In a world of so many great photographers and writers, I am venturing into some unknown territories, leaving comfort zones, finally very willing to practice the art of seeing. By maintaining the practice of posting daily photos, I hope to continue learning about the possibilities that I trust are out there for the taking.
Unfortunately this is not tonight’s dinner, but a dinner we had in Mammoth this past August at the Tamarack Lodge. Ummmmm good.
I have not been able to do what is on my agenda today. Actually, what has been on my agenda today has been on my agenda for many days.
Maybe it’s because I’m hungry.
…because I don’t know how to do what I have to do.
…because I’m lazy.
…because I just want to do what I want to do.
I haven’t a clue what the reason is. I do know I am eating myself silly instead of doing what’s in front of me to do.
So…..this entry will have to suffice as today’s post.
I am off to be good to myself and do what I don’t want to do.
Wish me luck.
7:52pm (an hour and 20 minutes after I wrote this post)
I did it. I wrote what I wanted to write. It worked putting it out there to all of you. Yeah!!!!!
……I’m still hungry though. A celebratory meal is in order….once Ray gets off the massage table with Yessie.
Ray checking in – Mission Hills Country Club Fitness Center.
I fired off a shot just as we started working out this morning with Dr. Mark.
This is not me reading the newspaper!
I’m so glad I didn’t miss Riddle’s trail art when I was hiking the PCT. Riddle would stop, take a break and create art out, like the 3 following photos, from whatever she found on the ground around her. Spotting each masterpiece was a highlight of the day.
This morning I stopped to photograph some local bump and grind trail art (certainly not up to Riddle’s compositions). I really am trying to pay attention to all I pass by.
Halfway back down the hill we’d just climbed I said, “Look Katie, there are initials on the trail”. She said that she’d she them the other morning. So, I had walked right by the initials without seeing them. Not good. But now I remember, it was at this point I was looking over at another hiker and talking about something. Yeah, that’s it, I was distracted!
I’m home after the hike, sitting at my desk in front of the computer, and I glance up and notice this egret perched atop the willow tree in front of the lake.
I ran out with my tripod and camera fitted with a max telephoto of 200 and clicked away from various distances and positions. I stayed out on the golf course for a half hour hoping the bird would take flight. That is San Jacinto peak behind the bird.
What I learned from watching this bird for a half and hour was how little time I spend being still, just looking. I enjoyed myself. I hope I remember how fun this was.
Sasha Cagen, the woman I previously mentioned whose blog I love, is having a to-do list contest. The winner gets a copy of her just released To-Do List book (pictured below).
I’m entering this contest and sending Sasha digital copies of 1994 work I did with Jane when I listed my beliefs on fun, money and sex. It’s hilarious what I used to think. (digital copies below).
If you are interested in sending Sasha your old lists, I have copied and pasted the directions for the contest from Sasha’s Monday, November 12, 2007, blog:
The Weirdest List contest.
To celebrate the book’s release, I’m sponsoring a contest: The Weirdest List. Send in your weirdest to-do lists (real authentic lists that you wrote or found in the course of everyday life, please, nothing constructed for publication). I’m interpreting to-do list broadly for the contest, just as I do for the book. . . so this could mean life list, ideal mate list, possible goldfish names, etc. Weird can mean the entire list, the title, or a single odd item on it. Sometimes the most intriguing lists are entirely banal and mundane until the eye gets to that very cryptic item.
Here’s how it works: Send a scanned jpeg of your list to todolistblog AT gmail.com by November 30. Please write “WEIRDEST LIST CONTEST:” in the subject line before the title you give your list. Readers of todolistblog.com will vote on the winners in the first week of December.
The top three vote-getters will win signed copies of To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us, and limited edition copies of To-Do List, the print magazine where this project got started. . . in addition to bragging rights for having written or found the weirdest to-do lists ever.
A brief LIST of the history on the how and why I did a Belief Inventory on 5/5/94 follows.
• I was confused and frustrated that I didn’t know what fun was for me.
• I was fighting with Ray all the time.
• I expected Ray to contribute more financially.
• I didn’t want to have sex with Ray.
• At one point Jane asked me to please call her before I allowed my list of resentments to total 24.
• My attitude was terrible.
• It was always everybody else’s fault.
• I WAS irritable, restless and discontent.
Jane called me. She had just gotten back from having attended a meeting at Radford. Jane excitedly related that in the meeting, she had just heard some, as she called it, “Nuggets of ‘94” shared. She heard someone share and describe that they had done a Belief System Inventory.
Jane then gave me directions on how to do this Belief Inventory by making 3 columns.
Heading for Column 1: A word that best describes what you want to inventory. … Areas of your life where you aren’t doing well. Examples: relationship, Work, Mom, Friend, Love, etc. Just make a list down column 1. When the listing of all the words in column 1 is completed, start column 2.
Heading for Column 2: My beliefs about ___________ are (beliefs from each word in column 1) …. Don’t think. Put the pencil to the paper and keep the pencil in motion vertically on down the paper until you’ve listed and are finished writing whatever dumb/embarrassing thoughts/beliefs come to you.
Jane actually only told me the first two columns and said, “Call me back once you have finished these columns.” (She probably knew I’d do the columns out of order and look up the word in the dictionary.)
Column 3: Dictionary definition of the word. She said, “Ok, now get a dictionary and lookup the primary/preferred definition of the word and list on down the page the definitions opposite each word you are inventorying.
Here are the photos (click on photo to enlarge it) of my work:
What Jane’s feedback was on my inventoried thoughts/beliefs were in the area of:
Fun: Jane said that fun is not a reward, it is an attitude.
I was to take time anytime to experience the joy and light side of any situation.
I can try and still have fun.
I can have fun even though I have things “to do”.
Have fun 1st.
Money: Jane said that I give power to $ that $ doesn’t have.
No where is having $ being responsible with $.
By August 1994 Jane wanted me to be handling my own $.
She said that I’d gain an appreciation of $.
Sex: Sex is about giving and playing/enjoying. She told me I needed to be more playful. She wanted to see me initiate sex.
Well. This exercise, this listing of my beliefs, really helped me back then see how very flawed my thinking was…..made me see that I’d been taking every action in my life based on these flawed beliefs…..that these beliefs weren’t true…..that these beliefs didn’t even help me get what I wanted….AND, most of these beliefs weren’t even mine – they were what I believed someone else believed. I’m not blaming these beliefs on anyone else.
My beliefs on paper looked silly.
My husband, Ray, said after I read what I was posting, “Maybe you should write out a list of your current day beliefs on these specific topics.” Good idea. But, tomorrow, not today!!!!
Do you have any old beliefs you’d like to share?
Katie and I hiked again at 5am this morning. Boy do I like the everything-is-perfect feeling seeing the sun rise while I’m out exercising.
I get home around 640am and I have set the tone for the day.
I just need to remember this feeling when I don’t want to get out of bed at 4am on Monday and Wednesday mornings.
I read other people’s blogs. Here is a woman named Sasha who shares my belief and understands the value in writing/listing our thoughts.
Here is her blog: http://www.todolistblog.com/
This is what she says on her website about a book she just had published:
Why I Wrote this Book
I took on this project because I think reading other people’s to-do lists can have a bizarrely therapeutic effect. They help show us that everyone else struggles with basic items like “pay bills” (you can see it when an item recurs over and over again) and they show us how we all contend with larger issues too (like “find soul mate”). They give us access to hidden parts of others that we wouldn’t otherwise get to see.
Added to the right side of my site is a feed link to Sasha’s current list blog: 110 Things I want to do before I die. (written in 1998 by someone)
Do you have a list?????
I have added a new photo website link on the right (click on gottagolinda’s photos) where you may view more of the photos I took instead of hiking today. I will continue to add photos to this gallery for your viewing.
Click on this photo to enlarge it and see the eyelash-like suckers!
I joined Flickr.com an online photo gallery so I can easily share my photos. When I saw this on their website I was sold: Do you have a Blog? You can post photos to your blog from Flickr!
I just uploaded some photos I took today. I intended to go hiking and get some exercise but I also wanted to practice with my camera. I put the Canon EOS Rebel XTi, fitted with a Canon macro lens EF 100mm 1:2:8 USM, in my backpack. I also found the little tripod I bought in Mammoth and put it in the backpack too.
After only 15 or 20 minutes, I reached the end of a canyon. (photos of this canyon hike may be viewed by clicking on the new photo link to the right). I could have rock climbed up and over but felt a little nervous doing so as I was hiking alone. I turned back to try my luck with another canyon I’d passed.
I found a nice wash filled with a variety of tiny flowers. I missed the flowers the first time I passed by them. I took off my backpack, got out and set up the macro and tripod (tiny, tiny tripod that only goes about 8 inches high)and got on my stomach in the sand.
An hour and 15 minutes later I had taken about 140 photos. I couldn’t believe what I noticed once I got down on the ground and looked through the lens. This big green slug looking blob of a plant eating thing really surprised me. It was the same color as the leaves of the plant so it wasn’t noticeable until I almost touched it while I was moving about on the ground. Yuk. The photos of him are interesting. The suckers on its underbelly look like eyelashes in close up view. It’s fingers and mouth (i think) are scary.
Anyway, I had a ball. I could have stayed taking photos for hours.
Hope you enjoy them.
I still had trouble with a real crisp focus on most photos, but I’m getting a bit better. I need a shutter release and a small tripod that moves easily from one direction to another yet still has a stable locking structure. I noticed one or two interesting small tripods in a new photo book I’m reading: The Magic of Digital Close-Up Photography by Joseph Meehan.
Guidelines for Creating an annual Ideals’ List for the New Year.
~Every year since 1995 I’ve made a list at the end of each year for the upcoming year. This list contains, not resolutions, but ideals/desires of things I want to do, changes I want to make, principles I want to practice, etc. Throughout the current year I look at this list. At year’s end, I review how many listed desires I took action on. Looking back over the last 12 years since I started making these annual ideal lists, I found a pattern. I am now consistently accomplishing things I’ve always intended to do but never did.
Yeah!
Since I was experiencing such success with my own ideal lists, I ask my sponsees to annually create their lists. In the beginning of the year, at our monthly meeting, we all read our upcoming ideal lists. At the last meeting of the year, we each read how much we accomplished on our lists.
A sponsee had requested I write up a template/guideline for writing out our ‘Ideals List’ for the upcoming year. My friend Cupcake took on this project of writing this Guideline one day while he was working for me. I then edited some of what he wrote. It may not sound like me, but the ideas behind Cupcake’s writing are mine.~
L, Linda
Suggestions
There’s no right or wrong way to do write an Ideal’s List, but I do have some suggestions. These are the thoughts that have made this tool particularly helpful for me.
• Be specific
• Review all areas of your life in considering what to include: Home, Work, Vacation, Family, Body, Spirit, Mind, Service, Attitude, Sleep, Driving.
• Dream big. You are not a failure if all the items on your list don’t get manifested in the coming year. I often have items that roll from year to year. Remember: learning about ourselves, rather than doing something perfectly, is what’s most important.
• Be realistic. This is where you get to examine the balance between reality and fantasy.
• Use verbs. Start each statement with an active verb, like choose, find, explore… For example, rather than “I want to go to Peru,” say “Travel to Peru.” The bulleted examples that follow provide other examples.
Components
I have found that including the following topic headings (components) in my annual Ideals list very helpful: Projects, Changes, Goals, and Desires. Some components have several parts.
Sometimes a particular item may seem like it could be in one or more components. Trust your instinct or check with someone else. Don’t let confusion slow you down.
I personally place a high value on learning, and I encourage you to begin at least one line of each major component (Projects, Changes, Goals, & Desires) with the verb Learn… For example: Learn to be more forgiving, Learn to type, Learn what foods are bad for me.
Projects
A project has more than one task/action. Anything that can be broken down into smaller tasks/actions can be made a project. It takes some time and effort to get a project done.
If you are having trouble with a particular task/action, like writing a letter, consider making it a project, and then break it down into more manageable tasks.
For example, you could break down writing a letter by:
1) Scheduling the time,
2) Getting the materials (pen & paper),
3) Buying a stamp,
4) Finding the address,
5) Creating an environment free of distractions, and
6) Writing the letter.
Examples of Projects:
• Learn Spanish
• Clean out the garage
• Find that photo of Mom and Dad from the 50s
• Visit my sister in Chicago
• Track my exercise on a daily basis
• Paint the inside of the house
• Find out what in everyday life makes me happy
Changes
Creating a clear list of changes you’d like to make can remind you of what changes (in behavior, attitude, body, mind, spirit or whatever) you want to be working toward.
Sometimes changes can be a modification of existing patterns or something entirely new.
Examples of Changes:
• Spend more time with my kids
• Think about one positive aspect when I think of a negative aspect
• Arrive early to work one day a week
• Change a frown to a smile, even if it feels forced
• Find someone who would enjoy going to the movies with me
• Define the number of sponsees I am willing to sponsor.
Goals
Goals help you become the person you have always wanted to be. Be clear. The more specific your goals are, the more likely you are of having a goal be met. Setting and meeting a goal is something you will feel good about for a long time, maybe even the rest of your life. Some goals should be small and some large. Goals should feel a little harder than Projects.
I encourage you to include one goal that you KNOW you will meet and one that you know you are capable of but probably will not achieve in the next year.
Examples of Goals:
• Visit Hawaii
• Run a marathon
• Paint the inside of the house
• Pay all my bills on time so I have no late fees or penalties
• Learn how to use a digital camera
• Find my brother and try to talk to him
• Get a new car (Year/Make/Model)
Desires
Desires are a mix of what you want and what you know you should want. In naming desires, we list what changes we know we should make, but have been resistant to making. Naming desires is also the place where we identify what we would choose to make our lives fuller and more pleasurable.
The purpose of listing what we should be doing for our own good, yet we don’t quite get around to is that we have a written reminder to help keep us on track.
Examples of Desires
• Drink 4-6 big glasses of water each day, more when I exercise
• Eat less cheese
• Buy new underwear and throw out any underwear I don’t like
• Spend more on running shoes with more support
• Have a doctor look at my back
• Be more accepting of my faults
• Get a massage once a week or once a month
Wish/Want
Completing the following statements can help you understand more about what you want for yourself. This is another way to express your desires. Answer each of the six bullets below with one short phrase:
• I wish I were:
• I wish I had:
• I wish I could:
• I want to have:
• I want to be:
• I want to do:
Conclusion
These guidelines are here to help write about our intentions for the coming year. I encourage you to use the topic headings/components if they work for you. If you choose to leave one out, add a different one. If you’d rather choose your own, feel free.
Don’t forget to put your name and the year of these Ideals at the top of your writing.
Concept IX p. 40 – “Now we come to the all-important attribute of vision. Vision is, I think, the ability to make good estimates both for the immediate and for the more distant future. Some might feel this sort of striving to be a sort of heresy, because we ___s are telling ourselves, “One day at a time.” But that valuable principle really refers to our mental and emotional lives and means chiefly that we are not foolishly to repine over the past nor wishfully to day-dream about the future.
As individuals and as a fellowship, we shall surely suffer if we cast the whole job of planning for tomorrow onto a fatuous idea of Providence. God’s real Providence has endowed us human beings with a considerable capacity for foresight, and He evidently expects us to use it. Therefore we must distinguish between wishful fantasy about a happy tomorrow and the present use of our powers of thoughtful estimate. This can spell the difference between future progress and unforeseen woe.
Vision is therefore the very essence of prudence, an essential virtue if ever there was one. Of course we shall often miscalculate the future in whole or in part, but that is better than to refuse to think at all.”
Ok, finally I have a chunk of time to reflect on the synchronicity of the conversation Yessie and I had during last Wednesday’s massage. For the last couple of months I have a scheduled noon, hour and a half long, massage with Yessie. We chat for a bit initially, and then I lip up and selfishly receive for the rest of the massage.
I was still on my stomach when the topic of self doubt came up. I shared how I identified the self doubt I’d had before my talk last Saturday night. When Yessie heard I talked somewhere she asked, “Are you a motivational speaker?” I told her no, I just share my experience, strength and hope in this 12 step program I belong to. Yessie followed up with, “I knew a woman who used to speak a lot in the same program. She, like you, had had a personality change. She had changed from whom she used to be to whom she had become. But one or two of her family could never see her for the incredibly wonderful woman she had become – they couldn’t forget and only remembered her as she had been a very long time ago.”
I found myself wondering if I knew this woman that used to speak that Yessie was referring to. I imagined she was referring to someone who lived locally here in the desert. I asked Yessie, “What is the woman’s name?” Yessie said, “Celine Th….on. But she is deceased.” I lifted my head up from the table, looked Yessie straight in the eye and excitedly said, “Celine Th….on?” Are you sure that was her last name? Are you sure her last name wasn’t Ja..s? “Well, that sounds familiar,” said Yessie.
My next set of questions came faster and louder, “Where did she live?” Yessie replied, “Oregon.” I said, “Bend, Oregon?” Yessie, even more excitedly said, “Yes, Bend, Oregon!” I said, “Oh my god. That’s my Celine, I used to sponsor her. She was my very good friend. I was up there with her when she was dying. I drove her to Oregon when she moved to Bend 7 years ago after her first husband, John, died. I went on and on. As further confirmation, I mentioned that she lived with her boyfriend Cliff. Yessie said, “Yes, yes. Cliff.”
I asked Yessie how she knew Celine. Yessie said that her husband’s mother is Celine’s sister. My heart is pounding. The questions and sharing kept on. I knew for sure it was my Celine when everything Yessie had to say about Celine described the only way I’ve ever known her: polite, principled, caring and someone who spoke with heartfelt love and respect for the 12 step program she had belonged to just short of 20 years. Celine would have been 20 January 30th, 2008.
The feeling I had with the discovery that Yessie and I were talking about the same, one and only, Celine J. has made me realize that Celine may be physically gone, but she will always live on. I haven’t really lost Celine.
What makes this experience just so much sweeter is that weeks before I found out Yessie’s husband was a photographer. I had asked Yessie to ask him if her husband would be willing to go on shoots and work with me. Last Wednesday, before starting massaging me, Yessie told me that her husband, Chris would be happy to take me out to the Living Desert and work with me.
I am thrilled. I’m going to be close to Celine again. I can’t wait to spend time with her nephew, Chris the photographer!
Finally, I got to watch Tuesday night’s recorded show. Phew. Jane is gone.
Off to hike the bump and grind hill at 5am this morning with Katie.
Later in the day I want to write about what happened during my massage yesterday.
At 7:30 am this morning, Ray kissed me goodbye (off to his golf game), got my coffee, toasted a bagel (no milk for oatmeal), sat down at the computer and found this email in my inbox from LR:
Subject: What no comment on America answering your request?
LJ, I had thought you would be up at dawn relishing in the fact that America is reading your blog and acting on your understated request to politely ask Jane to “pack it up”. Possibly, you are still watching the taping. I look forward to your public comments on this turn of events.
Have a great day.
Damn! What is LR saying in his email? Turn of events???? Sandi and I got home last night from the SF meeting at Tina’s house around 11:30p.m. I thought about watching the taped recording of Dancing with the Stars then but I knew I was too tired. I wanted to savor watching my favorite show more rested.
This morning I still won’t be able to watch Dancing as I have a 10am meeting I regularly attend. Following that meeting Yessie gives me the best 1.5 hour long massage, a now recurring event at noon following the meeting, then, THEN, I’ll come home to watch Dancing, hopefully before Ray finishes golf and having had lunch with his buddies. Why I want to watch Dancing alone is because Ray, (I see now, much like LR), has this habit of teasing me when he knows the results of Dancing (or my other favorite – American Idol when that is on) before I do. I hate when someone tells me the results before I’ve seen a show I’ve not yet seen.
Life’s a bitch, isn’t it:) Just a little bird’s eye view in the life of Linda.
Here are 3 quick shots of the ladies at the meeting last night.
