Small Steps toward the Big Goal

Reblogged from Münchow's Creative Photo Blog:

Creativity involves dreaming. Dreaming encourages the creative process. Dreaming is good. But dreaming can also halt your creativity – completely. That is if dreaming becomes nothing but a dream. If you don’t turn the dream into action, nothing comes out it. I have written about this before, talked about doing the work. And we can talk about creativity till the end of time, but if we don’t do the work, we are not creating. There is something more to it, though. Because dreaming also has the aspect of …

A great post about creativity, doing the work, allowing time to dream, and remembering that big goals are achieved with small steps!

Inspiration: Walking Into A New Year

It’s amazing how we take so many simple things in our lives for granted. Like walking. Being free to meander down forest paths or stroll down city sidewalks, soaking in all the life around you. How often do you take walks or go explore the world on foot? I know for me, it’s certainly not nearly as often as I’d like.. maybe once a month or even less. There is someone I know who has been walking a lot lately though. Someone who has inspired me to really embrace this simple gift of two good legs and a strong back to carry me wherever I want to go…

My brother has been battling back pain for over 10 years now, ever since he injured himself working as an inventory manager at a cabinet factory. Fortunately, not long after the injury he completed his degree and was able to move on to teaching – but the injury has limited his ability to do even something as simple as go for a long stroll or go hiking in a state park… things he dearly loved. That all changed late last year. In November, he began to realize – out of nowhere – that his back wasn’t hurting like it used to. He’d had no procedures or surgeries or new therapy. Nothing. And just like that, the pain was going away with no explanation for why. I’m so wonderfully perplexed by this.

And so, after over a decade of being restricted to only small trips to the store and straight home, my brother took his new found freedom and began to walk. He walked and he walked, for hours. For days. He bought a pedometer to track all his walking. By the end of January he had walked 45 hours and 42 miles! I’m so inspired by this walking journey of his. It made me think about what it would be like if I couldn’t just go out for a long walk or spend the day hiking at the lake… or the other physical things I enjoy, like rock climbing or kayaking. All the little things that can be so easy to take for granted, his story has helped to remind me to be very grateful that I have a healthy body that allows me to experience this journey of life in as many ways as I can imagine.

It has also inspired me to think of small ways to embrace the simple things in life. Today for example, has been an unseasonably warm and beautiful day in Dallas. With a cool breeze and temperatures in the 70′s (in February!), I decided to go home for lunch. I rode the whole way with all the windows rolled down and it was glorious. It wasn’t a 7 hour walk – but it was some small way to just stop from the hustle and bustle of life and soak in the beauty that is all around.

Thank you Mike. =)

To read more of Mike’s journey and other random awesome stuff he posts – visit his blog here!

 

Quarterly Project: Welding Is Definitely NOT Sexy

This past Sunday was my second welding class – and we got to do a bit of welding finally! I’m definitely not having the same awesome “fish in water” experience with this as I typically do with most artsy things. A little frustrating to not feel like comfortable as quickly as with drawing or photography – but we’ve all got things that don’t come naturally for us! So I’m having fun realizing that my vision of being this sexy welding chick is not exactly fitting into reality…

Yup. That is me. And I look like man. Lord almighty, welding is definitely not very flattering, particularly when it’s cold outside and you have no choice but to wear a 3XL leather welding jacket in which you can barely bend your arms enough to do the welding. I went to buy some leather work boots yesterday -  an area of women’s clothing that could really use some help. They make my feet look so immense that I look like Meg from Family Guy. Despite my disappointments in being able to retain a ladylike appearance in any form, I did grow up a tomboy – so really I quickly forget about all that and am suddenly lost in learning this cool new process!

Oh yes, and that helmet? You can’t see anything (and I mean anything) through those things until you make a few sparks – so it’s pretty impossible to actually weld where you planned on.

In the shot above I’m doing some MIG (Metal Inert Gas) welding – which is essentially like a big hot glue gun. There is a piece of steel wire that runs through it, and when you hit a button on the nozzle it comes out and uses an electrical current or arc to melt the steel onto your metal surface. Pretty neat stuff! It took me some practice to figure out how to comfortably hold the nozzle and all, but after a short bit I started to get the hang of it.

(Instructor and one of the other classmates doing some stick welding)

We were introduced to stick welding too – which made me a little nervous. You use two giant positive/negative clamps like you’d use to jump your car. One clamp attaches to the metal table you’re working on and the other will hold a stick of steel that you weld with. Yeah… this just sounded like a bad idea to me. Alas, I did try it – and sucked pretty bad at it – but proud of myself anyway! Really hoping I can do most of my welding with the MIG welder though!

We’ll be starting our first projects in the next week or two. Right now, I’m thinking of making a truck bed extension for Andrew’s truck, so that we can more securely transport both of our kayaks this summer! It’s a pretty basic construction, just an L-shaped piece that fits into the trailor hitch with a bracket or bar on the other end to hold the kayaks. I’m a little nervous about making something functional – but going to give it a shot! Very excited!!

The Day the Internet Found Me

Every blogger out there fantasizes about this moment… when somehow the little blog you’ve been pouring yourself into suddenly gets noticed and explodes all over the internet – even if temporarily. Most of you are likely reading now because you saw my last post about my boyfriend’s recent accomplishment’s on the Freshly Pressed page of WordPress. I would like to share with you how this weekend went down…

We had a party Friday night with some close friends to celebrate all the goodness of the past week… hooray! Lots of bowling, laser tag and air hockey – as we are just giant 12 year olds around here. In the morning, as Andrew went off to work I stumbled sleepily to my desk to catch up on emails and the latest happenings of Facebook and as usual, visit the blog and see if maybe I’ve broken my record of 95 visits in a day. I’m staring at those status bars thinking to myself “hmmm that’s so weird, the one for yesterday is like disproportionately huge compared like ALL the past weeks.. what is wrong with this thing?” *refreshing page several times* Then I rollover the bar of epicness and the visit number 1,274 shows up…. whaaaaaaaa!

I then go into a fury of checking email and comments and likes and followers – whole crap! How has this happened?! Thank you WordPress for showing me how people found my blog! Freshly Pressed?! What! OMG *girly noises and dancing around the house in pj’s scaring the cats… this goes on for some time* And then I realized I have to wait ALL DAY to tell Andrew about this coolness and how tons of people are sharing in his achievement since I can’t call him at work. Baaah! So there I sat in the quietude of the morning with this thing that felt so big and expanding and connected that it was about to explode the room. And my favorite part of this was that it happened not because of something I did – but because of someone’s story that I shared… and that wonderfully interconnectedness of his story and mine and the whole journey that has meant to much to us.

By the end of the weekend our little post and the blog overall had over 10,000 visits (TEN THOUSAND!). That is a number of people so inconceivably huge-tastic to be connected to for even an iota of time that my only reaction was really just to laugh in lighthearted joy and utter amazement.

Now of course I realize this won’t last – and that probably everyone who’s even been on Freshly Pressed writes a blog entry just like this one afterwards… but do I care if I sound ridiculous? Nope. Unapologetically dramatic is how I roll. I really have no clue if anything like this will ever happen again and I’m just going to bask in it fully and outwardly – with all of you!

So THANK YOU to all of you wonderful shining people who took the time to visit, read and comment… to follow, reblog, and like. It has taken several days, but we’ve read each and every comment you left, and have gotten to see so many cool new blogs we would have never otherwise found! You made a special event in the lives of two people down in Texas even more incredible with all of your kindness! And to think, I almost didn’t post this because I thought it might be cheesy or no one would like it. Just goes to show that anytime we doubt ourselves we should really just take the chance and go for it… because you never know where it will go. =)

All my best!
*s

Inspiration: Surpassing Limits & Achieving Goals

So today my inspiration does not come from a sculpture or a photograph – but from my best friend and counterpart, who for the past few years has worked hard, kept an open mind, and grown in so many incredible ways along the road…

Andrew has been working tirelessly towards his goal of becoming a flight instructor this past year… at last, today was the big day – the final check ride as it is called. From 8am to around 4pm he taught lessons, answered questions, talked about regulations, worked out scenarios and did a final flight with the chief pilot. Yes, that’s like an 8 hour final exam. Phew! And at the end of this tiring day – which comes at the end of a tiring year – he has passed and is now a Certified Flight Instructor in helicopters.

I can still remember a little over year ago, when this goal seemed so large and so daunting to this person. I remember it wasn’t easy to commit to finishing this last leg of his flight training – and it took some time. I remember my being frustrated and not understanding why he was having such a tough time. I was pushy (oh those old habits..) and he was stressed and we were really quite grouchy with each other. I remember realizing that being pushy was NOT helping a thing – and then learned instead to be supportive and listen to what he really needed from me. And then I remember watching him begin to tackle it (as we always say… how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!). I remember him taking on a full time job and being so full of worry as to how on earth he was going to get all his studying done with work. But he did (while also kicking quite a bit of butt at work too, I might add). And now, on this big day, he is looking back and seeing that he tackled this thing which seemed so immense and insurmountable before.

It’s a beautiful thing to be there when someone achieves something in their lives that they previously did not see themselves capable of. In that achievement, they expand their own view of themselves. They find a new part of who they are and a deep sense of pride, confidence and inner joy radiates from it. It is no doubt inspiring and infectious, and I count myself lucky to have been here to share in it! I’ve watched as he’s pushed himself to his very limits and kept on pushing – only to realize that his true limits are much farther than what he had ever perceived. Here’s to you, Andrew, I am so excited for you as you embark on the newest chapter of your life. In the words of one Dr. Seuss… “Oh! The places we will go!”