Sometimes you just want to look at pretty things, and think of pretty things, and dream of pretty things, because they can take you away from the monotony of life (and the grayness of the skies and ground) and bring some small pleasure to your mind and soul. Whatever is beautiful to you, enjoy it.
I was changing my profile pic on Facebook today and I found this picture that I had taken last summer, and I thought "wow, that's pretty." Sometimes when you take sooo many pictures, you tend to forget about a few, but it's always kind of special when you re-discover them and appreciate them all over again. It's not perfect, but it's pretty.
Spring Favs-Flowers, originally uploaded by Genevieve_vev.
These are nearly perfect, though. Like I said, it's still pretty gray and gross here (we got some more snow yesterday-yuck), though the sun is poking out today, so I'm fantasizing about days filled with [warm] sunshine, soft breezes and flowers all around. I'm really craving some gardening right now, I have grand plans for my pots and yard this year (as always), so I've definitely got flowers on the brain.
Until I can get my hands dirty though, I am playing with flower papers. I fell in love with this sheet of MM Noteworthy paper, and I knew right away which photo I wanted to use with it, the prettiest one I had :) I ended up going pretty simple with the layout because I didn't want to take away from the pic or the paper, so I printed off a bit of journaling, added some flowers and c'est tout. Kind of regretting my decision with the stars, they might come off eventually, I'm such a sucker for white space though, I need to fill it!
I've also been scouting out some more prints on
Etsy (I'm getting to be a print addict!), and I'm choosing lots of "pretty" things there too!
Pretty from here
Cutey pretty from here
Office-worthy pretty
here
So pretty from here
Magical pretty from here
Sigh. If only I could have them all (and if only I could have a sweet baby for all these adorable prints!) I find a lot of them are cute, but more cute for a kid's room, they don't quite go with what I have going on now, so I hesitate buying them...but still, they are pretty. Double sigh.
[Non-pretty topic below...]
I found this post through Ali's blog yesterday, and I think that the author (I don't know her-or of her) is expressing something that most of us bloggers/online folks feel sometimes, the disconnect between our real life communities and our ties to the online communities we have become part of. I am always saying to myself that I need to be online less, engage more, experience life, but it's a struggle when you feel like your online ties are almost as (or equally as) important as your real-life ones. Especially in the beginning when you are just getting to "know" people and are making friends/connections, like me, who has only been blogging and part of a little community for about a year. There are also expectations that we put on ourselves to always be showing, always be entertaining, always be revealing online, that if we stop there will be disappointment, both from others and ourselves...admit it, wouldn't we all be kind of disappointed if Rachel stopped blogging? Or Kara? We can't expect these women to go on forever though, and scaling back our expectations and hunger for them to do so bit by bit may be the answer. Sadly, and I am guilty of this too, we may also wonder if without our online word would there be enough to fill our lives, would we be enough?
I know that for myself, I really enjoy blogging, it passes the time, keeps my mind sharp, and records thoughts and feelings and events and moments that I would otherwise forget and not record at all, since I'm not a traditional journaler (I hate writing by hand, I'm completely out of practice, something I also want to improve on...) I also really enjoying reading other people's blogs and being online on some of my fav sites, I love seeing the commonalities between us all, I love learning new things, being incredibly inspired-nowhere do I become more inspired than online!-and, well, living vicariously through other individuals (hello Elsie...) And, worst of all, sometimes I come online to mentally veg out (hello Perez...) Because of all this, and despite the positives of being online (because there are many), I feel like I'm missing out on real moments with my friends, family, community and myself because I'm here, typing out other "significant" (read: NOT REALLY) moments or looking at other "significant" (read: NOT REALLY) things. I could be volunteering, learning a new skill, spending time with friends, making new friends, developing in my crafts/art/photography, or a million other things that are more tangible, fulfilling, truly inspiring and real than all the online time in the world.
It's the struggle of "growing up online", living online as much as living offline. It's become an expectation instead of a pass-time, people will wonder what's wrong with you if you don't have Facebook, or don't Twitter, or whatever the next cool online communication-thingy is. And we fall into it, completely. No one can be accused of this more than me. I'm always into the next thing, wanting to be part of it, and slowly losing my outside world because of it. It's a lack of self-discipline, but it's also feeling like there's nothing else, no choice. I also face the additional struggle that I am in front of a computer for 8 hours a day with full access to the internet, it's always right there, luring me in from my gray cubicle walls and my wonderful/awful job, so staying offline in moments like these is nearly impossible. Drastic measures may need to be taken to eliminate this temptation, but I'm afraid of taking those steps, of being offline...sadly, it's being afraid of the unknown.
The Internet is a great great thing, I dare say one of the greatest inventions of my generation, but, like so many good things, too much of it, ironically, can lead to emptiness.
Not sure why I felt the need to get that all out, like I said, the blog post (and subsequent articles) really made me think. What will come of it, I don' t know, but I hope that I start taking more steps to ENGAGE myself in my life.
....
I think I just found my word for 2009.
ENGAGE.
How do you feel about being online? Are you online too much?
Have a great rest of the week!
