The other day I experienced a feeling which reminded me of why I keep living my life and why I enjoy being alive. It's not that I'm not reminded of this often, in fact I'm reminded of it quite often, like when I'm spending time in a park with my partner, or when I'm going someplace new and exciting or meeting with people and having a pleasant social time, but this one stood out because of how rare it has been lately.
It was a cool summer day and the air was fresh, I had my windows open and I could hear the birds singing from outside. The occasional breeze flowed through my open windows, gently reminding my of how comfortable I felt. I was hand stitching a pocket onto the hip of my shorts while listening to Sum 41's All Killer No Filler through my computer's speakers. The energetic pop-punk sound mixed perfectly with the repetitive precision of my backstitch and I was in a perfect flow state.
I hadn't experienced such a flow state in a long time. I haven't been spending much time on such enjoyable and rewarding hobbies, and when I am being creative it tends to be filled more with stress because of how out of practice I am, or because I'm trying something new, like making this website. I used to experience it pretty often while sewing, or playing creative videogames. I vividly remember being in a very nice flow while building a space elevator in Space Engineers. Piloting my heavy welding ship between my base and the tower I was working on, while listening to some of my favorite music brought me more enjoyment than a videogame reasonably should. It somehow made me feel alive. I'm happy to have experienced that feeling again.
I Have a Camera
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My wish came true! I finally have a camera! While looking for envelopes in my mom's office I found our old digital camera, a Canon PowerShot A1100 IS, in the bottom of some drawers. It has 12.1 Megapixels and a 4x optical zoom. I used to love taking pictures with it when I was a kid. I put in some fresh batteries and a 32GB SD card and turned it on. To my surprise it works just fine, but unsurprisingly it's pretty busted and turns off if you touch the battery cover too much. It isn't a great camera, but I'm so happy to have it. I think it's pretty much perfect for what I want to use it for. I should be able to take some better pictures for my website.
Dead Frogs
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Yesterday it finally got warm enough that my partner and I were able to go for our first walk of the season. It had been getting pretty depressing being stuck inside all winter. Walking and being in nature are pretty important for my mental health and one of my favorite things to do with my partner. We always go right to a little pond I like to call the frog pond. It's usually full of cute frogs hopping around and sometimes other wildlife like a turtle or heron. This time it was full of dead frogs and tadpoles. It was pretty cool to see. The entire bottom of the pond was swarming with schools of cute little tadpoles swimming around.
It was warm out, but chilly in the shade. The ice on the still water hadn't fully melted and the trees hadn't grown their leaves back. It had the atmosphere of a still winter day with the warmth of spring. I felt at home and comfortable.
I Wish I Had A Camera
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Taking pictures of things is something that I quite enjoy. I especially love taking pictures of things related to my hobbies. I enjoy documenting my work. However, I find that my camera's phone really lets me down with the quality of the pictures its able to take. It's not the image quality itself that i have a problem with, but the inabilty to zoom without losing quality of the image. Most of the time I'm not able to get the photo composition that I want. The pictures I take of my models or pens always look wrong. I would be much happier with the pictures if I was able to zoom in, as to not distort the subject of the photograph. I'm obviously not a a photographer by any means, and perhaps this is just a skill issue but I wish I had a camera.
