Hello All! I hope this post finds you well and happy. Are you busy preparing for Spring, or are you feeling Winter’s claws like a porcupine’s quills, sunk deep and in need of a tough removal? I noticed all of the greening of fauna and flora today, so I think I will make it. This weather has been all over the place, but we wouldn’t expect anything different around here, nope! In fact, I did see someone mowing their grass last Wednesday, and it was only 40 degrees outside. I was amazed, impressed, and wondering why not tall grass warranted a mowing, in their mind. To each their own! This brings me to the post title today, The unEducated Eye, where we will discuss our uneducated eyes, and how our brain and mouth may not understand the disconnect.

On The Photographist Life, you will find professional photos and cell phone captures. The cell phone captures are usually used when I am out and about, discovering new places or visiting haunts I truly love. I want to quickly capture what I see, this encourages you to check the places out for yourself, and it allows me the ability to enjoy what I am seeing too. I would never submit these pictures for awards or accreditation, nor do I refer to them as photos. They are pictures that are not my “work”, but snapshots that I am sharing with you. Sure, we could say all images are artistic and of high quality, blah blah blah, but in reality, that is like comparing a chips ahoy cookie with grandma’s homemade, family heirloom recipe, chocolate chip cookies. Are the chips ahoy good and serviceable? Of course! However, the real deal, tried and true, hand crafted, love-poured-in recipe of grandma’s is not only better, but crafted and honed over time with love and care to deliver a product that is just that much better. So, if photos from my professional camera are better, why am I not sharing those all of the time?

Yep, TIME. I like to take my time with my professional photos. This is why I am not trying to attain every client out there. Sure, I could slap a filter on it and call it a day, call it professional, but that’s just not my style nor approach. Again, to each their own! I respect photographers that use presets(filters), but it is not my style nor approach. I am a hand crafter, starting my art before composing the shot, to delivering the final finished, hand it over product.

Does this mean my blog doesn’t deserve my time or handcrafting? Not at all! I actually spend a ton of time on my blog, but at the end of the day, the stories of the images tend to be more presiding, and in that, the images are only to enhance the story. I have a confession. I have not been writing because I have no stories for you, nor any images to go along with them. I am focusing more on my professional studio work, and that’s what has been more pressing in my life. You can’t and won’t grow if you are not focusing on what needs attention for growth.

So, this goes back to that conversation we had recently, that was centered on the need for elimination. I have to eliminate things that squander my time, that are not pushing me or making me grow, or that are not fostering the next best version of me. Clearly that means no cell phone captures of what my days consist of, no stories of what I am doing, no blog posts encouraging you to get out and explore your local world. While this is a bummer for me, and maybe for you, I am hoping you are still getting out there seeing and experiencing new things, capturing your own cell phone images, maybe even grabbing a professional camera and calling your work professional, even though a good camera doesn’t make you a pro, an educated eye does. Oops.

I will post some photos for you, and some cell phone captures…does the mix make me “almost professional”? I think not, and my credentials don’t think so either. Time to get back to work and focusing on my next level of growth, see you when I see you?!

We could be talking smoke and mirrors, fun house sorts of illusions, but if you know me, then you know we aren’t. We are talking about personal illusions, of course. Of course. I would love to discuss how sometimes we lie to ourselves, about ourselves.

Bill and I were going to breakfast last Saturday, and he had been unwell with a cold. I watched it develop from Monday through the week to Saturday. It built a little more every day to where I knew he desperately needed rest, and so I had to convince him he was unwell and needed rest to recover. Our conversation was humorous if nothing else, as I was telling him that he was sick. He asked why when he is unwell, I say he is sick, but when I am sick, I say I am unwell. I took the longest, most pregnant pause ever, and finally answered with “we are just different”. We both busted out laughing and spent a good minute or two laughing at the absurdity of my statement. To make it worse, I went on to explain(womansplain) to him why and how it is different…let me just say, that the picture I painted of him, to him, was very unflattering, while the picture I painted of myself was pretty complimentary, if not down right heroic.

I should say, Bill has asthma, so when he gets sick, it does affect him differently than it does me-in a breathing capacity sort of way. So, this is the complete basis of my picture painting style for both of us in our respective states of unwellness. Never mind that he will work through his illness, while I will rest and sleep to recover. No, we don’t need to pay attention to these disparaging differences. Let’s keep our focus on the fact that I have super human powers and Bill is a sickly kind of person. Yes, this is the part where you laugh with and at me for my own sense of illusion…even if it is based on my previous life of constantly pushing through any obstacle in my way, and his dying with any minor illness.

Today, I am writing this while I am a bit unwell, and under the influence of medication. Never mind that my face feels kind of numb, my thumbs work and I can feel the left side of my brain working. See, super human! Sure, Bill is working away in the next room, having recovered. Probably because I made him rest last weekend when he was sick. Not to lose track of our topic, but the best naps are to be had on Fridays when he is on conference calls all day. The soothing deep tones of mainly male voices really just relaxes me and I rest so well. I probably should ask for one of them to record about 2 hours worth of talking and put that on when I need a nap, on a day other than Friday.

Back to illusion. I may be unwell today. I am not going to commit to answering this quite yet. Maybe it’s just allergies. I think I was just run down from my 4:30am wake up calls this week, and sleeping poorly, yeah, that sounds truly accurate. I am fine, not unwell, definitely not sick. I have work to do, but maybe I will just sit here and stare at a wall for a while…while I drool from my numb left side of my face. Sounds like a decent plan, thumbs working, maybe it is my right side of my brain working, the left side may be numb like my face? Hmm. The wind is kind of strong today, and look at the bushes leafing!

I think I will rest today, maybe the whole weekend? I am so glad Bill is feeling well, recovered from being sick. I am definitely well, maybe I just need to go work out today. Perhaps I should look up the word illusion?

In all seriousness, I am mildly unwell, but I will rest, hydrate and medicate to help my body recover. I no longer live under the illusion of my super powers and will listen to my body when I need to. My people are all adults now and can fend for themselves, if need be. I don’t have to keep plowing away, I can rest. I know illness is going around the area, and hope if you find yourself sick or unwell, that you listen to the wisdom of your body. No illusions for us, our super power is wisdom in acknowledgment and then dealing accordingly! 😉

Our society has been so focused on being highly capable of doing it all, to the point that we are not only spread thin but our output may be lacking a bit of girth and substance. A person’s worth and success has been tied to what all they have been capable of managing and doing, while achieving, growing, nurturing, and adding to the already high pile of activities, responsibilities and work they were doing at the beginning. Many people don’t think they have too much on their plate, and one of two things is probably true for these folks, they either don’t realize they are heading for major burnout, or they really are not doing as many in depth things as they think they are.

This is not to say that we all have the same threshold, or that each person’s level of output is comparable, but more so that it is different for all of us. Let me throw an example out: A woman may be married, have a 9-5 job, and a small child, but her life may be a different level of occupied than another woman with the same criteria. Adding to one woman’s life may be doable and perfectly okay, but to add to another woman’s life may be too much for her. If you think this is about balance, you are incorrect. This is about what occupies your time, what you give value of importance to, and how other outside factors weigh in to it all. Balance is a self designated perspective, and that can be erroneous or easily miscalculated over the course of time involved. So, if balance is perceived, what is the actuality?

Less. Less is the actuality. You have less busyness, less worry, less doing of things and less distractions. Let’s go back to the married woman with the 9-5, and one child. She had less without the child. She had less without the marriage. She had less without the 9-5. Add those things up, and continue to add, she has more, possibly to the point of too much. Something will start to lose her quality of attention eventually, maybe to the point of losing her attention altogether. Ah, here is where people start to say “she balances it all”. Not quite. She will either give something(s) up, or she will ask for help to keep her attention focused and prioritized…which is still not balance but outsourcing and lessening her load.

This scenario translates all across the board, from women to men and whatever occupies our time. When do we go from occupation to distraction though? I think that is the case, we are very distracted from important core things and it is revealing itself in our society. We are less concerned with quality, more with quantity, and that is leaching our richness, in all honesty. What would happen if we focused on less? Would we be less successful? Would we be less fulfilled? Would be better as individuals? Possibly, but not necessarily.

Point blank, if you cannot outsource, you need to do less. If you can outsource, it provides room for you to do more. If one more so aligns with your values and expectations, do that for now, and maybe later or the whole time. The point is, are you doing all you are capable of, are you doing too much, do you need to do less, do you need to outsource…are you distracted by your own expectations or the expectations on you by others? These are very hard questions to answer most of the time, because we are so deeply in our lives and layering all of the things we add, that we really don’t see the absolute truth until we subtract to see a difference. A full life is not a rich life, and a life lacking is not fulfilling. Hopefully you see where this post is at and where it is going.

There is no balance, there is ebb and flow. There is not one size fits all, there is tailored to you and your life. There is not one right answer for people with the same criteria, there are multiple answers because we are are all having our own experience. There is however, one life to live, and we need no metrics from others, on which we need to measure our own.

So, tell me(even though I am not on fb and this will have to be a discussion you all have on your own, unless you want to message me), are you living your life by your own metrics, measurements, expectations, and pace? Are you outsourcing, lessening, or carrying an unbearable load?

While I have been absent from social media, I realized a couple of important things. I love people and I love to see what is happening in their lives…but I don’t think our interaction with humanity is meant to be done so largely through technology. Is that me cutting myself off at the legs? Maybe.

I have decided to not live on social media for a while. “But Erin, how are you posting this or to Instagram if you are off social media?” Well, I write on WordPress, hit publish to Facebook, and it does it’s thing. I have an app that can post to instagram and my Fb business page, all without ever stepping foot on either platform. This does however eliminate me engaging with you all, which is vital to building and maintaining some friendships and a business. Sigh.

What I love is engaging with those of you that engage with me, and I am not going to ask you to do anything special just to engage with me, like get a WordPress account. So, while I would love for you to enjoy my content, I won’t be responding to comments for a while, and I don’t want you to think I am ignoring you or not appreciating you. Truthfully, I will be sharing content at my leisure, will make a birthday post for Brooke this week, and I will probably write about some things that I am finding with a social media hiatus, which I encourage everyone to do. If you find yourself wanting to reach out to me, message me and I will give you my number and we can communicate in a more personable way! In the meantime, I hope you are all having a great February!

This week has shown me that two weeks will not be enough time to do what I want to do, so I am taking an indefinite break from the blog and social media. I think we all need time away to stay focused on what is most important to us, to do the things that make us feel good about our accomplishments in life, and most importantly, to spend time on and with those in our immediate circle, fostering deep relationships where we need and want them. I hope you are all have a great February so far!

I have decided to take a two week hiatus from blogging and social media. Not for negative reasons, the opposite in fact, I have some positive projects I am working on, and I want to devote my undivided attention to these projects! I don’t want to document my projects, but to immerse myself in those completely, which sounds nice too. Have a great couple weeks!