how did i get here?

2020 was a strange year for everyone. Mine started out with hope, with a new job offer. I was finally leaving the world of retail (yay!). A world that I had accidentally placed myself in permanently. I felt trapped there, but it paid the bills, kind of. I had gotten myself out of big box retail 4 years prior and I had moved on to a smaller specialty shop. Which was way more pleasant, but it was still retail.

I had a love/hate relationship with retail. I hated the hours, the holidays, the mess the customers made and the Karens. SO MANY KARENS. I loved my co-workers. Most of them, a lot of them still friends until this day. Another rewarding experience I got out of retail was merchandising. I LOVED merchandising. I am a visual person. I am a creative person, and even though there were certain guidelines to follow, none of the store layouts ever matched up to the current store layout. This meant I could be creative.

Anyway, after a few years I was put in charge of merchandising in the big box store and in the specialty shop I worked. I had to be organized. I had to map the store in a layout. I had to plan the people to execute the layout. I had to plan it step by step. Then when the time came, I had to lead it. I got to be creative in the moment as well. I got to collaborate with my co-workers on what looked and felt right. It was fun! But it wasn't fun enough for me to want to stay. I missed my kids on the weekends and evenings. I hated the stress of working where you could never call in sick but everyone else around you could. And they did. We were often short handed and it was stressful and irritating. Don't even get me started on the holiday season. Do you want to hear All I Want For Christmas by Mariah Carey from November 1st to December 24th? I doubt you do!! So when the opportunity to work an office job with set hours, holidays off and no weekends came up, I jumped on it!

It went badly. I have chronic Vestibular Migraines and that combined with a double computer screen all day did not go well. My second day on the job I made it almost the whole day when I got super sick. I left with a garbage bag on my lap and puked the whole drive home. While I drove, on the freeway. The next day the office got shut down for the rest of the week with a Covid scare. When I returned to work every day was a struggle. It was hard to focus on learning when I was constantly fighting with the computer screens. I tried to time my breaks just right to help myself out, but after 30 days of feeling sick, distressed and discouraged, I threw in the towel.

Luckily when this happened my husband got a promotion. He would be making a little more what we were making combined. This meant I could take my time in finding a new job that would work for me. But then I was hit with another problem. Crippling fatigue and some joint pain. After having blood work done they discovered that I was having Rheumatoid issues. There I was, chronic Vestibular Migraine and now something else. The decision was made for me to try and get my health in order, at least somewhat under control. It was hard. I spent most of my days in bed. Not feeling well with one issue or another.

Late 2020 we decided to get a dog. Along with this dog came my plan to take myself on hikes. Small hikes at first. A mile, maybe two. I explored what Spokane has to offer with nature. Places I am ashamed to say I had never seen before while living here most of my life. With this I started to document my hikes on Instagram. I don't really know why. It was like a journal of what I was doing to get better. I started to get really into composing my photos, even if they were just on my phone. I started to plan my photos around sunset or sunrise. I started to notice the weather patterns in certain areas where I could capture magical looking fog.

I fell in love with nature and photography. I was a sponge, absorbing composition. Playing with photoshop and other editing apps on my phone. I was learning what it might be like to get a DSLR. A real camera. Reading and studying what I would need.

So that is what I did. In May of 2021 I was gifted a DSLR for Mothers Day, and the next part of this photography journey began.