a welcome distraction

A week or so ago I posted a photo of these chunkalunks...

So before I go on with the rest of the pictures I have to tell you that when my son was born, he was (and still is) a twig. Born three and a half weeks early, at 7lbs and 11oz, I thought he would be a tank. He was always long and outgrowing the normal age appropriate sized clothing, but he never had that delicious baby fat. Bean on the other hand, was born with those yummy pudgies, and the more she grew the pudgier they became. I was obsessed with her little soft legs. I miss them friends! They are now eight years old and still cute, but not the baby cute that I so miss.

So imagine my delight when, in the middle of doing some other photo work, this little one traveled into the back yard through the shared, neighborly fence. I was completely distracted by her cute little bathing suit and little legs, and thoroughly overjoyed to spend the next half hour following her around....

She moved onto the motorcycle and was looking for the "beep beep"....

Done with the motorcycle and making her way over to the ultimate in toddler satisfaction...

The car.

And finally, something that actually had a horn...

It was time for din-din so Daddy scooped her up and handed her off to Mama. 

And I waved goodbye. :(

I went back to my other work and she eventually returned in the comfort of Mama's arms. 

I remember when my kids were small enough to carry them around. I wore out a shoulder with the second child doing this, enough to have surgery and physical therapy for two years. (Another long story.) But I would go back in time just to experience it for a moment, shoulder pain and all.

And thus ends my fun little photographic documentation of my work distraction on that day.

I will leave you with my favorite photo, not of her pudgies, but of her wispy hair and piercing eyes.

Friends, how could I not be distracted from work with a face like this? 

Ok, off to work. I would say that I am open to any distractions,

but my camera is in the hospital so they cannot be of the photographic kind. 

Oh well. :(

Have a great Monday!

hello Friday

Friday, how I love thee.

You are the light at the end of my tunnel.

My deep breath.

My welcome friend.

There is not another day that I love more than you.

You are rest.

You are sweetness...

...arriving every seventh day until time passes into eternity.

Nothing would be finer than to discover that heaven is a never ending string of you.

********

These photos have nothing to do with Friday. I just simply have so many photos of Bean with some sort of umbrella, I figured I needed to start sharin' the love.

Happy Friday.

xoxo

T

a goodbye and a surprise

Friends...my camera is back in the hospital. I am so sad. I really hope this is the final time, or someone in Canonville needs to issue me a new camera for all of the heartbreak I have had to suffer in the fifteen months I have owned it.

I completed my Picture Inspiration assignment for the week and then packed it up and drove it to UPS and said goodbye.

I am grieving, but moving on.

So this week I had to capture a reflection, without the context of the real thing that was being reflected. I had to "pay attention to the shape, color, and light of reflection itself." (Yeah, I needed a translation too.)

Anyway, I translated it to mean: capture not the real thing, but a reflection of it as if you were walking by and happened to see the shape of it, the color of it. Like a little surprise or something...like...that...

Here is an example.  Let's say I am brushing my teeth at the bathroom sink, I look up from spitting and rinsing, and I happen to notice in the mirror, Bean's pink, cupcake-looking shower cap, with a Bean underneath it. And she is eating an apple, while soaking in the tub. Would you not be surprised to find such a thing?

Or, I happened to be on my way to plop some of the Kid's socks on the stairs, to remind him that he needs to put them in the hamper (like I do almost every hour of the day), and I just happened to catch a reflection of him in the mirror, sitting in my favorite red chair, looking at me with a look that says...of course my mom will pick up my socks because if I just sit here and reflect on how she always picks up my socks without doing it myself, even though she nags me to do it and threatens that she will throw them away if she has to be the one to do it, she will eventually tire and pick them up herself. 
(I really was not "surprised" by this reflection. Were you? I get this look all the time.)

So do those two examples make sense according to my translation of the assignment? I really hope they do because I no longer have a camera to attempt this assignment again. 

It's an odd thing to send your camera off. I love my camera tremendously, but it is nice to have a forced separation from it. It creates a good vacation. The reunion is always so sweet. You know what I mean? (Wow, this sounds like I could be talking about my kids, or husband. Hmmmm....)

I will still do a few posts while my camera is gone, share some yet-to-be-shared photos. But it will be nice to clean out my files and get some other stuff done that has been waiting patiently for my attention. 

And lastly, here is a non PI assignment photo. While I was snapping the photo above I kept looking at my little vintage cameras on the table there. I have a handful of vintage cameras that I bought from an antiques dealer in town. She gave me a box of twelve or so, for $50. Was a total deal and such a fun find. I have thought for sometime now that I need to take some pictures of them. 

So here is the first...

Aren't they so cool? I love my little camera family. Please pray for a safe return of my other child. There will be an empty hole in my heart until it does. 

mistakes

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of photographic beauty out there in Internet Land. I have to daily remind myself to choose to set my face to my own path and purpose and not let what others are doing drive me to a game of comparison.  I was already thinking about this battle when a photographer friend mentioned her own similar battle and so I realized it was not just me who struggled with this. How silly to believe that we are alone in our struggles. We forget that others are imperfect like us. (As photographers this battle is compounded by that fact that we only display what we think is our best work, forgetting that others also have a pile of rejects on the editing room floor that no one will see.)

As I was going through old photos, uploading them to my online storage site, I came across these out-takes that I never shared. They were "mistakes" in my opinion. Lacking in focus or whatever my insecurities were telling me. I might have gone and edited them a bit to try and dress them up, but honestly I did not have the energy for it.

On this second pass I stopped and decided to share them with you. They are SOOC (straight out of my camera). Never touched. This is a quick look at me, struggling to get my manual settings situated, my composition right. Some of them are misfires, some are the pictures snapped before I caught the one I wanted to keep.

This one?  Not sure what I was doing?

I was trying to capture my "niece" in that golden sun. She was laughing at her uncle teasing her. Missed her face completely...BUT I caught her smile. 

A total misfire. Sometimes in that crazy sun flare the autofocus can't find a place to rest. I remember being frustrated with this and struggling to find my settings.

I think I put a similar photo in a collage somewhere. Now I love it.

Bean's "meatball"...

I know they are not total failures. In fact, now I love them and am embarrassed that the only "mistake" I made was to have thought they were as awful as I first thought. I am keeping them because I am sad that I was so critical of myself. 

I guess what I am trying to say to myself is very cliche: no one is perfect Tracey. 

And whatever/whomever I am comparing myself to is just soooooo not worth it. 

in her peaceful ocean of green

Not sure if this is true in your parts of the world, but Spring here always bursts open almost over night. I am always so amazed how one day I will drive by a field and see nothing but dirt and tiny sprouts, and the next day I will notice that spring has rushed in and announced herself with a knee-high ocean of green. It makes for beautiful pictures...

On this evening we were walking back to our car when I suggested to Bean that she go wade into the grass and find a place to make her nest. She was just settling into her little peaceful cocoon when she heard someone mention the possibility of there being some snakes also making nests in the sea of green. The thought of meeting even a small intruder shattered her nesting moment.

(Below: Can you see her wheels spinning? Really? There might be snakes in here too?)

I know I have written about this before (a lot!), but I have been thinking much about "peace" lately. Like how fragile mine is. How with one flicker of a thought about the possibilities of what "may happen" in my near or distant future, I am up and running off in a restless anxiety. Funny how those little voices can set off an alarm of worry that show me just how shallow my roots of peace extend.

I was riding in the car yesterday thinking about this all and I head myself say...
Tracey, how big can those "snakes" really be? Are they even there? Or are they just phantoms of my worry,  looming large in my imagination? 
And have I really made my God that small, that I believe even he cannot deal with those supposed "snakes"?

I am so human it's not even funny. I wonder how many beautiful, plentiful fields of peace have I forfeited for the game of playing about with the imagined worries of my mind?

(long thoughtful pause....)

Or perhaps knowing peace is more than just trying to emotionally shake myself into a place of of being worry-free. Maybe it is about trusting that even if those "snakes" do intrude upon my life in a very real and scary way, I will get through it. I believe God is big enough to give me the strength to do and be what I need to travel through it. (At least this is what I say. I will never really get to practice what I preach unless I go through it, right?)

I think I am finally understanding that, for me, my peace is not dependent upon my circumstances, but rather upon where I place my trust. 

And if I trust he is big enough to take care of me no matter what may come my way, then a beautiful, peaceful smile is the punctuation mark to the end of my heartfelt conclusion. 

I really want to exude this kind of beauty from knowing that kind of peace, even though it might take me a life time of practice. 

But I am workin' on it.
Thanks for letting me process. :)
Happy Monday.
T

the end of a week

This was a small irresistible snap shot I had to take. A bright spot in my crazy week. I always melt when I see those chunky cheeks and baby legs. When and why do we stop admiring the pudgies? Can't they always be cute?

I took copious amounts of this little chick and will share them later. But for now I am signing off with a Friday random list of observations about my week. I'm doing this because I know you care.

• I think I drove several hundred miles in the span of three days this week. I really don't want to visit another gas station for awhile. California gas is up to $4.17. Somewhere, someone (whomever is in charge of these gas prices) needs to be put on a time-out.

• My daughter just went through a major growth spurt and I am now acknowledging that this pre-pre-teen thing is killin' me. I have seen the word "irrational" taken to new heights.

• On the brighter side, I discovered that I can make my own microwave popcorn. Mix 1/2 cup of popcorn with 1/2tsp of oil, put into a paper bag, fold over and tape, and microwave for 2- 3 minutes. Smother with some melted butter and salt. Cheap!

•  I love Chipotle's burrito bowls. And talking with an old friend/cousin for two and a half hours in Chipotle while eating one of the Chipotle burrito bowls. 

• Do not open the front door when your son has strung together bungee cords and attached them to your front door knob and the front yard tree. Make sure you remind him to clean up the squished lemons off of the street, the ones that were catapulted there from the bungee cord sling shot.

• The gluten-free banana muffins I make are better than the normal kind but...

•  ...bananas give me reflux. I never knew this until a few months ago. Every time I think I can surely eat a banana muffin I stand corrected by the miserable sore throat that follows.

•  I am in denial over this reflux discovery. I love bananas and I keep making muffins. Weep with me will you?

•  I knew that if I washed my car that it would rain, but I washed it anyway...and it rained.

•  Calendars are good and useful tools if you look at them. All Monday I thought it was Tuesday. It was not. But wouldn't that have been nice if it had been true?

• Seeing this man's photo work reaffirmed that I want to do what he does. I just need to be single and not have children and be willing to take lots of malaria pills and experience crazy traveling conditions. But maybe some day? (I cried through most of his pictures.)

• My kids are hilarious. The Kid thinks that playing ball-wall in the house is not annoying.  He also laughs when I scold him for putting his feet on my pillow. Bean believes I am torturing her when I ask her to clean her room. Laughing hysterically.

• I love Friday's. I love a weekend that is wide open. I love being done with a crazy week and feeling like I accomplished stuff. 

• I love baby pudgies, but not my own. I will never take a picture of mine and blog about them. You are very welcome. Have a happy weekend.

reflection

As her mother I want her to know what it means to be your own best friend, to be comfortable in your skin, to love yourself with a sober judgement that knows your infinite value and endless worth. 

I want her to know now all these truths that I am only just discovering for myself.

But as parent I am painfully aware, as I watch my children grow, that in some ways they are just mini reflections of myself. A mirror reflecting back to me all the beauty and the flaws of my own emotional landscape. What a discovery to see myself reflected back to me in their words and emotions. Foolishly I think that I am so adept at covering up my shortcomings but the truth is that I cannot give what I do not have. 

So I am personally working on that which I want for her: to be a friend to myself, to be comfortable in my own skin, to emotionally connect with the truth of my infinite value in a God who loves me.

I am doing this because when she sees herself in a reflection, I want her to see herself smiling back.

It has been a crazy week of commitments and catching up and letting go. My Picture Inspiration prompt this week was to capture a reflection. (Fun for me since I'm a bit geeky about reflections like I am about leading lines.) Bean and I hunted for one this afternoon and we found it in our backdoor window. Just please ignore the dirt. :) I thought about reflecting on the meaning of the smudged reflections but then realized that I was too tired to do so and then it would all be rambling. Like I said, it's been a long week but I wanted to get my weekly assignment up. Off to bed!

arrival

Friends. Meet Spring. She finally arrived here in the form of blazing sun, 80 degree weather, and allergies. I just noticed last night my poor son sniffling and trying to breathe while waiting for his shower to warm up.

It's Friday and I am beat. This probably has something to do with the fact that after two weeks of not being able to go on my walks because of the rain, I have walked four miles every day this week, and then some. Seriously that is kind of pathetic that I am so beat by walking. There was a phase in my life where I used to run, until I dropped a seven pound frozen ice-cream maker bucket on my toes one summer. Up until then I could boast that I had never broken a bone in my body, and that I was a "runner",  but after that incident I was totally humbled and I never got back on my running feet.

Anyway, I digress.

So spring came, I have over-walked myself, and now I am whining. I am taking a few days off from blogging to recover (because, uh... doing all that walking really puts a cramp in one's blogging muscles) and get some stuff done that is hanging over my head. (Interpret: I'm overwhelmed with too much stuff right now that something has to give.)

Enjoy your weekend. Tell me about your plans, your Spring dreams, your allergy remedies for my son (preferably natural remedies).

Or just tell me that you can sympathize with my Friday slump. I don't want to feel like the loner that I already feel I am.