is this thing ON?

One word can pretty much describe my current state of mind. OVERWHELMED. Somewhere between a 2 hour friday night road trip to see the family unit in cincinnati and delicious saturday morning pancakes, I think I had a bit of a silent melt down about all the things rolling around in my head. As if nursing school, a full time job, and life in general wasn't enough, my right sided brain can't help but get caught up in a creative frenzy. 

Case in point--Mike's favorite thing in the whole world (besides me, of course), is his love of racing--cars that is. This weekend his focus was on Indy cars. All it took was him asking me to bring my new camera and catch some pics to send me back into my shell, full of excuses about how I don't know how to use this setting, or I can't figure out how to change that function. Blah, Blah, Blah. There I was like a deer in the headlights, paralyzed by my own fear of a piece of very expensive equipment that I had begged for. 

HELLO...opportunity knocking? Practice girlfriend, that's the only way you are gonna figure it out. At least that is what was going through my head. Needless to say, my feelings of being overwhelmed comes from this huge desire I have to be perfect, and I'm learning it ain't gonna happen right out of the gate. I have so much to learn, so much I want to try and do and experiment...I don't know where to start. So I'm taking suggestions. 

I did jump head first and asked a girlfriend of mine if she and her fiance would be kind enough to be my models for a day...right now I'm busy preplanning. But all the planning in the world won't do me any good if I'm afraid to even pick up my camera and shoot. I'm having nightmares about getting to the shoot and not even being able to find the on switch. It's not pretty. Like the whole standing in front of a crowd in your underwear kind of fear. For now I will just hide behind my freakishly large sunglasses, a smirk, and tell Mike to be prepared with an extra large glass of vino.