2011 Goals – An Update

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Oy.

That’s the update.

Half the year done, and I haven’t done JACK.

Let’s go over the list, shall we?

Work on being a better photographer.  I’ve barely taken any pictures, those I have taken have been on my cell phone, and I haven’t charged my digital camera in months.

Strive to write every day.  I wasn’t doing well with this one previously, but in the last three or four weeks I’ve been doing better.  I have been writing every day.  And I feel much better.

Delightfully Happy blog – now defunct.  I really wanted to succeed with this one, but I just couldn’t keep it up.  Not because I couldn’t find something to be happy about every day, but because I had so much going on I didn’t have time to post.  I kept a list in MS Word for a while, hoping to post as I had time, but I got so far behind I finally gave up.

Do not keep Netflix movies longer than 2 weeks.  Miserable fail.  I’ve had one for at least two months, I swear.  But now, with Netflix’s new pricing, I soon won’t have any DVDs from Netflix to keep, so…Win?

Use new veggies.  Um, yeah.  I did Baby Eggplant.  And I think I did another veggie.  But yet another massive fail.

Watch more hockey.  Fail.

Visit 5 places in the 1000 Places to See Before You Die list.  Nada.  Yet.  I plan on going to Charleston in a couple of months.  I looked into the Spoleto Festival, and it wasn’t quite what I expected (or was interested in, to be honest).

Watch movies from the AFI list.  Count:  0

Read 12 books from the BBC 100 List.  Now, I did try, I swear.  I read Wuthering Heights, and hated every second of it.  Then I tried reading Love in the time of Cholera, and I wanted to dig my eyeballs out so I couldn’t read it anymore.  I didn’t finish.  And that’s when I gave up.  (Although, I have started reading Pride and Prejudice, and am so far enjoying it.)

Overall, as you can tell, massive fail.  But I did so well last year – do I get credit for that?

How are you doing on your 2001 resolutions and goals?

Delightful Year, Continued

As I mentioned in this post, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue my “Picture a Day” project for 2011, but I did want to work on taking better pictures.

But then, I discovered that taking a picture each day is second nature now.  So I’m continuing the project, although I ‘m not guaranteeing a picture for each day, because some of my days I don’t even leave the house.  But I will be doing pictures most days.

January is mostly updated – you can view it here.

Also, I evidently inspired my friend GeauxGirl to challenge herself to a picture a day.  You can view her photos here.

Capturing Life – A Photo a Day

As you know, I’ve been documenting my year in pictures – DelightfulYear. I’m already planning on taking some of the better pictures and making a photo book, as well as doing a 2010 photo book to include pictures with, you know, people. I decided I would do one for 2009, as well. I’ve been quite lax in keeping track of pictures over the years, but I figured I would be able to figure out which pictures were taken last year, since it wasn’t that long ago.

And then I realized – I have almost no pictures from last year. I have pictures from the scavenger hunt The Pilot and I did in February. I have pictures from Tahoe in July. I have pictures from flying with The Pilot in November. And I have pictures from the Cruise in December and Christmas. And almost none of these include pictures of the people in my life.

That’s it. Huge gaps in the year.

Which makes me even more glad I decided to do a picture a day this year. Even if some of the pictures have been complete crap, and even though I have missed a few days, I’ve been very mindful of taking pictures, as well as getting out there and doing things to take pictures of.

Am I planning on doing a picture a day again next year? I haven’t decided yet. I don’t want to strap myself to a commitment like that again, but it’s certainly kept me cognizant of taking photos. Further, I really want to work on taking good pictures, working with camera angle and depth of field and composition, but I obviously can’t do that every day. And will I continue to do a photo to represent my life, or do I just want to work on random, interesting pictures?

Maybe I’ll do a “Life in 2011” photo journal, without committing myself to a picture a day, but still committing myself to documenting my life. And, in addition to that (or within that framework), work on 1-2 “artistic” photos a week.

All of that would be easier if I had my Dream Camera (digital SLR of some flavor, probably Canon, although I haven’t done the research). I could work a lot more with all of the more artistic qualities of photography, and I wouldn’t feel as weird whipping out my camera at random moments. Nobody would think much about a woman taking a picture of a weed growing out of the sidewalk with a professional quality camera. A woman whipping out her little digital camera and taking a picture of a weed? Looks like she’s with the Home Owners Association and is going to report you for not keeping your sidewalk clean.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Life’s been just truckin’ along lately. I had a long holiday weekend, 4 ½ days, and I wish I could say I did more with it than I did.

Saturday went to Symphony Park for Pops in the Park and Fireworks after. After fireworks, we decided to let the traffic die down, and went into a nearby bar that I heard had cheap ($3) margaritas. “Do you want a double?” asked the bartender. “It’s just a dollar more.” Sure, why not! I wasn’t driving! 🙂  Wowza, that was a strong margarita. And when the bill came, I liked the margarita even more, because instead of $4 (which I expected), the margarita was $2! The double! So the regular? Yep, $1. I’m so totally going back to that place.

Sunday: Pool party, good company. The Boys played with fireworks, but no one was hurt, and nothing caught on fire, so…success.

Monday: Lake, more good company. We just floated around for several hours, watched the sunset, then cruised on back.

Tuesday I had plans to get up, work out, run to CostCo, do some cleaning, maybe lay out at the pool for a little bit, get some reading done. Well….I got up. And I read. But everything else fell to the wayside. I did start to work out, but then wasn’t feeling it, so stopped. Read instead. Then took a nap. Reading is strenuous, and I’m totally out of practice.

Finally got moving around about 6pm, and at 7, the power went out. Around 8, I went for a walk around the neighborhood, still no power when I got home. Played solitaire on the computer, read by flashlight. Power finally came back on at 10, just in time to go to bed. Which I didn’t do – I ended up staying up until about midnight. Can’t let that power go to waste!

How was your holiday weekend?

DelightfulYear – April

Favorite Photo:

Best Photo:

Most Telling Photo (kind of self-explanatory!):

See all of April here.

DelightfulYear – March

Favorite Photo:

Best Photo:

Most telling photo (see this blog post for further insight):

Funniest Photo:

See all of March here.

DelightfulYear – February

Favorite Photo:

Best Photo:

Most Telling Photo (see this blog post for further insight):

See all of February here.

DelightfulYear – January

I’ve really been enjoying my picture a day adventure.  It’s been…interesting.  Educational.  I wanted to hit some of the highlights here, on this blog.

This is January:

Favorite Photo:

Best Photo:

Most Telling Photo (see this blog post and this blog post for further insight):

See the rest of January here.

What’s New is Old

This is pretty neat – I found it on metafilter.  It’s a Flickr pool “for images you make where some part of a modern day scene is overlapped by an old photograph.”

You can use photoshop, like this one, or simply hold up a picture, like this one.

Not a Resolution

2009 went by insanely fast. I don’t know what happened to the days.

They say that the older you are, the quicker time goes by. It makes sense. A ten year old spent 10% of his life in 2009. I spent less than .5% of my life in 2009. Being super busy at work and a little scattered at home contributed to a lot of “wasted” time. In December, I thought it was May.

What happened during that lost time?

2010 will be different. I will live each day. I will keep track of time, in an effort to slow it down. That’s my theme for the year, if you will.

How will I do this?

A picture a day, for each day of the year. One picture, and one picture only, that captures the day. I can’t take credit for the idea – I got it from Taylor McKnight (where I found out about it, and McKnight’s website). I was originally going to try to do a blog a day, and was looking for prompts, when I ran across the idea. And I love it. I worry that there will be some days that I just post a picture of my cat, but that’s okay. That day will not be lost.

Last year, my friend Jen resolved to put the camera down and enjoy life. I’m vowing to pick the camera up for the same reason.

You can check my photoblog here:  www.photoblog.com/DelightfulYear/   I’ve also added an rss feed to the right side of this page…although, it’s not working yet, so we’ll see how well this works.