To join or not to join

I find myself in the mood for joining lately but then actually doing the activity... not so much. It's not so much that I don't WANT to do the thing. I do. I really, really do. I just never have a scrap of time at my disposal. Or so it seems. Maybe if I read less blogs I'd have more time. I definitely wouldn't be finding links to more and more things to join up and do if I wasn't scoping out your blogs.

I joined One Local Summer and I've only contributed one meal so far. Part of this is because I am a stickler. I really want all my ingredients to be local to participate. I've been thinking about what markets to visit and which things to stock up on. I've been cooking, of course. Homemade hummus, pizzas from scratch, pasta salad studded with salmon, lentils drenched with yogurt. We just harvested our first two eggplants. I suppose whatever they become should be featured as a local dish. Right now they are resting on the counter waiting for me to make up my mind about their fate.

Over the weekend, I was over at Secret Notebooks * Wild Pages and followed M.'s lead over to Rebekah of Sunnybrook Farm Designs to join her Summer Reading Groupies . This one, I can do. My town's library recently extended the amount of time we can check a book out for to a whole month. In June, I happily piled my arms up. Mid-month, I returned half of my loaners and tonight I went back to drop off and select  another bundle. I tend to grumble about the quality of my town library. They don't participate in our county library system and it pisses me off to no end. If I want to use any of the libraries that are in the county network, I'll have to pay a pretty hefty annual fee. So for now, I'm making due with my sometimes laughably out of date possibilities and delighting in some of the old books that a hipper library might have rotated out long ago.

Tonight, I stopped over at Sticking to the Point to learn Kristen has joined an intriguing group, 100 Strangers, which challenges you to stop complete strangers and make their portraits. I'm quite happy  doing street photography of hapless strangers. The concept of engaging them does appeal to me. Now that I've started shooting video regularly, I've been pretty amazed at how nonplussed most people are about being shot. Tonight, I will sleep on this idea of 100 Strangers. Who knows what I'll join if I meet 100 more people to influence me.

In closing, I leave you with one of my favorite Groucho Marx quotes: "“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

Comments

[lisa]

I hope you decide to do 100 strangers (well, not DO them, shoot them). I started a few weeks ago and I'm really enjoying it.

[m. heart]

alright, another book groupie! reading the books is easy, but i've been procrastinating about doing my book reports.

[Paul Sears Photography]

Funny, I find myself in a similar situation. Sometimes I think I spend far too much time surfing blogs, and wind up being late to work in the morning because of it...lol Thanks for posting & for the laugh!