One mom's ideas
The change of colors inspire me to continue to bring out my camera in unlikely situations.
Helping a friend move…..
Taking a drive to bring a family member to a doctors appointment….
Teaching the teenager to drive on REAL roads. Prior to this we only had parking lot experience.
Have you noticed that it is so much easier to judge someone or something, than it is to be empathetic? It seems as if as humans, we are unable to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and understand what it must be like. Instead, when you look around all you ever see is what is wrong with everything.
What a sad kind of world that we live in when we recognize failures over achievements?
Was there a switch that was flipped somewhere to turn people into the judge and jury singlehandedly without ever hearing the testimony?
Have we finally hit the point in this world where kindness is never coming back? Where we believe that speaking bad about a person looks good on us?
We are so immune to people’s feelings and bodies being hurt that we fully believe that the best thing to do when you are around it is to pull out your phone and record the event?
We don’t want to focus on the horrible things, blocking out the war zones and death tolls in war impacted areas, but we want to capitalize on senseless tragedies that happen closer to home.
We certainly don’t want to focus on the kindness either. So we don’t pay attention to any charitable events or money-raising efforts, unless it is to point out how much of a scam they are.
We certainly can’t trouble ourselves to attend most of these events for the sake of good. Oh no, instead people show up to be able to see for themselves how the efforts being made are being wasted. So we sit there in our classy dress attire, making sure that you look just right for the part, all while judging the color of someone’s dress. The fact that the shoes or purse does not match the outfit. What would have possessed that person to get that haircut? She is too fat for that outfit, or he isn’t buff enough to pull off that shirt. You just can’t believe that the couple that just walked by you are still together, because EVERYONE knows that they fight like cats and dogs, sending him out to cheat and her to drink. Who cares that you have never seen any of that, because if the gossip mill said it, it must be true right?
Does any of this make you think of you? The group of friends that you are around, or maybe even your family?
Shame on you.
Shame on them.
Shame on all of us for letting our world get like this.
We all played a part. Either by participating, or sitting back and watching.
We need to do better.
We deserve better.
Be kind.
So I have had a long-standing love of photography. This has never been a secret in my family. My mother would always tease me that I held the camera at odd angles more often than I held it at what was considered the normal angles.
I have never taken the time to learn the ins and outs of any advanced cameras, however my love for a camera phone or a ‘point and shoot’ has never faded. These days camera phones offer such amazing possibilities for editing and filters that it would be hard not to love the shots even an amateur takes.
As I have admitted before, I am a sky watcher. I love to be able to notice cloud patterns, beautiful sky colors and everything in between. Time and time again I find my eyes drawn back to the sky in admiration.
My wonderful family makes comments about my obsession with the sky, saying that it can be silly to always take pictures of it. Other times they can find themselves surprisingly drawn to those exact pictures when I show them one that I am proud of. Mind you, I tend to only be proud of one out of every couple hundred I take, but that doesn’t matter.
The sky has moods like mine I believe. Even when you see a wonderful blue sky, there can be clouds lurking.
Other times you could see multiple white puffy clouds, with one or two darker clouds hiding in the background.
There is always a secret hidden in plain sight with the sky.
Amazingly these shots were taken the same day.
❤❤💜💜💜
In a world that I am surrounded by negative things all the time, sometimes I find myself fighting to find my way above water. I have recently been told more bad news in regards to my health, and I need to find something else to focus on.
So after looking around for a few days I have chosen that I need to get back to yoga. It brings out a calmness in me that I rarely find, while being non strenuous on my body that apparently is made of glass. While I realize that there are different types of yoga, and some are more challenging on the body itself, I will be avoiding those and staying with ones that help me find a little more inner balance instead.
That being said, the only other time that I have done yoga I was being instructed by someone else which is not an option this time. So I am now at the mercy of Youtube. I have found a few pages to follow and I am slowly trying to experiment through some of the beginner videos that they have posted.
I love the process. I love learning new things, and being a student of something that I enjoy. I love forcing others (mainly my children) into doing these things with me because I love listening to their take on something that I enjoy.
If anyone has a favorite Youtube video you would recommend that I try, please let me know.
If you could go back and give myself advice at different ages growing up, what would it be?
I would love to go back and tell an extremely self-conscious twelve-year-old that she was beautiful. To stand firm for what she believed and not to let bull-headed teenagers, including herself, get in her way. She had so many plans! She knew what she wanted to do when she was older, had found her first love in a boy who treated her pretty good and other than fighting with her parents every once in a while her life was going pretty smooth. I would teach her to believe in herself, and to realize that everyone has their own body type that they were born with. You just have to learn to love yourself a little more so you can accept and appreciate what you were given.
**You are Beautiful**
I would go back and tell a heartbroken 16-year-old girl who was learning first hand about losing some one she loved that the world will keep turning. Her world was rocked to its absolute core, but she will stand back up and put her pieces back together. I would tell her to be stronger than she had ever been. I would tell her that just because one boy could not wrap his head around staying around to live his life until it got better, that it was absolutely not a reflection of her. I would hold her tight and tell her that despite the miscarriage, despite the loss of the person she thought would be the love of her life, she will survive.
**You are stronger than you will ever realize**
I would go back and tell my 19-year-old self that being a single mom at 19 would not define me. This hiccup would turn out to be the best turning point of her life, and that jackass that chose to walk away from his son would never be able to emotionally or physically harm them again. I would try to steady her world a bit and help her get her footing settled back into the right direction if I could. However all the times I started in a direction and had to back pedal to try a different path just made me focus a little harder.
**Mistakes are the worlds way of teaching you humility**
I would go back and tell the 22-year-old woman that adoption didn’t have to mean goodbye. I would help her understand that sometimes the hardest choices are the safest. I would remind her that heartbreak is an old friend by now. And my advice that I would give her would be to give herself a break. Life happens in mysterious ways and it is ok to admit defeat and take some me time. You can’t be a great mom to the one you already have if you aren’t taking care of yourself.
**Forgiveness IS an option. You are only human.**
I would go back and tell my 25-year-old cynical self that good things can happen. It is easy to become calloused and bitter. Putting up walls to shield your heart is healthy, as long as you have a way to break it down safely. If your wall has become a way to hide from reality in such a way that you can no longer recognize good things when they come your way, you may need rethink some things. I would tell her to go on that date with the boy she worked with. Let her neighbor bring her flowers. Let that smile happen.
**You ARE worth it. Good things CAN happen to you.**
Today was one of those days that started out great. Everything seemed to fall into place. Kids got themselves ready without me having to chase them down at all, everyone remembered everything they needed without anybody having to run like crazy back into the house to search like a maniac for one lost thing or another. I was able to quickly drive out to my walking spot and get in three miles before the heat tried its best to suffocate me.
I got back to my car and once I got in my mind started racing with all of the things that I needed to do during the day. I tried to map out the route between the different stores and plan my time line to make sure that I was able to get everything I needed done before the kids came home.
And then it happened.
For no reason whatsoever, Anxiety decided to join the party. The what if’s started creeping into my plans and I never took the lead after that.
What if I could find better shoes online? Didn’t I need to read as many reviews as possible, and search through all of the different sales and coupon codes first?
What if I bought my teenage son the sweater that I had seen online last night and he hated it. This is a boy who would never say to my face that he doesn’t like something, he will just out it into his closet with a fake smile and it wont surface again until I attempt to clean out his closet again. What a waste of money this could be.
On the other hand, what if I walk into that second-hand shop that I have had my eye on and I end up buying a bunch of things, thinking that they are all great deals, but I get it all home and no one else likes the things that I picked out?
What if my poor dog who seemingly got his anxiety straight from me, was at home eating things like the cereal box that was set next to the trash can instead of broke down and put into the actual recycling bin. He likes to do that.
I went to none of these places. I went home.
I found my favorite TV show and I binge watched it while I drug my computer out to be able to at least act like I was doing some work.
Stupid anxiety.
Live life lightly 