{day two : six things you love}

***Note: I am currently doing a 7 day blog challenge, where I blog based on writing prompts from this post***

There are the obvious things...my husband, my baby, God, family.  Let's skip those.  They know it, and it is not a challenge for me to write about my love for them.  For this post I tried to think of more revealing loves.

1. I love light. 

Ever walked outside, stopped mid-stride, closed your eyes and faced directly into the sun, soaking in the warmth for a moment?  I do this regularly.  People probably think I'm nuts.  I have never been officially diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I have seasonal affective disorder.  I need light.  I realized this fact very keenly since becoming a stay-at-home mom.  For the past 15 years I have worked jobs in which I've been bathed in fluorescent light for 8+ hours a day.  Now I spend the majority of my day indoors...and I realize the value of light.  In the morning I turn on all the lights.  I frequently have to go on walks outside with the baby, whether it is sunny or not, just to be in the light.   Too much darkness and I get very down!

2. I love being alone.

I am not a person who likes a ton of people around me.  In fact, crowds sometimes give me a bit of anxiety {oh yes, the list of neuroses goes on, and on, and on...} Like the light, I also need time by myself to be in balance.  When I was a teenager I would come home from school and literally spend hours walking around the perimeter of our woods, just thinking about life.  It's hard to get alone time these days, but a couple days a week my husband takes the baby for a few hours at a time so I can venture out on my own, to wander solo with my thoughts...and very often a latte.

Source: lh5.googleusercontent.com via Tanvi on Pinterest

3. I love photography.

My love for photography began way before I started blogging.  Years before I owned my DSLR {with which I'm still shooting on the automatic setting.} Before I took art history classes in college and learned about composition, light, and subject matter.  I have always loved pictures.   I would pore over my older sisters snapshots of her and her friends, and spend hours sifting through my mom's trunk of old photographs.   My love for photography began as soon as I owned my first camera.  I would cry at Kmart if my 35mm film that I had waited two whole days as it was sent to the lab to get developed somehow came back "damaged..." meaning I had loaded it incorrectly or it had gotten wet or some other tragedy that meant none of my photos would ever come to be.   Yes, I would literally cry tears of grief over lost photographs.  It made me feel like the stories told on the film perhaps never happened.  Even now I kick myself if I realize I forgot my camera.   They often show the photographer's perspective of life.  Photographs can tell a story that often words cannot adequately convey.

4. I love oddballs.

In a world where people try to fit in, blend in, appear as though everything is perfect...I am drawn to those who will openly show their inner oddball.   Who don't seem to care too much what others think.  Those who admit their life has some crappy aspects...and they are OK with that.  I love an odd fashion sense {even though I dress pretty conservatively.}  I love a off-beat sense of humor.   I even have a little oddball in me...and I am so thankful to have my husband, my best friend, with whom I feel completely comfortable being as odd as I want to be.  

5. I love flowers.

Not in the sense that I love receiving flowers {though, of course, I do.}  I love flowers because they are art.  Flowers are art without even trying.   I am always in awe of the subtle ways in which God shows his awesomeness through creation.  Flowers are my favorite subject matter in photography {read: they are very easy to photograph...naturally beautiful and they don't move!}

6. I love reinvention.

If you know me, you know I like to move.  Literally.  While single I lived in more apartments than I can count, and my husband and I are already on our second home, contemplating a third...and we've only been married four years.  I love taking a space and making it my own.  I love painting walls.  I love change.  I have no problem changing the cut or color of my hair.  I feel no attachment to any particular city.  I am a firm believer in the saying:  "If you don't like something, change it."  Or just change something for the fun of it. :)

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