At the start of 2015 I started something called #leahlovesclouds. It came about because I posted on Instagram on January 2nd that "In 2015 I want to look at the sky more." My friend Amanda commented, "maybe try taking a cloud photo everyday!" So I hashtagged it #leahlovesclouds (keeping up a tradition I got from Elise Blaha Cripe of using "#leahloves" for my hashtags) and gave it a try.
I kept up daily pictures for a while, then as these things often do, it got less practical to do it every day. I'd forget or the sky would be flat grey, or something. But I really liked the practice of looking for clouds, and I've kept taking some pictures, and using the hashtag.
The other day I tapped on the hashtag to see what I'd collected, and took a screenshot. (Above.) Now those 67 posts are up to 74! So I thought I'd share what #leahlovesclouds has taught me so far.
- Just how fast time can fly. I started in January and now it's July, and I seriously don't know where that time went.
- That little daily actions add up! It's just one photo, but doing one photo, and then doing it again the next day, and again the next day, becomes three photos. And so on.
- But doing the little daily actions really is only a good fit (i.e. you're only going to keep doing it) if its something you enjoy and that feels (relatively) easy to do. I'll talk about this in a later post about the weight training I'm doing now, too.
- That a "crazy new idea" quickly becomes "just a cool thing you do". I was talking to someone around the time I got my tattoo, someone who hadn't seen it yet. They asked what the tattoo was of, and I said, "I'll give you a hint, it's something I'm known for," thinking, obviously of Cape Breton and the heart. They said, "Hmmm... clouds?" That was funny to me, considering that my vampire voices are always saying about any new ideas I have, "Don't do that! People will think you're weird!" When you get past the fear by doing the thing anyway, nearly all the time people just take it in stride. Some will connect with it, some will not.
- Clouds are really beautiful and various! Just clicking through the hashtag to see all the pictures together, is really neat.