Be Brave

Looking forward to the "Brave" Pixar movie this week. I'm sure it will be a major hit with the 6-12 crowd, along with bringing BIG hair back. Thinking we will see lots of red haired archers around Halloween maybe.

I posted a question about a month ago on LinkedIn to find out if archery is really getting a boost because of the summer movies. The short answer is, yes.  All over and down under as well. I love LI as one of my favorite social tools, as there is a robust archery online community there.  Now I feel the need to go visit those nice folks in New Zealand and Australia to see for myself. Add one to your class, please! There is a longer article on this subject coming out July 10 in Bow Adventures (aka Bow America) with great input from a 2012 Para-Olympian, writers and coaches around the world.

Alaska trip paddle

My summer of shooting has been sort of sidelined, which has made me grumpy, but also reminded me to slow. the. hell. down. I've remembered what my husband looks like (adorable), my dog, read at least three books, learned to make cheese from scratch, opened my Etsy store and have been thinking about buying a kayak. Last summer I was shooting for two hours, 4-5 days a week. Was in better shape physically but didn't do anything else all summer.  In the last few weeks, I have been starting to pick up my compound again, shooting a little 40-50-60 with friends in the evenings, and reevaluating my archery goals in general. I really don't miss working that hard, but if you want to do recurve stuff, then it comes with the territory.

Goals. I currently have none. It's a weird place to be in my head and I feel a little lost without them honestly. At work I live and die by deadlines, they are an evil necessity. And right now I have some major ones there, so trying to figure out when I will be sleeping and having a life in the next six months. Motivation. Fear is a good one, but not sustainable. Right now, I want to just hop in a kayak and paddle somewhere out of cell reach.

I get a bit neurotic about how I am shooting, which hasn't been great for the past six months. The only summer tournament I am interested in coincides with two straight weeks of travel leading up (no practice time) and a concert that Saturday that we signed up for months ago. My general attitude regarding this whole deal is "meh".  This is not a self-pity party, so much as a "what do I want to do with this?" question. Time management is a very real part of this equation. If my brain is melted by the time I get home at night, how much energy can I realistically expect to be able to put in?

Thinking back to when things were flowing along, my mindset was different. And yes, more positive.
How do I get back there?What things do you do to get yourself out of a shooting slump and excited about it?

(PS - shot my recurve on Monday with some lighter limbs. Felt SO good. Yeahhh!)

DIY

Friends don't let friends glue their own fletch.

I am pretty handy with modge podge (you DO know what that is, yes?) glue stick, even fletch tape is ok. Super glue and I are not friends.  I was shown how to do this, oh... maybe two years ago. Not hard to do. The trick is to use glue that does not dry white so your mistakes are at least transparent. And keep the top edges lined up. Sounds easy, right? 
Hey, at least I have something to shoot until I scrape everything off and start over.

Speaking of making stuff from scratch, I finally put some of my quivers up on my new Etsy shop - Queen Bee Quivers . They are not your momma's quivers, so if you are looking for something different, check them out here. Going to be adding some other gear bags and just cute bags soon, so check back for more archery gear with a twist.