I've Got a New Attitude...

When Sharon initially invited me to join the photography challenge blog again, I didn't think I would.  In my head, I had all sorts of excuses:  I don't have time, I have nothing interesting to say, I'm not feeling very creative these days, and the list went on.  You see, I participated fairly faithfully in 2014 and really enjoyed it so signed up again for 2015.  Unfortunately, I had to drop out in the fall as things sort of fell apart and I was not at a place where I was able to find beauty in the world.  All my energy was required to take care of my family and go to work every day and try to smile for my patients and I had nothing left to give to the blog.  As I started 2016, I still was not in a good place.  To make matters worse, I was not and am not allowed to talk about what has gone on with a good chunk of my social network.  As a result, I've heard grumblings and mumblings around me about my negativity, my attitude, and such, leading to further feelings of anger, resentment, isolation.  Over the past few months, though, I have been beginning to accept that "it is what it is" and have tried to focus on the positives - I have an amazing, supportive family, I have some spectacular friends (and this has really taught me who those people are), a puppy with an abundance of love and energy, a roof over my head and food on my table.

Heading into 2017, I decided that this can no longer control my life.  I decided to spend this year focusing on myself.  That sounds selfish to me when I say it out loud, but I truly believe that in order to be a better mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, I need to spend time focusing on my mental and physical health.  I need to spend time taking care of myself.  I need to spend more time doing what I love - reading, spending time with family and friends, pampering myself, completing creative pursuits (hence, I joined the blog again).  So here is my first week...

A couple of warnings:
1)  Most of my blog post titles are song lyrics...bonus points to those who know the song and artist!
2)  I often can't decide on just one picture for each topic so frequently post more than one (but sometimes I don't complete all the assignments for the week so I figure it balances out).
3)  Sometimes I ramble on and on so feel free to ignore all my writing and just look at the pictures.  Or just skip to the next blog post if you prefer.

Here goes...

CHANGE and RELAXATION (I like to be efficient so put both topics in one pic)

Some of my Christmas presents this year are helping with my 2017 goals (or CHANGEs, shall we say).  This is my Bellabeat Leaf.  It's an activity tracker for women which tracks exercise, sleep, stress, meditation, and menstrual cycles.  It encourages you to meditate twice a day for a total of 20 minutes to help increase your resistance to stress.  You can see one of the meditations included on the app on my phone.  I have tried to meditate at least once a day this week but I think I'm failing at it, if that's possible.  I am not good at clearing my mind.  When they are telling me to focus on my breathing and imagine I'm in a wood cabin next to a peaceful blue lake with a nice fire burning in the fireplace, I'm off reliving the day or planning for the next and then have to tell myself to snap out of it and focus.  Sometimes I'm just stressing about the fact that I think I am the first person on the planet to flunk meditation.  I'm not sure the meditation part is working for me yet but maybe I'll get better at it with more practice?

There is also a gift certificate there for a pedicure - one of my favourite pamper me, relaxation treats.

NUTS

Not very creative, I know - a very literal interpretation.  A picture of cashews using the macro setting, albeit not very well, on my camera.

Then this happened and when I posted it on instagram/facebook, one of the comments was "OMG!  LOL!  That's nuts!"  Voila - nuts!

Yes, folks, that is my car, buried under all that snow when I came out from work Thursday afternoon.  After opening my door, I had difficulty closing it because the snow was in the way!

"J"

My puppy could likely be classified as "nuts" also as Sharon discovered the other evening when we took her for a walk.  She likes to walk on top of the snowbanks next to the road and then slide down them at every driveway.  She also likes to peek over each one to see if there's anything interesting in the yard...

The other evening on our walk, I noticed that her tail formed a "J" when she does this...

STARTS WITH K

I originally thought I would just take a picture of my kids (who are sure to pop up on numerous other occasions throughout the year) but then thought I would continue along my taking care of me vein and instead took a photo of a couple of my good friends - Kermit and my Kobo.

BUNDLED UP

My in-laws recently immigrated to Canada from the Philippines.  Besides the culture shock, the winter season has been a never ending source of amazement/fear/consternation for them.  Needless to say, they are usually bundled up.

This is my father-in-law.  Now this photo was actually taken before this challenge started but I thought this hat was perfect and I don't think he's worn it this week...

Not realizing I actually had the other photo on my camera already, I forced my daughter to bundle up for me the other evening and took her photo too.  FYI - she hates that hat.

WILDCARD

Apparently Sharon thought it would be fun just to take a random shot of whatever tickled our fancy each week.  Believe it or not, this stressed me out more than any of the assigned topics.  I'm not sure that was Sharon's intention at all.

Anyways, both of my kids have decided to join the swim team at the Y this year.  Duncan joined back in September and has really enjoyed it.  Danica waited until after watching Duncan's first swim meet in November and then figured she should give it a try too.  Today marked her first meet and Duncan's second.  I kept reminding Danica that the goals were as follows (not necessarily in this order):
1)  Swim your best
2)  Finish your race
3)  Don't drown
They were both very successful!  They did well.  Duncan actually shaved 6 seconds off his time for the 50 yard free from his previous meet!  And he swam his 50 yard back this time (he made himself sick when it came that time in his first meet as he was afraid of getting disqualified during his flip turn).  I was a very proud momma; I'm glad to see them trying their best to improve at a sport they love.

This is post warm-up but before any races.  They look a little more tired out now.

And that's that for the first week of January.  Keep warm!