Reality Check

I've been taking and editing a lot of photos with my iPhone lately because I don't have a decent camera bag and so it's annoying to lug around my DSLR. I am hoping to get this bag, the delicious navy striped one, for my birthday. There are so many great iPhone camera and editing apps out there, but I find that I usually stick with Camera+.

Here are some recent iPhone photos. The cocktail photo is an Old-Fashioned I had at Woodberry Kitchen last week. It was supposed to be made with Rye, but I requested Woodford Reserve instead because I'm on a total bourbon kick right now. For the arrow sign, I was playing around with depth of field. I took that one at Red Tree in Hampden. A photo of Louis napping was, of course, necessary to include. He's so cute it's unbearable.

Remember yesterday when I said my plants were living but not thriving? Yeah, well I kind of feel that's an accurate description of me right now too. I think I, along with many other people from what I can tell, am experiencing some sort of post-Holiday winter slump. It feels like Spring is so far away. I want to spend more time outside, but the wind and cold bite at my face. I constantly daydream about camping and kayaking. I have a lot of work to do, but I am having trouble finding the motivation to do it. I need to work on building a site for my photography, but I feel completely overwhelmed by the task. Jess lent me a book months ago and I haven't even read the first page. I haven't been sleeping well.

But I also feel guilty about feeling crappy. I have a good life, I can't control the seasons, so I should just muddle through. Apparently children get shot outside of grocery stores now, so part of me feels like I have no right to complain . Of course, I know that's silly. Life is about balance and everyone has positive and negative thoughts. Not every day, week, or season is going to be fabulous.

I just want to put this out there into the web world: I read a lot of blogs, and no one wants to be negative, and so it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everyone is living the good life but you. These people are going places! They have nice things! Everything they cook is perfection! I know that my blog can seem that way too sometimes. Well, right now I feel pretty shitty and last night I had a major poached egg fail while making dinner. This morning I woke up to cat vomit on the stairs. That's day-to-day reality. People aren't looking for reality. That's why we watch TV, read books, and surf the web incessantly. We're looking for something to aspire to, to take us out of what we feel is the monotony of our lives. Days and weeks pass and sometimes nothing exciting happens. We all want to put our best foot forward, and cat vomit is no one's best foot.

I am a happy person; I am a positive person. I look at things carefully and often and I usually find a lot of joy in them. I think that's why I love photography so much. I enjoy recording the world as I see it. There is a negative, darker side to that aspect of myself though. It means that I am constantly cleaning because I see every little speck of dust. Sometimes I get a sort of stimulus overload and need to spend an entire day doing nothing because I've overwhelmed myself by looking at and thinking about my personal environment so much.

I guess sometimes in order to see the good in the world that you want to see, you need to step back, close your eyes, and take a nap from it all, give your eyes and brain a break. I think animals that hibernate in the winter have the right idea.