Thursday January 21 2016  WHO NEEDS A PARTY?

Good evening one and all.  This will be just a quick check in time for those of you who read daily.  All is well.  It’s been a long, extremely busy day, and I’m about out of gas.  So a brief rundown of a few things from today.  There was much accomplished today in my Geek Squad session.  I could not have had a better person to help me.  She was efficient and quite an expert at what she did.  She worked on four computers, hooked my laptop to enable it to print on one of my printers, correlated my email addresses to work together between computers so I didn’t have to delete everything four times over, set up my blog administration page to be accessible from another computer, tuned up, cleaned out, fixed, added to and took away from, and made everything work as it should.  She was also patient enough to explain things to me, show me how to work certain steps, and just gave me a boost of self-confidence when working with all these computers.  Each computer has a work of its own to do.  Two computers are used for photography only.  My desk top computer was used for the business office work.  My lap top is for traveling and working on my blog. 

When you deal with computer equipment and camera equipment, technology changes so rapidly that when you buy new cameras you must be certain that the computer will support the new technology of the camera.  Sometimes it will not, thus the reason I bought my first MAC.  Over the years I had several digital cameras and then it happened again, thus another Mac, this time bigger, better and way more costly (not to mention the cost of the cameras).  And now again it has happened.  However, not with my professional equipment.  The personal use camera I purchased last year for my trip is technically beyond my last MAC’s technological capacity.  I still have it.  It still works but only with my professional cameras purchased at the time the computer was purchased.  I love those cameras but they are too big and too heavy for me to handle any more.  So I purchase a small red camera, only to find out I then had to buy a new computer.  I chose an HP.  BAD CHOICE ON MY PART.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the HP for writing and surfing, and emailing.  But because it is a laptop with a movable screen it cannot be used to work on photos because of the variance of distorting the light on the photo.  So now I will need a stationary screen with MAC innards.  There is nothing like a MAC for photo processing.  Everything only works with its own generation.  And unfortunately, the computer lives in dog years.  Each generation is not very long to aid in the sale of more equipment to the gullible public.

I am keeping the 2^nd generation MAC I purchased because all the photos that have done the last few years for my own family were done on the cameras that work with it.  I still need to process my own photos.  Remember the cliché “the cobbler’s children have no shoes”?  Well, the photographer’s children have no photos.  Oh they were taken but have not yet processed.  I always had to put my personal work on the back burner due to the deadlines I had for professional work.  Oh, I am so glad that is now over!

Just in case I haven’t told you, I AM TRULY RETIRED NOW!  I finished the final wedding work.  It is packaged ready to be delivered.  NOW I AM READY FOR A PARTY!  When you work from your home no one really believes you worked at all.  You never had to go to work and you already “stayed at home”.  There is a saying I heard once that pertained to me quite nicely: “If you own your own business you only have to work half a day.  And you even get to decide which half.  You can choose to work from 12:00 noon to 12:00 midnight, or from 12:00  midnight to 12:00 noon.”  It wasn’t quite true for me.  I often worked 16 hours a day during wedding season.  But I am FINISHED, DONE, CAPOOT!  AND I AM GLAD!  SO BRING ON THE PARTY!!!  But alas, no one really knows that I am now truly retired.  I take that back.  One dear friend sent me a retirement card a while back.  It made my heart smile.  I didn’t yet feel retired then, but I do now.

WHO NEEDS A PARTY?

By Kathleen Martens

January 21, 2016

To work so hard and never go to work

Perhaps because my job I shirked?

Not so. Not so at all

Because I was really always on call.

I worked from morning until evening dark.

Only then did I come in from the park.

Photos taken in the earliest of light,

And in the studio when it was night.

And then consultations for weddings next year

With unending couples that constantly appeared.

Finally when others were tucked in bed,

Post production accomplished after I was fed.

Until 2:00 a.m. I labored for hours,

Correcting faces and bouquets of flowers.

Designing albums with precision care,

So with family they could be shared.

Senior portraits and babies, done all in one day

What mattered was, who wanted to pay.

I pulled and pushed props all around

And even drove clients all over town.

Exciting and interesting rolled all into one,

Because to me, it was exceedingly fun.

To capture moments of ecstasy, full of joy

For future generations of girls and boys.

The stress was high, the hours were long,

But I knew, I was where I belonged.

Behind the camera I always hid

Simply because I loved what I did!

Now it is over, and put on the shelf

And I have discovered a very new self.

What once was my heart’s desire

Has now kindled an even greater fire.

The clock no longer ticks demanding of me

The ticking now says “HEY, YOU ARE FREE”.

And that’s how I feel deep in my heart

That each and every morning a new life I start!

And besides, who needs a party?

Guess what?  I’m going to be able to get to bed on time.  Since I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning I think I am ready.

Good night and God bless you!