Amateur

They say not to believe everything you read on the internet, but every once in a while you come across something so undeniably true, not to mention timely, that well... it almost makes you want to throw caution to the wind. This was, without a doubt, that for me. Oh yes.

Now that you've seen my first picture of this post, it won't be hard to understand why I was recently researching the definition of the word 'amateur'. You know as well as I do that in these lazy days of the interwebs that we currently enjoy, it took about 0.000023 seconds for this to appear front and center:

Amateur
n.

1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
2. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.

And in one brief nanosecond, my faith in the information age was restored. I'm still chuckling over that line "one lacking the skill of a professional..." - you can say that again. As an aside, I think I've reached a new low in self-degradation, but that's just an aside... back to regularly scheduled programming.

So after a fun (but too short!) little practice photo-shoot (courtesy of one of my oldest friends and her adorable son - remember this guy?), it's only too obvious that I embody the definition of an amateur. And I'm quite proud of it - after all, I'm nothing if not predictable.

But while we're here... on this journey, I'll call it, I figure it's only fair to show you where I starting from... which, of course, assumes I'm going somewhere. Let's all say a collective prayer for that... don't worry, though, I have no plans to quit my day job.

In the end, though, I got to thinking that really the only way to push myself to improve is to show you how far I have to go... and well, if you didn't believe me before, I'm fairly certain you do now.

Oh, and while we're on the topic of adorable little people... er, dogs (c'mon, she's the closest thing we've got right now)...

Yes, in the dining room (who am I kidding... everywhere) our baseboards really are as chewed up as they look in that picture;

No, they aren't courtesy of the beautiful black-and-tan long-haired dachshund you see posing above - rather, they were included in the purchase of the house (thanks, previous owners... or perhaps I should just thank 60+ years of wear and tear);

Yes, you're seeing that right - our dog has more than enough bed but when the heat comes on, nothing (literally) stands between her and the heater;

And, no, I had no clue that the aforementioned baseboards were in perfect (if I do say so myself) focus when I shot this picture (hey, we're all about honesty here!) but I really liked the picture otherwise so we take our lumps.