tuesday truths...trying something new...

It’s scary to try something new.

But it’s also exciting and intriguing,
fun and interesting to push yourself out of your comfort zone
just an eensy-teensy bit.

I have been doing a lot of
new things lately
that have scared me…
but in a good way….mostly… :)

Change scares me.
I fight it, tooth and nail.
I always, always have.

But I think I am getting a little better.
(I don’t cry nearly as much, heehee).

In the spirit of “trying something new”
I thought I might push myself COMPLETELY out of my comfort zone
and try something that I have been considering for a long time
but did not have the guts to try…
I am also just coming off a 5 day cold so
it’s possible the effects of the children’s cough and cold
will have worn off by morning
and I will have totally chickened out on this whole idea.

But…for now…

I have created a Patreon account.

If you are not familiar with Patreon,
it is a way that I can share more of my photography and artwork
and maybe push my creative side a little harder
by forcing myself to be more accountable.
Patreon allows me to offer perks and treats for
anyone that chooses to follow me on that medium…
which means, I am forcing myself to focus
and stop spinning my wheels in 22 different directions.

If you check it out, please feel free to let me know
if there are things that you would have liked to have
seen offered as treats/thank yous…
and there is no pressure to sign up there.
This is really just an experiment, a new venture,
you never know til you try…
so today,
I try.

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tuesday truths....the music edition

If you follow me on Facebook,
(not only do you know that I post WAY too much but…)
you probably also know
that I love music.

I can’t sing.
I don’t know a note.
I can’t tell pitch or tone or anything else…
but I know what I like
and I can’t go a day
without listening to music.

I have to have a playlist
on all night while I am sleeping.
I listen to music in the car,
while I’m painting, cooking, cleaning, working…
and sometimes
I just lay on the
couch or the
bed or the
floor
and lose myself in the darkness
and the words
and the
heartbeat.

And I will listen to almost anything…I’m pretty open…
I can honestly say there is no genre that I refuse to listen to
anything from…though there are definitely songs that I don’t like….
(and…I hate dire straits. Let’s just get that out there and move on)
:)
Here’s what I have been playing on repeat lately (and, um, I should warn you…I like songs that
say the eff word sooooo….just be careful if you are clicking links)

• she is beautiful - andrew w.k. (I listen to this every morning loud as soon as I get out of bed)

• seagulls stop it now - this is not actually a song…it’s a bad lip reading video but I have a weird taste in music and listen to this constantly as well. And, yeah, I still love what does the fox say sooooooo….I warned you. I have weird taste in music. :)

• whiskey - joey landreth

• armour - soul filter

• she - dodie

• figures - jessie reyez

• seeing all red - shakey graves

• patenipat - charlotte adigery

• jekyll and hyde - five finger death punch

• whistle stop - roger miller

• chop suey - system of a down

• sweet sixteen - billy idol

• video games - lana del ray

• little bit stronger - leighton meester (i forgot about this song. I don’t listen to a lot of country but this song…well….it speaks pretty loud to me right now…so…it’s on the daily playlist)

And I looooooooooove recommendations for new music! :) Hint, hint…heehee.

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whatcha readin' 2019 {book 1::goal 25}

I loved the first two books in this set…
I don’t really want to say series because,
although they are related, they are very distantly related,
like 4th cousins 3 times removed that heard of each other
but just vaguely….

You really can read these independent of each other…
but it’s better to read them as they were written even
just for the timeline…but
do you have to read them all to know what happened
with the earlier characters? Yeah…not so much.
Did I need to re-read 2 one thousand page books
before I started this one?
Definitely not.
But they are good books and I did enjoy re-reading them.

However, I do wonder it might have been overkill.

I found myself a little irritated and wanting to be done
of the third book. I don’t think it was the writing or the
characters, I think I had just been in Kingsbridge for
too long and should have taken a light-quick-read-book-break in the middle maybe.

Which makes me feel a little bad about
only giving this one
3.5 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s.

But…not bad enough to change it.

NEXT UP: MODERN ROMANCE - AZIZ ANSARI

whatcha readin' 2018 catch-up post...

My goal for 2018 was to read 24 books…
and I read 36!

I wrote about 27 of them on here already,
but here is a quick blurb on the ones that I missed

28. Educated - Tara Westover
Allllll the hearts. If I could give more than 5 ♥♥♥♥♥ out of 5…I totally would.
I loved this book. Her writing, her story.
So good. Heartbreaking. Incredible.
Hard to wrap your head around.
So sad and yet so happy for her….
Those were all the notes I had written to myself about this book.
I love, love, loved it.
Go read it. If you are only going to read one thing I have recommended this year,
make it this one.
(but really, why wouldn’t you trust me on more than one book?
I’m a good judge of books! I promise!)

29. The Magnolia Story - Chip and Joanna
2.5 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

Honestly…I don’t know why I even tried this book.
I knew nothing about Chip and Joanna
or even why they were writing about a magnolia…
but it seemed popular
(and he is cute. I am not going to lie. His cuteness is kinda sold me on the book).
Anyway. The book irritated me
but just because…it’s not really my kind of thing.

30. In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware
4 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

Pretty good. Very quick, suspenseful read.
I thought the writing was ok but nothing that
took my breath away. I didn’t love the characters.
But…it was ok.

31. The Lonely Hearts Hotel - Heather O’Neill
5 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

Oh. Did I mention a book taking my breath away?
Because this one did.
Heather O’Neill is a Canadian novelist but also a poet
and that is so obvious in her way with words….
I adored the writing…
but I fell head over heels in love with the characters.
Rose. Oh…I loved Rose.
Seriously. Read two books I recommended this year…
you’ll thank me!

32. Mrs - Caitlin Macy
2 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

This one…yeah…I am not recommending this one.
I really did not enjoy this book.
It felt presumptuous and overdone to me
I felt irritable while reading it
and that is not how you want to feel when
reading a book.

33. The Storied LIfe of AJ Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin
5 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

I loved this book.
I had written myself a note that said
”35 pages in and I am loving this book,
reminds me of Nick Hornby…slightly sarcastic and snide.”

Also, I loved that the part about how
people would come in the bookstore looking for
”a book with a red cover, do you know the one?”
YES. People really do that.
Sigh.
(and yet, I kind of miss retail. Heehee)

34. Option B - Sheryl Sandberg
5 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

Yeah…remember that I was reading this
at the height of my separation
before I had admitted out loud that
I was in the middle of a separation…
so my mindset may have affected how much I liked this book.

But it helped me. I found myself making a lot of notes
that when I look at in retrospect now,
knowing where I was at while reading it,
I can see why some of these things spoke to me
so strongly.

But I loved how she talked about Anne Dilliard saying
”how we spend our days is how we spend our lives”
which I took to mean that you should find the happy
in your every day life, don’t just wait for the big things,
make your own gawd damn happy.
And that you cannot/should not rely on someone else to make you happy.
They may not always be there.

Oh.
And you can fail by failing to try.

Also.
Believing it will all work out … helps it to all work out.

35 and 36 Pillars of the Earth and World Without End - Ken Follett
5 ♥’s out of 5 ♥’s

OK. I am not sure that these
should count
because I read them before
but they are also about a 1000 damn pages each
so…I am counting them!
:)
I loved these books. I loved them just as much the second time around.
Although I was a little frustrated with myself
when I realized
I probably didn’t NEED to re-read them before reading the third.

They are connected but very remotely…
you could easily read these as single books
or out of order and not really be affected…
I mean, obviously a little but not that much…

But the books are so good.
……………………………………………………
And that was it for 2018!
I debated on whether to set my goal for 2019 at one more
than my goal last year - which would be 25
or
to go one more than the amount I had read…
which would be 37…

Um. I set the bar low…and went with 25. :)
Got any recommendations?

friday i'm in love...(the one where I get totally off track)...

♥ I love these little barns. And when I say I love them them,
I mean I love them with my whole heart…I love the pop of red,
the fact that they are all alone out there, but together…
a big one and a little one…that one tree…the worn paint, the doors…
I just love them. :)

I couldn’t tell you how to get to them
but I can tell you that I have taken dozens of photos of them
over the years. I kind of like that I am so bad at directions that finding them
always comes as a bit of a surprise to me…like seeing old friends at the grocery store
and being so happy that you pulled your cart/car over to catch up again.

I also love that I posted this on Facebook and so many people
not only recognized them but shared their love for them, too!
And one person even gave me a little bit of history about them…
which I love knowing. It just makes me happy.

Social media is a funny thing. :)
I know it has its pitfalls and downsides and dark sides…
but mostly…I love it….because it gives me the possibility of
connection
that a self proclaimed introvert like me
would not normally be able to make.

I’m getting off topic. :)

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♥ Except that I am not really getting off topic. :)
The next thing I love is kinda related to social media, too.
For a long time, I only used my photography page for
sharing photography…and when I say photography,
I mean mainly paid sessions…and by that, I mean, mainly weddings.

And it was fantastic. I had great success with that page…
lots of interactions, connections, likes and comments
(and you know I like comments & likes! heehee)
but when the weddings stopped, I kind of stopped posting there.

I didn’t think that the people that followed my page for that
would be interested in what I am doing now…
haha….whatever it is that I am doing now…
dabbling….that’s what I am doing.
Picking at this, doodling that…little bit of writing,
a lot of random posts about mundane things in my life…
but I started slowly sharing little bits of that on my photography page
and, to my surprise and IMMENSE happiness,
not only did I not really lose any friends there,
I have actually started gaining some more! :)
And they comment and like and share and read my blog sometimes (hi there!!)
and we talk about books and cards and
where I should go on my next Friday adventure and
it makes me so incredibly happy.

Which makes me think about where to go next…
I feel like I would like to revamp that page a little…
but I would also like to revamp the blog…
and maybe start a Patreon page
which would give me another platform for sharing
some of the ideas that I have thinking about…
and might also help me be able to accomplish
some of the ideas that I have.
I feel like a Patreon page would force me to be
accountable and productive
and stop spinning my wheels and
jumping from one idea to another….
if I had paid subscribers waiting for specific things,
then that forces me to buckle down and focus…
but then…it’s about money…
and if you know me at all, you know I have issues
when it comes to pricing.

(I did my first wedding for 60.00 if that gives you an idea
of what I mean by that. Heh.)

Anyway…it’s a lot to think about and totally NOT where I
intended this post to go.

I wanted to tell you that I played Apples to Apples & Skip-Bo
for the first time last night and it was so fun, even though I lost.

And that I have a brand new bag of cinnamon hearts.
Oh…..and to say thanks for sticking with me for this long rambling muddled
post of a post. ♥

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