#instagram

tl:dr  I'm on Instagram as GesundheitArt.  It might be cheesy and I might be late to the trend, but it makes me happy!

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It wasn't until I sorted through all my childhood paraphenalia that I realized how much my life revolved around photography as I was growing up.  It was a hobby that both family and friends embraced.  I spent many hours posing, taking, developing, and printing pictures.  To me it was a universal art that could be shared with everyone important, creating memories as well as preserving them.   It is the reason I now have 10+ boxes of photo albums detailing the first 18 years of my life.  I put the hobby on hold in college for lack of materials and a thirst to try new things, but I am nagged by this persistant desire to spend a whole month's rent on a droolworthy, digital SLR camera.

Of course, my inner Scrooge thinks this is a terrible idea.  A whole month's rent??  Do you know what you could DO with that money?  Pay the rent!  Geeze Louise.  You always procrastinated processing digital photos anyways.  Would you actually use the camera if you bought it?  If you really want to just post snapshots online, you can jolly well use Instagram.  It's FREE.

My Ego protested that Instagram was too popular and overdone and so not my thing before being whacked upside the head by the thought "Screw you Ego, why don't you want to be happy?"*

Ever since then I've been happily Instagramming away.  My joy was compounded when I started experimenting with hashtags (it pays to be easily amused sometimes).  It is not professional grade photography and a digital SLR is very likely still in my future, but this free app fills a need in my life I had forgotten about.  I like taking pictures.  At this moment in time I am in love with shapshots.  I like sharing the details I notice with other people.  Instagram is a way to do that, and the rent still gets paid.  Hooray!

*yes, window to my brain right here.

Come again another day

For the billionth time this summer, it is raining.  Dark and kinda dreary with pitpatpitpatpat on the roof and flashes of lightning through the window.

It is the perfect day to stay inside and Get Shit Done because my to do list, oh!  She has a clarity I have sought after for years and is a thousand miles long and I am soclose to jumping on my dreams.  But my attention span wanes and my drawing hand is sloppy and I find myself staring into space in the middle of thoughts.

So instead of muddling through my arts I try to take breaks to refuel with family time, fresh green foods, homemade pretzels, lavender bath salts, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and sleep.  I try to embrace taking care of myself and recognizing the crash after the creative burst, the rain that comes after the sun.  Life is a balance.  I know this.  I try not to get overly fussed about it.  But dang.  Do I have a hard time with my brain not playing the following on infinite repeat:

Rain rain go away
come again another day

Operation Avocado: Week 1

For anybody interested, I used the method outlined here.

Saturday morning hoorays

So I ended up at my belly dancing lesson an hour early (instead of researcing times last night I just kind of fell into bed...it was one of those weeks) and I was kind of disgruntled because All The Projects are at home a long drive away and what was I going to do for an hour besides shopping that I don't want or need to do and also I forgot my knitting?

OH WAIT! Here is my fully charged smartphone with the internets.  Internets, instead of being disgruntled I am going to tell you about my life with some hoorays:

1. Pirate and I are married!  While I loved our wedding and wish it could have been a whole day affair instead of just an evening one, I am overjoyed at the emotional, mental, and physical space I have now I am not wedding planning.  (Seriously, one year of planning for 7 hours?  Per APW, I suppose it's all about defining the relationship instead of just the party.)  Married life is peaceful and amazing and I wouldn't trade it or the journey that got us here for anything.  Hoooray!

2.  While the two weeks of waiting for it after the wedding were excruciating, the honeymoon itself was awesome! We went on a cruise to the Caribbean.  We spent most of the wedding weekend seperate due to different social obligations, so it was exceptionally nice to have the honeymoon as a unifying (tasty, sun drenched, tropical, caarefree) experience. Hooray!

3. This hedge I am parked by.  What can I say, I like hedges.  I park next to them at work too.  Hooray!

4. Unexpected time to blog. I am off to write posts on different subjects now.  Hooray!