MUNDANE MONDAY CHALLENGE #49

I came across this pod while the kids & hubby were running the bases at our local baseball field. I love the simplicity of this shot as well as the coloring. Even though it’s mundane, it’s still beautiful.

  This week I’m going Pro Trablogger with there link up.  Come check out other Mundane Monday posts.
What have you captured today?

Beautiful Mother Nature

“In all things of nature there is something
of the marvelous.”~ Aristotle

Looking Up

Daughter

“A daughter is one of the most beautiful gifts this world has to offer. ~Laurel Atherton”

We live in a small town, so there isn’t a lot of things to do, especially during the winter months.  One of our favorite places to bring the girls is the elementary school.  It has a little bit of every thing there, so we frequent it often.
The last time we went, my littlest one brought her new soccer ball Santa got her and played with my 8 yr old (pictured above) brought her secret diary.  They are so different, yet so much alike.  Alyssabeans has bad knees so a lot of running & sports hurt her lots.
She got bored with her diary and wanted to play, which of course didn’t last too long.  While my little one & hubby were off passing the ball & we were waiting for them to try to score, my Alyssabeans was messing around with the net, being oh so cute.  Of course I had to take a few pics, even if it’s just with my camera phone.
She loves taking & being in pics as much as I do.  I def passed my love for photography to her. This is what I will remember from this outing, how we shared our love of photography together, laughing & being silly, enjoying our time together.

 

Apple Orchard

“There is  beauty in your every day, you just need to keep your eyes open.”

This beautiful scene was I happen to come across & almost missed.  I was on my way back from dropping my oldest daughter off to her boyfriend’s house Christmas afternoon & had to stop and just stare for a moment.  This image of an apple orchard on Christmas day in 50 degree weather was just striking.  My cell phone doesn’t do it justice.  It isn’t too often Christmas day looks like this in New Hampshire.

 

 

Beautiful Journey

“When you rush through life it becomes a race, but when you enjoy each moment it becomes a beautiful journey.” ~Apoorve Dubey

If you read either one of my blogs, you know I truly believe with all my soul that it’s the little moments in our lives that fills our life with happiness & joy. It’s the beauty of those moments that transform our lives, creating memories to forever cherish.
In 2015, I was in a creative rut, one that I couldn’t seem to get out of.  I didn’t take nearly as many images as I normally do, and at the end of the year, when I went through & picked my favorite images to print, I was completely saddened by the lack of images.  I mean I only had 1 or 2 of all my 5 kids together for the whole year!  Pretty soon my oldest will be 18 and when he’s off making a place for himself in the world and I will looking for those images to comfort me during his absence.
A few days later, I was checking out a few of my favorite blogs and saw the recaps of their year through images and my heart broke. This is something I truly regret. Something I feel I missed out on because I couldn’t dig myself out of the creative hole I was in.  So with the new year beginning, I’m determined to not repeat last year’s mistake, it’s time to jump back in and start doing what I love to do best…….photographing & exploring our the world around us. My photography is something I do for myself, as well as my children.  Yes, they enjoy it as much as I do.  We spend many a nights looking at old images, talking about what happened in them.  But I also love sharing the meaningful images or images I’m proud of with like minded people.  Which is where my 1st 2016 photography project began.
This is a 365 project that that highlights & documents the beauty in our everyday.  And “Beautiful Journey” was born.

“Living the country life helps you appreciate some of the simpler things,  things that make us feel good about ourselves.” ~Unknown

Please check back daily for my new images. I will accompany them with a quote, story, poem, or sometimes with nothing at all.  But since I’m a quote gal, you can bet there will be quite a few of them.  🙂  If you are doing your own 365 or another photography or creative project, please leave me a link in the comments so I can follow along. There’s a lot of new things happening with Ever Changing over this next year, hope you’ll come back regularly & check them out.

What do you do to get yourself out of a creative rut?

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Our World Tuesday, 

Mindful Living Tools

**this post is #70 in my 365 project**

Taken from Zen Habits 

1. Meditation. Meditation is where mindful living starts. And it’s not complicated: you can sit still for even just 1 minute a day to start with (work up to 3-5 minutes after a week), and turn your attention to your body and then your breath. Notice when your thoughts wander from your breath, and gently return to the breath. Repeat until the minute is up.
2. Be Awake. Meditation is practice for being awake, which is not being in the dream state (mind wandering into a train of thought, getting lost in the online world, thinking about past offenses, stressing about the future, etc.) but being awake to the present, to what is. Being awake is something you can do throughout the day, all the time, if you remember. Remembering is the trick.
3. Watch Urges. When I quit smoking in 2005, the most useful tool I learned was watching my urges to smoke. I would sit there and watch the urge rise and fall, until it was gone, without acting on it. It taught me that I am not my urges, that I don’t have to act on my urges, and this helped me change all my other habits. Watch your urge to check email or social media, to eat something sweet or fried, to drink alcohol, to watch TV, to be distracted, to procrastinate. These urges will come and go, and you don’t have to act on them.
4. Watch Ideals. We all have ideals, all the time. We have an ideal that our day will go perfectly, that people will be kind and respectful to us, that we will be perfect, that we’ll ace an exam or important meeting, that we’ll never fail. Of course, we know from experience that those ideals are not real, that they don’t come true, that they aren’t realistic. But we still have them, and they cause our stress and fears and grief over something/someone we’ve lost. By letting go of ideals, we can let go of our suffering.
5. Accept People & Life As They Are. When I stopped trying to change a loved one, and accepted him for who he was, I was able to just be with him and enjoy my time with him. This acceptance has the same effect for anything you do — accept a co-worker, a child, a spouse, but also accept a “bad” situation, an unpleasant feeling, an annoying sound. When we stop trying to fight the way things are, when we accept what is, we are much more at peace.
6. Let Go of Expectations. This is really the same thing as the previous two items, but I’ve found it useful nonetheless. It’s useful to watch your expectations with an upcoming situation, with a new project or business, and see that it’s not real and that it’s causing you stress and disappointment. We cause our own pain, and we can relieve it by letting go of the expectations that are causing it. Toss your expectations into the ocean.
7. Become OK with Discomfort. The fear of discomfort is huge — it causes people to be stuck in their old bad habits, to not start the business they want to start, to be stuck in a job they don’t really like, because we tend to stick to the known and comfortable rather than try something unknown and uncomfortable. It’s why many people don’t eat vegetables or exercise, why they eat junk, why they don’t start something new. But we can be OK with discomfort, with practice. Start with things that are a little uncomfortable, and keep expanding your comfort zone.
8. Watch Your Resistance. When you try to do something uncomfortable, or try to give up something you like or are used to, you’ll find resistance. But you can just watch the resistance, and be curious about it. Watch your resistance to things that annoy you — a loud sound that interrupts your concentration, for example. It’s not the sound that’s the problem, it’s your resistance to the sound. The same is true of resistance to food we don’t like, to being too cold or hot, to being hungry. The problem isn’t the sensation of the food, cold, heat or hunger — it’s our resistance to them. Watch the resistance, and feel it melt. This resistance, by the way, is why I’m doing my Year of Living Without.
9. Be Curious. Too often we are stuck in our ways, and think we know how things should be, how people are. Instead, be curious. Find out. Experiment. Let go of what you think you know. When you start a new project or venture, if you feel the fear of failure, instead of thinking, “Oh no, I’m going to fail” or “Oh no, I don’t know how this will turn out”, try thinking, “Let’s see. Let’s find out.” And then there isn’t the fear of failure, but the joy of being curious and finding out. Learn to be OK with not knowing.
10. Be Grateful. We complain about everything. But life is a miracle. Find something to be grateful about in everything you do. Be grateful when you’re doing a new habit, and you’ll stick to it longer. Be grateful when you’re with someone, and you’ll be happier with them. Life is amazing, if you learn to appreciate it.
11. Let Go of Control. We often think we control things, but that’s only an illusion. Our obsession with organization and goals and productivity, for example, are rooted in the illusion that we can control life. But life is uncontrollable, and just when we think we have things under control, something unexpected comes up to disrupt everything. And then we’re frustrated because things didn’t go the way we wanted. Instead, practiceletting go of control, and learn to flow.
12. Be Compassionate. This sounds trite, but compassion for others can change the way you feel about the world, on a day-to-day basis. Andcompassion for yourself is life-changing. These two things need remembering, though, so mindful living is about remembering to be compassionate after you forget.

What would you add to this list?

18/365 Incredible

 

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ClaireJustine

12/365 Experimenting With

large rainbow tapioca pearls

**and now I am all caught up with my 365 project**

 

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4/365 Cosmic Buds

 

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