time travel

everything in our lives seems to be in limbo right now. and if not in limbo, then dissolved. if not either of those, then uncertain. it's not a great place to be. but it's not the worst, either.

still camera-less, i find myself frustrated that i cannot just grab my camera at any time and get pictures of isaac. or of mr. b helping me paint the giant wall of paneling in the living room. or of the emerging buds on the trees just outside our living room window.

so instead, i dig around in archived folders for gems that i'd forgotten about. photos i honestly didn't even realize i had.

i don't spend much time on the computer these days. funny how that camera was the link between me and my computer. without it, i have less reason to get on here. maybe that's not quite true. maybe it's just less incentive. like i said a few posts back, i speak in pictures... and listen too. getting on the computer is just a painful reminder that i don't have use of my camera, so i've stayed away from it.

this is a blessing when i look at it the right way. i've accomplished things around the house that i had been putting off pre-death-of-a-camera.

oh, that camera... that little hunk of plastic that has me wrapped around it's little shutter. i found out it could cost up to $300 or more to fix my camera. {and also found out it is, in fact, the body, and not the lens.} the shutter actuations count just over 84,000. not really a big surprise, knowing how many photos i take... just of isaac alone. the camera shop i spoke with said nikon estimates an average of 50,000 actuations for the d40 before it goes bad, so i guess i got lucky to get as far as i did.

i just can't find the sense in pouring money into a camera that has reached its life expectancy only to have it break down again, you know? but also can't see buying another entry-level dslr like the one i have, as i planned to eventually upgrade from the current camera i have to something better in hopes of getting more serious about my photography business.

and that brings me to my feeling stuck conundrum. i don't have the money to upgrade. well, don't really even have the money to repair... we would likely have to charge it. but for an upgrade? yikes. we really don't want to be incurring debt when we have recently worked so hard to pay it off. and even if i find a good deal on one, it wouldn't feel like a good deal by the time we were done paying interest on the camera because it was purchased on a card.

sigh. what to do.

meanwhile, i sit here in frustation, longing to pick up my camera to snap something i see {which is often with this little character we live with}.

to mask my frustration, i pretend that my camera still works, but i set it down intentionally out of discipline to work on things that have been shoved aside for so long.

one of those shoved-off-the-to-do-list items i am currently working on?... FINALLY going through my 2009 florida photos to make an album. yes... you heard me right... 2009. it seems silly 'cause we have taken a trips to florida since then {in 2010 and 2012} on which i took better pics with a better camera... so why should i bother with such an old set?

well, it sort of bothered me that i never got around to sorting and processing them all. actually, i had processed several shortly after we got home from the trip for the first of what was to be many posts in a series. but i didn't finish. we went to florida again the following year. i got pregnant just months later. had a baby. went to florida again. lost interest in silly 2009 photos. yada yada yada. {oh, and lest any of you reading think "well, how can you reconcile mentioning financial struggles while writing about vacationing to florida in the same post?"... these are trips to florida courtesy of my generous parents-in-law who graciously open their small condo to us.}

anyway, lately i've been spending a bit of time in the folders... and so glad i am. i have found some images in there that i like quite a bit! knowing i took them with an old {non-dslr} point-n-shoot canon sort of restored my faith in myself as a photographer. they aren't fancy photos. but there are some good ones in there, which reminded me that it's not nice cameras that makes a photographer good. it's the photographer. and the eye the photographer has. my husband and i were talking about this a bit the other day. i've been told i have an eye when people come to know my photography. and i feel like i do, too {or hope so, anyway}. i just need to become trained in some skills and knowing my camera the best i can so as to meet that eye... and hopefully then i'll be creating exactly what i'd be beyond happy to create.

gosh... did not intend to ramble today. just getting somethings off my chest, i guess. anyway, i'm looking forward to creating some posts {or albums} of my 2009 florida photos. though we traveled there again the next year and three years later {which is the trip the above photos are from}, it was not the same dynamic... not even the same people. i'm traveling back in time to fill up this almost void-of-time stretch of not having a camera i'm going through now... laid back florida style. will be posting some other things from the archives, too.

but i'm not sure it'll be too soon. other things have risen... namely, us three are hangin' out enjoying one of the few things we feel is constant, consistent and certain right now... each other.

we're dancing in a circle of three in the middle of our kitchen to the bee jees' hit, stayin' alive, while we wait for dinner to finish. and making trips to the library to find brand new adventures in books we've never even heard of. and painting rooms while we play with our cars and watch every dvd about trains we can get our hands on. okay... those last two are isaac, and that first... well, that's just mr. b and me. although, we do give isaac a "fake" paint brush to help us with from time to time. but the point is, we're all together. inseparable. i love that word.

since we are all enjoying each other so much these days {maybe because i'm a little more present without a camera??... no comments from the peanut gallery, mr. b!}, i thought i'd use these photos of us for my post. 

for that, and for the fact that we are all three dreaming of getting down to the sunshine state together at some point!! hopefully soon!