A New Year

A new year, a new layout, a new challenge?

It has been a couple of months since we all said good-bye to 2009 and I am just stopping for a moment to catch my breath and reflect upon the year that has passed and all there is to look forward to in the year ahead.

A year ago today (a year exactly. this was not planned I am no where near that organised) I started last year's personal challenge which was the "Year of Jessie". So did I succeed? That is a tough one. I did make a conscious effort to stick with the Year of Jessie plan, really I did. I saw out my 365 photography challenge to the end and am loving the results. It forced me to shoot everyday and to learn to look at my own photos without criticizing every part of my self (well most of the time anyway) and my work. I did continue to lose weight and get healthy this year while managing to except that I wasn't a contestant on Biggest Loser and any loss was a good loss. I spent time with friends and having fun - sometimes a little bit too much fun (ahem, Emma and Rob's housewarming).

So where did I drop the ball? I was going to stop thinking the grass is greener some place else. This has apparently been challenging. Once again we have returned home from a trip to Perth more confused than ever on where we should be and what is the best choice for us and our family. I am constantly struggling with myself at the moment as to whether or not the pull to move back to Perth is one of a practical and strategic nature or, if once again is a case of things aren't perfect here so they must be better there. I fear it is the latter of the two.

The key factor of the year of Jessie was to hate less. I believe my words were to keep my prickles but avoid becoming thorny. Out of all the goals I set myself for last year this was the one that I kept close everyday. It is a hard one to know if you really succeeded on or not but looking back now I think I did alright. Is there room for improvement? Of course! But I definitely gave people the benefit of the doubt a bit more and realized (often due to watching myself make mistakes) that no one is perfect and that is okay.

So what does this mean for this year? Keep on keeping on I would say. With the following goals in mind:

• Stress less - anyone who knows me knows that I stress at an unhealthy level. Must stop that! 
• Quality time - tying in with stressing less, I want to spend more quality time with those I care about this year. I want to use that time to do memory making activities instead of just going through the motions.
• Write more - that "novel" sitting in my laptop is not going to write itself. Since I have wanted to write a novel for as long as I can remember I need to make it a priority to sit down and type it out. Take the challenge and not get scared when it is hard. 
• Give more thought to my photography. I gave a lot of time last year to my 365. Taking a photo everyday was awesome and really did get me shooting more. But often the shots were rushed and I just got what I could. I want to take more time this year to plan out shots. Get an idea and follow it through. Take the time to play with certain shots and ideas until they become something I can be proud of. 
• Love better - I often take the people that are closest to me for granted and don't show them the love that they really deserve. This will change. 
• Make the best with what I have. Stop looking for the next best thing and realize that with a few tweaks, what I have could be paradise. 

So here we go - another year, another personal challenge. Let the "Year of Quality" begin.

Going in with eyes wide open

Simplify

I seem to be going through a phase lately where I just want to simplify and organise. Maybe it is just the season or maybe just a new road I am travelling but I feel as things are a bit cluttered in many aspects of my life. I also seem to have let things get into a bit of a cycle without really thinking about whether or not they are the right options for me.

Am I paying to much on many of my services? Is there something out there that would be a better price and give better service? Do I really need to follow this many flickr profiles and bloggers so I barely get a change to view the people I actually care about’s pages? Am I making my life more complicated then it needs to be?

I have been feeling a bit like this for awhile but I think what threw me into actually doing it was this test I did. SCWink had suggested doing this quick “life assessment” program – Clean Sweep - where you answer a series of true and false statements divided into the 4 major life areas of Physical Environment, Well-Being, Money & Relationships. The basic idea is that you check off the statements that are currently true for you, then go to work on the ones that aren't currently true for you, and come back regularly to re-assess until you get a 100 score, or a "clean sweep."

I am generally a glass half empty kind of person who continually worries about what is going to happen in the future and if I am making the right decisions. So when my results came back as mid range on every area I was surprised. It made me think that maybe I am a little overly critical of my life.

My currently results were -

Physical – 14/25
Well Being – 12/25
Money – 14/25
Relationships – 14/25

The questions have inspired me to look at my life and change things that just aren’t working. So that is what I am doing. Starting with the small stuff.

I suggest giving the program a go. It only takes about 10 minutes and who knows what you might find.

09.09.09

For my 365 on September 9, 2009 (9/9/9) I wanted to do something that would represent the triple 9s. I decided to go with nine faces of Jessie. I really love how it turned out.

Jill of All Trades, Master of None

I have been in a bit of a whirlwind of a daze recently. I feel as if I blinked and all of a sudden in was mid-August. I have not felt very creative as of late which could be the reason for my lack of blog posts. It also could be the high standards I place upon myself which in turn when I don't meet said standard I feel the overwhelming urge to give up.

Lately I feel don't feel particularly great at anything. I know I am good at quite a few things but not amazing at even just one. I was speaking with a colleague at work the other day and she was showing me this woman who had done youtube videos about how to apply makeup and now Sephora has given her her own makeup line. You could do something like this she said.

This is something I think about daily. I would love to be one of those people who fall into fortune (or at the very least ongoing paychecks) by just doing something they love and are good at. You just have to find your "thing" my colleague said to me. Oh is that all!

In the new world of blogging and twittering and youtube, how does one make themselves stand out from the crowd. I love to write and do photography but I can name hundreds of others who are already doing it and talents far surpass mine.

So what is a Jill of all trades, master at none to do to find that "thing" to stand out?

Truth, Lies and Reality

I am someone who likes to know all the facts. I don't like secrets, well that isn't quite correct. I don't like half information. Don't tell me something and then not give me all the information. It makes me obsessive and ridiculous. But I am getting off topic...

Truth is a funny thing. Everyone says that they want the truth. We all know lies are bad and breed other lies and then all of a sudden you are caught in a web of deception and there is no way out. So we pursue the truth and then when we have it, what then?

I spend all this time convinced if I know the truth it will make it all better. I will have all the facts and be able to sit down logically and move forward. Then I get the truth and it hurts more then the not knowing. Nothing is clearer...I don't want to go back to before the truth but I don't like it here either.

Truth hurts. It is important and probably for the best but it hurts. Lies hurt. If you keep up the lie they hurt the liar, if you eventually tell the truth it hurts the person you lied to. So that takes us to reality. Whether you live in the truth or the lie it becomes your reality. You can't escape it.

Reality bites.

365 Month Three

I have completed my third month of 365. 90 photos done, 275 to go (and yes for all that know me I did have to use a calculator for that). I was on a bit of an emotional roller coaster this month and it definitely shows in the shots. It is becoming harder and harder by the day to find something new to do. I am also tiring of the sight of myself. I have never been one to shy away from cameras (ever) and honestly I love having my photo taken. I thought that this challenge would make me love myself more and help me see things I didn't before. That is what a lot of people seem to get out of it. I find though recently I am just judging myself more. That I am beginning to hate my smile and just feel like I couldn't take a great photo if I tried. Of course this could be all part of the process and next month I will be raving about how fabulous it all was.

I want to try and put more into my shots. I am looking forward to the warm weather coming and with it being lighter later so I have the option to go outside more.

As hard as it has been I really do love a lot of the shots I took this month. I would struggle to find a favourite, or even a top three. So maybe it isn't all that bad and I am just tired and cranky. Who knows?! :)

For those who have been following my 365, thanks, stick with me I am sure it can only get more interesting from here.

Year of Jessie

So as my office desk neighbour Marc has heard more then he probably wants to, this is "the year of Jessie". Now before you think I am the most self involved person on the planet let me explain.
It all started when we were in Australia and Lindsay was talking about how this year was going to be his year. To focus on himself and his training and give his dreams a go. It made me think about a year where you focus on bettering yourself. Phase two came when Lindsay mentioned that I have a habit of not always treating people the best, especially in the way I speak to them. I also have a habit of hating. Finding the negative in people, places and things. I decided to change that and so became the year of Jessie.

This year I will try and become a more positive happy person. I will be content in what I have without losing the drive to achieve what I want from the future. This does mean however that I need to change how I live in order to find the contentment I crave. I am doing my 365 photography challenge to push me to shoot everyday and make time for things I love. I will get healthy without putting ridiculous amounts of pressure on myself to lose weight at the pace of a Biggest Loser contestant. I will stop thinking the grass is greener some place else and realise that my grass ain't so bad after all.

I want to give more time to old friends and try harder to make new ones. I realised that I was so happy when I was in Australia because we were out doing things and seeing people. It is hard to make friends as an adult but I need to learn to make more of an effort and not always wait for people to come to me.

I promised Lindsay that I would hate less this year. It is a challenge, one that sometimes I want to just give up on. I will never be happy-go-lucky, nor do I want to be. It isn't that I want to lose my prickles, that is part of who I am, but I do need to avoid becoming thorny!

Striving to find rainbows in storm clouds