As a girl I loved nothing more than when the leaves started changing. Not only was it time for my birthday, but also for Halloween, Thanksgiving and cooler weather when I could wear my beloved corduroy pants and sweaters. And, of course, fall meant that Christmas was very near.
One of my most loved activities in fall was raking leaves, preferably on a cold, overcast day. We had a large yard with lots of trees and it would take the better part of a day to get them all up and hauled to the street, but I loved every minute of it. I remember thinking I was a genius one year, around the age of 11, when I came up with raking the huge piles onto a large bedsheet so I could just drag them to the curb instead of putting them in trash bag after trash bag.
My children love fall too, mostly because I do. Unfortnately, we only have one really good maple tree in our yard (though as the years have gone by it's producing a good amount of leaves in the fall) and we have a yard service, so the leaves on the ground don't really stay around long. But every year, I manage to get the kids a pile or two of leaves to play in. It's one of our fall traditions, along with the required photos by mom.
This weekend was "leaf" weekend. I had actually stopped and told the lawn people we use, in some stranger's yard as I was driving into town actually, NOT to mow the leaves up. They had the previous week and a brisk wind had managed to strip most of the remaining leaves off our maple tree. So, if they mowed them up, well, there would be no leaves to play in this year. They laughed at me, but obliged.
On Saturday, I handed the girls each a rake and told them to go make themselves a huge, tall pile to jump into. And that's just what they did. They raked, jumped and threw leaves for a good hour or more, before we had to go inside for dinner. Of course, within an hour of that, all of us were coughing and our noses running...probably due to mold on all those pretty leaves we'd tossed ourselves around in. But it was so worth it.
All I can say when I look at these photos is, "Isn't jumping into leaves just a requirement of childhood?"
Boy, blogging sure has taken a backseat for me lately. With working on getting the photography business started, I haven't taken photos just for myself lately...that I really wanted to share anyway. I won't stop blogging, but things are changing around here regarding how much time I want to reflect on myself. Of course I will still document the girls and our lives with them, but in terms of trying to find things to write about like I once did...well, those days are over. The fancy might strike at some point, but mostly I want to focus on my photography and doing the best I can at that!
That said, I did take some photos today of a couple of things.
First, of Tilly. She is now six months old. She got spayed recently and is weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs. She is still spastic and still not house broken, but we love her. I got her to stopping sniffing for rabbits long enough to snap this shot of her today on our front entrance.
I know I generally post a bunch of shots of Halloween stuff on the blog, but in truth any I post this year would look extremely similar to ones I posted last year and the year before that and the year before that. I have finally scratched my itch for buying of Halloween stuff and the displays, much like at Christmas, have become traditional in that we repeat them every year. So nothing new to report. If you want to see Halloween decorations around here, well, go to the archives and look in October. That is what the house looks like this year. As far as the outside decorations go, I did not do them this year at all...but for the porch. After two years of vandalism, I said enough is enough. It was too much trouble to go to so someone could come and destroy it! So I said, no more. The kids are fine with it since the house is always decorated so much on the inside. Besides, with perpetual rain for weeks now it seems, they would have ruined by Halloween!
I have been and will be doing some home decorating stuff other than Halloween decorations. After SEVEN years of living in this house, I finally got the wall of family photos started in my upstairs hall. I say started because even though there are 50 (yes you read right) photos hung, we are not done...there will be at least that many more on the other half of the wall! Really, it didn't cost that much to do (thanks to Walmart.com and frames you could buy in groups of 10 for a steal!) and wasn't hard to put up. I was originally going to use brown paper and do the grouping and put the paper on the wall. That quickly became alot of headache, so I winged it! We pretty much eyeballed them and did them like a big puzzle. They are not perfect and I desperately need to put sticky tack on them so I can stop straightening them every day, but overall we LOVE it. It's so nice to have beloved images of loved ones that we cherish up where we can see them all the time. The girls rooms are down this hall, so every day they talk to their grandparents and great-grandparents, which makes me very sentimental.
This hallway is long and not terribly wide, so it's hard to get a good photo of the display, but you get the idea. Thought it's not really apparent because of the angle, there is nearly 10 feet of wall space down at the end of the hall way that will hold the rest of the photos. This side has mostly my family photos, though there are some from David's as well.
All the frames are black, as you can see, with many in the same frame style, but a few different ones to break it up a bit. In this shot, from left to right, you see Ruby (up left corner), below her, my grandparents on my mother's side, the group photo is of the inside of David's late father's movie theater in the 1960s. The four photos in the center, including the oval and the ones below it, are all of my mother...from infancy through her teenage years.
One of my most beloved photos, and image of my late brother, who was killed when he was 12, dressed up as a cowboy.
This is a photo of my great-great-great grandfather (center), my great-great grandfather, left, and his brothers, taken in the mid-1800s. We have a whole grouping of very old photos like this, one of which flashes forward to my great-great grandfather holding my grandfather's sister, his grandchild! Needless to say I cherish these photographs and am so thankful for them!
Another prized image in our family, one of Dave's dad, who died this past April, in his football uniform back in the early 50s.
As I said, this wall will expand with many images, dating back to the late 1800s through the 1950s of Dave's family. But unlike these photos, I won't wait seven years to get them hung on the wall!
Make a wall of family photos! Get them out of the drawers and photo albums and put them where you can live with them daily!
Blogging is becoming harder to do, or, rather, remember to do. Now that the girls are older and at school, I'm at home alone and typically doing stuff that is not worthy of a blog post.
Thankfully, however, fall break has been going on around here. So I actually have a few photos to post of our activities lately.
We are thankful to live in a community that has made outdoor/recreation areas a priority. In this small town we have dozens of miles of walking trails that nearly circle the city. Lately, Dave and I have been taking the girls out for walks on the many greenways. We've been to three of the 11 so far. All of them are wonderful and have beautiful scenery. I can't wait to get my new walking shoes out to go for a few walks next week when Sarah is back in school. While the girls like going outside and walking a bit, taking a three mile jaunt isn't usually something they enjoy. They go, but they complain...all the way!
I took this shot of Ruby during one of our walks. I love how it turned out with the wide angle of the fluffy clouds in the bright blue sky and her dwarfed by it all.
Here's Sarah on a climbing wall at the park at the beginning of the trail.
Dave and the girls resting by the river.
The day after our walk, I let the girls paint outside on the deck since it was so cool and lovely out there. Ruby had a blast...as you can see.
Also, I've been MIA for a bit due to these new purchases:
They are the bomb!
and then...
I know longer have to cuss every tme I empty the dishwasher! Yay!
And lastly...
We got the Halloween decorations up last week. It's been chilly here and truth be known, we've already turned on the fireplace once already! Ruby decided she wanted to snuggle up and read after I'd got done with the decorations.
Oh, and before I forget...I had a birthday. Yeah, let's just leave it at that shall we, LOL?
Anyway, the girls made me some very sweet gifts...they wanted me to take pictures to capture their work ; ).
After years of taking photos as a hobby and in my former life as a journalist, I've decided to open up a photography business. It's in the intial stages...I'm upgrading equipment, building my portfolio and building a website. In order to post photos for clients for proofing before the official website is up, I created a separate photoblog.
I'll be putting up proof shots there for clients and practice shots I've taken also, as well as news about the business and website when it goes "live".
My new to me camera came today! My lovely, sweet, talented friend Erin sold me her old camera when she upgraded recently. Happy I am! (as Yoda would say).
I've loved every photos she's taken with this camera for years, so I'm thrilled to get to try my hand now. I've got a bit of a learning curve with it since it is different than my old camera. But I took a few shots today with it and was pretty darn impressed. I love new toys!
These first couple of images are straight out of the camera with no post editing!
This is a shot my newly hung pendant light shade in the art room...which I bought about two years ago at Anthropolgie and am JUST now getting up! I love it.
Went for another walk today. Took my camera to do some practice shots. Not as good today...tired and not cooperating kids and my ISO accidentally set wrong. So these are a bit grainy (rather alot). Oh well, I edited them to try and salvage them the best I could. Note to self: check ISO setting on business shoots!
NOTE: This post was written a year ago after my husband's nephew committed suicide. I published it right after he died, only to take it down once I realized my children could see it. They weren't aware of how he died at the time. After some careful thought, I decided to post it to mark the one year anniversary of Wes' passing, September 4.
We love you Wes and miss you every, single day.
Yesterday was the end of the worst week of my life...though it hasn't even been a full week yet. Wesley's funeral was on Monday, so that part of the devastation that is the loss of him is over. I say that because I will never be the same after this and neither will the rest of our family and friends.
There are so many things I want to record about all of this. I don't know if I will publish it or just keep it for private reflection. The biggest thing that sticks out in my head and heart is the utter tragedy of all of it. As I posted before, my nephew, my husband's sister's son, who was just 17, committed suicide by hanging last Wednesday evening.
We were sitting on the sofa after watching Sarah Palin speak when the phone rang. I picked it up and heard the words that have changed all of us forever, "Your husband's sister asked me to call you...her son Wesley is being life flighted..." From there it is all a blur. All I remember is my heart breaking and slowly coming apart in pieces over the past few days.
As I've witnessed the most horrific pain a mother could bear, I was amazed at the coping mechanisms we humans have built in us psychologically to keep us from absolutely going over the edge during times of intense stress. And while I was witness to it, I realized it in myself. The pain was so great at one point, it literally scared me...how would I ever cope with this? But then I felt myself go into this trance like state, where I was just floating through my responsibilities, aware, yet somehow detached just enough to not lose it completely. Day after day, since Wes made the decision that he could never take back, I've felt myself go into and out of this very unfamiliar feeling, fully aware that it was my brain's way of keeping me from going insane from the grief. And seeing the same thing in everyone around me.
A brief bit of background on my relationship with Wes. David and I started dating while his mother Renee was pregnant with him. She had him during the first year of our courtship, and by the time she delivered, Dave and I were close enough that I was invited to see the new baby. Wes was the first baby I'd ever held. I was smitten with that child the instant I held him. I saw him regularly as David and I dated, watching him grow into a toddler and the sweetest little boy. I was totally taken with him as a boy. He physically reminded me so much of David as a child. And though his sister Kally was just about five when Dave and I met, and I played with her too, Wesley and I bonded more because he was little and I had more time with him as he grew. I learned how to deal with small children because of Wes. I would spin him around the lobby of David's father's movie theater, play with his cars with him, play chase. He was the child that made me want to be a mother...the mother to a little boy, just like him in fact.
When I walked into the funeral home yesterday and saw the dozens of photos of him as a child, I could hardly bare it. I could see him running and being silly and asking me to scratch his tiny back. As a mother, my heart absolutely broke thinking of how his own mother must feel. If I hurt this much, I couldn't even begin to think of her pain. I CAN'T begin to think of her pain.
I've never been more thankful about being the photographer in this family. One of my photos of Wes was buried with him. Seeing a life, such a short life, displayed like that...the baby photos, the cub scout pictures, sitting on Santa's knee, riding his bike, going fishing was so overwhelming. Dozens and dozens of snippets of his life...his happy life. But they stopped...didn't go passed a certain spot. The realization that he never would go passed that spot absolutely killed me inside. There would be no graduation photos, wedding photos, photos of his trips and birthdays. No more. It stopped at age 17...just like that. No more. The other morning I awoke to a phone call from his sobbing mother asking me if I had a photo of Wes I'd taken years ago, one of him peeing in the grass during a family gathering, his little back to the camera. I spent the day frantically searching for that photo and gathering every other one I had, each one breaking my heart...him holding Sarah after she was born, him wearing David's graduation hat from medical school, playing with Sarah during the family reunion a couple of years ago. How I treasure these images, captured moments of a life that won't go on.
I think it goes without saying that the fact that Wes took his own life makes this even more unbearable. How could he not know how much he was loved or how this would hurt SOOOOO many people, forever? How awful was the dark place he went to that brought him to make that decision? What could any of us have done to keep him from going there?In waves, the throngs of teenage friends and acquaintances came to his visitation and funeral. We all wondered if any of them understood the significance of what has taken place. Would they learn from this? Do they see the truth behind the action? Do they care?
I will say this, my husband and his family have been simply amazing during this whole horrible event. The strong bond they have has simply gotten them through it. I'm very proud of each of them and especially thankful to be able to call myself one them. Wes' mom is one of the strongest people I've ever met. I will be thinking of her daily and offering anything I can to help her get through what she considers just a "brief sentence" until she sees her boy again.
And, again, I URGE every one who reads this to first and foremost hug their children, be fervent on watching them as they enter into their teen years and never take anything they say lightly in regards to the pain they feel. And lastly, sign your organ donation card TODAY...it was THE only good thing that came out of any of this, for eight people who I hope and pray will lead long, happy and healthy lives thanks to my sweet nephew.
And finally, this is the song played at Wes' funeral, "The Promise" by Tracy Chapman. No song could express more the agony of a mother losing a child.
