No, not of my fantastic new job or anything important like that. Instead, I’m thinking about stopping my Project 365, after over 200 days of taking a photo every day.

I missed one and didn’t even notice last week, but it made me realize how much I’ve come to dread that end-of-day thought that I still had one more thing to do after a full day. Besides the creative slump I’ve been in, I just have too much on my plate right now to keep up with something that I decided to do on a whim.

The worst part was that it was starting to make me dread photography, and that was exactly not the point of the whole thing. The point was to document my world for a year and to make myself practice with the camera more often. It’s not worth the stress. I’m so overloaded that it only makes sense to cut out the expendable projects, and this is the first one to go.

I’m also probably going to minimize hunting this year, which kills me, but this is the year to pay my dues at the business. I’ll go a few times, and the trailer’s about all ready (except for the fridge, which freezes everything) but it’s going to be quite the hassle to get my backups in place. Who knows though; once that sorts out, I may find that the time away from the site is an essential.

I’m not giving my favorite things up forever; I’ll still drag my camera around most places with me, and in fact have agreed to photograph Dennis’ girlfriend singing next week (I told him my fee would involve him bringing his boss to the concert - Cowboy.) I’ll still take photos of things that interest me, but I won’t be snapping nonsense every day just to say that I had a picture for the day. There are only so many dog pictures I can stand to take anyway, although one good thing that came out of the project is that Ringo’s not really camera-shy any more.

I’ve just given myself permission to slack a little, is all, and the sense of lifting weight tells me that I did the right thing.