"I Wonder" Wednesdays: Stuck Inside...What To Do?

It’s “I Wonder” Wednesday! After almost two months away, I think it’s time to get back to blogging. As I was lying in bed this morning trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it was morning, Kirk came in and mentioned that the temperature is supposed to reach the mid-90’s today. Wow…we’re barely into June, and we’re having a heat wave! Between the heat and the cicadas that have inundated our town, being outside for any period of time is not on my list of “to-dos” for this Wednesday, June 8th!

So I started to wonder what the girls and I could do today to break up the boredom of being stuck inside all day? After all, one can only watch so many episodes of Dora, Diego, and the Bubble Guppies before zombie brain sets in. I’m told that the cicadas won’t be here much longer, and believe me, once they’re gone, I’ll be pretty content to fill up the baby pool for the girls or hooking up the sprinkler and spend some time outside playing in the water. But what about today?

So I ask YOU…what do you do to keep yourself and the kids entertained when you’re stuck inside all day?

"I Wonder" Wednesdays: I'm Losing It!

I sometimes wonder what people think when I venture out by myself with the girls in tow and without my engagement ring or wedding band? See, it’s not that I don’t WANT to wear my rings…it’s just that since I was pregnant with Maddy more than two years ago now, my fingers have been too fat to wear them.

On a good day, I hardly give it a second thought, but sometimes it eats at me, and yesterday it finally broke me. In the midst of what was actually an extremely pleasant day, we had a minor setback at Walmart. Yes, Walmart…imagine that. I think someone’s cast a spell on all big box stores, surrounding them with an evil orb that once entered turns your children into mini demons who want EVERYTHING and can no longer HEAR their parents.

But I digress. Yesterday, my mini demons were actually less impish than usual at Walmart, but that walk from the back of the store where we entered after dropping off the minivan for an oil change to the front of the store to get a cart before starting our shopping nearly did me in. You see, the automotive section of Walmart is strategically placed right next to the toys, and my little sprites just couldn’t resist the bright colors and magical sounds of ALL THOSE TOYS. They both wriggled free of my grasp and ran in opposite directions. I chased Maddy down one aisle while Julia shrieked down another. All three of us finally crossed paths at the end of an aisle, and as I tried to pick Maddy up only to have her transform into what seemed like a greased pig, I noticed a lovely elderly woman giving me THE LOOK.

As I watched her glaring at me, her inner monologue became almost deafening when she realized that nope, there’s no big honkin’ diamond on my hand. “Look at that woman who can’t control her children. Well, it’s no wonder – not married, and two small children to boot. And they’re not even very far apart in age! How could she possibly teach her children any self-control when she’s obviously living in sin!”

I wanted to yell at her, “Hey, lady, I am too married!!!” My cheeks turned bright red and as I became increasingly flustered, my mini-fiends finally decided to cooperate with me. I guess they sensed that Mommy was at her limit…or maybe the LOOK the woman was giving me wasn’t derogatory at all, but instead she was praying that God would intercede and provide me and the girls some relief and move us calmly away from the evil toy section. Either way, we were able to proceed to the front of the store, grab a cart, and finish our shopping trip without incident. AMEN!

Yes, I realize that paranoia got the best of me and it’s extremely unlikely that the elderly woman was casting such awful thoughts my way, but that experience has been with me since yesterday morning, causing the wheels to turn. After chewing on it, I realize it’s time. Time to say goodbye to the baby fat…because after all, Maddy’s not really a baby anymore so I don’t think we can really call it baby fat now. Nope, it’s just plain fat – and it needs to go away so that I can wear my beautiful wedding and engagement rings again for the first time in over two years and everyone can know when I’m out and about with my two beautiful daughters that all is right with our world!

Kirk, will you marry me again? I can’t wait for you to slide those rings on my finger!

Digiscrap Monday...and a POLL!!!

Happy Monday! It's a rainy, blah day in Central Illinois, perfect for taking up a digital scrapbooking project. I've been working with Stampin' Up!'s My Digital Studio lately, getting to know the software suite a little better, and I have to say the more I use it, the more I like it. When I started digiscrapping, I jumped straight in using Photoshop Elements and once I had a firm grasp on layers and knew where to find the freebies, I was hooked. But the one thing I was missing was all the super-cute Stampin' Up! artwork and style that I was able to enjoy in my traditional scrapbooking. Now that Stampin' Up! has launched My Digital Studio, I'm one happy digiscrapper! Here's a 12x12 page I just finished up, featuring sweet Julia Grace.

I've also been hard at work getting ready to formally launch Christa Donald Photography...my new business venture. Once I have just a few more things in place, I'll be able to make the formal announcement, but in the meantime, perhaps ya'll would let me pick your brains. I'm pricing out a few packages, and I'm curious to know what sorts of things are important to YOU in a portrait collection?

I'm still doing portfolio building and looking for families and siblings to photograph, so if you'd be interested in helping me launch my business and build my portfolio, please contact me at christa.donald@gmail.com. I'd love to work with you to capture your family's memories!

Cheers!

"I Wonder" Wednesdays: Signs of Life

There is nothing like Springtime. Nothing. I absolutely LOVE being able to shed my winter coat and venture outside to soak up the rays sans jacket. This morning when I peeked out the back window to see what the day might hold, I noticed some tiny green leaves beginning to pop out. So this afternoon, I ventured outside to see what other signs of life I might be able to see. And there were many!

So what's on my mind this lovely Wednesday? My thoughts lately have been consumed with a couple of big questions. First, would investing the time and energy into getting my photography business up and running be like putting the cart before the horse? I definitely want to go to grad school and earn my MFA so that eventually I can take all the knowledge I'll acquire throughout my career and pass it on to others. But what if I get so wrapped up in my business that when it's time to go to grad school, it's going to be insanely difficult to pull myself away and change focus? This has been a major point of discussion around here lately.

The other burning question is where will we begin our search for the place we'll eventually call home? There are so many things to consider once children are involved. Believe me, if it were just me and Kirk, we'd do a world tour, traveling from place to place until we both just knew we'd found the place for us. But now we're both in agreement that one more move is about all we feel comfortable inflicting on the girls. So for now, I guess we need to work on a ranking system, deciding which factors are most important to us individually and as a family, and then start making the rounds. This decision is going to be huge, since it will affect every facet of our lives. Daunting -- but exciting, too! Kirk and I are working like a team like never before, and I fully believe him when he tells me, "It'll be okay...we're going to figure this out." Sigh....

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

The girls and I have had a wonderful day, complete with green eggs and ham, green oatmeal, a trip to the park, and we're getting ready for a corned beef and cabbage dinner with Gramma Tammie, Aunt Shannon, and the most awesome cousins ever -- Isaiah, Liam, and Elijah!

May you always have work for your hands to do.

May your pockets hold always a coin or two.

May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.

May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.

May the hand of a friend always be near you.

And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

(And may I someday figure out the trick to getting both girls to look at the camera and smile at the same time!!!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!



Time to SOAR! – Photo Exercise #1

Doing the Deeper Work

For our first SOAR! photo exercise, Me Ra challenged us with a self portrait exercise back in January. Oy! I love being behind the camera, but being the subject of the photos is usually a source of major discomfort for me. I rarely enjoy seeing myself in photos – it always reminds me of all the physical things I need to work on (losing weight being the big one, no pun intended).

The exercise itself required two photos: one image of myself, and the second image of an object that represents me – who and where I am on my journey. I pondered this assignment for a very long while (weeks really), and I finally had to admit that taking the leap into self-portraiture was really frightening to me. After all, once I completed the assignment, I’d have to post it, exposing not only my creative work to the world but also the feelings I have toward myself. In general, I feel pretty confident about where I am, but even on a good day, my old friend self-doubt always seems to park himself in a dark corner. (On a bad day, he’s at my front door ringing the doorbell over and over again, with the exuberance of a preschooler who’s finally tall enough to reach the button.) Every day I wonder, am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Fortunately, the volume of those questions is usually dialed down to “white noise,” but the thought of allowing the world to see this very personal piece of my soul has admittedly cranked the volume up a few notches. So I did what I always do in these situations…I procrastinated.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, something clicked as Kirk and I were carting loads of toys up from the girls’ basement playroom that was collecting water after a rapid snowmelt followed by a torrential downpour. We were setting all the toys in the girls’ bedroom to be sorted and find a new home there later, and the pile as it grew was becoming a giant, disorganized cluster you-know-what. In my frustration, I looked at that pile and I thought, THIS is my picture. THIS is the object that represents me…sudden chaos from what was once order. (What a downer, right?) But really, I think everyone can relate. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something comes along and shakes it all up, and for a moment (or two…or seven), you feel like throwing your hands up in the air and letting chaos win. But what I knew when I looked at that pile and let my frustration simmer for awhile was that the chaos was only temporary, and that before long, the toys would be redistributed and everything would be okay. And it was. I’m happy to report that since we moved the toys out of the basement and into the girls’ bedroom, they’ve received a little more love and the girls have really been enjoying them. Silver lining, see?


"Chaos from Order"
(f/4.5, 1/30 sec, 800 ISO)


Self-portrait exercise part 2 – check. What about part 1…the photo that I actually have to be in? Ummm…. (You could add this to your heap of evidence, O dear family and friends who know and love me, that I might just be a cart before the horse kind of gal.) I procrastinated some more, and then last night as I was reading my Kindle in bed before finally calling it a night, I felt a spark. I was reading with the lights out, using the book light attached to my cover, so that when my eyes got tired and my mind calmed down, I could just shut the Kindle off, set it on the nightstand, and then drift into dreamland. And I thought to myself in the bluish-white glow of the book light, wouldn’t it make an interesting photo to use the book light as the main source of light in a picture? And as my mind turned, I thought, for that matter, a picture of me reading in bed would be a pretty accurate self-portrait. Reading is a HUGE part of how I nourish my soul, and it’s one of the main activities I turn to when engaged in an expansive period of procrastination. So tonight, out came the tripod and everything I’ve been learning about photographing in low-light, and what seemed like 100 exposures later, I think I managed to capture “me.”


"The Reader"
(f/5.6, 3 sec, 320 ISO)


What I loved about this exercise was that it required a great deal of self-reflection, not only in deciding what direction to take with the photos, but also in preparing a journal entry to accompany the photos introducing my version of “Christa” to the world. And it was a chance to practice some of those techniques I’ve been learning on my quest to master my camera and become a real photographer. Powerful stuff. Thanks, Me Ra, for challenging me to get to know myself a little better! (And you know what? In spite of everything I learned about me, I still actually think I’m pretty great! But I think I’ll try to work on that procrastination thing….)

Cheers!

"I Wonder" Wednesdays

When I look back to where I was a year ago, it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve arrived here, feeling grounded, hopeful, excited about the future, and grateful for the many opportunities that I encounter every day in my life. A year ago, I was working for a non-profit healthcare and patient advocacy association, and my world seemed very small. Small because of long work days – I often left the house before the girls woke up and arrived home just in time to tuck them into bed. Small because of an anxiety-inducing work environment – too much to do, not enough time or people to do them, and seemingly extraordinarily high stakes. Small because of a lack of a solid support system – being near family and friends with whom you can laugh and enjoy the good times and on whom you can lean when times are tough is key, people! And small because of the nagging voice inside my heart that kept telling me just “getting by” couldn’t be further from actually living life, and that as long as I was just “getting by,” I was headed in the opposite direction of where I needed to be.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say eventually the nagging voice got the better of me. Emotions ran high, and several tears and panic attacks later, Kirk and I decided to do the hard work and make some difficult changes so that we could reach our full potential – as individuals, as a couple, and as a FAMILY. So today, I find myself wondering – awestricken, really – at the way God has blessed me with the opportunity to find my way back to my husband, back to my family, back “home” and back to Him so that Kirk and I can begin to write our story our way.

Maddy and Julia enjoying "Movie Night"
(f/4, 1/30 sec, ISO 3200, then used the Pioneer Woman Vintage action)

Tonight’s chapter was a good one. Everyone was happy through dinner, and Maddy even asked for seconds of everything on her plate – fried fish filets, peas and beets. (Growth spurt, I’ll betcha!) Then we popped some popcorn, dimmed the lights, turned our living room into a “movie theater,” and settled in together to watch Care Bears. Maddy and Julia sat side by side, engrossed in the Care Bears’ latest adventure, munching on popcorn and Skittles, each of them enjoying the company of their very best friend. I pray, my sweet, beautiful girls, that you remain best friends for all your lives.

Tonight I’m counting my blessings (big, small and in-between), and my blessings are truly a wonder!