Reflections

This time next week, I will have started an entirely new phase in my life. At least that’s the way it feels. Everything will be different than it was before. I’m definitely ready for some “different.”

When we moved here about 5-1/2 years ago, I always knew this was a temporary arrangement. I never intended to stay in Utah forever. When people asked me what I thought about living here, my canned response was “It works for us for now.” Over the past year, it’s been more and more clear that it was working less and less for us on so many levels.

I am not a very religious person, and I don’t believe in “God” per se, but the way things have been going, I feel that what we are doing is following a path that “something” laid out for us. Everything has fallen into place, like it was always meant to be. Like it was planned out that way long before the thoughts came to me. It’s a weird fence to be sitting on when I really don’t “believe.” Either way, I’m just following the road as it goes along. The decisions were tough because of the doubt, but once they were made, everything came together.

I’ve been looking at houses out there, and I’ve found a few things that were close to what I would like, but not perfect. This of course makes me question everything, and lets doubt creep in – but I’m also trying to hold onto the belief that this is all happening exactly as it is supposed to and no matter how much I worry about it – it makes no difference. It will all fall into place at just the right time, and not a moment before. It’s true – if the perfect house came on the market now, it would not be good – because we are not there yet, and can not buy it. So I have this crazy hope that just when I need the house, it will be there. And that may be the first day we get there, or it may be a few months from now. But we won’t be “homeless” forever.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is how we will survive the next while… Let me paint a picture for you: my parents house is relatively small. Well, it’s a perfect size for them: a retired couple that occasionally has a visitor. Not really designed to hold as many people as will be living there very soon. A 1500 (or 1400?) square foot, 3-bedroom house for 6 people. “Tight” doesn’t even begin to describe it. We’ll be loading up their garage with all the stuff we couldn’t put in storage. We’re converting their office into a bunk bed kids bedroom, and of course Sam and I will be taking over their guest bedroom.

When I described the situation to a client of mine, he said it sounded like the premise of a sitcom. I totally agree. I really feel like I need to document our life there, because at some point (probably not DURING) I’m going to look back on that time and laugh at how crazy it all was. At least I hope so.

But above everything else going on right now is this huge anticipation – that this isn’t “just another move.” This is just the beginning of something huge. That for the past 5-1/2 years we were in limbo – we were in the “waiting place.” And NOW finally, stuff is going to happen. What that “stuff” is… I really have no idea. But I think it’s going to be great!

Life Lesson I Learned from doing my presentation

The presentation I gave at WordCamp Utah went really well. It was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that. I prepped as much as humanly possible. I practiced as often as I could. I must have updated my slides several times every day for about a month leading up to the conference. AND I also had anxiety dreams almost every night especially the week before. In my nightmares, everything that could go wrong, did. I’d left my power cord at home. I left my laser pointer somewhere. I lost wifi connection and couldn’t find my presentation. My nose began to bleed spontaneously. I mean literally everything my subconscious could do to undermine my confidence, it fed it into my nightmares.

The irony is that I’m not here to tell you that “… and NONE of it came true… everything was fine!”. Well, everything was fine, but that’s not the end of the story. The truth is that almost everything I dreamed actually came true. I did accidentally leave my computer’s power cord at home. I couldn’t find my laser pointer when I needed it. The wifi did get disconnected from my laptop in the middle of my presentation. Really, if you told me that all of that stuff would really happen, I would have run from the room screaming, called up Joseph Scott and told him to forget it, I couldn’t do it! In the nightmares, when all of these things happened, the world basically ended. My presentation was a complete failure and life ended there. Every night, in the middle of the night, I’d wake up, jot something down on a piece of paper I needed to remember so that I could prevent the catastrophe I had just envisioned.

But despite all these things coming true, life did not end. In fact, nothing happened. Thankfully, my battery lasted long enough to survive the length of my presentation. It did die eventually, but not until about halfway through the day – hours later. The wifi timed out on my laptop and disconnected, but I kept going even though the cool slide remote I had on my iPhone no longer worked. (In my opinion: a design flaw in the app to have it only rely on wifi and not bluetooth!!) The arrow keys work perfectly well to move the slides!! And the laser pointer I realized later I left buried in my purse so I just made do without it.

All the anxiety and thinking the sky would fall if any of these things happened, and even my desperate attempts to prevent them – they happened. When they did, there was a logical solution. And life went on.

I think I know I spend too much time worrying about what could happen. I spend too much time trying to plan for all conceivable contingencies. And the truth of the matter is that, when a problem is real, there is usually a solution at hand as well. I won’t say always. But usually. It certainly isn’t worth the time spent worrying about the “what ifs.”

iBooks iPhone App

WIncidentally – the book I’m reading is called My Name Is Memory. I’m totally wrapped up in it at the moment. Have you read it? If so, I’d love to hear what you think about it? (but don’t give away any endings, I’ve only just started reading it and I do intend to finish this one!)

Also, FYI, iBooks is a FREE APP.

Photography

Today and tomorrow, I am attending the Evo Conference (FYI – I did the HTML/CSS/WordPress for that site) 😀  Well, partially attending, anyway. I’ve been going to a few sessions and then sneaking back home in between because I’m a social misfit. LOL! The two sessions I attended today were fantastic. The morning session I went to was “Small Business Success” – I’ve been trying to figure out how to grow my business / *if* I should / want to grow my business – so it was really informative and helpful. I decided to go to the Photography workshop in the afternoon. This one was more for personal reasons. We’ve had the Nikon D70 for ages and have very rarely ventured from the automatic setting. I know there’s a lot more the camera can do – and while I’ve had f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, etc. explained to me many times, for some reason, my brain refuses to absorb it. So I went, in the hopes that maybe this time I’d get it. The session was, so far, my favorite. The panelists covered ways to get new/exciting shots, some processing tips – and then afterward, we went outside for a more one-on-one with the panelists. I bombarded Aimee with my questions and she was so nice and helpful – and despite hearing the topic again for the millionth time, having her explain it to me – I think maybe this time I’ll actually be able to keep it stored in my feeble brain! LOL!

She also talked about the importance of just getting the shot you need – with whatever you have available – even if it’s your iPhone camera. On this note she had recommended a few particular apps. One in particular, I purchased the instant I got home. It’s called ShakeItPhoto. (It’s only $0.99 – SO worth it. GO right now and buy it) The “cute” part of the app is it plays off the old Polaroid camera idea, it “prints” the image on the screen – you “shake” it to develop it – but the photos it creates are actually pretty cool. It adds a filter to it that really adds a nice look to the photo. Take a look at this shot I took of Zachary with it – I think it’s instantly one of my favorite photos of him ever:

Why dreaming is important

You have to dream. If you don’t dream you can never learn what it is you want, you can never define your goals. You have to open up your mind to what may seem impossible. You have to be willing to believe that good things can come your way.

The fact of the matter is that most of the time, reality sucks. There’s bills to pay, risks threatening on your every turn. If all you do is focus on reality, you will never move forward. If all you do is focus on the problems that might come up, you will never improve your existence. If you are thrilled with the way things are, then maybe this is okay. Stagnation in itself is not a problem. But if you are not happy, then you have to make change. Life it too short to live it in fear of what might happen, or protecting what you have because you’re afraid to take a risk.

I’m not saying throw caution to the wind and jump off a bridge – but calculated risks need to be taken. I do not believe in a higher power, but that doesn’t stop me from believing that somehow things will work out. Somehow, I’ll find a way to fix the problems that might come up. The reward is worth the risk, and the problems that come up can be dealt with if/when they are a reality.

When you dream, you leave the risks out of the picture, you forget reality, and suddenly you can picture what it is that will make you happy. While you may never acheive that dream to the smallest detail, and things will never be perfect, you need that dream to help define a goal and give you the direction you need to head to.

You also need to continue to dream as you work towards acheiving your goal. By doing so, you allow yourself to adjust your course and fine tune your goal or change directions if you need to. (Sometimes the grass may just seem greener on the other side, and if so, once you start realizing that – change your course).

Because we are human, we are all too aware of the possibility of our own demise. Some completely ignore it – some live in fear of it and by doing so have trouble truly living. There is a happy medium in there somewhere. That is why dreams are so wonderful. Explore the impossible in your dream. Ignore reality just for the moment. You have to know what’s on the other side before you can plot the course to get there.

Faint heart never won fair lady.