that makes any sense at all.

Cazenovia, IL

So last month a friend of mine and I took a tour of the backwoods in Woodford county. We drove down dirt roads and just had a great time exploring the area with no particular place to go. We stumbled across some interesting places, not to mention some interesting people--one lady in particular who tried to kick us off a public street. It pays to know your photographic rights so when I mentioned we had every right to walk up and down the street and take pics of everything in sight, she backed off. Then she turned very nice and gave us permission to walk around her lot and look at old rusting cars. For that I'm grateful! Sadly, none of those pics turned out decent for me, guess I just wasn't feeling those old cars, but my friend got a good one. Check it out and tell him I sent you.

The ones that did turn out for me that I semi-liked were these:

For some reason I've been having a really tough time shooting landscapes recently. I think I'm just over landscape photography in general. It definitely doesn't draw me in as much as it used to--not that I was ever really good at it. But, meh, I still have fun doing it when I can. 

I'm still looking through this batch of pics so I hope to have some more later. 

P.S. Had a blast at the Blogger Bash! Quite a few of us showed up. Next time maybe some of you others will. ;)

Wading

Slowly but surely I'm starting to wade through the pics of Eureka/Goodfield/Woodford County that I took last month while traipsing around the countryside with a good friend. It goes without saying that the barn between Goodfield and Eureka is one of my favorites. I didn't grow up with barns like these in southwest so every time I see one I have to stop long enough to admire its beauty. If I'm driving I slow down just to take it all in. Barns around here are awesome!

I know it's been featured on this blog a few times but I love going back to that place and trying to find another interesting angle:

It'll be featured here a few more times before the end of the year I'm sure. ;)

Heads Up, People! Blogger Bash Coming Up!

Bet you thought I forgot all about you! I didn't. I've been busting my butt processing pics from the last shoots I did. Then my iMac had to be turned over to the iMac hospital in the middle of it all because my screen died. Thankfully, I was smart enough to get AppleCare when I bought it so replacement of the display didn't cost me a dime. Or I should say, I paid for that up front. I've got another year left on the warranty. Let's hope that if anything else goes wrong it'll be before the warranty runs out!

Now I've just popped in to tell you about the Blogger Bash. These are held for all the local bloggers to meet on the fifth Tuesday of the month--so they're only held a few times per year. The next one is coming up this Tuesday, Nov. 29, at 6 pm at Schooner's on East War Memorial Drive. Billy Dennis from the Peoria Pundit said to, "Be there or be talked about."  I think I'll actually make it out there this time. I went last time, too, and had a great time. Maybe some more of yous will show up this time. If so, leave me a comment so I can watch for you. 

See you later this week with some pics! 

I'm in One of Those Dreams Where I'm Running Through a Tub of Jello

And I'm still way behind.


I think I had five different photo shoots in the last 5-6 weeks, all of which I enjoyed tremendously but which have taken up my time in the digital darkroom. I've got two more to post-process, one of which I'm halfway through, before I can start looking at the Woodford County pics I took a couple of weeks ago.

That's the problem with digital cameras, isn't it? It's easy to take loads more pics than you're prepared to process afterwards. :)

In other news: My computer screen has been doing some funky things lately. I finally called Apple and was able to get an okay to get it fixed but I've got to take it in to a place in Peoria myself if I want a fast turnaround. I'm just glad I got the AppleCare warranty for it when I bought it, otherwise I'd be pretty ticked off right now. Was thinking about doing the same with the iPhone but I'm leaning more towards sticking with the Verizon insurance. Yes, my deductible is higher but Apple won't cover a lost a stolen phone. I also tend to upgrade about every 2 years so I don't want to buy a warranty that will run out in before I can get an upgrade. So many decisions to make lately!

A foot update: my feet still hurt. I finally went in to be fitted for orthotics. I'm still waiting for those to come in but now I've developed what appears to be a cyst right on the ball of my foot. I was doing okay with that because it wasn't really hurting but this week it seems to have doubled in size and now it hurts to step down on it, so much so that I've been putting all my weight on the outside of my foot. So, I'm going in tomorrow to get it drained. With a long needle. I must be completely nuts to do this because I know it's going to hurt like the dickens but I'm out of options. I can try to wait it out but those cysts can last quite awhile before they go away. 
 
*sigh* I'm really hoping I can get my feet back to where they used to be--healthy and strong. I'm so tired of hurting. :/

"You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going." - P.J. O'Rourke

I've become the parent I never wanted to be--the one that spends an unbelievable amount of time shuttling kids around from one event to another. For the last 20 years I've made sure my kids never participated in more than one event at a time because I was adamant I wasn't going to be *that* parent. Well, they've stuck to their end of the bargain but I wasn't counting on having seemingly super social kids who want to go to this game and that sleep over...and there are a lot of those events to attend! Now it seems that if I'm not dropping off one kid somewhere I'm picking up the other one from somewhere else. I wonder when it will end and then I dread that in a short couple of years it will end. Parenting bites!

Anyhow, I had a chance to get out shooting last Friday with a friend. We checked out some areas around Eureka, Goodfield, Cazenovia and Lowpoint. There's an old abandoned building in Lowpoint that we stopped to inspect. I love the amount of old buildings around this area!

I also recently upgraded my old clunky phone that I got four years ago--amazing how fast that thing became outdated--to an iPhone (yes, I'm one of those people who pre-ordered the iPhone 4s a couple of weeks ago). I'm completely in love with Siri and have also started playing with the camera more--I had to get to know Siri really well before I could move on to the other fun gadgets on this phone. Siri is awesome but, man, that camera has more megapixels than my first Nikon DSLR! I'm loving it! This is one of the pics I took with it that day:

I debated on whether or not to get an iPhone or a Droid. I researched both pretty extensively and, while I'm a little disappointed the screen size didn't get larger for my blind eyes, I'm really, really glad I chose the iPhone. "Sweet!" is the word that comes to mind when I describe it but I've been a Mac fan since 1993 so I'm a bit biased. ;)


I've got more pics to post but they will be coming slowly as I'm way behind on post-processing these days. Just make sure you check back later.