January 17th and still no word....

i have been operating
without a word for the year
for 17 days.

i feel a little unmoored.
and liberated...a little...
but more like i am forgetting something,
i am missing something.

i am missing my word.

between trying to finish last season's weddings
and get the discs/prints out
and answer emails and meet with old and new clients
plus my regular job
and normal family stuff,
i feel like all my time is gone before
i even know it.

but i am still doing a photo a day so far...
here's a round up from this week, which i might start
doing on saturdays, just to get me back to the blog.

 If you want to follow (or play) along, you can find me on instagram under gkgirl70....photo of the day is being hashtagged #myLife2015

things i am loving RIGHT NOW....

my new fitbit flex::
I desperately want to get back on track with some weight loss
and i absolutely love this little gadget!  Tracks my steps and my sleep
and syncs with other apps (my fitness pal is my favorite calorie counter).

spending time with my family::
my little brother is turning 40 and there was a surprise party for him tonight...
nights like this make me realize that we don't make time for this enough...
and that i would like to start taking more video.  :)

Google Play Music::
are you telling me that for 9.99 a month I can listen to any music I want...
on my phone or my computer...so easy.  I am becoming a big fan.
they had leslie spitt treeo...i'm sold.

 
 

would i be crazy...

to think that maybe this year
i could get back to blogging again,
get back to putting words in front of me,
to finding inspiration
in what others have to say?

to try (again) to take a photo a day for
a full year?
(i do have a better phone now, which means, a better camera
on hand ALL the time)...

to really take an honest-to-gawd hard look
at my life
and make some real changes?
you know that adage
if you keep doing what you have always done then....
yeah.
right now,
i feel like that's me.

to resolve to get back to yoga,
back to eating healthy,
back to drinking more water,
to letting go of that sweet sparkling crisp vice of mine (diet coke)?

i am really, really, really going to try to make some
actual changes this year.
i know it is already jan 3rd and i am still mulling over
what these changes will be
but i think i need to do that.
i think this year really does need to be different.
financially.
photographically (is that a word.  i doubt it).
i need to change things up.
i need to let some things go.
i need to make some hard choices.
i need to let myself be happier.
i need to make some changes.

it's a brand new year...

hello 2015

i have been waiting for you
with bated breath
and avid anticipation.

2014 kind of hurt my feelings a little
on the way out...
made me question my parenting skills,
made me question how other people view me
as a parent,
as a person,
as a friend.

Made me wonder why i care so much.
Made me wish i could just let it roll off me like
drops of water,
inconsequential.
Why i couldn't listen to the advice
i would have given my own kids in this situation...
you can't please everyone,
listen to your heart,
trust your intution,
let it go,
move on.

but instead
i have been letting off-hand remarks
fester like open wounds,
re-running imaginary conversations in my head.
here's what i would say
if i ever said anything
but we all know that i won't
cause that's not what i do.

instead,
i have imaginary conversations in my head
of what i would like to say
but on the outside
i remain civil and barely smiling
{but enough to say that i smiled...}

so, hello 2015.
i am happy to see you.
i am going to let these bad feelings fade out with
2014
and i am going to sit down tomorrow with paper & a pen
and this year, i am going to pay attention to me again.
i am going to check in with myself...
cause i think i may have forgotten to do that in the last little bit of 2014.


now.
to pick my word for 2015.
a ritual that always makes me happy.
stay tuned!
:)

i am not a juggler

yesterday i felt like hell.

15 had a toothache...turned into a root canal...
worried about how school is going for him,
behind on the photo editing
constant emails from people wondering about
scheduling a session or when will photos be done...
tired all the time...busy at work with my "real" job,
full to the brim with guilt and never-ending-nagging feelings
that i am falling behind
and i cannot catch up.

and then
i went to parent teacher interviews for 15
and they could not say any more nice things about him
if they tried...
he is funny, he is kind, he is doing ok socially,
polite, well spoken, no bad attitude, no trouble at all in class...
lack a little focus "but no more than all teenage boys do".
when i mentioned how the guidance counselor in his junior high
suggested VERY STRONGLY that he may ADHD (& yet, kept calling him by the wrong name)
the teacher that has him for 3 hours straight every morning,
5 days a week, said he just didn't see that in him...at all...not even a little.

i felt like a weight of 6000 lbs was lifted from my heart.

i felt like people were actually really seeing him this year.
they were getting to know him.  they know he is unorganized....
they are working with him on that without tearing him down on a daily basis for it.
they encourage him and they see the good parts of him.
the parts of him that i see every day.

and it changed my whole outlook to hear that....
i came home and shared every little bit of it with him
including how when he was absent for the root canal
his teacher told me the other kids in the class kept saying
"it's not the same...15 is not here...."

:) :) :)