Popping in to Say Hello

Back in October, we hunkered down for the upcoming winter. You know, we cleaned up the yard, put away stuff that can't handle extremely cold weather and wrapped up the pots we left outside...but the cold weather never came. What you Peorians experienced instead was a typical New Mexican winter--lows in the high 30s with the occasional dip below that and highs in the high 40s and then 50s and now 60s and 70s. And it's only mid-March! All that's missing are the massive winds that sandblast your legs nd gust into your eyes at 50 mph. You'll dig out sand from every crack and crevice of your body for days. Seriously.

'Round here we're gearing up for the Surly Young Man's first visit in a year. He's flying up and hanging out with us this coming Wednesday. I'm so excited about seeing him again. Can't wait to hear all about his life out there.

Besides planning for the SYM's arrival, I've been keeping busy teaching Surly 2.0 how to drive. Ah yes, that teenage rite of passage that has parents hanging on to the door handle, pushing the imaginary brake pedal on the passenger side, and reaching over and yanking the steering wheel away from the mailbox he's about to side-swipe. I'm sure I've got a few more gray hairs to show for this new adventure we're on and I've still got another 40 hours and 10 months to go before he gets his license. Yippee.

Well, just wanted to pop in and say hello. I know I've neglected the blog some this year and I apologize. I haven't had much of anything interesting to say these days. I'm still very much involved in the Project 52 group and enjoying it tremendously. This week's assignment is "Up Close and Personal." This is one of three I'm submitting:

Have a great weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

How did you celebrate? I hung around the house and edited photos:

We don't really celebrate this "holiday" but I did tell the Husband I loved him. :) That counts for something, right? What did you do?

Of God and Chocolate

When I was 19 I met Ron Arias, a successful (and incredible) Chicano writer for People magazine. He was the second Chicano journalist I knew of (Geraldo Rivera being the first but let's not talk about him).  I was smitten, not with Mr. Arias himself but with the idea of becoming as good and as successful as he was. At that time I breathed writing. It was my life. I dreamed complete novels I'd write some day and phrases streamed through my head like music from an iPod. Every action and scene and experience I had contained a poem within it or parts of sentences that described it. Life was poetic, lyrical.

I applied to the Journalism school at UT Austin and was accepted. I'd heard it was incredible and I saw it as the first in a series of stepping stones towards reaching my dream. I was going to write for People magazine!

And then reality struck in the form of my parents. I was the first girl in a traditional Mexican family. At 19, my curfew was 11 pm. There was no way in hell I was going to strike out on my own. Girls don't do that. My parents put their collective foot down and not only said, "No" but punctuated the air with a resounding, "No way!" Being young and naive, I didn't know where to turn for help. I didn't know there was such a thing as financial aide and scholarships. I probably could have qualified based on my ethnicity alone.

I think everyone has a point in their lives--a fork in the road--they can look back to and say, "Here. This is the place where I could have turned this way but I turned that way instead." This was the decisive moment in my life. This was my fork in the road.

Not going off to UT Austin propelled me in a completely different direction than I would have chosen. It took me years to make peace with that decision (because it really, really hurt) but eventually I did, believe it or not. I learned to embrace and love my life as it's turned out. There are so many things I wouldn't have done had I ended up in Austin. Besides the obvious, like that I would never have met my wonderful husband and had my amazing kids, there's the biggest one: I don't think I would ever have become a Christian. I think I would have become so focused on becoming a successful writer that I wouldn't have bothered to seek God. I would have let my ego grow and grow and eventually would have been consumed by it.

And why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because after that vent I posted last month, I had some time to think. There's something I've been trying to ask for the last three years since I started my walk with God but I couldn't quite find the words to formulate the question. Last week, the words lined themselves up in one of those quiet moments that happen so rarely for me and whispered themselves into a question: "Can I be a successful photographer AND be a devoted Christian?" And then the second question came at its heels: "Or are they mutually exclusive?"

This question came about because, for the last three years I've been learning about how God blesses us with certain skills and gifts. Nothing would please God more than for us to be able to use those blessings to do His will. But how do you use photography--something I enjoy so much--to please Him? And how can I be successful at it without letting it consume me? The answer is, I don't think I can. In order to be that successful at anything, you have to not just dream it and live it but breathe it.

I mulled this question over for awhile. I don't think I know a nationally known photographer that is a devoted Christian. In fact, every successful photographer I know is either divorced, single (sans kids) or male (meaning the wife holds down the fort while he goes around the world.) If there is a successful, nationally known, Christian photographer out there, I'd like to know who it is and then I want to know how he/she does it so that photography doesn't become bigger than God for him/her, so that photography doesn't become his/her god.

The answers to my questions were a little bit sobering and might even be viewed by someone else as a little bit sad. Why should we have to put someone else (God) ahead of our own desires? The truth is, those answers helped me align my priorities a little bit more and took the pressure off having to perform at a level I'm not at nor will ever be. But without God first in my life, I'm truly nothing. I've been there, done that and never want to go back again.

I'll be the first to tell you that I'm not the greatest Christian you'll ever meet. I fall flat on my face quite often and I have a lot of improving to do but I'm trying and I'm learning. The realization that I want God above all else in my life has helped give me perspective on what is truly important---and it's not being nationally known. I know that if I continue down this path I will eventually find a way to glorify God through whatever skill/gift He decides to use to do His will through me. In the meantime, I will continue to learn and grow spiritually and photographically.

About the photo above: the most recent Project 52 assignment is to photograph chocolate. This one is an outtake but you can view my entries at www.flickr.com/lolatakespictures.

God is in the Big Picture

Still Life from the Project 52 Assignment.
See the last 2 paragraphs for more info.

Ok, I'm feeling better after that last post. I sulked around for the rest of the night, went to bed and woke up in a much better mood. Maybe I was just tired or maybe the cold days have me down but whatever it was, I'm over it now and back on my horse.

In the process of getting out of my funk I had a good talk with myself (actually God had a smack down with me). My goal has never been about being a recognized photographer. It's always been about taking the best picture I can with the hope that it will bring someone else joy or contemplation or whatever else pictures bring. My ultimate goal has always been to express myself. I was born with an incredible need to create. All of the jobs I've ever had have revolved around that need. I've worked as an ad builder, a typesetter, curriculum developer, radio reporter and even as a Pampered Chef lady. All of those jobs required creativity in one form or another. Creating is like breathing for me and the times I've been stifled have also been the times I've felt the most lost and directionless. I need to create. (Yes, I know I'm strange.)

I'm also a perfectionist with an innate need to excel at everything I do because I'll feel like a failure if I don't. These last four years have been the longest stretch of my life where I haven't excelled in anything I've done. I haven't accomplished anything worth mentioning to anyone else. Yes, I know it's petty in the grand scheme of things but if you knew my childhood you'd understand why. And as petty as that sounds, I think that finally got to me.

Okay here comes the God part so tune out if you wish but I'm going to type it anyway:
It's no secret to those that know me well that God has been working in my life these last few years in a big way. I finally feel as though my spiritual house is in order and I've never been more at peace with myself.  Yet, those self-doubts got the better of me. Maybe it's a bit of spiritual warfare but nevertheless, I was humbled once again. Then God spoke to me very quietly. It's one of those things that started as a whisper but grew to a shout by the time I woke up the next morning: I don't need to be pleasing everyone else out there. I need to be pleasing God.

So there you have it. I am feeling much, much better about my failures and my mediocrity and my successes once again because no matter what, I am still creating. I'm grateful to be able to do that.

On another note, there have been some changes around here. I updated the blog template just to give it a try. I'm not sure it'll stick but I like this layout a bit more than the last although I think it can get a little confusing. UPDATE: I've been playing around with the built-in Blogger templates as well as some free ones I can hack my way through. Eventually I will settle on one so don't be surprised if things continue to change.

I also added a few tabs up at the top in case you're completely bored and want to poke around this blog. I might add a few more but I'm not sure just yet how much I want to say.

Finally, I'm participating in an online workshop--Project 52-- run by Don Giannatti of the Lighting Essentials blog. He throws out one assignment per week designed to test and grow your photography skills then he critiques all the entries. So far it hasn't been too tough and his critiques of my submissions have been pretty insightful. My hope is to get to the point where I can photograph exactly what I've envisioned without panicking while setting up the shot--I tend to do that.

The photo at the top of the page is from the Still Life assignment for Project 52. I've never done a Still Life photo before but I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. It gets critiqued later this week.

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. ;)