On Ruts

And how to get out of them.

Welcome to the Tuesday UnRecipe post for all subscribers. Today, it was going to be about a TV show I’ve been loving, but instead, I got all inspired to rant about ruts. Look for that TV post later this month, and in the meantime, thanks for being here! You can read more about me and what I do at my website here.

Since that fateful day in 2018 when I decided to dedicate myself fully to the art of food photography, recipe writing, and all things food and drink, I have wholeheartedly and knowingly pushed myself to the brink of sanity by making something I am passionate about my full time income source.

There is nothing better than doing something you love for a living: there are days when I feel so in love with what I’m doing that I don’t want to stop. I voluntarily spend Friday nights at my computer, deliriously happy and giggling with glee at the prospect of sitting down to work on that one special project with a glass of wine in hand. Meeting colleagues in the space means meeting other people who share exactly the same interests as I do, making it easy and fun to network.

There’s also nothing worse than doing something you love for a living: there are days when I feel like I’m being held captive by my own passions, tormented by demons of my own creation. Occasionally, I find myself lusting after the days when I could close my computer at 5 and be unreachable, out to sea without a care or obligation. The dishes do not do themselves, and emptying the sink of disastrous messes was never in my job description until I fell into food photography.

This is a constant discussion in my house, where Colin, creator of

I Might Be Overthinking This

, and I work for ourselves doing things we never thought we’d be lucky enough to do full time. One of the things we talk about often is how to level out the highs of that one fulfilling job with the lows of others that aren’t as exciting. In other words, how can we stop the ruts and creative dry spells from crashing our professional lives (that, yes, we built on creative ventures!) off course?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Having spent three weeks out of the office to work on some of the most amazing projects I’ve touched in years, I knew that coming back was going to be hard. What I wasn’t anticipating was the buoy that the upcoming SUNBAKED retreat has offered me: knowing that I have a four-day retreat about creativity and photography to look forward to has allowed me to breeze through projects that I might otherwise be dreading.

I know that’s just one thing, but seeing it on my calendar has forced me to set aside time every week to flex my just-for-fun creativity skills so that I can preach what I’ve been practicing. Much like last summer, I’ve been camping out in parks around my neighborhood during golden hour on most Saturdays, forcing my fruits and vegetables into modeling careers. This weekend, I sat in the mud for so long that my legs fell asleep. I could not have been more blissed out and further away from my ruts.

I hope that this week, you find your way out of a rut somehow. Maybe you go buy yourself a nice latte on a day you’d usually drink a black coffee. Maybe you snag an olive tree to put in your bay window. Maybe you decide to come join us at SUNBAKED to revive a part of yourself that has been dormant for too long. Whatever you do, I hope it revives you as much as taking these photos did for me.

---

Thanks for reading and for being a part of a non-rut activity in my life! See you back here on Friday for a piece on classical music and what it means to me. In the meantime, just one more reminder: four beds left at SUNBAKED! Discounted price! Run don’t walk!