Now is always "now"

It is astounding to me that the last (and first) blog I did here in "now" was a year and 4 months ago!  That really is very bad form for a blogger, or for doing anything in life consistently. 

So why the long hiatus?  Did I lose interest or passion?  Definitely not the case.  Why the return now?  The answers are not quick but I think pretty interesting, at least that is the reaction I get when I tell my story.

The end of July 2020 several things happened that became the beginning of changes I would never have anticipated.  Anyone who likes "Hallmark style" stories, enjoys hearing mine, so I will share it now. 

2020 was a year most of us never expected to experience.  I do my best to focus on happy and be positive, so that year I had to work a little harder.  Thankfully, I was less than six months out from my life-changing trip to Scotland and Ireland so I began the journal still to be finished (and it will be) on this site.  

As I dug into learning more about where we were at all times and history about those places I knew I didn't want to lose "connection" with those two countries.  My first step was to find groups on Facebook related to Scotland and Ireland.  I was primarily interested in photos.  Curiously, I had no problem finding groups related to Scotland but I had no success regarding Ireland.  So I either "joined" or simply started following several in Scotland. 

By February checking into those groups at least daily was a consistent bright spot for me.  There were always lots of photos but many were not to my liking as they were heavily edited, filtered, etc.  I want to see as close to what my eye would see, so to that end, there were several photographers whose shots consistently caught my attention and brightened my days.  

I'm one of those folks who likes to read about the people whose posts I like, so I knew one photographer whose photos I really liked appeared to be a guy in his late 20s to 30s and most likely lived near an area we had visited in Glasgow.  His profile pic was black and white, kind of artsy looking and his expression intrigued me.

His photos continued to be ones that always made me smile and then one day his profile pic changed.  I was very surprised to see he was not a 20-30 something but probably close to my "ageless goddess" range.  It made sense to me though, as I had often thought his "style" was not something typically seen from younger photographers.  

One of my beliefs is to make sure I share appreciation of others, whether they are family, friends or strangers.  We all need all the "hugs" we can get whatever form they take. 

2020 had rolled on and by July I felt I was very overdue to message this man and let him know what a difference his photos had and were making in my life.  So I sent a message via Messenger and said "thank you," gave some background about the impact my trip to Scotland (and Ireland) had.  I wished him and his family well.  

He sent a gracious reply back and that was that.  Except it did not turn out to be "that."  Will be continued!