Fearless

Wow.  It's been an interesting few days.  This weekend was great for me... personally and in terms of my photographic work.  I am so charged up right now - I CAN'T WAIT to get out there in shoot.  My path has become clearer and I feel that I am starting to have a stronger sense of how I'm different and how to make it work for me.  I feel like I took a giant step toward my future this weekend.

On top of that, I found out that I've been accepted to Fearless Photographers.  This site is a collection of wedding photographers from around the world, and you have to apply to be a member of this community.  Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about making the cut.  There are contests every few months and you can submit a handful of photos for each one.  Let's hope that one of these days I'll will a Fearless Award ;)

Lastly, I came across this quotation about art this past weekend and thought I'd share:

The act of making art exposes a society to itself.  Art brings things to light.  It illuminates us.  It sheds light on our lingering darkness.  It casts a beam into the heart of our own darkness and says, "See?"

Day 1 of my "It's time to start taking care of myself, Damnit!" plan

I have been really busy recently... between working at Prioria, trying to build my photography business, and getting all of my letterpress stuff together to begin selling at Textures Handmade Market in Tallahassee.  I'm just wiped.  Wiped and REALLY out of shape.  Embarrassingly out of shape, actually.  I work so much that I don't get enough sleep, and then if I'm not getting enough sleep, I'm not exercising or feeling like I have the energy to actually cook a decent meal, and yes, I admit that I even overlook flossing when I'm exhausted.  Then I'm tired all weekend, which doesn't make me a great girlfriend to my incredibly understanding and thoughtful boyfriend Bo, because I just want to try to take naps (I'm actually really bad at napping) and be even more indecisive than usual.  Not to mention the fact that I haven't spent quality time with friends in ages because I just feel like I have too much to do.

So this past weekend I said enough is enough!  My health, my happiness, and my relationships are suffering, and that just ain't right.  So my new plan - starting yesterday - was to change all this.  Here is how it went:

1 - Go do something good for me.  Check!  Yoga at 5.30

2 - Eat healthy food in reasonable proportions.  Check! Check!  Salad w/tempeh for lunch and a dinner with fresh veggies.  No cookies. :)

3 - Make a list of a few things to do during the week for my photo business and add new tasks to NEXT week's list.  Check!  Even knocked off a couple of things last night.

4 - Get to bed at a reasonable hour.  FAIL.  I looked up from editing while the webinar I was listening to was coming to an end.  11pm.  Great, I thought, I'll just finish this group of photos and head to bed.  11pm is earlier than I've been getting to bed for quite a while.  I finish my group of photos and suddenly it's 11.56.  Noooo!!!!  So yet another post-midnight bedtime.  Not to mention my neighbor was being all loud and playing with a dog on the porch in the middle of the night.  I closed the window near him and his noise on the front porch and what does he do?  MOVE TO THE OTHER PORCH.  Gah!  Yesterday he woke me up at 7am to ask about some ideas he had for plants and things outside... he wanted to check with me to be a considerate neighbor.  For the record, knocking on someone's door at 7am isn't considerate. :) 

Anyway, wish me luck for sticking to my limited to-do list and getting to bed at a reasonable hour tonight.  I'm excited about bedtime already and it's not even 9am!

And because it's lovely, here's a shot of some soft winter grass from Pennsylvania that I took on my last drive home to Rochester, NY. :)