Domesticali

And it is done - Project 365

Oh the sweet relief of reaching the end. Project 365 is completed. I have captured a photo of almost every day this year. Although I did cheat on August 22nd, but I figure the cat looks the same every day, so it doesn't matter.

It hasn't made me a better photographer. Actually, sometimes I really resented having to pick up my camera and take a shot for the day and some of the photos are plain ugly. But there are also moments of sweetness captured that would otherwise have escaped. And I'm bizarrely proud of having seen the whole thing through (fourth time of trying).

So most unexpectedly, on the cusp of the New Year, I find myself contemplating carrying on. Perhaps I will. In some form at least.

This project - 'from where I stand' looks interesting....

Wishing you a Happy New Year and that you achieve everything you set out to.

Last day of January

And first completed month of my project 365 for this year.

Though not technically accomplished, or perhaps remotely interesting to anyone but me, I do find these little snippets of captured life pleasing. And I see that at least one aim for this year (having more fresh flowers in the house) seems to be working out.

Looking backwards

This part of the year often seems to give rise to gentle reflection of the year gone by. Highlights, achievements, changes. But oddly, when I look back through my archive of 365 photos for this year, they show none of those things. They are full of the minutiae of life and all the more valuable for that.

I did toy with loftier goals for the year to come - a photo a day based on The Daily Shoot's photo prompts.  But on reflection, I rather like the random nature of what I captured each day. 

2011 will mark the fourth year of taking on the challenge (with varying degrees of success) but seems to still have value. 

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. (Aristotole)

And if you want to fall in love with the way photographs capture life, you need to visit Pummelvision and make a movie of your entire photostream. In their words, it's like watching your life flash in front of your eyes. Bizarrely captivating.

Sunday

The sinking sensation of a Sunday is something I had totally forgotten about over the summer. But today, with real life snapping at our heels and waiting to bite on Wednesday, the feeling descended.

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It's a hard one to describe. The restlessness of wanting to get on with the new week mingled with the sorrow of relinquishing freedom. 

In trying to evade it, I tackle the cupboard under the stairs. It is a magnet for clobber - too many coats, gloves, waterproofs and assorted unpaired shoes jumbled up with bottles of wine (hooray!), picnic blankets and electrical extension cords. But even discarding the redundant items and banishing the spiders has failed to lift my spirits.

I'm irritable and keen for Sunday to just be over. For the fresh start of a new morning.

 

Wishes for your 2010

from Freya, via the miracle that is Tumblr.

Have you discovered Tumblr yet? It's a free microblogging thingummy and for me, it's finest function is as a kind of scrapbook of all the wonderful images I see online. Having a Tumblelog  gives me permission to run willy-nilly around the internet, grabbing things that catch my eye and plopping them all into a safe place where I can go and be surrounded by pretty things and daydream.

Do you find there's something about pictures that speak directly in a way that sometimes words fail to do? They have a way of capturing so much meaning and memory and emotion in a single frame. Which is one of the many reasons for getting back on the 365 wagon this year.

In 2008 I began project 365, and though I only managed a photo every day through until May, I loved doing it and more than that, I loved the record of our days it has left me with. So though it is unlikely to be an easy task this year, I want to have another go.

2010 - so full of promise, so very many plans and hopes. Wishing you a wonderful one.

Feeling foodie (not guilty)

Some weeks I feel really uninspired food-wise. I trot out the same old same old and no-body really complains, because face it, round here it's my cooking or my cooking. Not that hubby can't cook - it's just that he always takes the path of least resistance. Which usually means something on toast. And the something is usually beans. Or an egg if he's willing to push the boat out.

But this week has been saved by Waitrose Food Illustrated. I really like it as a magazine and this month, a couple of very fast and yummy things emerged from the pages.

First the worthy - Chicken and Vegetable soup, which managed to capture all the early summer goodness of young courgettes and green beans and little carrots. Here's the recipe link. I had to borrow Waitrose's photo, because although I like taking photos of food, I don't like faffing around while my glorious dinner goes cold.

But I took a photo of the main ingredient of the next course.

Oh, Toblerone. How I worship your nougat studded pyramids. I like your dark version even more. And the children's verdict on these cookies has been very positive. Recipe link (of course).
In fact the only thing I don't like about these cookies, is the way that the page where the recipe is printed, bears the header 'guilty pleasures'. Of all the things in life to berate ourselves over, eating the odd homemade treat should just not register on the richter scale of maternal guilt. Not in my book anyway.

So when this makes it into my tried, tested and enjoyed recipe collection, you can be sure that I'm snipping that header straight off. I have better things to feel guilty about. Like falling off the Project 365 wagon. Half way through the year and it's time to throw in the towel. I think the final nail in the coffin is the realization that there are people out there who are just doing it SO much better.

Thoughts on the first week

A Flickr pro account was one of my Christmas presents and I wanted to make sure I enjoyed it to the full this year. A Photojojo article on New Years Photo resolutions also caught my eye and I signed up to Project 365. The idea is to take a photo every single day. It's quite a challenge for me - usually I save picture taking for days when the sun finally decides to show it's face or when I am bursting to blog about something I have completed.

I know I'm in good company: Sarah, Ali Edwards,  and Alicia and Heather have all started something along similar lines this year.

I expected the discipline of taking a picture, regardless of how pretty life looks to be a new one for me. But I didn't expect to find that the pictures I am taking are very different from my comfort zone. I am making an effort to keep it real - not to stage shots, but simply to snap something that captures an element of my day for real. So there's more of the grey, the mundane, than I'd normally capture. And in a weird way I like that. I seems more honest somehow.

The longer I've blogged for, the more my blog seems to have become a 'thing' in it's own right. Not really so much a reflection of my life, as a stand alone project. I find that a bit strange. And creepy. And it's not that I deliberately keep everything in my blog-world all pretty and shiny-happy. I talk about my fair share of mess, mishaps and mayhem. But it has taken this photo thing to make me realize that it's still not reality.

1. Cactus - Jan1, 2. Royal Native Oyster Stores - Jan 2, 3. Stones - Jan 4, 4. Earrings - Jan 5, 5. Sock - Jan 3, 6. ill - Jan 6, 7. Laundry - January 7, 8. haircut day - Jan 8

Autum wrote a really great post about this phenomenon the other day.

I wonder if it is something we will all come up against as our blogs age. Whether self-censorship and "happy-blogging" are a natural consequence of knowing that the numbers of people reading our blogs increases and comments begin to come from people less familiar to us.

It always slightly freaks me out to appear as a link on the sidebar of a blog I haven't already come across by following up on a comment. Don't get me wrong, it's flattering, but for me, this odd little cyber-world is about relationships. Saying 'hi' to someone whose quilt you like or whose house you've been admiring. Asking questions and getting answers. Celebrating someone's milestone or cheering their success. It's the human element of these connections that give blogging its value and uniqueness.

Of course I don't always comment on every single post I read (because let's face it, who has time?), but I feel uncomfortable as a permanent lurker too. It's too voyeuristic.

So today, when you are skipping through that huge number of unread posts in your bloglines feeds, I challenge you to do something. Stop and make a human connection. Something real. Something honest and from the heart. Because otherwise I am afraid that this wonderful outlet that we share may me reduced to something like a junk mail catalogue which we feel justified in flipping through and discarding. No matter how pretty it is. And the thought of that makes me sad.