I wrote a short Thankful Friday entry last week about a goose who has laid eggs in a precarious place and the whole nature vs nurture thing. I didn’t post it because I never really finished it. It was sort of done. Then I got busy and Friday rolled in. I technically could have finished it Friday afternoon, but instead I took my new camera lens for a walk to the Kauffman Gardens and then rushed back to help someone and finish up on some work. So, Friday’s gratitude post just didn’t get posted and the thing is, I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Back in October, I rented a camera lens to take with me to Woods Hole. It was one I was considering buying and camera lenses are not cheap. I thought that renting it and spending a week with it would give me some idea about want vs need. Would this be a whole lot of money spent on something I would only use on occasion? Or would this be the lens I would want to use most of the time, setting my zoom lens aside for those times it would be unsafe to get too close? I did not take my zoom lens with me and relied only on the rented lens. On day one, I was already starting a mental list of what I loved about the lens. It’s light weight, making it great for travel. Handles low light situations better than my zoom lens which allowed me to use faster shutter speeds, and all the pictures I took that week have a dreamy look about them. I counted maybe five or six times when I wanted a zoomed image. By the end of the week, I knew that this lens was a need. Okay…a wanty need, but a need none the less.

The rule for big ticket item fun purchases is that one must be paid off before buying the next. So, we paid off the last big “fun” purchase, a TV, and then headed out to buy my lens. Except the place where I was going to buy it, didn’t have it in stock or online. I had to go to the computer store that I hate with my whole heart. They didn’t have it in stock, but I could order it online. This actually turned out to be an easy, smooth purchase and I didn’t leave the place fuming. Side rant: I have not once gone to this particular store and been helped by anyone other than a condescending (male) computer know-it-all. This was the first time I have ever walked into this store and been treated like I actually knew what I was talking about. In fact, I was so surprised by the experience that I even said to the sales clerk “Wow! This was a way easier and a more delightful experience than I expected!” The camera lens arrived on Wednesday of last week, but my schedule didn’t open up until Friday for me to take it out for a spin. Then I started pointing it at things and remembered all the reasons why I fell in love with that lens in the first place.

Using my camera brings me joy and I am investing in my joy, not just with fancy new gear, but by making space in my day for my camera. I had zero plans to photograph the eclipse, but made some last minute adjustments to my camera and schedule. I set myself up at the top of our parking garage and while I don’t think I got anything spectacular (we only got 90% eclipse), I had a great time doing it. I used my phone as a remote device for my camera and laid back and enjoyed the sunshine and the view. As the eclipse reached 90% the parking garage filled up with people. Then I had a number of people chatting with me about what I was doing and how I was doing it. And while I wasn’t wowed by any of the pictures, I was able to compile a short time lapse of the event.

Skipping out on a Thankful Friday entry is by no means a sign that I had nothing to be grateful for last week or that I’ll stop doing gratitude posts. This is a gratitude post. I’m grateful for being able to invest in the things that bring me joy. It also has me thinking about how I can invest in other activities that bring me joy like yoga, bicycle rides for ice cream or plain old snuggling on the couch with Josephine. What does investing in those things look like or even mean? So much of that investment is time and making space for those things. Well…it means really learning the power of the word ‘no’ and really paying attention to how I feel when I say "yes” to something.

I feel pretty good about saying yes to investing in more joy.