Scattered Thoughts . . .

My health has been pretty lousy this past week with various issues overlapping each day. Overall, I've been feeling worn out, weak, and just generally lousy. I've had problems intermittently with breathing, dizziness, stomach/gastro-intestinal, nausea, vision, bone pain, joint pain, spleen pain, cognitive function, bordering on anaphylaxis, and probably a few other things I have forgotten about right now. It has just been a rather lousy week. I laid down this afternoon for my daily two to four hour nap. Adam had his wisdom teeth pulled yesterday so we were all already camped out on the couch all day so I just napped on the couch while Sheila and Adam continued to watch television. Our neighbor's two cats spend much of their time every day at our place and today was no different. Before I fell asleep, I saw one of the cats pass back and forth outside. Since seeing the cats coming and going is something I see everyday, I didn't think much of it.  When I awoke from m

This entire week has been one health problem after another. I honestly was fighting back tears as my health crashed into anaphylaxis last night. The tears weren't because of pain nor simply because I was feeling miserable. The tears were because I have been so unproductive this week and I now had to accept the fact that the next few days would be, at best, a recovery period of more nonproductivity. This weighs so heavily on me, I suppose, because I want to do so many things around the house but can't... because each day I lose due to this debilitating illness, is one less day I will have in my life. Now, once again, I didn't just lose another day, I just lost a full work-week and this downtime of nothingness promises to be longer. We were doing some light shopping in Williston and South Burlington last night... the first store we visited was all it took. As we were walking into Bed, Bath & Beyond (we hadn't even entered the store yet), I was experiencing breathing

My previous blog post was about a quick photo shoot I did for a friend. I know this friend appreciates all the time and effort I put into her photos so this post is definitely not directed toward her nor is it about her. This post is simply a quick explanation to help people understand why the cost of a good photographer seems so high. Plus, my health has forced another "down" day for me today so, while I am recovering, I have time to write here. After my "quick" photo shoot the other night and posting about it, I thought this would be a good time to make the connection to real costs associated with a photography business using that quick headshot photo shoot as an example.  So, let's first look at just a simple "quick" photo shoot for a single headshot. This type of shoot is probably one of the quickest so this would be at the low end of the professional photographer's pricing scale. Don't confuse "quickest" with easi

I rarely will take on a portrait session, or any photography session for that matter, simply because it takes too much out of me and any activity impacts my health in a negative way but... sometimes there are exceptions! A good friend of ours, Judy, called us last week asking if I could shoot one photo of her for work. There was a rather short deadline and the project seemed simple enough... One headshot on a black background, traditional portrait orientation, a jpeg file emailed to her corporate office. I happen to enjoy photography as an enthusiastic hobbyist when my health allows and I have the equipment as well as the experience necessary for a small photography project like this one so I felt this was a favor I could easily tackle! I was feeling pretty good, healthwise, when I spoke to Judy so we scheduled a time to do a quick portrait session...   As luck would have it, my health suddenly declined in the next couple of days so we needed to reschedule this session. This h

A couple of weeks ago, Sheila and I ventured down to Rutland for an annual train show. We expected to only be brief spectators checking out the operating model railroads at this show but ended up coming home with a very large box of trains! All in all, it was a nice trip.  The guy who sold us the big box of trains was telling us about another train show he is organizing in Winooski.  Unfortunately, this train show in Winooski always conflicts with an annual Christmas dinner that Sheila and I attend with close friends so I really have no experience with this show nor will we be able to attend this year's show. The funny thing is I always see this show advertised but we just never seem to get there. Although, I think I did attend this show once or twice since moving to Vermont almost 20 years ago. While we were talking with John (the guy who sold us the box of trains), he had asked if we would pass along info about this annual train show. He seemed like a really nice guy and I