LADDventure

The Photo Challenge Next Door - April

Camera settings: aperture-f32, shutter speed 1/40, ISO 100, focal length 44 mm

I took this month's photo on a quick off-road ride in the Jeep. We were on the Montana Mountain Trail in the southeast part of the valley, and it was gorgeous. I just love this time of year in the desert, with the ocotillo and cacti blooming.

My goal with this one was to capture the whole mountain scene in focus, so I opted for a higher f-stop to give me a deeper depth of field. (Look at me, knowing I needed to do that. Progress!) I didn't do any color adjusting, and just love how the colors turned out.

My next door neighbor, Kelsey, and I have a photo challenge going. We're determined to improve our photography skills, so we've set our cameras to manual to see what we can capture and learn along the way. You can view the rest of my challenge photos here, and Kelsey's here. Also check out The Girl Next Door Podcast, where Kelsey and I mix up a cocktail and chat about creativity, marriage, and life in general. A new episode is live today!

Bullet Journal is Changing My Life

A while back my partner in crime, Kelsey from Rising*Shining, introduced me to the Bullet Journal system, created by Ryder Carroll. We've raved about it on our podcast, and we're both writing about it this week on our blogs. In short, I'm obsessed, and it's changing my life. 

As a writer, I love the idea of keeping a writer's notebook or journal in which all my ideas, notes, scribbles and thoughts organized in one notebook.  I've started many such notebooks in the past, but in reality it never seems to quite work out - mainly because I don't remember where I started a list or story idea, and it's frustrating to flip through the entire notebook, searching for a thought. This changes that.

The genius of the Bullet Journal is the index. You simply number all the pages, and then you can really add anything at all, and simply index it. It also solves the problem of not remembering where your ideas on a certain topic are in the notebook.  For example...I have a page in mine for blog post ideas.  But, once I run out of room on that page, I can just use the next available page and add it to my index. So blog post ideas might be on page 3, 9, and 24.  Here's a quick intro from the creator to give you an idea of the basic concept...

While I think the original idea is used more as a daily planner/task organizer, I use it as a hybrid planner/journal.

I have a whole page for each day. Instead of just a bulleted list of tasks and appointments, I plan out my day, based on the Storyline Productivity Schedule.  Then I have other pages for meeting notes, story ideas, projects, and just index them accordingly. Here's a picture of my index to give you an idea...

 

The beauty of Bullet Journal...

You can use any notebook. It's not a specific notebook you need to buy, or pages to print out.  Any notebook would work. I recommend a sturdy one though. I started with a cheapie, and it quickly started to fall apart from how often I used it. Now, I'm using this Moleskine Classic Notebook, and it works beautifully! It's the perfect size to take everywhere with me, and very durable.

All of your important thoughts are in one place. In the past I've tried to use multiple notebooks for multiple topics, but that ends up being quite a few notebooks potentially, and I didn't always have the right notebook with me when I needed it.  This solves that problem, and provides access and organization.

You can use it for anything. I use it to record ideas and tasks for my blogs, podcast, and book. I also plan out my days, and write down quotes I love, or general life observations. Artists and designers could use it to sketch out ideas. While it lends itself nicely to the creative professional, there is truly no limit. I feel like any thoughtful person needs a lovely place to record those thoughts, and for me Bullet Journal is just that!

This week, I'll also be sharing ideas on how teachers and students could use Bullet Journal in the classroom over at The Candid Teacher!

Five Minute Friday - Friend

Jessica came for a visit. You know, the friend I told you about here.

She escaped the polar extreme of Minneapolis to soak up some sun and relaxation in the desert.

Everything was different and the same since last we hung out.  I'm settled here, and she's settled there, bringing a piece of her with to prove it - her beautiful baby daughter.

It was a girls' weekend of the best kind. Wine and painting nails and laughing until our faces hurt. But also memories, and deep conversation about marriage, faith, women.

Her drive inspires me, and I'd like to think my pace helps her relax. In some ways we couldn't be more opposite, but I sit and wonder how we've let so much time go between visits with this kindred spirit.

Sometimes on Fridays, a whole bunch of us write for five minutes, unedited, on a one word topic. This post is linked up here...

I needed it this Friday, to let go of the perfect of editing, and publish something unedited for the simple joy of writing and connecting.  Happy weekend.

Wordless Wednesday - What Not to Say to Adoptive Families

If Becoming When

When I was a teenager, I swore up and down I wouldn't have kids.  Pregnancy and labor freaked me out, to be honest, and I couldn't imagine actually going through either.  Into early adulthood and early marriage, I still didn't feel the deep desire to be a mom or have baby fever, but something was glimmering on the horizon.  I could see the potential to want it someday.  I knew one or both of us may change our minds at some point down the line, so my 'never' turned into an 'if'.  "Well, if we ever have kids..." I would say, like a long shot - a distant, abstract idea in the future.

In the last few years, Mr. Ladd and I still never really caught the baby bug, but something deeper was brewing.  Many of our friends and family started having kids, and we started having some serious talks about the future.  We still didn't necessarily long for a baby or all the changes one would bring, but we realized we wanted a family.  We wanted to be parents and have family around the table during the holidays.  We wanted family vacations and grandkids, and all the good, hard, meaningful stuff of family.  So we started casually trying to start one, and then more intentionally, and things weren't happening like we thought they would, so 'if' became kind of an ominous cloud of doubt.  "What if we can't get pregnant?" "What if something's wrong." "If we have kids..." we said cautiously, not wanting to jinx it.

Our doubts were confirmed, and we were diagnosed with infertility last summer.  We sat with that for a bit, aching with the constant knowledge that a door we were so hesitant to even open was suddenly slammed shut.  We were told that going straight to In Vetro Fertilization would be our best and really only viable option given the circumstances.  We'd always said the fertility treatment route was not for us.  We knew we didn't want to go through any invasive procedures before even getting tested, but now what?

Adoption had always been an option.  But it had all been hypothetical up to that point; if we had already been trying for a while, if we were diagnosed with infertility, if we were letting go of the possibility of biological children.  But those ifs had become whens, and those things were actually happening to us.  Now it was time to grieve the biological children we would most likely never have, and actually step nervously, but with a flutter of anticipation and excitement, into adoption. 

As we start meetings, classes, and have tangible paperwork in our hands to adopt hopefully two siblings from state care, if has become when.  I'm catching myself still saying, "If we have kids,..." and quickly changing it to "When we have kids..."  If has become when in really difficult but beautiful ways, and while there are so many unknowns in adoption, we do know we will have kids, it's just a matter of when.  That feels good, and it's something to hang on to.  It's a vast improvement over the uncertainty of if.

The Photo Challenge Next Door - March

Camera settings:  shutter speed 1/40, aperture f/14, ISO 400

I know it's April, but we're still technically in the first week, so it's still acceptable to share March's photo challenge, yes? Truth be told, I haven't really used my camera since last month's challenge, mostly because I had misplaced my charger and extra battery, and the juice was running low until I found it finally.

I'm also just finding myself in a frustrated place with photography.  I'm still not capturing what I want to capture, and when I am, I don't know how I did it or why it worked.  I know if I keep doing it, it will get better, and I'll get better at it, but I don't want to.  I don't want to lug my big camera around and take crappy pictures because I'm forcing myself to learn it, when I could be taking pretty decent pictures with my iPhone 5S camera.  I also struggle between being in the moment with guests or special events and capturing that moment, so I end up only taking pictures of things that have nothing to do with a moment, and are just scenery or still life. 

Maybe that's ok.  Maybe as I get better at taking photos, I can simultaneously capture and be in the moment, because I won't be busy cursing while figuring out the settings on my camera.  When things become more automatic, I won't have to think so hard about it, and can just enjoy the experience and the memory making. 

In the meantime, this picture captures how I feel about two hobbies I am trying desperately to improve in; photography and gardening.  I am finally starting to figure out gardening in the desert, but it is very different than the fertile soil and plant variety of the Midwest.  It looks a lot more like containers and irrigation and heat tolerance.  I'm learning, slowly but surely, and it parallels my photography skills at the moment. 

I realized looking at this picture though, that sometimes things are no less beautiful because of their imperfection, and in fact they hold a special charm of their own sometimes as a result.  I was about to pluck this tattered petunia bloom off of the plant, when I noticed the perfect little bead of water poised on its delicate petal and decided to not only leave it, but to embrace it in a photo. 

You can view all my challenge photos here, and be sure to head over to check out Kelsey's progress next door at Rising*Shining.

9th Anniversary Negativity Challenge

I'm realizing I may have a problem with negativity.  It's not so much that I'm a negative person.  In fact, I'm actually quite an optimist and idealist overall.  My problem is more with negative comments, snide remarks, and criticisms flying out of my mouth way too easily.  I truly don't realize I'm doing it, but others do, and it's not my best quality.  I also tend to be pretty stubborn, so I've resisted the notion that I might want to actually do something about it - something to make myself more aware of it, and curb it. 

Then a few consecutive events happened:

I got into one of those general relationship disagreements with Mr. Ladd the other night, and he brought up again how irritiable I sometimes sound, and how critical I can be of him.  I resisted that idea for the most part, but agreed to pay attention to it.

Then this morning, my very first conversation with him was to dramatically complain I would get nothing done today, since he had (graciously) arranged for two A/C and water heater estimates, and the lawn guy was coming so there would be a few interruptions to my schedule.  He told me to go to the coffee shop or library then, but that he really didn't want to hear me complain about it.  He had a point.

I sulkingly turned on my computer screen, and the first thing I read was this month's challenge from Laura at Hollywood Housewife.  She is challenging herself to utter nothing negative for the month of April, and she's giving herself some incentive to do it. 

The next thing I read was this post about focusing on the good things from Kelle Hampton at Enjoying the Small Things, and this line punched me in the gut...

"My, how easy it is for all of us to give notice to the bad things--to add them up, to give them thought, to wait for them to happen and fear their arrival."

The universe clearly wanted my attention, and made me realize maybe I should start paying attention to this thing I don't realize I'm doing.

It's our 9th wedding anniversary on April 15th, and I thought it might be a great time to focus on being more positive, particularly in my marriage.  So I've created a no negativity challenge of my own, inspired by Hollywood Housewife's version.  I've filled a jar with wine corks. Many of the corks have memories from when we drank that particular bottle of wine written on them.  There's one from our honeymoon in Niagara Falls, and from the bottle we had on Valentine's Day, 2008.  They are great reminders of all the positive we have in our relationship. So, for every negative comment I make to or in the presence of Mr. Ladd between now and the 15th, I will move a cork over to the empty jar.  For every cork in the negativity jar, I will donate $5 to AZ RESCUE (an organization who rescues cats and dogs from euthenasia at the county pounds).  We normally volunteer with and give to this organization anyway, but this will go above and beyond, and come out of my personal spending budget.  Every cork left in the original jar, will be $5 toward treating Mr. Ladd to something special. 

While I think being real and honest is important, framing things positively often changes my perspective on them, and complaining or nagging is never attractive.  I often complain and make things more dramatic than they need to be in an effort to make excuses for my own behavior.  I also think I often save all of my negativity for my husband, so I'm focusing on my conversations with him at first.  I don't want to be known as whiny and critical. I don't want to be so easily sucked in to criticizing and poking fun, so I'm putting my money where my overly negative mouth is.  It may be a quiet month.

Wanna join me?  Need to work on something else?  Tell me about it.