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There is no question. With or without an official medical diagnosis, it’s certain that I am afflicted with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It happens every year. I like winter to an extent, but after a couple of months of it, I’ve had enough…3 months and I’m bordering on severe depression and utter insanity.

Beginning in November, I start feeling unusually lazy and unmotivated. I can’t get going in the mornings and I plop down on the sofa like a slug at the end of a workday and gaze blankly at the TV as though in a coma. I don’t want to go anywhere, don’t want to do anything, don’t want to see anyone. If life did not necessitate full-time employment, I would happily drift into a full-fledged state of winter hibernation until this dreary season was passed.

Here in the south, we are not even graced with any of the normal perks of winter, such as pretty snow. Frozen precipitation here is more often just sloppy sleet and freezing rain, which too often results in DAYS (sometimes WEEKS) without power (aka Internet and TV…EGADS!). Even in those rare events when we actual DO see white stuff, we’re expected to risk life and limb to show up on the job regardless, so we don’t get to ENJOY it while it’s here…which is rarely more than 1 day at best.

Painting, drawing, even writing…creative inspiration and endeavors…it’s the ONE thing, the ONLY thing, I want to do during this miserably depressing season. I would be delighted to hold up in a cave and just paint the winter away, if not for the unreasonable demands of responsible living and friends who just do not understand the typical inclinations of a hermit afflicted with SAD.

I had important things to do today. I SHOULD have ridden at least one horse while the weather is not miserably cold. Instead, I fed them and considered my responsibilities met in full. I should have taken my dogs to the vet for their allergy shots. I overslept instead. I should have gone to pick up a print job that’s going to cost me God knows what. Instead, I started a painting. I’m not finished with it yet. I’m never really finished with anything, which is one reason I love digital media…it’s always available to revisit and improve upon, or even completely rework. If only LIFE were so easy to revist and improve upon…even rework entirely…

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Sometimes, things just don’t work the way they’re supposed to.

I shot this scene in the garden of an acquaintance. It seemed worthy of recording, since you don’t come across too many scarecrows with a beer in hand. But then, if all you had to do day in and day out was stand in a field in all manner of weather and scare away birds, I guess an altered state of consciousness COULD be somewhat useful.

I confess to having added the crow. Bob told me that the scarecrow was mostly for looks, as he had, on numerous occasion seen crows and other assorted fowl perch upon this novelty. Even though I was not fortunate enough to witness said hilarity, I am NOT without my own means to create my OWN Kodak moment.

I had a great image of one of the MANY crows that live near my own small farm, but the setting was quite uninteresting. I had this interesting shot of Bob’s garden scarecrow…quite unique in itself, but it too, still lacking SOMEthing. Hmmmm…

In the original shot of the scarecrow, I had failed to use an effective depth of field that would make the focal point (the scarecrow) stand out, so the busy background was distracting. I used a number of layer techniques, filters and effects to try to bring a more effective focal point back to the scarecrow and her pet. Here’s the final result. Won’t likely win any contests, but I thought it rather cute in depicting one of the many ironies of life.

Disclaimer: By the time you get to the end of this post, you may be wondering what on earth a rural roadside fire hydrant has to do with the subject of this post. Absolutely NOTHING. I just could not for the life of me think of anything creative or clever to post on the subject of a rural roadside fire hydrant, or why I find it to be such an appealing subject for a picture. I just do, okay?

Now, with THAT question out of the way…does anyone remember that old song by ZZ Top (does anyone even remember that BAND?!) called something like “You Got Me Under Pressure!”?

So I’ve got a website up and actually functioning now…putting into practice (while still learning) tactics I’ve learned about networking and SEO stuff and marketing and all that gibberish. The uncomfortable thing about all this is that as my audience grows…if I don’t come up with something palatable to DELIVER, if I don’t pay attention to spelling and grammar, and all those other irritatingly significant details…I could very well LOSE them. So now, I’m under pressure.

Pressure is a peculiar thing. It seldom FEELS good to the one it’s being applied to. But then, if intimidating demands are never made, would we ever grow, improve, learn, stretch ourselves and sometimes even discover that we can go BEYOND what we thought we could do?

Everyone has their strong points and their weak points. Me? I have a tendency to start many things but follow through with few. I blame it on attention deficit disorder seasoned with a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder. I have many interests in many things and so tend to be shamefully easily distracted. When intensely focused on one thing, I lean toward neglecting other needful things. Perhaps DISORDERS is a wrong way to look at such personal ‘issues’…I propose that it may be better to view such things as CHALLENGES, designed specifically for our uniquely individual personalities to bring out the best in us, when we dare to face them and with diligence, learn to not only master our weaknesses but learn to USE them, much as the body builder uses resistance to reshape his body.

Seven years ago, I joined a blogging community called Mindsay. It was here that I discovered a surprisingly unexpected ability to share the mundane events of my everyday life in words and pictures in such a way as to bring immense entertainment to others…to share joy and contentment and stir fond memories. I gained a following of some most incredible people. Sadly, the pressures and demands of everyday life began to overwhelm me and I spent less and less time nurturing my gift. For those who cared enough to miss my absence, forgive me. I now recognize this as my niche, a gift and an endeavor for which I was meant to pursue. I want to reactivate it, nurture it, develop it, and even more importantly, share it with whoever may be hungry for it.

Sojo is back. My gift is no longer a play thing or experiment, it’s a commitment. It’s what I’m meant to do. BUT…it’s got me under pressure.

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I was piddling around outside with the rabbit in the backyard one summer afternoon and my grandson, Kendall, got hold of my acoustic guitar and started picking at it trying to play a tune. I won’t divulge how “good” a tune that ended up being, but it certainly made for a memorable portrait!

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I got this shot while on one of my photo expeditions (affectionately called ‘photo hunts’) with my friend, Karen Osborne. We had just left a tour of the Poinsette Bridge and took a wrong turn, but a wrong turn with some fantastic country views. We eventually reluctantly turned back for fear we might end up in the middle of NOwhere without sufficient gas to find SOMEwhere, but not before stopping on the side of the road to get some shots of this country farmstead on the side of the road. It was a great shot without much editing, but I was in a playful mood. I started making adjustments, applying filters…quite honestly I lost track of what I was doing…I was just sort of going with the flow. Ended up with the great picture with loads of atmosphere, and even a bit of an infrared effect. Another one of my famous ‘accidental’ strokes of genius.

I’ve looked for this farm in the same vicinity on several subsequent trips to the bridge but have yet to find it. Maybe it was all in our imagination…

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My granddaughter, Keyana, brings one of my horses, Odessa, in from the pasture for the evening. At the time, my pasture was fenced off from the barnyard. We had a much lusher stand of grass then than now and my skinny mini mare, Odessa, was allowed more time on the grass than my fat appy mare, Sugar…we had to lead both back to the barn and barnyard each evening.

In reality, the background scene in the actual shot was our big ugly gas tank beside the house, a peek at Kendall’s lanky legs on the other side of Dessa and a nice view of a ginormous pile of lumber and brush that remained at the center of the pasture after the property had been cleared for the pasture. I eliminated these distracting details and added the more nostalgic scenery of the corner of Cudd Drive, across from where my friend Wilma Howell lives. Voila, a down-home scene from just another lazy day in the country.

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This image is one of my favorites…not only the image, but also the story behind it. When I first set up my bird feeders, I found myself constantly battling marauding squirrels determined to steal my expensive bird feed. So I bought a baffle…which worked pretty well I thought, until I spotted a particularly determined squirrel who looked unnervingly as though he might figure out how to baffle the baffle. Just to be on the safe side, I thought I would incorporate a backup system…I sprayed the pole with PAM cooking spray. The ensuing show was HILARIOUS. I must confess, I’ve rarely seen the determination displayed by those darn squirrels…if they had no natural predators, they could rule the world with that kind of tenacity. This crazy varmint would get halfway up the pole and then sliiiiiiide slowly back toward the ground with this “baffled” expression on his face (no pun intended). I got a shot of this fellow on one of his trips back down the pole.

Why the title ‘Strip Tease?’ You know, strippers, poles? Not that I would know anything about that sort of thing…

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