challenge

Foto Friday: And … it’s over

November 9, 2012

Master Locks may be invincible, but my Project 366 wasn’t, unfortunately.

I’ve been putting this off for as long as I can.

I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want it to be over. But it is. And there’s not much I can do about it.

My Project 366 went by way of the garbage.

When I did the Project 365 in 2010, I struggled. Many times. But every day, by hook or by crook, I took a photo. Sometimes it wasn’t good. Sometimes it was awesome. But every day … a photo.

At the end of the project, I swore I would never do it again. It was one of those things I was happy I did, but I knew there were too many times where I dreaded worrying about a photo. I live in a rural area, so I can only take so many shots of flowers, trees and mountains before I get bored.

With this year being a leap year, I thought I’d try it again. Why the heck not?

Yeah, now I remember why I said I wouldn’t do it again!

The first part of the year was awesome. I was all over it and really getting some good stuff. Then I started hitting a wall. See, this job search thing takes up a lot of time. There were times I just didn’t feel like snapping a photo. But I pushed through it. However, this was earlier than the first time around. I knew doing it this year was in jeopardy.

After 225-plus days, the sun set on this attempt at the 366 Project.

I struggled through the summer months — where the nights are longer and there’s more chances to get images. I got through August. And into September. And then it stopped.

The reality set in that despite being only 100-plus days shy of completing this project, it was over.

It’s not like I am happy about it. I truly was hoping to do it this time around. Alas, I knew a month or two I wasn’t going to make it. When I was struggling with half the year to go, I knew it was over. I kept battling as much as I could, but when reality takes over, it’s only a matter of time.

Still, to say I am fully disappointed would be a false answer.

I took a lot of cool photos this year that I wouldn’t have without this challenge. When I was pepped up in the early going, I was really challenging myself. For that, I’m happy. I have very cool images from this year because of the challenge.

In the end, I guess I held true to my original statement after the 2010 challenge — I’ll never do it again. Who knows? Maybe I’ll try it again one time in the future when I’m in a better place, personally and professionally. Maybe I’ll have that drive to do it again.

Or maybe not.

With all that being said, I’m glad I gave it a try again. It just wasn’t meant to be.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

30 Days of Writing: Pressure (6/30)

June 6, 2012

This post is written in conjunction with the 30 Days of Writing, a blog challenge devised by Nicky and Mike at “We Work For Cheese.” I’ll be participating throughout the month of June. If interested, you can see my post with the details of the challenge.

Please note that some of these posts will be serious, some will be normal, and some will be an attempt at humor. This one has a little of everything.

Life is full of pressure.

There are times I feel like Billy Joel looks in the above video.

Though life can be magnificent — with friends, family, travel, the beauty that is the World, and whatever else that keeps you going — the reality is there’s a lot of pressure.

Job.

Bills.

Doing the right thing.

Dealing with life.

It’s a lot of pressure to deal with.

With all the crap going on in my world right now, I almost feel like Crash Davis in Bull Durham. I hope you’ve all seen this movie, which I think — no, I know — is the best baseball movie of all time.

That seems like my life.

There’s a lot of shit to deal with (as Crash says). Pressure here, pressure there. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the toughest time I’ve had in my life. And that adds to the pressure. Looking to get back on the feet before the pressure explodes.

But…

You see, there’s always a bright spot to the end. Somewhere along the way, the rainbow comes out. The sun shines and the flowers bloom. I know, that’s a happy-go-lucky scene. But it happens. It will. In time.

And then the pressure will start to be less and less.

Said pressure will then kiss my arse.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Just what I needed — another blog challenge

May 31, 2012

If I need inspiration during this blog challenge, Danny Larusso should provide it!

I think I might be insane to even think about doing another challenge.

I’m already trying to continue my Project 366 and HooHaa 52 photo projects. On top of that, I have the HooHaa Holga Challenge I am dealing with. Add that in with my job search and dealing with two blogs that are not money generating, playing softball, fitting in some geocaching, a round or two of disc golf and other outdoorsy things and one might think I’m nuts.

But this was a little too interesting to pass up.

As I noted yesterday, I have been searching for some new blogs to read. I wanted some entertaining ones. That search brought me to We Work For Cheese.

The first post I saw was titled “The Post You’ll Wish You Never Read.”

Fact: The headline of that post is as true as can be.

It’s not that I don’t like the blog — I do. In fact, I’ll be trying to make it part of my normal blog reading. But that post — that evil post — is the one about this challenge.

I’ve never been much into blog challenges or “quick topics,” and by quick topics, I mean those blog posts where you are tagged by other bloggers and need to fill out some sort of questionnaire. Those might help me fill days at some point, though, so I should look into them.

Anyway, back to this post I wish I had never read…

See, the challenge is simple. Blog every day for 30 straight days, starting Friday (June 1). I thought to myself, heck, I’ve done that before and more than once. But, you see, this has a catch — the topics are pre-determined.

And some of ’em aren’t easy.

Here’s the list:

Day 1: Cheese
Day 2: A roadblock
Day 3: They played my song
Day 4: Behind the wheel
Day 5: Spiders
Day 6: Pressure
Day 7: Excess
Day 8: Best friend
Day 9: Magic carpet
Day 10: The babysitter
Day 11: A sense of accomplishment
Day 12: In the kitchen
Day 13: The other one
Day 14: The short hairs
Day 15: First place
Day 16: Hanging out in the cemetery
Day 17: The awkwardness of the common banana
Day 18: Setting sail
Day 19: Camels
Day 20: Going solo
Day 21: Favors I’d ask of Satan
Day 22: Like there’s no tomorrow
Day 23: Stiletto heels
Day 24: Roast or toast another blogger
Day 25: Worst Christmas ever
Day 26: An intervention
Day 27: Side of the road
Day 28: The turning point
Day 29: Breaking the rules
Day 30: It could have been worse

Now, realize this — there aren’t any rules.

That means there’s no word requirements. The post can be a photo or as short as one word. Maybe I will write a bajillion words. It’s all good (though, if I wrote a bajillion words, I don’t think somebody would read it).

The only catch is that the blog owner, Nicky, has forewarned that she will make fun of participants in their comments, should the need arise. That’s OK though, because comments are comments, no? And we all like getting comments!

So, I’m going to give this a go. Realize that I might write some fiction and I might mix some other things in with these (see Earl). I’ve actually though about making Earl a major part of this blog challenge, but I’m going to basically do this all on the fly as I go along. So who knows.

All I know is I think I’m crazy.

The even crazier part? There are times when there will be more than one post per day. See, I don’t plan on axing some of my regular features (Snapshot Saturday etc.), though I might try and mix a few of them.

I have a few hopes for what I can gain from this challenge:

That I find some more excellent blogs to read on a regular basis;
Have fun;
Finish the challenge;
And to not hate cheese by the end of the challenge.

If you are a blogger, you still have a chance to check out the challenge and sign up before things get rolling June 1.

Or, if you’re smart, you might not read that post.

If you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

How’s that Day Zero thingamajig going?

August 7, 2011

When I first started the Day Zero Project, I knew it was going to be a loose challenge. My goal, of course, was to complete the project in the 1,001 days one is alloted.

I think I’m out to a good start.

I have 700 days remaining in the challenge and through the first 301, I have completed 23 items. I haven’t blogged about them all yet as I need to take a few photos to go with some of them. There are 17 blogged about, however, and you can see each one on the Day Zero Project page.

I’ve learned some things from this project.

The first is that I have to be more conscious of the challenge itself. By that I mean I need to start thinking about the challenge more when I am out and about. A few times, I could have worked on one or two of these items, but didn’t think about it until it was too late. I think one thing I can do is to make a small card of all the items on the list, have it laminated and put it in my wallet.

Especially considering some are photo-related and it would be nice to know if I am going toward something.

For example, one of my photo goals is to take a picture for each letter of the alphabet. However, when doing this goal, it’s done to try and specifically take a photo for the challenge. So if I am out and about and have it in my mind and want to take photos of a beer (for the letter B), it’s in my head that I am doing that. What I actually might do is take a day to go take photos of the remaining letters (I’ve only taken A and B).

Part of my doing the challenge, too, is keeping the items secret (for the most part), so that I don’t feel pressure and also because if I screw something up, it’s more of a slap against myself.

Now, besides the 23 completed items, I have several more that have several things I need to do (for example, attend 10 community events) before I can check them off. A bunch of these are being worked on, so that’s helping, too. I have some other blogging and writing things I need to work on, too — some of which that require 20 or 30 blog posts over time, so I need to get to work on them!

There are some hard ones remaining on the list and a couple that I am going to scratch my head wondering if I will be able to finish them.

That’s part of the challenge.

This is one of those ones where if I don’t get all 101 things done, I’m not going to lose sleep. Believe me, my goal is to complete this list, but it’s a more of a personal thing for me to hopefully better myself in many different ways. Only time will tell how it works out.

I have found that it’s good to set some goals and go with them. The multi-part goals on the list have been good as it’s made me concentrate on putting things together. I’ve enjoyed some of the photography ones, too, as those are ones that challenge my artistic side.

Some of the goals are silly. Some are serious. Some are in the middle. But overall it’s an interesting challenge and I’ve had fun with it so far.

And I have 23 down.

Now there’s 78 to go.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.