Time Well Spent

by Terri

Taking time for yourself.  We’ve talked about that a lot lately and how important it is. But when you get that time, doing something you love with people who love it too can fill your soul up in such a wonderful way.

After a particularly grueling week, the one thing that got me through was knowing I would be spending two days with two of my favorite people, doing something we all love.  My friend Carol Hart (on the right in the photo above) was coming down from Seattle for a few days and staying with a mutual friend, Barbara Hurst.  On Saturday morning, I drove up to Barbara’s to spend the day with them.  We are all in a still life class together and Barbara had set up little vignettes for us to photograph ...

. . . croissants with sprinkles of powdered sugar and a sweet grouping of teapot, teacup and some cotton branches as well as many other beautiful things.

Carol fixed us a wonderful lunch of paella which we ate out on the patio in the gorgeous spring weather.

After lunch, we set up our laptops and imported the morning’s photos into Lightroom. Both Carol and Barbara are experts by my standards and it was great to have them right there to ask questions and learn from them.

 

After a lovely dinner prepared by Barbara, I headed home happy and relaxed and looking forward to spending the next day with them. 

On Sunday morning, they both came to my house for breakfast and we headed out to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  Somehow I left the house without my camera. The only thing in my camera bag was a couple of lenses, absolutely useless without my camera! So in my present state of happiness, I didn’t beat myself up about it but decided I would make the most of shooting with my iPhone.  There were cactus in bloom so, of course, you know I was going to be capturing those!

We were blessed with beautiful weather, cool and just enough cloud cover to make the colors rich and vibrant.  We credited Carol for bringing some Seattle weather with her!  As I write this, it’s brilliantly sunny and 100 degrees, so we definitely lucked out with the weather during her visit!

But in the end, it’s not about the photos . . . it’s about being with friends who share your passion and taking some time to do something we all love. When life gets crazy, I tend to forget how much taking this time will improve my mood and get me through whatever bumps there may be in the road. The laughter, the learning, the sharing, the love . . . all combined to put a smile on my face that is still lingering. This post is a thank you to these women whose friendship means more than I can ever tell them.

I hope that this will encourage you to take some time for yourself, some time to fill your soul with happiness and contentment by doing something you love. Whatever it takes to make that happen, do it. There’s time. It’s important. You won’t be sorry.