So about a month and a half ago I started a challenge to myself to write for 30 days straight.  Long story short, I failed.  I got about 17 days in and I made excuses, I was "busy," and in no uncertain terms I quit.  I was thinking yesterday about why.  Why was it that I stopped something that was truly a good thing in my life?  I remember towards the end thinking, 'Wow, I don't really have anymore pictures I feel like writing about."  In essence I told myself I was out of good stories and then it struck me, I guess I'll have to take more pictures.

I just finished reading (and by reading I mean devouring, I read slow and read this in a day) the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.  It is a story about story, about your life and the story you're telling to the world.  He begins it like this...

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn't cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers.  You wouldn't tell you friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you'd seen.  The truth is, you wouldn't remember that movie a week later, except you'd feel robbed and want your money back.  Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful.  The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either.  

Maybe the truth was, I needed to tell better stories, not looking back on the past but focusing (pardon the photographic pun) on the here and now, and dare I say... the future.  Besides highly recommending this book, I am re-challenging myself.  But the difference is, I'm challenging myself not in a spirit of either-or, success or failure type of challenge but more in the hope of telling a better story than the girl who watches too much tv and reads too few books.  The good news is, I got a library card and an myriad of new photos.  Here are three you'll see in the next few days and I'm excited to tell you their stories.