365 Photo Project: Week One

Eight months after being gifted with a SLR camera, I've finally decided that I'm really going to dedicate some time to learning how to use my slick new friend.

And what better way to learn than to catapult myself head first into Maegan's 365 Photo Challenge?

Every weekend, I'll post my pictures from the last week. Feel free to give me any helpful tips or advice along the way. And please leave a link to your 365 project in your comment if you bless me with some comment love. I really want to learn from others along the way, and what better way than by viewing other photos?

Day One {start date: August 28, 2010}


Day Two


Day Three


Day Four


Day Five


Day Six


Day Seven


Day Eight

Bigger Picture Moment: Fire door

Welcome to Bigger Picture Moments, a weekly writing meme where we breathe in the moments that paint a picture of the grander scheme. All moments are welcome in this space -- small or large, as community is just as important as the grander awareness brought on by searching for a bigger picture every week.

Please link your moment below, and be sure to link up at Sarah's next Thursday. Before you leave, we hope you'll take a moment to visit a few other friends and spread the love.


When the words are far and few in between on this page, they're actually lodged inside my head, bumping shoulders, stepping on each others' toes, all anxious guests at a packed party inside of a too-small apartment.

And though they were invited guests, welcome guests, my tiny home just cannot accommodate the masses.

Me, the hostess, I'm frazzled, clearly not enjoying the party at all, and my guests?

Well, they are all while praying, praying, praying someone opens the fire door so they can step outside of the sweaty confines of an overcrowded space and into cool night air.

Because like any crowded room, any packed party, it's noisy in there. It's sticky. It's uncomfortable. And it's oppressing.

An over attended party never creates intimacy and conversation; more, it gives way to the whole let's get out of here and find a place where we can talk.

A place where we can listen.

A place where we can breathe.

That coffee shop down the street?

Perfect.

This, friends, this place right here?

This is my coffee shop.

It's a place where all my words, my guests, have the freedom to talk, listen, breathe.

And I want it to be a place where my friends and their own guests can do the same.

I've been desperately missing this place, my coffee shop, and the freedom it gives me to express and create and share and learn and connect because I've been so wrapped up in, well, life.

All the things -- the blessings, the meetings, the encounters, the dates, the playgroups, the outings, the trips, the keeping up with household chores and growing-up-too-fast little ones -- that happen in that majority of time I schedule for life.

But I need a break from that sometimes.

It's sounds funny, but I need a break from life.

I need a break from all of its goodness and all of its overwhelmingness and all of its not-as-goodness.

I need an escape from the packed party.

Lately, I've not been so good at opening the fire door and breaking free from the over-crowded apartment.

Lately, I've been simmering inside the party, sweltering, bumping into the words and thoughts and feelings that poured in the door after they'd been out living life alongside with me.

And thanks to Ellie's post, a good babysitter in the form of my sister and a craft project with my oldest where I became way too emotionally and creatively invested in his sticker project {which, holymoly, those stickers were awesome! Glittery and 3-D and interchangeable. AMAZING!}, I saw the quiet red light over by the fire escape and raced toward it this morning, breaking into the coolness of air as I walked myself here.

To this space.

To talk.

And to listen.

And to breathe.

And to create.

And I'm oh-so glad you're here, too.

Because sometimes when we've been living, living, living, it's good to sit back, create and just simply be.

Everyday Life: An art lesson

Alternately titled A Simple Step-by-Step Lesson in What NOT to do When Crafting with Your 3 Year Old


Step 1. Realize 3 year old received some really cool stickers for his birthday.



Step 2. Ask 3 year old if he'd like to make a galaxy picture with his new super-cool-glittery-foam stickers.

Step 3. Realize that as 3 year old is applying said super-cool-glittery-foam stickers to a sheet of paper that said super-cool-glittery-foam stickers actually can be made into super-cool-glittery-foam-3D stickers.



Step 4. Realize that super-cool-glittery-foam-3D stickers are actually interchangeable, thus enabling you eeeeer your 3 year old to mix and match the glittery colors on each sticker.



Step 5. Become completely creatively and emotionally invested in the construction of the galaxy with the super-cool-glittery-foam-3D-interchangeable color stickers.

Step 6. Cry out in agony and horror and defeat when 3 year old rips two of the super-cool-glittery-foam-3D-interchangeable color rocket stickers off out of the galaxy in order to fly them around the living room and dining room.

Step 7. Weep over the fact that your {eerrrr your 3 year old's} only creative endeavor in weeks has been destroyed by a renegade artist and his desire to propel rockets into the depths of the final frontier in your living room.



Step 8. Choke back the tears as your 3 year old shows daddy his beautiful galaxy that you tried to patch back together with other orbiting planets and the formerly sticky rockets and resist the urge to explain how cool the galaxy was before the rogue rockets were catapulted from the page.

A Step by Step Guide to RECOVERING from a Epic Disaster Craft Session with Your 3 Year Old:

Step. 1 Abandon ship and head straight for coffee shop to let some of the creative juices you've been stifling for weeks flow.

Noted.

Before I Was a Mom: Picture this

Before I had kids, I was pretty sure I knew everything. I was quick to judge and sure I had it all figured out. But when I gave birth to my first, I also gave birth to a revelation: I'm pretty sure I don't know anything at all. Join me as I discover weekly in my Revelation posts how much of what I thought I already knew was actually wrong. Very, very wrong. I suppose having a baby barrel down your birth canal can really put a new twist on reality.

Pictures mean oh-so-much to me.

And I will go to great lengths to get the perfect shot.

I always have.

I was the girl who would drag her college roommates to a busy, touristy, scenic road and direct them into Abercrombie and Fitch {remember that store?} esque poses in the name of keepsake pictures and rockin', frameable Christmas gifts.

I was also the editor who would send the photographers for her college newspaper back to an event to capture a few more "artsy" shots for the front-page feature photo when she didn't like one of the 50 other choices.

Oh, and also the one who insisted everyone in her wedding party pose for just one more picture {after, only, you know, 200} in 100-degree heat in the middle of a flower garden because one of her bridesmaids was holding her flowers in the opposite direction as the others.

Because I've always been in pursuit of the perfect photograph in most situations, I'd always be a little haughty when we recieved holiday cards featuring awkward family shots where the kids, hair tousled and faces completely red, looked like they just dragged through the house kicking and screaming in order to take that picture.

I swore, yes SWORE, I'd never have those kinds of pictures on my holiday cards simply because I'd never subject my sweet angels to the kind of torture that is forced pictures.

My photos would have depth and soul and feature perfectly captured, authentic moments of children sporting genuine smiles caught brilliantly by my {unprofessional} photographing husband or self or relative.

But upon birthing super-cute little models {not biased at all}, I've found that I just cannot resist trying to capture the perfect moments on camera.

This is somewhat akin, though, when you have two young boys, to herding cats {thanks, Sarah. What a perfect description!}

Uphill.

In the rain.

While blindfolded.

Take the boys' birthday party, for example. I really just wanted to get a few great shots of them together and a few with us and other family members.

So I attempted to lure my oldest away from his tractors.

"Oh, look at how much fun, G.! Let's take a few pictures."

{G. pretty much ignores me, playing with his new mini tractors.}

"Your brother is sitting so nicely for the pictures. Mommy loves that.

{Fail for the peer pressure, as he continues zooming his tractors around the floor.}

"G., if you sit next to your brother and smile, mommy will give you a cookie."

{I'm no longer above bribery, apparently. And, it, apparently, has no affect on my boy who is still driving his tractors along the carpet.}

"G., if you don't sit next to your brother and smile for a picture, I'm going to take the tractors away ... for good."

{GROAN. Did I really just play that card in the name of a decent picture? Because I know now that I've resorted to threats the pictures are going to be absolutely terrible and frustrating and not at all how imagined.}

If nothing else, at least I have photographic documentation that we did, indeed, throw them a birthday shindig to prove I wasn't a horrible mother in spite of the forced pictures.

Bigger Picture Moment: When food talks to your soul

Welcome to Bigger Picture Moments, where we breathe in the moments of life that show us a glimpse of the grander scheme, no matter how big or small.

You can link up your moment with Maegan this week. And next week, I'll be hosting. So please come back and share your Bigger Picture Moment next week right here! {And can I encourage you to take a few moments and check out the other writers who link up? I'm never sorry after I read the fabulous ladies who share their moments.}

Monday morning slammed into my tired body when Baby E. woke up at 6:45 a.m.

And because babies have no volume control, my preschooler bounded out of his room just a few minutes after we made our way downstairs.

After ten nights of interrupted sleep brought to me by a teething, snotty baby and a few days of infection from a clogged milk duct also brought to me by a teething, snotty baby, I could only muster the energy to do one thing: turn on a movie and plant my rear on the couch until the coffee kicked in.

We watched Veggie Tales: The Story of Jonah as I sat on the couch mentally trying to construct a to-do list that stretched beyond a few bullet points numbering past ten all while trying to will myself to accomplish everything on it.

I had to write a post that had been dwelling in my head. I had to write meeting notes for our staff meeting at the business. I had to answer e-mails. I had to get some marketing stuff together for the business. I had to get groceries and presents and food for the boys' birthday party. And the list spanned on and on past 10. And I found myself totally overwhelmed by the number of things I had to do instead of the actual things that needed to be done.

Typical.

I always get sidetracked by numbers.

And so many times numbers are the actual motivators behind the things on my lists.

Write a post {don't people who read my blog expect that?}

Staff meeting notes {must adequately train and motivate so everyone is happy because we need our members to stay members and our staff to remain staff}

Answer e-mails {e-mails about business and advertising and ultimately payment}

You get the drift.

Numbers can be so consuming.

The movie was drawing to a close as I pondered these exhausting thoughts.

I tuned into the flick momentarily because it was the first time I'd seen the very end as we hadn't owned the DVD for more than a week.

If you don't know the message of Jonah, I'll give you a little recap because it's necessary for context.

Jonah is a prophet, played by Larry the Cucumber in the Veggie Tales movie.
God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh to share a message of mercy and compassion
because the Ninevites were not living in a very kind way. Jonah doesn't like the
Ninevites, and he doesn't want to go. Jonah tries to run away from God, and he
ends up being swallowed by a fish but then asks God for a second chance and is
essentially thrown up by the fish. He then goes to Nineveh, and he shares God's
message. The Ninevites embrace God's message, and Jonah is absolutely beside
himself when God doesn't destroy the city.

At this point in the movie Jonah is bellowing to God, wishing God would take out the Ninevites. When the city isn't destroyed, Jonah wishes he were dead.

His traveling companion Khalil, a half caterpillar, half worm, looks at Jonah, completely exasperated and remarks that it's quite ironic that Jonah is so irritated that God gave the Ninevites a second chance because God also gave Jonah a second chance.

The caterpillar tells Jonah that Jonah's got an attitude and heart problem. He then tells Jonah he's pathetic and says,

"I wanted to be big and important just like you. But the world doesn't need more people who are big and important. The world needs more people who are nice and compassionate and merciful."

And as the caterpillar lectured Jonah the cucumber, a wave of truth washed over me.

Numbers.

When I'm so focused with numbers, so focused on their importance {how many people read this blog, how many members work out at my club, how much money is in our bank account, how I have to be here at this time or there on this date} I'm usually too concerned with trying to be big and important.

And when I'm too intent on trying to be big and important, serving myself {the me, me me} I know I'm not focused on serving others and my heart isn't focused on being compassionate and merciful {making meaningful connections with the people who come here to read, valuing each member personally who works out at our club, taking the opportunities to connect with people during business transactions that sustain and provide for us}.

And people are always, always, always more important than numbers, than being big and important.

But somehow I'd not realized the connection between numbers and my own heart until this hard-to-admit and sort-of-embarrassing-to-relay bigger picture moment was served on a plate and spoon fed to me by talking vegetables, select fruit and an insect in the form of a half worm, half caterpillar.

Sorta takes food for thought to an entirely different meaning, doesn't it?