Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

I picked up my first camera when I was around nine years old. I started photographing old barns and houses. Silos. Even as a kid, I loved the stories surrounding these structures that were in disrepair, falling down, abandoned. At the time I didn't know how to bring out the best in what I was seeing. Just somehow, I knew there was something there. Fast forward to college. I decided to minor in photography, and it was through these classes that I was able to bring out the best in what I saw through the viewfinder. The photo that truly showed me I have "a good eye" happened during a class trip to Chicago, to the Art Institute. After our tour, we gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Institute. To one side there is a park-like area with seating, trees, and flowers. It was springtime, so the trees were just leafing out. I turned to watch the people and noticed two men sitting on separate benches underneath the trees. One man, a white man, was looking straight ahead. The ot...

For nearly three years now, I've been on a journey to live with less, to simplify and find happiness in the small things. Before becoming more intentional about the way I want to live, I thought about it a lot while reading anything and everything offering ways to pare down, to do without, to recycle and even upcycle. Along the way, I threw in anything and everything about Buddhism, at first out of curiosity but then because I found the teachings fit with how I want to continue with my journey. Most days the journey is smooth, with me considering others' ideas, needs, and wants and doing what I can to help. Other days, the journey's path becomes full of potholes that are difficult for me to maneuver. Sometimes, I even fall into a pothole. And while I climb out, brush myself off, and continue on, I do feel a bit bruised, which is how I'm feeling right now. Today was beautiful. Sunny. Very little wind. I spent the morning reading then hanging out with Funny Delightful S...

I've come to realize I truly love working out. I also am finding the whole calories in/calories out equation fascinating. My mission now is to pay close attention to what I eat while ramping up the intensity of my workouts in hopes that my sprint tri performance improves this year. And really, my performance should only improve. I've only completed one sprint tri to date, and if I do worse the next go 'round, that'll be quite disappointing to say the least. One other mission I have is to get my one-pack abs looking just a tad more like a two-pack. I keep thinking back to last summer and the chat I had with an expert in sports fitness. When I was lamenting over my slow running, how I'd been trying to become faster but not really seeing any improvement, he told me a solid core is the key to increasing speed, to bettering my performance overall. To see if this is true, I've added core work every other day: planks, Russian twists, bicycles, machine crunches, machi...