I just finished a yearly project. Each day of the month I posted on a pre-determined theme. During the month of November, I'll post a collage of all my photos on the daily theme from the past year. The theme for the thirteenth day of the month was "Failure."
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Look, to be honest, my biggest failure was the job hunt all year long, but I tried really hard not to talk about it too much because it was so repetitive and depressing.
Status Update - Job search going nowhere.
What of the Dog? - Sometimes Hannah won't make eye contact with me when she's done with being photographed. (More complaining about the job situation.)
A Matter of Timing - My husband's grandmother gives us her curio cabinet.
Business as Usual - We continue to go to our regular grocery store instead of the beautiful new one because it is way cheaper.
Executive Planning - I didn't buy my shower wash in time and I paid the price for not thinking ahead.
She's Way Cuter Than That - Hannah photos from before we adopted her.
Free Writing - I complained about journaling in a yoga class.
Of Communication - A friend told me a tale about people getting lost in kayaks on a lake at night. Everything is fine in the end.
These Cookies - Ugh. A flour substitution went awry.
Sleeping In - There is no more sleeping in ever again. Zelda is fully able to tell time.
Lies! It's All Lies! - Duolingo says things are "perfect" when they are not.
Out of Business - The place where we go to give Hannah baths is closing. Sad news.
What of the Dog? - Sometimes Hannah won't make eye contact with me when she's done with being photographed. (More complaining about the job situation.)
A Matter of Timing - My husband's grandmother gives us her curio cabinet.
Business as Usual - We continue to go to our regular grocery store instead of the beautiful new one because it is way cheaper.
Executive Planning - I didn't buy my shower wash in time and I paid the price for not thinking ahead.
She's Way Cuter Than That - Hannah photos from before we adopted her.
Free Writing - I complained about journaling in a yoga class.
Of Communication - A friend told me a tale about people getting lost in kayaks on a lake at night. Everything is fine in the end.
These Cookies - Ugh. A flour substitution went awry.
Sleeping In - There is no more sleeping in ever again. Zelda is fully able to tell time.
Lies! It's All Lies! - Duolingo says things are "perfect" when they are not.
Out of Business - The place where we go to give Hannah baths is closing. Sad news.
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The truth is that I did not care for this prompt as much as I thought I would at first. I was constantly reminded each month that my major failure was not getting a job and did all sorts of maneuvers so that I didn't have to talk about it. However, look at all the tasty treats! Even the ones that went awry were still good to eat.
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Hannah count: 5
Zelda count: 1
Dessert count: A lot
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Jenny has mentioned that poor Zelda did not show up much in my collages and she's right. The truth is that Zelda and I hang out A LOT, but it's almost always on the couch with her on my lap. It never ends up being a flattering picture of her or me, but I swear I take lots of photos of her and enjoy her cuddliness a lot. But the real failure is that YOU, my dear reader, don't get to see more Zelda. So enjoy this photo that my husband took of her right before we took down the Halloween lights.
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What in your life is underphotographed?
Ha ha, that's so funny because Muffin spent so much time cuddled up with me this weekend and I was desperately trying to to photos of it. There's one on my blog today, it's a really weird angle- I was sitting on the couch and she was curled up on my lap, between me and my laptop. Yes, it's hard to get a good picture of that! The creature in our house who's really underphotographed though is Charlotte- I'll have to try and change that.
ReplyDeletePoor cats. They are cute and photogenic, but sometimes it's hard to get really flattering shots of them.
DeleteMe! I am so under photographed in my life! I'm trying to repair that, but my early camera-shyness has clearly made an impression on my family.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry last year was so tough job-hunt wise... Maybe it be onward and upwards from here on!
I have officially deleted all the job search emails and unsubscribed from the job sites, so I think I'm mostly over it!
DeleteSuper photo of Zelda with that red bg. Between Sue and me, not much seems to be unphotographed. :)
ReplyDeleteYes! You guys do get it all, don't you?!
DeleteMy female cat is gorgeous, but she is hard to photograph. Cats can be like that.
ReplyDeleteLike maya, I am hugely underphotographed. I hate being photographed and am always critical of how I look in pictures. It's a bad, bad habit that I need to get over. When we were searching through family photos for my dad's memorial service, we had a terrible time finding pictures of him because he was the same way, just really awful about it. I don't want to be that way.
Focusing on failures is tough. Maybe it's not always as therapeutic or positive as one may think.
Yeah, I had a co-worker die very young and her parents were begging all of us for photos of her because they had so few. It made me sad and I always smile when someone points a camera at me because I don't want that to be me!
DeleteThe job search doesn't count as a failure. It was a temporary annoyance, and it's over now. But yes it was hell to go through.
ReplyDeleteWe have to be really sneaky to get a pic of the dog. If she sees the camera she'll start moving EVERY TIME. The way that I get our daily selfies with her is to take one billion photos and we're very good at turning our heads to face the same direction that she's looking and moving the camera so that it looks like everyone is on the same page.
Your dog is too smart for selfies! She doesn't want to be your content, I guess!
DeleteI dont have a good experience with a "negative" word. I once choose my word of the year to be LOOSE and it was not a good choice. So depreessing. It should have been GAIN. It is all about mindset.
ReplyDeleteI am glad your job hunt is over and you found such a good fit.
The Halloween Zelda photo is so moody.
It was hard to do the negative prompts without ME becoming all negative here. It was easier if it was just a neutral noun or more positive, for sure.
DeleteIt's too bad the job search took a while BUT it sure sounds like you have the absolute perfect job now! So maybe worth the wait? I don't know, it's so hard to wait for so long, but it does sound like a great job.
ReplyDeleteYes, I wish I'd known that I'd land something so great. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have been stressed all those months!
DeleteOh yay, Zelda. And what a cool picture.
ReplyDeleteI can see how getting a picture of a cat sprawled out on your tummy might not be the most flattering... I feel my home is underphotographed because it's not "photogenic" (because it's small and cramped). Oh well.
Ah, yes, there are some rooms in our house that don't get a lot of love on the blog because they're cramped or cluttered, that's for sure.
DeleteThat is an awesome photo of Zelda! And Engie, not to diminish in any way your feelings of discouragement and frustration over this past year, you were NOT a failure. You persevered through a very challenging search, every single day, and you succeeded! You got a job! A job that sounds like a great fit. You are amazing and I hope you can come around to seeing that.
ReplyDeleteOh, I have! I really don't think of the whole thing as a failure, but it was hard not to get to this prompt every month and think about writing some more about the endless job search. It's crazy how quickly I've bounced back now that I'm doing something productive every day.
DeleteSuz sent me here because she believes we might live in the same small Wisconsin town. Say it ain't so! Or, better still, say it IS so. Are you in a town with a river walk, Blackhawk indian statues, and nationally renowned dinner theater?
ReplyDeleteIt IS so. How did Suz make all those connections?! Small world!
DeleteThat's amazing. To be fair, I haven't made a secret out of F.A. I've written entire posts about it, ha. You must have mentioned it on your blog too for her to make that connection! (The sad thing is, she told me this on New Year's Eve...and somehow, I missed her comment until today, when I happened to be reading through old posts.)
DeleteWell, I've never published the town's name (trying to stay relatively unsearchable, but mostly failing), but I've certainly published enough about it for someone to put it together.
Deletehttps://ngradstudent.blogspot.com/search?q=peonies
https://ngradstudent.blogspot.com/2023/01/31-hat-happy-new-years.html
https://ngradstudent.blogspot.com/2023/03/55-drawing-sculpture-about-town.html
Nice to meet you and welcome to my blog!
I don't think there's any part of my life that's under-photographed. I love taking photos and I'm always ready to snap photos of the me, the cats, the dogs, books, my home, my family, whatever I'm doing. Sometimes I feel like I OVER-photograph my life, but that's probably just me being self-conscious about how often I have my camera out!
ReplyDeleteI feel like after this past year, nothing in my life is underphotographed, either!
DeleteUm, me. I never, ever ever take photos of myself. I really really really dislike all photos - I even rejected my most recent headshot. I need to work on this, but, um, not sure how one goes about that. ;)
ReplyDeleteI just take a million photos and keep the best ones. But I'm not too self-conscious about how I look. I just keep thinking that I'll never be younger or more attractive than I am RIGHT NOW. LOL.
Delete