The last evening in the Drakensberg we saw the most awesome rainbow. EVER!

The time away from all the normal rush and running about was very welcome – and interesting. I want to share with you what I learned while on vacation.

• Zoom out. I’m a macro photographer by preference, there is no doubt about it. Nothing delights me as much as zooming in on something and really picking up the detail. But I learned that sometimes I need to look at the bigger picture as well. And strangely, this does not only apply to photography. On my way to the beautiful Drakensberg, I thought I was super prepared for the trip into the unknown: I had my GPS, I double-checked the route on Google Maps … and still I got so badly lost, I ended up driving the ENTIRE day to finally reach my destination. Google Maps took me through some deep rural areas where a single white female had better not drive alone. And the GPS got it wrong completely, because it did not want to accept the seconds I wanted to type into the coordinates. Turns out being out by a couple of seconds can make you end up almost 300 km off-course! It was the sort of adventure Hobbits try to avoid. And my brother – bless him – observed that I sometimes need to zoom out a bit, look at the map and see the waypoints, which would have helped, because my instincts were screaming at me the whole day that something was wrong. Lesson learned and internal zoom disengaged. (At least, that’s what I’ll be trying to remember!)
• Don’t be afraid of the MANUAL setting. I learned a LOT about photography from my good friend, and finally made that jump into the next dimension where I set my camera on manual and started playing around with the F-stop, shutter speed and ISO. I am so very, very, very far away still from being a good photographer, but you know what? It was utterly empowering to let go of Intelligent Auto and trust myself to make mistakes. And make mistakes I did – and still do. It can be highly frustrating, let me be honest. But learning that the world does not end when I allow myself to fall down the rabbit hole, that’s kinda awesome. And that most definitely applies to life outside photography as well. Take life into your own hands, stop running on auto the whole time, make mistakes, and delight in learning!
• Inner confidence ripples outwards. We went horse riding during the week in the Drakensberg, which was a first for me. My horse’s name was Apple – actually he might really have been a pony. And stubborn as a rock. He went this way, then that, sometimes he stopped dead in his tracks, and sometimes he started to canter … without me doing ANYTHING to communicate with him. After the hour’s ride, arriving back at the stables, he rushed up to the fence and tried to rub me off against it. I still have the bruise on my leg. And it was then that I realized that I had been communicating with him. I had been so hesitant, so ill at ease, this pony knew exactly who was boss. HE was! It is just as the Dog Whisperer says: You have to have a calm, authoritative inner confidence when you work with animals (and actually with people, too). If my bum weren’t so sore after the ride, I would have gone back the next day to do it over, this time with more confidence! I’m certainly going to remember this lesson, though.
• Sometimes effects take time to reveal themselves. Think carefully what you do, because the after-effects may only show up later. Halfway during the horse ride, I stripped off my jacket and rode for 30 minutes with bare arms and shoulders in the sun. I thought that was too short a time to get sunburnt. Ha! I got burnt. Pretty badly. But here’s the thing: the sunburn didn’t show up after the ride. And I thought I was safe. But then I developed a delicate blush that evening. And 24 hours later, the blush turned into lobsteresque hues … and 48 hours later I looked like I was on FIRE! I don’t know why I develop sunburn so S-L-O-W-L-Y lately but let me tell you, after this holiday I have finally accepted that just because I look and feel fine after being in the sun, doesn’t mean that everything is okay. Wait 2 days to see the full effect! It’s like that with life too, sometimes, isn’t it? You do something and the results only show themselves some time later. This can be good, and it can be bad, depending on what you do. Patience is needed for the good, and awareness is needed for the bad. Just sayin’.
• This might be as good as it gets, so you might as well start enjoying it. No, this is not something negative I’ve learned, not at all, though I can certainly see that the glass-half-empty folk might interpret it that way. To me, it is something vastly positive I learned! I arrived at my first holiday destination – the coast – extremely tired. 2011 was a demanding year. And I was in need of some REST. Due to various factors outside my control, my holiday turned out differently than expected, and I quickly realized that REST was not going to be as high on the agenda as I had hoped. I rebelled against it some, but in the end I simply accepted that reality differed from the plans I had had. And the moment I accepted it and decided to run with what I had, that’s the moment I started enjoying it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I think back with longing to the two weeks of holiday I had. Did I rest? Nope, not that much. But was my spirit refreshed? Youbetcha! Am I thankful? More than you will ever know!

I don’t know about you, but I call that much learning a successful holiday!

And boy, am I looking forward to not only applying these lessons, but also learning more in the year to come.

Can't wait to go back again!

Looking ahead, baby! Sun at my back, and life is good.

Well hello, bright new year! What do you have in store for me?

Or more appropriately: What do I have in store for you?

Usually by this time of year I have already laid out all my plans and schemes and resolutions for the year. But this year, since I am still on holiday for this week, I’m finding that the big picture for 2012 is slower to come into focus.

Like a camera on autofocus, aimed at the far horizon, it is taking time for the shadows to become distinguishable into recognizable shapes.

I don’t know if this is part of getting older, or if this is simply where I am in my life right now, but it really seems as if there is so little that is really within my control right now. The only thing I can control is figuring out where I want to go, being prepared for when the good stuff starts to happen, and welcoming it with the right attitude.

The one thing I do know is this: I have a deep desire to compartmentalize more this year, to keep all the myriads of goals and responsibilities and interests in their own little boxes, keeping them from bleeding into each other and messing up my mind. I want order this year.

I want to keep it SIMPLE this year, baby!

Here’s to a simplicity.

May it be GOOD…

I think that pertains to many things in life…

Photo taken in the Drakensberg, 8 January 2012

Here is to having courage this year, staring the beast in the eye, fighting back inertia, refusing to ever, ever, ever give up, always moving onward.

Here is to seeing beauty this year, finding it in the little things, spreading it around, reveling in it, delighting in its wonder, creating it ourselves.

Here is to miracle-crafting this year: the miracles we will create because we are beings of light, and the miracles we will receive because of His delight.

Here is to a year we will remember as THE year of years!

Happy New Year – make 2012 a thing of wonder, a work of art, a joy to behold.

Photo taken today at the Port Edward lighthouse, KwaZulu Natal South Coast

And here, especially for the first day of this beautiful year, is the – tadaaa! –  final report-back for South Beach Steve’s DIY Hot 100 challenge.

Yes, I did it – the last 100 days of 2011 rocked!

Why? Because of the accountability created by this challenge. And for that I want to thank Steve from the bottom of my much fitter heart!

It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes I struggled. Sometimes I just wanted to give up. But because of this accountability, I kept going, and I … feel … GOOD!

This is how I did on my goals for last week: