Back From A Break

I knew I was struggling creatively, but this was a longer “time away” than I expected. Lots of things going on that contributed to it all. There was some question about my job this fall (all taken care of quite nicely!), plus the burden of a hot, humid July here in central Virginia. This northern boy is adapting to the weather, but when it bumps up into the triple-digit temperatures and almost that high humidity, it sucks the life out of me. Then it was time to go back to work at my school! That sucked up more of my attention, and suddenly it’s September.

This was NOT the plan.

Let’s start with a quick catch-up. It’s been a great summer for bicycling. There was one day when I mis-judged how much water I needed to carry with me and wound up five miles away from my car with zero water. A dumb mistake, but I took a careful, slow approach to getting home safely that ultimately worked. I recorded over 500 miles (527.4 to be exact) between the end of the last school year and the start of this. That included 247.9 in July alone, which is a personal best for a single month. As I write this, I am less than a three-mile ride away from breaking the nine hundred mile mark. With luck, I’ll break my thousand-goal mark early in October. I also got my first brand-new bicycle in fifty years! Loving my Trek FX 1, known affectionately as the Starship Enterprise. 2025 should end with a string of personal bests on record.

My watercolor painting shows signs of life. The immediate goal is just to do something with the paints regularly, whatever that may mean, lol! I found great inspiration in Andrea Nelson’s content. I love her attitude that “It’s gonna be fine”. Those are the words I need the most! I began with her sketchbook videos and have had some success and some… learning opportunities! Along with her stuff, I’m adding the occasional exercise from other creators that strikes my fancy. Am I getting better? No idea. But I am assured that “It’s gonna be fine” I’ll be sharing my efforts starting next week. Oh, and related to this is the sketching group I joined last year. We meet every other week and chat, then we draw (in silence! So hard), and then we do some social stuff again. My drawing has improved slowly, but I have been a consistent participant.

Photography! It’s very exciting! I’m getting a new (to me) camera. I concluded that I’d reached my limits using my trusty Fujifilm Finepix s1000fd. It’s called a “bridge camera” these days. In other words, it’s a point and shoot with more controls available. I’m proud of the photos I’ve taken with it over the last 15 years, but I’m ready to make my next move. There just wasn’t any excitement in picking the old camera up, which meant I didn’t feel inspired to get out and shoot.

That leaves writing. There’s still work to do on that front. I need to develop a new schedule that puts writing time into my daily schedule. There are several novel-length works in progress that need my attention; a collection of short stories has been neglected as well. I’ve got an idea, but it hasn’t been activated yet. I’m planning to have something to share, even if it’s only prompt-inspired practice pieces, in the next couple of weeks.

Movie and book reviews are headed your way as well.

There’s other stuff I want to mess around with, but I need to get the core stuff squared away first. The promise is this: there’s stuff to share coming!

Peace!

Jay