Just beyond the bend

When you think you know the direction your path is leading, life has a way of inserting a curve you just can't see beyond.

But during my recent journey down a path curving into the unknown, I have discovered amazing depths of love and support from some wonderful friends.  Several times in recent weeks, the tears in my eyes have been the result of immense thankfulness for having these incredible people in my life.  Whether I've been questioning my future, second guessing my past, or sinking into self-doubt, this group of varied individuals has provided unquestioning support.  This group has provided water-proof shoulders and strong arms when the tears flow uncontrollably; willing ears for unlimited listening; open hearts pouring oceans of love and encouragement; thoughts, opinions and ideas for strategy and direction; and prayers, prayers and more prayers.

Although my path is still within the curve, I believe I've navigated past the sharpest emotional part and now face accepting the upcoming changes and resulting upheaval. I know I can count on these amazing people to continue providing love and support through the rest of my journey.

I honestly do not know how to express the depth of my love and appreciation for these individuals.  Mike, Mom, Shelley, Lisa, Nan, Terry and Becky -- thank you from the bottom of my heart and I love you more than you'll ever know. 

Transparent - Nowhere to hide

I recently received the following: "Having two iPhones is somewhat dangerous and absolutely unnecessary..."

To me, the absolutely unnecessary part of that is obvious.  I'm struggling a bit with the somewhat dangerous portion.  

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of dangerous is "involving possible injury, harm, or death OR characterized by danger or able or likely to cause injury, pain, harm, etc."  So having 2 iPhones is somewhat likely to cause injury, pain or harm?  From increasing the likely-hood of carpal tunnel syndrome in the thumbs from texting on 2 phones?  From the stress of trying to keep up with 2 phones -- where did I put both of them, are they both charged, which phone has more data left this month?  Wherein, exactly, lies the danger?

This is one of the least drama-filled communications I have received from this particular individual.  I get fed up with the exaggeration of life's happenings in an effort to magnify the "plight" and "sacrifice" of her daily activity.  There is much talk about being a strong woman, most of which is followed by examples of what a victim she is to the actions of others (vendors who won't make exceptions to their policies for her, organizations that don't adjust their schedules for her busy life, contractors that give her a low price but then use inexperienced labor).   

I often wonder if she truly believes her drama and victim excuses aren't grossly transparent.  Her insecurities are left with nowhere to hide.

Emotional extremes

We had quite the winter weather in the first 2 months of 2014.  Multiple days of mornings in the teens in early January (not used to 10 degree mornings in the south!) were followed by a day of snow at the end of the month.  And then February blew in with a snow/ice storm that essentially shut down the city for 3 days.  Now it's the "dog days" of summer and with humidity, the heat index temperatures are 104 & 106.  It seems to be a year of extremes, in more than just the weather.

I seem to have lost the majority of my patience with the actions of my mom & my ex-sister-in-law; they seem to make more decisions based upon what will "win" against each other instead of based upon what is truly best for the teenager caught in the middle.  And the teenager is aware of the shenanigans and adds to them, when it will result in something she wants or prefers.  The "adults" act as if it's a high school popularity contest.  I just don't have the personality to deal with the drama that is consistently generated.  Drama, tears, anger, angst -- one knee-jerk emotional reaction after another --  and not a single positive result from any of it.

Does social media cause major drama for you and/or your family members? Things like finding out a relative passed away by reading it on Facebook?  Or receiving texts because someone has been looking at Instagram photos & is upset because they aren't included in enough of the photos?  Or the anger over hashtags used by friends (or maybe even friends of friends)? I was "un-friend"ed by a family member because I asked that family member to move the debate/argument they were having (in the comments section of one of my status updates) to their own page.  Is social media encouraging self-obsession and developing it into the "norm"?

We said good-bye to Tux at the end of May.  The last several months  were physically and emotionally draining on all 3 of us.  Tux couldn't walk on his own and couldn't support his back-end when using the bathroom.  Mike was often up every 2-3 hours during the middle of the night taking Tux outside for bathroom breaks. We didn't want to end things too soon but we also didn't want Tux to suffer.  The day we said good-bye was one of the most difficult and tear-filled days ever.  Tux was so perfect for us and we miss him greatly.  After 3 months, we can finally have conversations about Tux that occasionally do not cause us both to tear up.  

Routine, "boring" days are very appealing to me lately.

From Frustration to Awesome

I changed smart phones last fall.  My new smart phone was too smart for my blog; it pulled in every photo from my original blog, which exceeded my storage space.  So in deleting the photos from my phone, the photos on my original blog were also deleted.  Cue massive frustration.  And I was so disheartened I just gave up blogging.   Yet I continued to think of things I wanted to blog about...so I finally set up this blog.

My birthday present from Mike is "photography dollars".  He knows I am frustrated with my progress in developing my photography skills.  Let me be clear -  I am well aware that my desire far exceeds my aptitude.  And taking Karen Russell's "The Photographer's Workshop" photography workshop was incredibly enlightening.  She was able to put all of the photography terms into understandable concepts for me.  I had many "aha" moments.  And now in my photos I see what I've gotten wrong.  Trouble is, I can't always figure out how to fix it.  Or worse...it's not a repeatable shot and I don't have a chance to try to fix all of the things I see wrong.  And I have yet to get that "pre-shot checklist" complete & automatic for addressing it all before I take a photo.

Anyway, for my birthday Mike wants to give me another class or tutor or whatever I feel will be most helpful to me at this stage in my skills/development.  He's even done research on local opportunities and provided me with the info so I can evaluate what I think will suit me best. Isn't that an awesome birthday present?!!