A Little Bit of Serious, Fluff, and Nonsense!

Valentines Flowers from Tom

I hope the randomness of my posts aren't annoying for y'all...would you want me to elaborate more on one topic? I'm only thinking about this right now because what I've read, a successful blog has a consistency to it, from topic to how often one posts. I know my common thread has always been about living with clinical depression, but I don't talk about it in every entry. Hmmm...

Well that's a good thing! All of us living with mental illnesses know that it's not something we want to particularly ponder on a daily basis. Here's something for y'all to know; if I'm not writing about it, that usually means it's not affecting my day at all...those are happy days! But, today is a happy day even though I'm writing about depression...so when I'm writing about it, it's not that I'm having a bad day necessarily, but rather I just want to talk about it...remember what I've said?

Keep the conversation going!

Terribly sorry if that was all just a bit confusing! I've had a lot of coffee today!

Anyway! I just wanted to share a few things on my mind. So! Back to depression...let me tell y'all how it's going! I'm still trying to get to that wonderful place I was in not too long ago, and I've actually had some moments when I'm there again. I want to be there every day though, so it's still a struggle and a process. That's just a part of it though...one does not get better over night and sometimes not even after a few months. I think the time that it takes and the effort we put in to that time builds a stronger foundation for us to feel better and stay feeling better. So keep pushing!

I also want to share more about living with depression while being a spouse of a military service member and being part of the "military community." I'm always hearing or reading about how someone "could not imagine being committed to a military person" or "that lifestyle would be too hard for me." And then I read and hear the military significant others explaining that a "strong enough love is enough to get you through it" or "it's really not that bad." A strong love is definitely essential! However, it is a hard lifestyle with mental illness...life in general is a challenge with mental illness...but there are a good many more chunks of challenges when you become part of the "military community." I don't want to elaborate too much in this post today, but I do want to let y'all know that it IS something I will be talking about in the near future!

USS Iwo Jima Homecoming 2012

Now for a little bit of fluff and nonsense! For my husband's 30th birthday, I got him the new Samsung 5s...aaaaand I got one for me too! Lol I couldn't help it...he's been needing a new phone and I just really wanted a new phone! I'm not the girl who has to have a new model every year...but...I wanted one so that I could have Pinterest and Instagram and Candy Crush and basically all the good apps. It's perfectly fine to need these apps since I'm an artist and photographer and blogger, right? Right! I had an HTC Radar and it had a system that they had tried (and failed) to execute as an exclusive thing like IPhone and Androids...you know what I mean? Anyway...it was no bueno. Anywho! I'm especially excited to have Instagram again! Definitely not a fan of the barrage of selfies I see...seriously...how many times must one share the same silly expression or the same "sitting in my car" pose...drives me crazy! I love Instagram because it feels like taking snapshots of the world around us and adding filters and edits and such, makes the simple every day life all the more beautiful and special! Here are my latest little shares...

I made the collages using my app "A Beautiful Mess." I highly recommend this app and their lovely delightful blog! Photo apps are so much fun! It's like completely stress free photography for all of us professional photographers...we mostly just have to pay attention to composition and can basically forget about all those other little manual settings like white balance, aperture, shutter and all that good stuff! So yeah...I've been having fun!

All right I guess that's enough thoughts for right now. I've gotta start getting ready for work! Oh yeah! I work in a photo lab, so this month is especially relevant because May is National Photo Month!!! Yay!!! So get out there and print your photos, enlarge them, put 'em on a mug, transfer 'em to a canvas...so many fun things to do with your photos...don't just keep them on your phones, y'all!

Hope y'all have a beautiful day! Hugs and love, my lovelies!

Smiles,
Amy