despite what we think, what we believe, none of us are perfect. we all have flaws. we all make mistakes. we all do stupid things (some of us more than others — which is good, because that provides me with job security at my day job). at the end of the day, the only standards we should worry about are our own. while we’re all imperfect and flawed, the higher power each of us believes in, whether its my God or someone else, accepts us as we are. so, in that, stay true to yourself, stop being someone else’s concept or vision of perfection and flawlessness. because keeping up with the jones’, changing yourself in the misbelief that it will make you closer to leading a perfect life that will allow you to be accepted/more holy/righteous/whatever it may be, and straying from what makes you happy will in the end come crashing down.

much of that is due to people, who for reasons I can only fathom, have changed so much from what I or others thought we knew about them.  I’m not so sure those changes are for the best in each case; I know in one case its for the worse.

Btw, slight design change here on the blog … if viewing in a feed reader/google reader, click here to see what’s changed …

A few of my recent flickr faves. See them full sized by clicking here.

Sorry for the vague post. I’m alive, healthy, and okay for now

… Really, a 23 cent jump in gas prices in a matter of four days? 10 cents of that in less than nine hours today? I get oil prices (by the barrel) went up and all hell has broken loose (or close enough) in the Middle East with the string of uprisings, but what happened to the gradual increases we saw the last couple of times gas prices were jacked up? I conceded defeat and stopped at my normal station since I figured by the time I actually needed to fill up again (tomorrow night), it probably would be higher. Get to the town where I turn off to go to my house and they were still 10 cents lower. The one word curse words I was muttering before that turned into a whole string of ‘em as I verbally kicked myself for the last few miles home. Just glad I don’t drive a diesel at this point, that per gallon rate is even higher.

… My patience had already been tested and ran out (for the rest of the month) earlier today. Not even five minutes into an appointment, the person (not one of my side business clients) managed to do what no other individual had been able to do in well over a year. When I have to sit down my pen, cross my arms, and give you a not so impressed/happy expression, its a sign the rest of your responses better be direct replies to the questions being asked and not smart responses that are not funny. Its probably a good thing those reports are factual based and not observation based.

… I splurged and upgraded to a wi-fi internet account at home because of the business and other needs for a faster connection than dial up (but at a rate cheaper than satellite, my only other option out in the boonies). First couple of weeks the signal was fast, fairly comparable to the local deli (but not as fast as McDonald’s or the university I graduated from). This week, however, I swear my dial up connection is faster than this snail’s pace I’m on right now. My computer keeps updating crap despite switching every preference not to in order to prevent eating up my limited bandwidth. Haven’t exceeded 2/3rd’s of the limit with five days to go and I’m ready to scream. At least I had the sense to keep the dial up account as a backup …

… there a few more things I’d like to vent, but for the sake of privacy and other factors I won’t be doing so publicly …

On another note, gonna try to blog here a bit more often … including images from the list of theme challenges I’ve posted on the biz blog but not here and some other stuff I just haven’t had the time to share!

Life Is Short and Life Is (Too) Short – An Invitation — both at Pixelated Image

So Sad at Peekaboo Photos

So, in response to David’s question in his follow-up post, 

Life is short, and therefore I will… live each day as if its the last, following my gut/heart more often, accepting what I can’t change and make the most of it, and change what I can do/impact.

What does that mean? Following my gut on a number of things I’ve hesitated on, for starters, and enacting some changes in the coming months that I wish I had done sooner … starting this weekend.

… September started off slower paced, then Hermine blew through Texas and gave me a sinus migraine that lasted seven days.
… which resulted in having to take a day off work and go home an hour and a half into another workday.
… I don’t even need all the fingers on one hand to count how many days this month I haven’t had some sort of headache.
… shot a portrait session 70 minutes east of home, flew home (figuratively), showered/flat ironed my hair (no quick feat), attended a funeral in hometown, and attended a wedding in DFW (in which the car battery on the vehicle we were in was dead when we came out from the church to go to the reception) all in one day, while the above mentioned migraine was going on. Didn’t make it to the reception …
… the brother finally had knee surgery (from his February freak injury) late in the month … he’s slowly recovering.
… at the day job, including the above mentioned two sick days taken, toss in one federal holiday, one out of the office work event, and taking a day off work for my brother’s knee surgery and I worked my poor brain to frazzle levels churning out more reports than days I worked in the month (without going into detail about what my day job is exactly … which I had to interview someone for, do background research and contact other parties involved, and write up before the submission deadline).
… shot more sessions which I’m three days behind in editing at the moment
… signed up for an online (non-credit) class in which I’m behind on already
… launched a revamped version of my pet portraiture portfolio
… redesigned marketing materials for both sides of the portraiture business, which I ordered en-masse last night … now I’m broke again
… read at least three books, started another one earlier this week
… fell behind on email (already way behind on letters to penpals, one of these years I’ll catch up)
… forgot to wish my best friend a happy birthday on her birthday earlier this week, at least I shipped her gift to her earlier this month!
… spent more hours staring at a computer screen than doing anything else, including sleep.
… and some other stuff that my brain is way to exhausted to remember at this point.

Thankfully late last year/earlier this year, I sat down and evaulated the biz and figured out how to make this holiday portrait season a bit less crazy than the last three (2007, 2008, and 2009) … and limited when I booked sessions, factored in time for reschedules due to weather/illness (which if not used may be reopened for last minute sessions or be catch up time), and factored in time off so I wouldn’t in even worse shape physically and mentally. That little bit is helping me survive while all the weekday madness is out of my control.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to December (and January) … several weeks of down time with the business session-wise (and a couple weeks off completely from the behind the scenes stuff), plus time off work from my day job. Some of my fellow photographers think I’m crazy for wanting to skip October and November already, but when life is already in overdrive x’s 3, who doesn’t want to skip ahead in order to have a bit of down time … right?

Numero Dos: I’m exhausted. It was *feast* week at work and somehow in the three days I was in the office (we had an out of the office event dept wide on Wednesday and I was out today because of numero uno above), I made a huge dent in what has to be done between now and the middle of the first week of October. Don’t know where the energy came from other than sheer motivation to not have but a few things left to worry about next Monday!

Numero Tres: This week’s mantra is “you can’t please everyone” — and in all honesty, I’m not in the mindset/mood/motivation to bend over backwards anymore. Policies are for a reason, and its not like it wasn’t in writing. Some people nowdays don’t read, just sign, or assume that if they pitch a fit or complain, people will bend to their will. No longer will I — I put it in writing in multiple places and have clients sign documents acknowledging it so when they pitch fits, etc, I can refer to said document and hold my ground without budging.

Numero Quatro: Trying to find locations to fit this week’s assignment in my photography class — while I think I might have found two that fit what I have to photograph, I need to find the third one. Guess I’ll be driving around the countryside tomorrow in search of task #3!

Numero Cinco: I need a vacation already … *zonk*

Numero Dos: At the day job its either feast or famine workload-wise. Effective yesterday we’re back in feast mode to the Nth degree.

Numero Tres: Speaking of which, I worked for eight straight hours today without a break and still didn’t get everything done — there’s a five item to-do list on my monitor at the office + three appointments to look forward to on Monday alone. I spent my lunch hour doing personal stuff, so make that nine hours straight of work. Add in the hour and 25 minute round trip commute … and needless to say, I’m exhausted. But I still have a bunch of stuff to do tonight and this weekend.

Numero Quatro: Finally sold the lens I couldn’t stand to part with (to cover the cost of the replacement lens that I use all the time) … only took a few months!

Numero Cinco: I downloaded my online class materials earlier … can’t wait to get started on it! Meanwhile I need to go take my weekly image …

Oh how true that is … I’d cancel today too if I could. If tomorrow wasn’t payday, I do believe I’d take a mental health day from the office. But I can’t and I won’t because we have a work sponsored MHD next week.

Woo.hoo.

Can’t you feel my excitement? At least I get out of the office for a day …