Happy Christmas to all of you observing it & a very, very happy holidays to those of you who aren’t. The holidays make December one of my favorite months, especially because Christmas is the perfect excuse for my entire family & close friends to gather around over a huge feast & partake in gift-giving. Seeing my huge family during the holidays makes the day so enjoyable & something I look forward to every year. The food, the company, the drinks, the scents, the desserts, & the fun, there’s so much sensory overload, how can you not be overwhelmed with joy? Speaking of senses, did you know that scent is one of our 5 senses that is closely tied with memory? I’m sure most of you already know that, so let’s drive this point even further: Holiday Diffusers. Make your home smell exactly like the happy holidays with essential oils, vodka (or rubbing alcohol), a glass bottle, & diffuser reeds.
Orange
Since I’ve started pro-actively editing my photos in Lightroom, I’ve felt a resurgence for a passion in photography that I felt was absent for quite some time. My photos just felt flat, stagnant, lacked excitement, & were often just so mundane. They became to reflect my own feelings of an ever deteriorating self-worth & happiness, but right around the time when I begun to rely on Lightroom to add more vibrance, saturation, & color curves into my photos, my awkward post-graduate-plateau-of-a-life, my personal life began to pick up. Even the tomato plant I thought would surely wilt in this Californian drought found a way to beat the odds against insects, dry weather, & heat to produce baby San Marzano tomatoes. So, what’s changed? I’m cooking more, eating healthier food, & I’m trying to find a favorable balance between work, reading, catching up with friends, cooking, photographing, volunteering, & the joys of post-processing. In short, I’m doing more with my time, waking up earlier, sleeping at appropriate hours, & eating more power foods. Sometimes when you feel as though you’re in a sinking ship, it helps to look around to remember that you’re not alone. Sometimes you can ask others to help you repair your ship, but most of the time, you have to remember that you’ve got to try to fix your ship yourself.
So, shall I start this post with a recipe first or events? Let’s go with food because I have new recipes!