30 Days and It Wasn't Hell!

30 days of daily blog posts. Can you believe that today is the last day and I very nearly forgot to do one? Yeah, you probably can. It's par for the course with me. When I started this I was certain that I was going to spend one afternoon writing 3-4 posts and get myself ahead. Then I would just keep doing that until I had enough scheduled out for the month and I could sit back and relax.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

I am so funny!

I never did it. I wrote one each day, usually at night while The Hubs watched some silly TV show. Hell, it got to the point where if I wrote one in the early afternoon I felt like I was really ahead!

Oh well. Some people never change and apparently I am one of them.

But I did realize that I always think I do not "have the time" to write for my blog, and while every day might be a stretch, I really do have the time. And as such I probably have time for a lot of things that I don't think I have the time for.

I also learned that you really don't have to pay attention to TV and you can still catch most of it. And most of it is enough.

Some posts come out well, some seem to wander and it's always the one you aren't sure of that people seem to like the best. If you hung around for all or most of the month you know that. 

And of you read any of the last 30 days worth--thank you. I am going to try to keep up with the writing, but I can assure you it won't be every single day!

Friends with Cabins

Believe it or not, there are parts of Arizona that are not desert. They have tall pines and rainy summers with chilly nights. And they are all pretty much within 3 hours of Phoenix. Some as close as just over 1 hour. Because Phoenix is a place that seems to resemble the surface of the sun for several months out of the year, anyone who can gets the hell out of dodge the minute school is out and doesn’t come back until it starts again. Some people go stay with relatives, some have family lake homes they go to and some have second homes in other states or, more popularly, the cool northern parts of Arizona.

We are not those people.

We do not have a second home, cabin, or place to go so for the most part, we sit in Phoenix and sweat, waiting and wishing for summer to end. It won’t until October, but that doesn’t prevent us from wishing anyway. WE wander around saying silly things to each other like “It really isn’t too bad out today!” when it’s “only” 102, and “At least it is still nice in the morning” when the overnight low is 84.

However, we are lucky enough to know a few people who do have places north of the valley and they are incredibly generous with their time and their homes.

I have a friend who is always happy to have me join her up north and we have a blast. This week our next door neighbors are back east with family for the holiday week and they have graciously offered us use of their home in the pines.

As it happens this week is also The Hubs and my 27^th anniversary. We got married on the 4^th of July (that’s a whole other story!) and so we have a lovely extended holiday at a great cabin home. We have the doors and windows open and plan to enjoy every minute we have of doing absolutely nothing.

Honestly, if you cannot afford to have a summer home, don’t worry. You just need really awesome friends.

Happy Pride and Fresh Breath!

Today is the 50^th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York City. If you are unfamiliar, it was a series of riots and protests by the LQBT community against the police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a LGBTQ bar in NYC. I’m not as well versed as one should be to tell the story, but go ahead and look it up if you are interested. It gave birth to a civil rights movement that continues today with June being Pride Month. This year’s WorldPride is taking place this weekend in NYC, with millions set to descend upon the city.

50 years. We have come a long way…..but there is still so much farther to go. There are people in power today who want to roll back basic civil rights, including marriage, for LGBTQ people for no other reason than they believe that is the way it should be. And I hate to break it to you, but the rest of us are not here for that bullshit---and to prove it, I present to you….

LISTERINE.

Yes, the mouthwash.

I know. I get it, I really do. The plastering of rainbows everywhere in June by marketers is a crass ploy to get your money. Or freshen your breath as the case may be.

But that isn’t all there is to it for me.  It also speaks to hope. Because I can remember a time when there wasn’t a brand within a million miles of this planet that would touch Pride with a 10 foot pole. So what does it mean that ALL of them will now?

It means that somewhere in the bowels of the Listerine HQ there is a bean counter, or maybe a whole team of them, that have decided there is more money to be made doing this than there is to be lost. Because make no mistake, there is some bass-ackwards jackass out there right now screeching about how they will “NEVER freshen their breath with Listerine again!” There are loads of them actually. So many that in years past, marketers and brands didn’t dare recognize Pride for fear of the backlash. But now…….?

Now there are more of us than there are of them. Enough more that it’s worth it for every stupid marketing team from Burger King all the way to Target to get in on the game.

Do I wish they would do something meaningful with the money they are hoping to make? Of course. Does this mean we are where we should be after 50 years? Hell no.

But it means something to the kid who hasn’t come out to his family yet to see the support everywhere. You and I know how capitalistic it is, but to him or her or them, it might make the difference between feeling scared and alone OR feeling part of something more. Corporations are not people, despite what you might have been told. They have no souls and no consciences. They use our emotions to make money, plain and simple. Always have and always will. But if by accident while they are doing that they manage to help put something front and center that so many would like to shove back in the closet….let them!

We can expect more from them, for sure. But this weekend, let’s just freshen our breath with rainbow Listerine, eat at TGIPrideDays and show the world that the LGBTQ community is here to stay thanks, and will settle for nothing less than total equality. 

Carrots, Macarons and Time Management

I have been doing a macro photography class the last couple weeks in addition to this blogging every day thing and I have been trying really hard not to bore you all to tears with photos of flowers, besides the fact that it is a quick and easy blog post!

This week we did a lesson that really seemed to involve a lot of color theory, which was really interesting but hard for me to use because it isn’t something I know well. Certainly not well enough to incorporate it without constantly referencing the color wheel and the lesson videos, and I really didn’t have time for that.

Or did I? I didn’t feel like I did anyway, so I did what I always do when I feel like I have become too over burdened with things to do---nothing.

I bought these carrots a week ago with every intention of using them for pictures right away. Only I didn’t. The Hubs finally asked me today if he could cook them and that’s when I got my camera out and got to it. There were other ideas I had for them but I got myself so behind with time I didn’t do them.

Which all basically leads back to the other blog post I wrote about my time wasting and let’s you know I have not drastically improved in the last couple weeks. But I am still trying!

And also, frozen macrons are not as yummy as they look. Actually, they are not yummy at all. Buy them fresh or don’t bother. Unless you need them for a photography project.