A Photo a Day Keeps the Anxiety at Bay

I tried to keep my "faking that I feel good" attitude going today, and overall did pretty well.  Wahoo!  After I wrapped up my post this morning, I headed over to my mom's house.  She does daycare and babysits my nephew and I always get so excited to see him.  Today, I got what's become his typical response when he sees me, which is pretty much, "Big deal, Brenda's here; I'm almost seven and too cool."  I love you too, little buddy!  I love you, too.  I talked with my brother for a bit, had lunch with the kids, and then went out on a little photo journey. 

Little is exactly what that journey was.  I was headed to my favorite park in town, which is maybe five miles away from where I live.  I was distracted by this tree that I saw (yes, a tree) so I pulled over Big Blue (my Jeep) and began snapping pictures.  Unfortunately, I noticed two black spots on every photo I took.  I tried a couple of my lenses, but only noticed the spots on the pictures taken by one of my lenses, so I headed home to grab my lens cleaner.  I drove back to the tree, and again with the spots.  I was pretty irritated at this point...first my car, now my lens!  I tried another lens again, and this time it showed up on both sets of photos.  Then I really got annoyed, not the camera!  I am pretty sure there is just some dust on the sensor, as I tried blowing the dust out, and using a cloth on it (you're never supposed to touch the sensor if you don't know what you're doing, as you could destroy the camera, but I never heed good advice).  I was able to get rid of one of the spots, so sometime this week I will have to take it to the camera shop and have it cleaned, and in the meantime pray that that's all that is wrong with my baby! 

I did manage to get a couple of shots from my mom's house today.  My goal for the rest of the summer is to take at least one photo a day.  I set out to do this for the entire year, but between working 55 to 60-hour weeks, and Mr. Anxiety lurking around, I failed before the end of January.  I've found that photography is one thing I can do that is somewhat relaxing to me.  I say somewhat only because if my head feels weird, sometimes it gets worse while taking pictures because one eye is constantly shut.  I'm hoping to stick with this goal, as it will both force me to get out more, and hopefully give me the opportunity to get some nice shots.  Here are a couple from today:

After dinner, my mom and I went to the dreaded Wal-Mart.  Forty five minutes in that place was enough to make me more than ready to leave.  I felt pretty awful by the time I got home, but pushed through it.  I spent the past few hours baking some cookies for my neighbors that helped me out with my car yesterday, and now it's 11 p.m.  I think I'll probably watch an episode of my latest addiction and call it a night.  Sleep tight, ya'll!