Beverly and Maria

These photos were two weeks in the making because I'm a highly skilled professional who pays the utmost attention to detail. 

Let me break it down for you:  

I attended my first yoga class in at least 3 years two weeks ago and met a woman who I'll tell you about in a minute. I asked if it was OK to take her photo. She acquiesced. I pulled out the camera, focused, clicked and...

...realized I didn't have a memory card in the camera. At which point I stammered and begged forgiveness and asked if I could try again the following Friday. "I'll be here," she told me.

The following Friday before I left the house, I ensured the camera absolutely, positively had a memory card so I could capture Beverly. Yup! It was there. After yoga I approached her again, went to take a photo and nothing--NOTHING!--was on any of my screens.  

Because I'd forgotten to put the blasted battery, which was recharging at my house, back in the camera.  

Today she didn't believe me when I told her I was really, truly prepared to capture her photo.  

But I showed her.  

Beverly

was born with a heart defect that eventually led to two open-heart surgeries in 2009. The second one left her with a condition called pulmonary hypertension, which resulted in her needing an oxygen tank permanently. This, in addition to recovering from having her chest cracked open, is the hand life dealt her. It's a lot for anyone to take.  

She was depressed for a year following the diagnosis and subsequent rehab--a year in which she didn't get out much and felt a bit sorry for her lot in life. The need for the oxygen embarrassed her. It's through no fault of her own, of course, but that didn't make the reality of walking around in public with medical equipment in tow any easier to swallow. 

Enter Maria...

who was relentless with her friend. She told Beverly to get up, get moving, get back to the YMCA. The ladies met there and Beverly was attending Maria's fitness classes (she teaches several a week) before all her health problems took their toll.

It took some coaxing. Beverly protested that everyone would be looking at her. Yes, said Maria, they probably would be. So what? It was this tough love that eventually led Beverly on the road to emotional recovery. She is now as active as she was before. Pilates, yoga, trekking, riding horses...she does it all. She had to tweak her equipment to accommodate her activities, but she's living her life. She told me this morning that she doesn't breath as deeply as she should when she's working out for fear that the extra noise from the machine would be bothersome to others. But I told her I liked the sound--that rhythmic, pressurized hiss is somehow comforting. She then shared women from her other classes use the sound as well. If they don't hear the hiss, they know Beverly isn't breathing and set her straight.  

It takes a village, doesn't it, to help us navigate this world. I find both these women inspiring: Beverly for not giving in to the depression and Maria for not giving up on her friend. 

What's your excuse for not living your life?  ->  

Blog Changes

I'm sure you've noticed my lack of postings in the past few weeks. My energy hasn't been there for it, and thus I've taken a break and given some thought as to how I'll proceed with it from here. I hate to let this blog go, as it's been around in some form for almost five years. But there is a time and place for everything and as my interests and needs change, so too will my public forum for them.

For the record, I know I'm going about this whole blogging thing ALL wrong.  Blogs should have a specific focus or cohesive theme in order to be successful. So say all the pundits, anyway. Well guess what I say to that? 

Me, to that:  TTTHHHHPPPPTTT   

I've been taking pictures of people for the past several months--to the detriment of my gun pictures, frankly--and I continue to greatly enjoy doing so.  It's a natural progression, I think.  Social worker to "photographer"* to focusing a good portion of my energies on those around me.  

Some people I don't spend much time with at all.  Some, however, are willing to honor me with their stories but I tend to condense these tales for the Facebook audience for a variety of reasons. So for now the more compelling stories I hear I will flesh out over here. I won't put a number on how often I do so or the days I do so, but you'll know when it happens if you're following the people blog over there or on Tumblr. I still may throw in personal observations but it will likely be in the context of profiling other people. 

As for my next photo project? Well, I'm back to a picture a day starting October 1, 2012. I'm not going to force a subject matter this time, though. What I am going to say is I must take at least one photo a day for one year in a thoughtful, deliberate manner. Thus I will enter my third year into photography, my second year into DSLR photography, with purpose. I will post them to Flickr of course, and if I feature any of them here, it will be on Mondays.  

As always, thanks for following along. Have a great Friday!

Say you: Wait!! What about your stated goal of getting The Bloggess to notice you? 

Say me: Didn't you know? I'm a quitter.  


*I had a subject tell me where to stand for better lighting just yesterday, which was sorta humiliating.  I'm hardly an actual photographer.

The End

We got this in the mail over the weekend. Seriously, people, I can't make this shit up. I thought it was a nice bookend for my Gun Show project. 

Which admittedly fizzled out. I just became interested in other subject matter and I feel a bit bad about it, but not really. I'm still taking photos, I'm remain passionate about the craft, I think I'm improving...it's all good. Here are all the photos I took over the past year. I met my goal of posting once a week, but did not meet my goal of 75 total.  

Ah, well.  

Life moves on. -> 

Browning

Diva Ln.

I had a great picture for today that I KNOW I edited but cannot find anywhere.  

So I'll post this one in the hopes that my first choice appears.  If it doesn't, it means I edited it but didn't actually save the edit and I've long since deleted that batch of pictures off my card.  

Brilliant.  

Sugar-Coated Secrets

So I was reading some articles on how to break bad habits because articles are much shorter than books and you can finish them in all of fifteen minutes and there's a whole lot less guilt involved than with buying an e-book after hearing the Fresh Air story about the actual book and vowing to read it immediately and changing your ways immediately and then only getting one-third of the way through the book you paid for and never picking it up again. 

Not to mention not getting started on changing those bad habits because you can't yet because you didn't finish the book. And you want to make sure you do it right.  

Right?  

Which, now that I think about it, may be the underlying reason for not finishing the book--so I don't have to change the bad habits.*  

At any rate, I read articles. Yay for the internet! 

Unfortunately, now I don't have any excuses to not get started. One of the things I'm supposed to do is publicly state what my bad habit is so I can be held accountable for changing it.   

Don't worry. I'm not going to shock you by admitting to a heroin habit, although my mother was convinced I was on the needle back in the early 90's.** No, this habit is much more mundane and middle-aged and typical and frightfully, dreadfully, unblog-worthy boring. 

I eat at night.

I eat when I'm sorta hungry, not hungry at all, bored, sitting in front of the computer, reading a book, or lying in bed watching Game of Thrones. I eat chocolate and hummus and buttered popcorn and sushi and pretzels and pretzels sandwiched with yummy cheese and right now I want to eat ALL THE CHEDDAR in the house. And all the chocolate. 

So I'm madly typing, intending to go public with my secret and drinking a ton of water (so I feel full. Yes, I know about chewing gum and brushing my teeth too.)  

Because water is absolutely what one wants when a carb craving is hitting you in the psyche like a wreaking ball. 

I was OK on the first night because I got called out right during the witching hour. Obviously I had other stuff on my mind and when I got home, I was exhausted. Never mind that life is a cruel bitch and the ER had pizza and cake, opened and displayed like a centerfold upon my arrival. But it was the first night and my resolve held firm.

Last night wasn't bad because I was with friends late into the evening. 

But tonight has been rough.   

I would like to point out to all of you that should you struggle with this same habit and would like to break said habit, day three of your new and improved lifestyle at approximately 10:45 at night is not the best time to visit Pinterest. Bad, bad, BAD idea.  

*gulping water*  

The action that makes the most sense to me is picking one habit you want to change and concentrating all your efforts on that one goal for thirty days. Thirty days is do-able. It's a relatively short amount of time and when you start there's already a light at the end of the tunnel. It is, after all, only September or April or June or November. 

Unless you're on day three of your new! Improved! lifestyle and really, really, really want something that, once you eat it, releases sugar into your blood at roughly the rate of a failed Hoover Dam. 

Honestly, raw spaghetti sounds good right about now.  

This sucks. ->


*Whoa, insight! Sorry, got carried away there. I'll try not to let that happen again.  


**Really. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.