Making Lemonade

This post has nothing to do with a recipe and everything to do about making lemonade.  You know the saying “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade”.  Last year I got handed a big lemon when I was let go from my job, it was devastating to me, emotionally.   I had to do a lot of introspective thinking, why me?  What will I do now?  I’ve let everyone down.  Why me?  It’s not fair.  What am I going to do now?  Why did I make the first cut and not the second? Why? Why?

People would say to me, “things happen for a reason”.   I say bullshit, bad things don’t happen for a reason.  There’s no reason why someone gets cancer or why a child dies.  Of course losing a job isn’t that serious, but it is a bad thing and it didn’t happen for a reason.  What I’ve discovered is that when bad things happen, people pick themselves up, dust themselves off and make the best of a bad situation.  They make lemonade.  Sometimes we even look back and think that the bad thing was the best thing that ever happened.

I’m not saying losing my job was the best thing that ever happened to me, far from it.  As a matter of fact if I still had it, I’d be stressed but perfectly happy going on about my regular Joe life.  Since I don’t have it, I had to do something, I had to make lemonade, which is okay, I love all things lemony

I had set some goals for myself, the kind that you always said “if I have the time, I was going too…” (the list is not all inclusive):

• catch up on yard work
• work on redecorating my home
• keep a spotless house
• diet
• exercise
• clean out the file cabinets
• make all our files digital
• organize, organize
• make jewelry
• sort through our pictures/scrapbook
• Improve my blog
• improve my writing skills
• get more “social”
• Improve my photography skills
• join some cooking clubs
• be a more adventurous cook

Some of the items on my list are still lemons..diet, exercise, organize….I did get more social, joined cooking clubs, improved my cooking and writing, redecorated some of the house and caught up on last years yard work (got a whole new mess this year) and improved my photography.

While I was busy turning my lemons into lemonade I discovered that I really enjoyed the photography.  I found myself reading books about it, taking free online courses, messing around with my camera and seeing some decent results.  I even took some senior school photos and did a wedding (as a guest, not the photographer).  All this led to a couple of things that are about to change my life.

every road in life leads to many paths

One day I got a brochure for the Rocky Mountain School of Photography. They had a 1 week course in food photography that I was seriously Jonesing for but couldn’t afford.  Then I was contacted by a retired USAF Colonel to do some product photography for him, we got to talking and he said I would probably qualify for the Post 9-11 GI Bill education benefit.

That’s all it took (and a lot of family support) and now I can share with you that I’M GOING TO PHOTOGRAPHY SCHOOL!  Not just the 1 week course but a 5 month intensive, cram it down your throat, sink or swim school.  I will be leaving my family for 5 months and heading to Missoula, I’m excited and I’m a wreck!

That leaves me only a few weeks to take care of a few of the lingering lemons, graduate my son (June 2nd) and leave for school (June 3rd).  PANIC has ensued.

I’ve been working so hard to post regularly and keep up socially but I think that I’ll be tailoring back for awhile, it’ll be hard to make changes in my life but it’ll be worth it, I hope, pray, cross my fingers that it will turn out to be the best lemonade ever.

I hope you all are still around to share a tall ice cold glass of lemonade.