It's a weekend.  A spring weekend. 

Homework is all (well, okay, fiiiiine, nearly done) done.

One final taken. I think that calls for a celebration...the kind of celebration that finds you outside, wearing shorts and t-shirt, kicking off your blue flip-flops and settling back in a beach chair that has been set in the sun. Earbuds plugged in, Pandora playing the Lumineers, and The Mockingjay opened up to page 88.  And when the sun becomes too warm, you dig out the popsicles with help from the kiddos and have contests to see who can finish their's first. (I really don't think it's fair for them to bite and chew their popsicles when it huuuurts my teeth to do so! Popsicles were made to be sucked not chewed!)

I sat in the sun, tanning my much-too-white legs and breathing in the addictive scents of dirt and grass and fresh air.  The lil girls brought me bouquets of dandelions and violets, which sat on the arms of my chair (until hornets came-a-visiting, upon which I shuddered and accidentally-not-at-all-maliciously brushed the flowers to the ground). 

I settled back in my chair, content to not move a muscle, my book opened but ignored as I just sat and thought. It's been a semester of plans and preparing for changes...changes for this summer, where I plan to be busier than ever, but mostly plans and "what-ifs" for my future, starting this fall. Fall 2013 contains my last semester of working toward my Associates Degree.  And the question that has arisen this past semester has been, "What are you going to do after you graduate? Are you going to transfer? Are you stopping at your Associates? What kind of photography are you going to pursue? Going to start your own business?" 

And the answers are all a bit hazy, even now.  When I started school, I wanted to run my own photography business...that is until I discovered that business and I don't particularly love each other. Or even like each other. The hazy plans, the ideas, possibilities...they can be so overwhelming. And for someone, like me, who loves set plans, knowing what she's going to be doing tomorrow or the next day, or even next year...it's intimidating, it's daunting! I look ahead on the various paths I could take, and for each path I envision all the hard work and challenges that could and most likely will face me, should I take one of those paths. 

So much hard work and challenges that it's enough to scare me...especially knowing that whatever I choose, I won't ever be able to predict what will happen. If I choose one path, what if it's harder than I ever imagine? What if I can't take it? What if it's the wrong path? 

Today, sitting in the sun, enjoying that short moment of peacefulness and contentment, I realized...whatever path I take, each challenge will come one at a time. Life is like that...troubles and challenges and hard work are spread throughout life, not all lumped into ONE moment. I just have to take it all one moment at a time. Yeah, each path before me seems daunting and scary and HUGE...but whichever path I choose, it'll just be one  moment at a time. And I know, somehow I know, that I can do it. I will grow stronger through each moment I walk through. I can do it, one challenge, one moment at a time.