Case in point. I took a ton of pictures last summer for the blues festival for my friend. I worked my ass off, did a fine job, and that was great.

this year, however, she wants me to do it again, and I originally said yes, but today I emailed her and said "nope." Won't do it for free. It was 8 hours of intense and hard work, for no money.

The results were great, which is nice, but I won't do it for free again. I don't like blues music that much that it is worth it to me. I would rather hang out at my house or with friends relaxing...so, I am sure she isn't too thrilled with moi, mais, c'est la vie.

So, I almost got eaten alive by a swarm of wild yellow jackets to take this and others like it.

The things I do for my art! Oh, and need I mention the thicket of poison ivy I waded through to achieve this result.

The lighting was irresistible, in the late summer afternoon before the sun set across the street from my home.

I am going to make an effort to blog every day if I can. I am so much happier lately since I have stopped drinking alcohol for a while. Not necessarily forever and ever. But I have never made an executive decision to lay off the stuff just for fun to see if it made a difference. and the difference is not what I expected at all.

I have never been what I consider a problem drinker nor have I been an alcoholic in the sense that I need to have a drink a day, or that I drink a bottle or two at a time or whatever others have done to themselves.

For me the difference has been an elimination of a "reason" for the headaches I would get from time to time.

Okay, headaches is an understatement. Migraines of the most intense and throw up sort. Sick for days, can't do anything but check out of life until it goes away migraines.

I the past I would blame myself for drinking for causing the migraine. But with this scientific experiment, I have discovered that the alcohol is not the reason for the migraines, and I still get them when I go out to a bar for example and just drink soda for the night.

Very instructive. And so, I am, by process of elimination, I am narrowing down the cause, and removing the self-blame and self-anger factor, which is a good and great thing. And also wholely unanticipated.

Don't get me wrong. I love to share a bottle of wine with friends over dinner or to have a corona with lime on a hot summer day. But the interesting thing has been, once I made the decision to not drink for a year, it has not been difficult and I have not felt the pull of temptation or whatever that I would have thought might be an issue, but is not.

So, the unexpected has come out of my experiment. And I could not be more surprised, nor pleased.

Does that mean I never get migraines any more? Unlikely. But the truth is, I am figuring them out for the first time, and in the same vein, figuring out myself, which is a good and positive thing, I believe.