heatweirdlastname

connections, exercise, food, mindset, motivation

Keep sharing! Ignore the haters!

Posted on May 25, 2020May 24, 2020 by heatweirdlastname

There are quite a few memes circulating, as usual, that no one cares about your bread/run/anything they’re not doing.

I assume the person posting doesn’t care about them*, but that’s not generalize-able to “no one” or “everyone.”

I know personally half a dozen people who have made recipes in the last month that a friend shared on social media.

We made scones a week or so ago. A friend had posted pictures and in the comments, there were lots of recipes shared. I picked one of those recipes. We made scones. I posted pics and shared the recipe. The other day, a friend posted pics of scones they made from the recipe I shared. The next day, another friend posted pics of scones they made.

This doesn’t even count the people who see and make the recipes but don’t post about it.

I’ve had four people I can think of tell me that they were inspired to exercise in some way because of something I shared about me or us exercising. (Joined the run series, decided to go for a walk, did some pushups, whatever.)

So yeah. Keep posting. You never know who you’re going to inspire to do the same.

*I had a big tangent to this thought and will share it with you tomorrow.

Sunday photos

My photography journey 24May20

Posted on May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 by heatweirdlastname

Walks around the neighborhood.

The last couple of months have included so many walks, runs, bike rides around the neighborhood.

Some of the scenery is the same. As the season has changed (and continues to change), different plants are out and about, so there is some variety.

The canal has water critters in it, and I’ve seen many turtles. I decided to go with Sir Nikolas Cameron (the Nikon, recently named; Nikki for short) and see if I could get some good shots of turtles.

I went out twice. Not a single turtle to be seen. (No married turtles, either hahaha)

I did, of course, get some other shots along the way.

First, the birds.

Because I’ve been out on the canal path nearly every day, I have seen these guys since they were just fuzzy ducklings. Kind of fun to watch them grow up.

This one made me laugh.

This little guy was in a proper tree and I wasn’t fast enough to catch him. (This is a serious down side to using all manual settings. I had been shooting in full sun, so my settings were set for that, and he was in the shady side of a tree. So either I miss him entirely or I have shots that are way underexposed.)

He moved to this plant and I snapped quickly. (That’s actually a parking lot in the background.) And I ended up with a photo of a bird wearing a party hat. 🥳

And, of course, plants.

So many sunflowers! They’re really all over the place, which is delightful.

Palo verde trees have lovely small yellow flowers on them. Many homeowners don’t like them because of the mess, but if you don’t mind them decorating the ground, they’re beautiful trees.

This was shot into the sun, which isn’t necessarily the best angle. I love the sun through the flower petals, and I love the white outline to that whole plant.

This is one of those shots that I really like and can’t articulate why and most other people who look at it don’t look for long but I’m sure that someone sees it the way I do and will enjoy it, so here it is.

I took quite a few variations of this one and had the Climbing Daddy and The Kid choose which they liked better. They chose different ones, of course, and that narrowed it to two. I chose my favorite of the two … and I didn’t tell The Kid, because it’s not the one he picked.

I love bougainvillea against the sky. Added bonus for the white wall.

I’ve walked past this tree at least 100 times and not noticed its bark. I’m continuously amazed at how many things I miss.

This guy had the gorgeous pink flowers from a couple of weeks ago. Still interesting to look at, just for different reasons.

I love this entry.

I haven’t learned any editing software yet. (It’s on my summer to-do list.) A few shots that have come out poorly and are useless anyway, I’ve been messing with just in the photos app. Here are a couple of those. (Everything else in this post is either exactly as shot or cropped but not otherwise adjusted.)

This last one, the sun was hitting it just right to show rainbow. The editing was just to make it stronger, but it actually was there to start with.

ebb & flow, meandering

I did myself in with background noise

Posted on May 21, 2020May 21, 2020 by heatweirdlastname

A funny thing happened.

Weird funny, not you’re-going-to-be-laughing funny.

I went in to school to do some end-of-the-year stuff. Mostly light manual labor.

A limited number of people can be on campus at once and we’re all in our own rooms most of the time, so except for a few minutes on one of my campuses, I didn’t see or interact with anyone.

Headphones in, I listened to podcasts. When I got into a task that required just enough brain focus that I couldn’t listen and do the task at the same time, I switched over to music. Listened to music for the rest of the day.

Seven hours later, I was done my tasks for the day and ready to head home.

In normal times, driving is the primary time I listen to podcasts. That day, though? I just wanted quiet.

No music. No podcasts. Nice weather meant windows down which means noisy. And the freeway is in the midst of being redone. The asphalt is stripped. Ambient noise was even louder.

When I got home, I needed quiet, I got some, and it was fine.

It got me to thinking: do the people who leave TVs on all the time in the background get overstimulated by sound all the time?

It’s really rare for me to get overstimulated when I’m by myself for a long time. And I hadn’t considered that I might like just to work in quiet for some of the time.

If you are a background noise kind of person, do you get to a point where you need to turn it off? Inquiry minds want to know…

Sunday photos

My photography journey 17May20

Posted on May 17, 2020 by heatweirdlastname

Today: people and plants!

I did a handful of porch sessions … and most of the photos from them just weren’t very good. (Frustrating and embarrassing.) I have a lot to learn about posing people! For one set, the poses were great but they were all out of focus. I figured out why (and know how to fix it), but not while I was on site.

I have trouble seeing if photos are in focus on my camera. Not sure how to remedy that so I don’t have this problem again.

Anyway, I also went to a friend’s front yard and took pictures in her fabulous enormous saguaro cactus. (I wasn’t in the cactus, but birds were.)

Onto the photos!

Sadly, I don’t have any great photos of her family (I will get better at coordinating poses), but she asked me to take a shot of her with her “I didn’t kill it!” plant.

This family is so cute and wanted their shots in front of the big cactus in their yard.

The pooch was in the family shots but not in the best ones, but he looks good here:

Not all shots are posed … or traditional.

The sun was harsh for these, but they’re good-looking people!

And—plants. Sharp, pointy plants. And the birds that love them.

These guys don’t look like what Saturday morning cartoons led me to believe woodpeckers look like.

Saguaro flowers are so stunning, and I love how the lighting in this one makes the flower stand out even more.

Finally, more of the mini-roses in our front yard.

about me, cancer, ebb & flow, gratitude, physical health

The cancer bus ride started 13 years ago

Posted on May 16, 2020May 16, 2020 by heatweirdlastname

Lucky number 13!

Thirteen years ago, I started my cancer journey (though the diagnosis didn’t come for another week or so).

It changed everything and it changed nothing.

It was not a blessing in disguise. It didn’t “happen for a reason” (except for whatever the biological root causes were … for which science has guesses but not answers).

It did have a lot of silver linings.

I was lucky—as lucky as one can be going through half a year of chemo, a month of radiation, and continuing on afterwards—in that my long-term side effects have been minimal. (Long-term side effects of the radiation, if I have them, aren’t expected to kick in for another few years. And they are terrifying, so here’s to hope that they pass me by.)

“Still alive” is a good baseline, but quality of life matters.

That’s true whether you’ve had cancer or not.

New Year and birthdays are often calendar points where we might be reflective and introspective.

This date and my cancer-free date (one week before Thanksgiving) give me two additional calendar points to pause and reflect for a minute.

Privileged to be able to forget most of the time that I ever went through it all in the first place. To be able to plug along.

Grateful to be here, to be healthy, to be writing, to be photographing, to have a son (infertility is a common side effect).

My wish for you is to assess or reassess without death threatening you. Or, if you currently feel threatened by death, use it as motivation to introspect. Use it as an excuse to be vulnerable with your people. (And make that a habit.)

Here’s to the next 13 and more! Cheers!