Photo a Day: Fail

No, the topic of today's Photo A Day is not, in fact, "Fail." That's just a description of how I've been doing with my best-laid plans of faithfully following the Photo a Day project for the month of June.

I have a pretty good reason, though: Life. What's been going on in life has simply been more important than taking the time to take a specific photo and sit down at the computer to write about it. In the past week since I last blogged, the things that have been more important have included everything from getting together with friends from college that I haven't seen in ages, taking my husband out for a nice Father's Day dinner, attending my daughter's preschool graduation, going to doctor's appointments, catching up with some volunteer work that's approaching a deadline, and - to be perfectly honest - taking a few "mental health hours" to just play with my kids by the pool and putter in my garden.

Puttering is a vastly underrated mental health technique, in my opinion. I have a lot on my plate right now, and I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself and get stressed out and anxious. My instinct is to give up all "unnecessary" tasks and to focus on spending 100% of my time on everything that needs to get done in order to prevent - what seems to me, anyway - the end of the world. But over the years, I have learned that taking the time to relax, clear my mind, and focus on myself pays off in better focus, calm planning, and greater efficiency when I get back to the tasks at hand. So that hour spent digging in the garden results in getting six hours worth of work done in four hours. And that evening spent splashing in the pool with my kids results in refreshed mind producing fresh new ideas for my volunteer projects.

So instead of posting photos of A Pile, The Floor, Vibrant, My Name, Something Alive, No Filter, and Water, I'm posting photos of "The Stuff That Was Way More Important Than Writing My Blog".

Sometimes, life is more important.