Let's see.... Play dates, pre-school, dinner parties, absorbing furniture from my sister's house, rearranging furniture, furniture shopping and deliveries, trying to pull the house together, more shopping--more returns, 20 tons of stone on the curb, taking photos for family, editing photos for family, doctor's visit, trip east, and getting back into the swing of things after rearranging half of the house and then leaving town for a long weekend. So THAT's why I haven't posted...
Listing it like that actually makes me feel a little better. I had been wondering where all of my time went. Now I look around and remember. This month has been a big creativity month for me. I'm trying to shape our home into something more homey and I got to take a zillion (well okay, 1,600-it was an experiment) photos of family. If you don't see the creativity in that, then we need to have a chat.
The home part is coming along. It feels different in a good way. Photos are fun. Always fun. This ends up being a mixed bag for me... I LOVE the opportunity to make new things--or tweak them--to be creative. It engages me like few things do.
The other side of that is that I can get too focused at times for my family's good. When I start a new project, I can get so absorbed that doing it literally all day long is absolutely possible. I have to interrupt myself and remind myself of priorities, ie. Lucy and Gabe and laundry......
I've always loved the idea of making living spaces smart and beautiful and comfortable. I came up with some out-of-the-box ways to make my bedroom closer to what I wanted when I was a kid. It's fun to be able to do that on a bigger scale at home. That's a bit of a jump, from being a kid to married 10 years in a HOUSE. But we never really tried to pull it all together before. This is definitely a first time endeavor. We're still being patient, but there has been a lot of progress this month in the pulling-together of our home.
Taking pictures? I have been taking pictures (mostly of people) since 1994, when I splurged on a real camera for myself when I didn't even have a car. I should be a lot better than I am--with roughly 15 years of experience, hmm.
Why do I love taking pictures of people? I think it's because it gives me a chance to capture the beauty I see in them. I consider myself lucky when I get photos that really capture this, because I am in no way a professional. It's a hobby.
The most time-consuming part for me taking pictures, of course, is the editing. This is fortunately something I completely enjoy, so it's not a bad thing. It is tricky, however, to carve out time from running the house and being a good mother to do that. In a perfect world, I would have all the resources I want in a timeless space where I could function simultaneously as an artist and stay-at-home-mother. Or maybe this IS the perfect world and I just don[t know it. In any case: this is not that world. I shorted myself of sleep substantially before our weekend trip, then missed more sleep traveling. I'm slowly getting it back. It's all good though. I love that these photos may still be around when these kids are grandparents. It makes me smile.
