Dusting off an old Habit...er Hobbie......

     Back in the day when my girls were younger and just before Lil J was born I started to get into photography.  I took a lot of photo's.  Way to many probably but it did leave me with the photog bug.  I do love taking picture but I got tired of not being in the photos.  Over time I got tired of constantly trying to get shoot family functions instead of enjoying them.  So with gear that was aging and a lack of desire I slowed the photography shooting to a slow crawl and relied on my trusty cell phone to document life.
    Fast forward 10 odd years and with some new changes occurring in my life I have felt the photography itch starting to set in.  So I scratched it, bought some newish gear and have been having fun shooting the world around me.  It's been fun.  I'm not sure if anything I shoot is great (you'll have to be the judge of that I'm afraid) but I do enjoy recording my families lives and perhaps one day in the far off future my off-spring will look at these photo's that some Grandpa two or three generations removed took and they'll be able to share of piece of me and see who I was.  It's a romantic thought, I know, but it's why I love photography so much.  So now interspersed in my writings and ramblings I'm hoping to bring you a few shots from time to time.  Let me know what you think.  So without further ado here's a few from a little family gathering the other day.




My Father.

Eagle Eye Herself (only slightly smiling cuz they're not big fans of having their picture taken...they used to love it!!)

Still Life?  Or just ick?  ;-)



I do like landscape stuff and with as much work as my parents put into their garden I had to take a few shots.  This was the best of the bunch.



I'm not as good with the whole 'still life' stuff but this one turned out fairly well.  Tried to pull out the reds in the rust and the yellow stripe.  Still getting used to using Photoshop again.  Not sure if my 'post production' really worked or not.

Embracing the routine or It's time for a change...

                So where have I been?  I’ve got to be honest I’m not sure.  My muse has been on a vacation?  But again if I’m totally honest with you dear reader…and myself for that matter…writing just hasn’t been all that important to me the past eight months or so.  It all started with a change in scenery at work and then snowballed from there.  Changes at home and a readjustment of priorities in life and suddenly writing ended up taking a back seat, as did blog maintenance.  I can’t quite pin-point when it happened or even why, it just did.  I keep asking myself if that’s a bad thing.  I’m not sure I like the answer.  They say that if you really want to write you will find a way to do it.  If that’s the case then perhaps I don’t really want to be a writer.  This seriously made me reconsider how I was spending my time.  The experts seem to agree that one needs to find what they love and do that.  In the end I believe that’s what I’ve been doing.

                I love being a Dad.  It’s really the best thing in life.  Yes, there are up’s and down’s but in the end it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.  I won’t sit here and say I’m good at it, far from it, but it fires me up.  It makes me want to get up in the morning unlike anything else in my lif 
e.  (It also makes me want to go to bed from exhaustion more than anything else in life!)  So for the past eight months I’ve balanced work and being a dad.  Writing has just seemed like a chore.  I’ve not had ideas or desire to sit down and put anything to paper (or to the screen in this case…but that just doesn’t sound as romantic).  I can almost always find something to do other than write.  Some of you had read a few chapters of my only completed manuscript and I appreciate it.  I still want to work on it and perhaps one day I will.  I’ve even tried to start a couple other projects, they’ve fizzled and failed.

                Instead I’ve embraced the cool comfort of routine.  I get up, I go to work, I come home and I enjoy my family. Some will tell you that routine is evil.  Monotony is the destroyer of creativity and perhaps that’s true after all I’ve not even been riding and you know what??  I’ve not really cared.  I like my monotony just the way it is.  I’m quite content to do the same thing every day.  Maybe it’s turning 40?  Maybe it’s the constant little aches and pains that seem to have accompanied the turning of the hour glass.  I’m not sure, don’t think I care either.  I’m happy, I’m stress free, and life’s a beach.  This is not to say I’ll never write or ride again, (I mean technically you are feasting your eye holes on this here piece of writing).  I hope my muse has not abandoned me permanently. (I know my fitness has, but that’s another blog post)  I am still exploring the world with my kids and I still occasionally come up with an interesting idea for a story, (I’ve got a great female android character with a red Mohawk just itching to be written about) so I’m sure there will still be writing.  My family is growing up very quickly and I guess in the end the choice between sitting, sequestered in my office delving into the mysteries of my own mind…shudder… or hanging with the family, I would prefer to sit in my chair and watch my children grow up or go hang out with them.   Yeah I like that idea.  I like it a lot.

                So no my gentle humans, I have not disappeared.  I’ve not dropped off the end of the earth (hmmm is that another idea for a story or what?) I’m just sitting, relaxing, and enjoying life.  The world is pretty cool and I should probably slow down and stop trying to do everything and be everywhere.  Perhaps the best thing to do is relax, slow down, and embrace it all.  It won’t work for everyone but for right now, it’s working for me and life can’t get much better.  Well maybe it could but that would require a donut shop being built in my backyard and let’s face it….that’s just not practical.