New Challenges

One thing I find interesting is my need to “drop bombs” on my daily life.  What this means is simply that getting into a rut is not a good thing, and shaking up the patterns and routines are necessary to keep life interesting.  For example, I have settled into this pattern:  coffee, breakfast, clean up myself and the house, figure out evening meals, and then paint and draw.  Much as I like the last, I find myself getting stuck in a rut.  The other things I like doing don’t get done.  And, I get really bored; worse, I feel like I am not “accomplishing” anything!  That’s the problem with having a lot of interests and an impatient, restless personality.  I irritate myself as well as others.

The other day, I finally got around to buying a new laptop computer.  My old ones were worthless except as boat anchors.  Poor graphics and connectivity.  Slow.  I have one, a Windows XP machine dedicated to my film scanner.  Another was not forward compatible with Windows – can you believe that???  Anyway, as a result, I had to clean up the bloat ware on the new laptop and install software I use.  With everything internet-based, it’s interesting to now own a laptop with only a few external connections and no DVD drive.  The result was I finally broke down and decided to enroll in Lightroom CC for photography.

I really like LR as a jump-off point for other software to edit photographs.  The catalog system is great.  However, the Creative Cloud version has some things I need to learn!  I have never been a cloud-based person, preferring to keep stuff on my own hardware rather than rely on others to take care of me.  As times change, though, so must we, even if I am not sure this is always for the best.  What I know I will like is being able to access my photos from either my laptop or my home computer without having to use sneaker net anymore.  That is also what I like about Google and being able to sync across computers.

The challenge here is making sure I do what I like.  It’s actually very hard to find time to do all the things I want to do.  Poor weather has kept me in the house a lot – who wants to go out in pouring rain? – but that is like house arrest after a bit.  The LR is going to be a challenge, and fun.  The bigger challenge is to find the time to do so many other things!

I have made one promise to myself, though:  I will draw or paint every day, no matter what else is on the agenda.

 

5 thoughts on “New Challenges”

  1. You are absolutely right! I grabbed some paper and ink, an old 1950s camera, and went sketching in a neighborhood park. Blue skies, billowy clouds, a cool breeze, and the songs of birds. Ahhhhh! Thanks for the thoughts, AVWalters!

  2. I have been using LR for a few years now, and still use Lightroom classic, don’t really need to use the cloud based system as I prefer to do my processing on the bigger screen of my Mac, though I do do the monthly subscription which includes photoshop. I don’t use PS much though anymore. It’s good to have lots of creative outlets though you do seem to spread yourself thin that way!

  3. I get you, Fraggy, about spreading myself thin. The truth is, too much of one thing and I go nuts. So, variety, of a rather limited sort. I gave up wrestling alligators and skydiving, finally.

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