Hi Friends!

I hope January has been a wonderful start to your year so far!

Aside from being sick 3 times… (so unusual for me, I like to think of myself as pretty healthy!) We have had some great family time, some adventures, and new growth in creativity in our time off of work and school.

This month I have been practicing being brave and doing things out of my comfort zone. Do you have things you want to do, but don’t do them because you feel you will look ridiculous? As I am getting older I am getting a little better at caring less about looking dumb, and caring even more about living my life to the fullest. Many times that means starting at the beginning, and be a beginner. In the past, (and my hubby can tell you…) I haven’t been so good at being a beginner. I would get frustrated that things weren’t taking shape faster, that I wasn’t a pro right from the start. I was very impatient with the process. Now that I am older, and perhaps wiser, I am just fine going slow and I am much more patient with the process of learning and being a beginner. I tend to get out there in life and let the child in me have some fun, regardless of how silly I look. :) And last weekend that involved me skateboarding around my neighborhood (I am sure my neighbors were loving that free entertainment, haha!), and the weekend before I Stand Up PaddleBoarded, the week before I snowboarded- which I won’t lie- snowboarding is a bit terrifying to me.

As I am getting older, I am trying to allow myself to try even more things, experience even more things. Sometimes I feel ridiculous! But at least I know when I die, I tried the things I wanted to try, and didn’t hold back because I was worried about looking stupid.  (BTW- As you know, I usually post about my clients and not too much personal stuff, so this is me being brave in that area for me too. Posting about my personal life can be hard for me.)

So far this month, that included:

• learning to play a few songs on bass guitar
• trying to create my first movie/ video
• snowboarding (I really do not like being cold and I really do not know how to snowboard, but I did it anyway! And I am proud to say, I had fun on that bunny slope!)
• painting the kitchen cabinets with chalk paint (My hubby ended up doing most of the work on that)
• skateboarding
• taking a hip hop dance class
• stand up paddle boarding
• writing a more personal post like this one ;)
• adding quote overlays to some of my Instagram images and posting them (you can see them here: https://www.instagram.com/wildflowerlife)

 

About my first video:

I have been wanting to create with video for a very long time now. Finally at the end of December I bought a DSLR that I can video with. Very quickly I realized its a little different than I had envisioned- like, I have to manually focus with that thing-It’s not like a camcorder! I was pretty darn intimidated. I have just so many ideas and gosh darn it, I just want to create them already! …Again- its hard for me to be a beginner sometimes. I know it is for all of us.

So, finally I decided I would just jump in and where ever I was with whatever I had (iphone5 or big camera), I would just try and film a few seconds of a moment. No staging, no direction, and no pressure. Just capture something already!

I told myself that by the end of January I would string whatever I had together. I wouldn’t worry about editing or color, or quality. I just needed to step up and begin to at least film something! I needed to begin somewhere. At the beginning.

So last week I got sick again and I decided to use that time to upload all of my footage I have from January so far into iMovie. Lots of little clips. I then took 1 second clips from each little video and strung them together in no particular order. Just selecting 1 second from each video took so much pressure off! It made it feel very much like scrapbooking. Little clips here and there. Then I added some music. To make things even more simple, I chose a song called January for my January movie.

Here is my very first, (very raw), family video capturing the month of January 2016.

Enjoy!

 

And yes, its very scary sharing my humble beginnings. But I also hope to inspire others to live life and be brave.

My hope is to learn editing and then be able to eventually create films for my clients!

Next- I have a couple of other things I have not yet tried, that I am hoping to be brave and try soon:

• broadcasting on Periscope (I’m @wildflwerstudio (note-no o in wildflwer) -I am WAY more comfortable behind the camera.
• creating more films
• creating shoots that incorporate photos and film

I will keep you guys updated!

In the comments, let me know what you are doing to be brave and live your life to the fullest.

In the meantime, I encourage you to live your dreams, whatever that looks like for you.

We can be brave together :)

As always, I thank you for being here.
I am hoping this inspires you to be brave in things you want to try.

I wish you all the best,
Here’s to living a full life!
xoxo Shell