I have been a bad blogger so far in March.....

Gosh....I just don't know where to start.  Things have been sort of crazy lately and if it is not one thing it is another.  I keep saying I am going to update my blog and I always get side tracked.  I did make some "goals" for the new year; rather than "resolutions".  Some I have been doing well with, some I have scratched the surface with and some are still to come. Rome wasn't built in a day people!

One of my goals was to do my Daily Snapshot; yes, daily!  So far I have not missed a single day.  Each snapshot is from the day of posting of just within a few days.  That was part of my goal.  I thought, I enjoy my photography and I enjoy seeing new things so it was a good way to force me out of the house.  Now, I will be honest, there have been a couple pictures snapped from the comfort of my pj's & my car!  Hey, even when I was sick I made my self get out!  We are not even through the 1st quarter of the year but I am happy with myself that I have kept it up so far.

Another goal was to start getting back to the old me.  The one that did not worry so much about what everyone else thinks.  That is a downfall of living in a small town for sure!  Every which way you turn, no matter what you are doing or not doing you are being judged.  Not like you are not judged every where, all the time but I guess in a small town there is only so much for people with no life of their own to do than to nose in everyone's life but their own.  I have done a lot of biting my tongue as to not hurt the feelings of others despite the fact that very often they hurt mine.  I had become so "nice" that it was starting to wear me down.  So I have done well with that goal.  There are areas I still need to improve on but I am moving right along.  I mean let's be realistic here; biting one's tongue only works until there is nothing left to bite!

The advice I have given those around me:  If you don't want to know the TRUTH, Please do not ask me because that is what you are going to get.  I will put it as nicely as possible until pushed too far but none the less the truth will come out.  One of us may wind up face first in the mud but that is just part of it!

I also made a goal to do more things this year that in past years for whatever reason I had not done.  Mostly simple things; things that may seem trivial to others but of course that is why they are my goals and not yours. HA!   I did not even make a list really, I figured I would know them as they happened.  I mean really simple.  I took myself to the movies (yes. me, myself & I. Not sure my sister believed that one at first).  No this is not major earth-shattering even but none the less it is something I never would have done in the past.  I enjoyed it; I will be doing it again I am positive.  It was in the middle of a Monday too, there were only a couple other people in the movie I was watching, it was peaceful.  I loaded up my dog a couple Mondays ago and we took a hike.  Nope, not a walk in the park or around the blog.  We actually set out on a hiking trail, spent some time sitting out on the rocks at the edge of the lake on a comfortable breezy day.  It was WONDERFUL!  It was so peaceful so relaxing.  Again not earth-shattering but something I would have never done before.  I am not a very trusting person so I tend to stay on paths that follow the roads or stay out in the open, I don't tend to venture off like that alone.  I took a painting class one Friday night with a group of friends and new friends in Knoxville.  Not something I would have really jumped to do in the past but I LOVE IT!  I was a little nervous about it, I am outgoing when you get to know me but to be honest I am not big on meeting new people.  Again though, love it!  I would do it again for sure!  I broke out a sketch book.  I have not done that since I was in maybe freshman/sophomore year of high school!  I have always had a creative side but somewhere over the years I have lost touch with it.  So there are just a few of the changes I have made so far....not all of them but I can only write about so many at once......I am making up for lost time here!  LOL

I met up with a very sweet old friend of mine, Amy Reece Spahr, for dinner one night in NC.  We had not seen one another for 16 years!  It was so great!  I am so glad I drove the little way after work that Friday to be able to see her and catch up!

February - WOW - February was a strange month for me.  It was filled with a lot of stress, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of emotions.  February was literally a month of connections for me.  Some old, some new and maybe some still to be?  Not for sure on that one.  I mean something was seriously in the air last month with the people in my life.  I have to read back over emails and replay conversations in my head really trying to take it all in.  I do have to say that I was just really taken back by some of it.  Left a little speechless in some situations.  (ha ha hold the comments on me being speechless)  I mean what is it in people that years later...some over 13 years later finally deciding to email me, call me, tell me all these things all at once.  I am still unsure how to handle some it or what to think of it.  Some I am unsure about, some I feel maybe I should have given more response to but had they known how much I was having thrown at me and from how many directions out of the blue; maybe they would understand my lack of response.  One can only hope.  Gosh, one person told me everything you would ever want to hear(and good lord it was sincere); I did a lot of crying, a lot; of course there is such a thing as too late.  I mean the ship only holds anchor for so long, there comes a time when it sails.  Sometimes, eventually, it may make it's way back around to where it once was but sometimes....it sets off on a one-way course.  We simply can't always control things in life we just have to go with the waves, navigate the best we can and pray we don't sink along the way!

Clearly it has been a stressful few weeks and last Friday at work was very trying.  My sweet niece Starla (13 yrs) decided while out shopping Saturday morning she wanted to get me something to make me smile.  So she picked something out to buy with her own money but only had enough money for one thing so she put back what she had gotten for herself and bought me a gift.  She was so excited to bring it straight to me she called on their way home.  It was so sweet and made me smile for sure!  Even when my family can drive me insane I always know how very blessed I am to have them.  I love them all!

Most of you know work has been stressful for me since the fall.  I have been working on improving that situation.  Things don't happen over night. There are days I am ready to just give up and continue to tough it out (sort of like when your drop a rock down the well and you feel you could sit there for days and never here it hit) and other days I feel a little better about there being a light at the end of the tunnel.  I am trying to manage that stress.  I am trying to find different ways that work for me.  I have actually went to bed earlier a few days this week and last night I never once turned my laptop on once I got home!  I can honestly say I don't recall the last time that happened.

My web design business is gradually starting to get more calls.  Things got a little quite for a while and I was starting to get concerned.  I have met with 2 potential new clients already in March and have my fingers crossed that will all work out.  I have 2 ads coming out in the new Yellow Pages phone book in April so I am excited about that and hoping that it brings in some new connections as well.

So, I guess that is a bunch of catching up for one post!  LOL  A busy evening and weekend ahead for me.  I will be keeping my thoughts and prayers going for:

all of those affected by early hour events in Japan, as well as those still in the path of mother nature's fury.

my former schoolmate Gary Owenby who's house burned down this past week

Jennifer Dunlap who's father lost his battle with Cancer this past week

Gray Rice who once again is facing his own battle with Cancer, I have faith he will beat it!

my sweet friend Amy Reece Spahe who is once again on her way to the M.E. on her journey to share her love of Christ with the world

and of course thoughts and prayers for all of those in my life!  

"Every child is an artist. 

The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." 

 

~  Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

Deep inside my Soul.......Somewhere deep inside my soul there is a starving artist..... (an unemployed one) HA!  Seriously though, there seems to be nothing artistic that does not touch me.  I am not sure what it is or where I get it from.  I don't see it the way it is in me in any of my family.  It seems it was just randomly dropped into my soul for reasons unknown.

There is just nothing that seems to keep my attention like art.  Walking through a museum....gosh I could spend all day.  Occasionally I just see something that I cannot take my eyes off.  It just speaks to me.  While in NY in 08' I went to see All My Sons by Arthur Miller on Broadway.  It was filled with top names; Katie Holmes, John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson and so on but when I sat in my seat and started taking in this amazing story I didn't seem to pay any attention to who the actors were.  I was so enthralled by the story itself.  I didn't pay attention to the people sitting next to me or behind me and I am sure some carried on their own conversations but I didn't even notice.  It was wonderful.  When it ended I was sad, I didn't want it to be over.

Music is different for me as well.  I mean I listen to just about anything and everything!  Old, new, well known, not so well known.  I find myself listening to it more when it has a real story or I can put a real meaning to it.  For example Her Diamonds by Rob Thomas, I enjoyed the song the first time I heard it and was immediately interested in what it was about.  Once I discovered that it was about his wife's battle with an auto immune disease it mattered to me more.  I don't hear music I actually listen to it.  There is a difference.  I mean if the music is playing and I am doing things around the house or carrying on a conversation over it that is one thing but then there are just those songs, those that when you hear them come on you just have to stop what you are doing and listen.  You have to take them in without distraction.  Jeff Buckley, Hallelujah, when I hear the music start to play I just have to stop and listen.  Soak it all in.  I can shut my eyes and for a brief moment be somewhere else, somewhere peaceful, serene.  

I can sit and watch someone dance but on occasion you see someone dance that draws you in, you no longer just see the motions and the people in front of you, you feel it.  You soak it up and you feel the emotion in the dance, in the story they are sharing with you.  Lyrical, contemporary more often than not just really pulls you in.  It will make the hair on your arms stand up and a chill comes over you.  It is just uncontrollable, when it happens it just happens, you can't make it happen.

Everyone knows I am a movie junkie.  Old, new, silly, dramatic, action, thriller and on and on.  I am not a fan of reading sub titles but I have been known to watch movies with them.  If the story is really there, if the characters are really there, you don't need to know the words.  You know the story just from watching it.  It is almost as if I manage to block out the words and it does not even bother me that I can't understand a single word they are saying.  When you can do that, when you can get the gist, understand the story without all that added stuff, that is a good performance.  That is worth watching.

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, 
it moves again since it is life." 

~William Faulkner