And I’ve just now realized that it’s been nearly a year and a half since my last update. Many who know me on a personal level know what I went through with Hurricane Harvey and the burglary of my home while I was working to get it to a point where repairs could begin. At this point I’m not going to write about that. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a past event and, while it affected me in many ways, I’m not going to rehash it. I will say the process of rebuilding my home is ongoing (I’m doing most of the work myself) but it’s moving along with all the other things I have going on in life.

It’s not that I’ve been neglecting this blog out of sheer laziness. When I opened the editor earlier, I found 3 posts that had been started but paused as I moved on to other tasks. Although much of my writing is, in the artistic sense, automatic, it does take an hour or more to post something here. I start with a thought going through my head and as I write, I’m constantly proofreading, editing, or sometimes just simply shifting gears on a post. Sometimes something comes along and completely derails the process.

I just lost 4 minutes because “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” came up in my iTunes shuffle and I just had to jam.

The thought that was going through my head for this particular blog post was the new year. Every year I used to do the “new year new me” line of thinking. I would make a promise to myself to make a big change. Around April, I would realize I broke my promise and steel my resolve. By the time the NFL season began to gear up, I would realize that what I promised was unrealistic and just look forward to the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall (which happens to be my favorite season). After the big changes forced on me by Harvey, I began to understand that life shouldn’t be about making a promise for a big change once a year. It should really be about making small changes to improve all throughout the year. It really hit home this past Spring as I battled with a bout of depression. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say it was Harvey-related and lasted quite a while. A lot of things suffered – my repair progress and my photographic work being among the hardest hit. I knew intellectually something was wrong, however, I couldn’t bring myself to figure it out and deal with it. All it really took to break through it was one small change I made. Afterward, I felt a renewed sense of energy and I saw that small changes are much more profound and longer lasting than the big ones we promise to make. I’ve made several process changes that have yielded great results and not just in my photo and home repair work.

One positive event in the past 18 months was going to New York for my dad’s 75th birthday. It was a surprise for him as he didn’t know I was going to be there for the party. It was great to see the smile on his face. I also got to connect with 2 old friends. I did set aside a couple of hours for making photos. This time, however, it was a little more difficult. I always get nostalgic when I visit the Cincinnatus area. One in particular was the ice cream shop in town, which is only open during the Summer months. Given that my dad’s birthday is in December, there was very little chance of me getting a chocolate soft serve cone. Seeing that shop all buttoned up for the winter, though, brought back a lot of memories.

Well, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you adieu until I come up with my next writing inspiration. As for right now, I have some photo work that is seriously overdue.