Hello again!

I’ve been working behind the scenes in an effort to make my blog more interesting to navigate. In the process, I came face to face with my twin vices, Impatience and Perfection, and their wily ways.

There is so much to learn. This fact both excites me and overwhelms me and is the source of my long silence. I want it right and I want it now. When the truth of this finally became evident, I decided it was time to dive in with the incomplete and good enough version.

You will notice that there is now a new menu across the top with topic headings and, underneath them, topic subheadings. There were 70 blog posts to categorize before I could do the really tricky part of creating the menus. I procrastinated. I distracted myself. I found a new obsession.

What started as photography of art became the art of photography and so my one post that was almost ready to go got posponed. Perfection, impatience. Funny that I took so long to recognize them! They were like the Wizard of Oz behind the big curtain…loud and frightening and, in the end, just ordinary little tyrants.

And yet I honor them also. Perfection has served me well in building a successful marine canvas business and in creating handmade items to sell in my Etsy shop. Impatience has given me courage to embrace new obsessions, including photography. I was ready to give up on awesome product photos until I got to use a new camera. My impatience with what I had before was a good thing, propelling me forward and preparing me for another learning curve. And the chance to meet my impatience head on has been humbling.

I had gotten into the habit of hurrying, of wishing the workday would end so I could do the fun things. But with each hour that I wished away, I lost an hour of living fully. And if aging has taught me anything, it is the preciousness of every moment. Even the decidedly undelicious, bring-you-t0-your-knees moments. What brought me around to blogging again was the willingness to wait and watch and wonder what was holding up the show. This, in turn, brought me around to recognizing how much I love my work, all of it, when I let go of impatience and perfection. I love the process. The messy, marvelous and magical process.