How to wipe yourself out in just a few easy steps.

So sometimes I feel that I finally get it. See previous post. And then I get stupid again.

You see one of the reasons I love being a homemaker is that you are your own boss. It's great, you work for you. And one of the worst things is that I work for me!!!!! I'm a terrible boss to myself. Too hard and too demanding. A type A personality who is also a perfectionist.



So I have allergies, really bad ones and it's spring around here. So I sound and feel like I have a cold, it's been that way for weeks, and won't clear up much till June. And since it is spring I'm cleaning like a mad woman. Last thursday and friday I was doing a lot of cleaning and then the weekend came and we did lots of family stuff, like the park and the zoo. Lot's of walking and running after a toddler. She's in a mommie phase too. So she was dragging me all over the park.

So by sunday night I'm exhuasted. So do I rest a bit more on monday. NOOOOOOO!!!!

The type A perfectionist in my head reminds me that spring cleaning is behind this year and there is a TON of laundry to do on monday. So monday I spend most of the day letting my daughter play with toys as I move couches, two of them, to vacuum under them. I lifted up two carpets to mop under them, I moved my daughter's bed, five drawer dresser, and a four drawer dresser to vacuum under them. I did 6 loads of laundry and changed bed sheets.



Monday night as my hubby and I are sitting together on the couch while my daughter watches Mister Rogers on TV, my hubby says, "Are you running a fever? You feel hot."

A quick trip to the bathroom tells me I was runnning a fever. Just a mild one of course but I think my body was running a slight fever in an effort to scream, "Stop it."



I swear I'm the worst boss I could ever work for, tougher on myself than anyone. Anyone have ideas on how to stop that type A perfectionist voice in my head, before I give myself another fever?

Today I did nothing but take care of my daughter and even took a nap with her. And strangely enough my fever is gone. Amazing what a little rest will do for a person.

And anyone who thinks being a homemaker is easy, sit on the couch and watch tv, is a nut!

Lovely and so simple

So as I mentioned before spring has finally sprung around here. Over the weekend we cleaned up the back yard and moved our patio table/chairs from this spot about 80 feet from the house onto the back patio right outside the back door. I'm not sure why I kept the table up there, it was under some trees but so far away from the house that we rarely used it over the last two years. So now the table and chairs are on the back porch/patio right outside the door and I think we've already used it more in a few days than we did in the last two years.
Today my daughter and I made lunch and decided to take it outside to eat and as we sat there and talked about the birds and flowers. And I realized that this is what being a homemaker and stay at home mom is really about. It's about being there to have these lazy, easy going, sit in the sun and talk kind of moments.
It was all so lovely and so simple. It was quiet. The birds were singing. We were sharing pieces of cheese and whole grain crackers. We were talking about where cats and birds come from. It was great.

I can imagine doing this when she is 8, or even 17 though at the latter age I'm sure she go on and on about how embarassing it will be for her. But I will be here, ready to share these moments. Building a relationship, making time for her.
I'm sure tonight we'll take our dinner outside so that all three of us can share a nice evening together. Relaxing and talking. Isn't this sort of thing is what life is REALLY about. If you're so busy chasing money that you don't have days like this then you really need to prioritize better. They grow up so quickly and with or without your involvement.
Kelly

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Just a few days ago my daughter said, "When I grow up be a mommy?"
It was said in the tone of a question so I said, "Of course when you grow up you can be a mommy just like I am."
She then said, "I grow up to be a mommy." She said it with such pride.

I was moved to tears of course I was so proud of her and as my husband noted she is saying this because I'm so important to her and she loves me so she is just saying that she wants to be like me one day.

What more can a mom ask for?

Kelly

P.S. Spring and FINALLY sprung around here so between spring cleaning and getting outdoors to enjoy all of the sunshine I may not be posting as much. I will do my best to post once a week and I also try to visit all my blogging friends once a week too.
Have a wonderful spring everyone! Don't do too much cleaning at one time.

Oh Yikes!!!!

Okay Wednesday is my usual errand running day. And I'm driving back and I notice this black Mazda next to me, I think my "watch out" radar was going off or something because I wasn't noticing because of the car.

Anyway both lanes turn left at this intersection and I with my "watch out" radar pinging like crazy leave some serious space between me and the car in front of me.

Good thing I did because his car speeds up cuts me off, runs up on the curb on the right, speeds ahead and cuts off another car ahead where the two lanes merge into one.

And guess what was on the back bumper of this car? Rhetorical question actually it had a "Got God?" bumper sticker.

Has anyone else noticed the really bad driving of what I can only assume by the bumper stickers are Christians?
I mean everyone makes mistakes but rushing ahead, riding on a curb, and cutting two people off is not a simple mistake.

Okay rant warning here!!!!

In my life I've found the most judgemental, rude, nasty people are the ones with the crosses around their necks, the "what would Jesus do" bracelets (yes those are still around), the assorted Bible verse bumper stickers, or the little metallic fish symbols.
Do any of these people realize that if you are going to advertise your beliefs in that way you MUST do better. YOU are setting yourself up as a good example. The "hey look at me I"m a Christian." That black Mazda sure didn't set a good example.

What do non-Christians think when they see this sort of thing? Probably something like well I don't want to be a Christian if they act like that.
Now we are all sinners and Christians are no better and that is my point. When you announce your beliefs like that YOU are setting yourself up as an example. No one else is doing it to you. If you're climbing up to say look at me I'm a Christian then you better be ready for people to look at you.

What's wrong with living a quiet, modest, nice life? When did showing off your beliefs become more important than living them. I'm not saying I'm better but I try my best to live my beliefs instead of showing them off. I take care of my husband, daughter, and home first. Next I try to be out in my neighborhood visiting friends and just being there. And I'm there for my extended family too.

Right now my husband and I are really trying to find a new church home. It's hard we've both been burned and treated really badly by the sort of Christian who wears their beliefs on their car, shirt, or jewelry and I'm honestly sick of it. I've encountered more insular cliquishness in the church than in high schools. I don't know what's wrong with Christianity today and I don't claim to have the answer either. All I know is I'm going to work on my family first, that's all I can handle right now.

Kelly

Being at Home is NOT Enough

If you've been around here a bit you know I'm a stay at home mom and homemaker. And I've written several articles on being a homemaker/mom. I've really pushed the benefits of being a homemaker for your family and especially children.
I wanted to clarify something though.

For one, and you may have realized this already, when I talk about being a stay at home mom I am NOT talking about those who really do have to work. For example single parents, they must work. Honestly though the single parents I know are more plugged in and involved with their children than most two parent families I know. Single parents in my experience seem to understand the down side of working and not being there at home for a child, to create a home life for them. As a result they really work hard to make up the difference. I am NEVER talking about them. Two parent homes were both parents must work to keep the basic necessities there for the family again know the down side of working when they would rather have one parent home for their child. In my personal experience these families work really hard to make up the difference. Frequently the parents working opposite shifts so that one parent is always home for the children. I am NEVER talking about them in my articles.

What I am doing is comparing the stay at home mom/homemaker who is involved and dedicated to her family with the new two working parent homes who seem to care more about pricey homes, cars, vacations. Who gladly dump their children in daycare programs, because "it's good for them", and go and work so much they don't know the names of their children's teachers or friends.

Now what I want to talk about here is that being at home is not enough. There is another category I haven't talked about the stay at home mom who is self centered, uncaring, uninvolved with her children, and just generally at home to lounge around all day.
You're wondering if I really know anyone like this.
Well yes, unfortunately I do. My own mother.

I don't know what my mom thought being a homemaker/stay at home mom was about but I know she gave the rest of us a bad name.
When I was still working and considering leaving work I remember the reactions I received from co-workers. Most said something like this, "Wow, I would love to be at home and just lie around all day eating, watching TV, and going shopping." Only one comment was this, "That would be nice to be at home and be in charge of your own home. Just having to be responsible for managing a home. Working on your own schedule. That would be great."
Considering those responses then my mom wasn't alone in her behavior. I also had two friends from school who followed the same pattern as my mom.

What did, or didn't, my mom do you are wondering?
Well she did the basics to get by. When the house got really terrible filthy and I mean filthy with dirt and grime she would clean. As soon as I was old enough to clean that was assigned to me of course. She cooked but I swear she cooked the same 8 meals every week for the entire time I lived at home. While she stocked a recipe box I don't remember her ever trying new recipes, and don't remember her baking. (I started baking at 10) She wasn't involved in my education at all. I was the victim of bullies all the time and her sage advice was to ignore them. She did laundry when we ran out of clothes, and again when I was old enough to do laundry that was assigned to me.
What I do remember is her watching TV constantly. It came on as soon as she woke up. And you did NOT interrupt her TV shows.

My point here, and I could go on about my mom's bad habits forever, is that being at home is NOT enough. Just because you are there doesn't mean you're doing any good. You must be dedicated to God and family, involved in your child's life you are their first teacher, and you must care and love them. It's important to care and the house is a home, a haven of love and peace. A wonderful place to relax and recharge.

If you're a stay at home mom who is home only to serve yourself then your kids are better off in daycare. I know I would have been.
So if you are at home for some sort of show, like my mom was, then you're in it for the WRONG reasons.

The Price is too HIGH!

Not two miles from my home they are building one of those planned housing things. You know those upscale community housing plans. I'm sure it will be named something like "Coventry court".
Apparently these homes start at 300,000 American dollars. I don't know who can afford a house that STARTS at that price but 45% are already sold even though they haven't started building the homes yet.
So this is on a road I take often.

My husband and I were talking about this housing plan last night. And we both voiced concerns over just looking at these sort of homes. We live in a modest two bedroom, one and half bath (if an extra toilet in the basement counts and a half?), a living room, kitchen, and that's pretty much it. Our home was built with most others on our street in the 1920's when family homes had two bedrooms only, one bathroom was enough, and the families who lived here way back then managed to squeeze 4 to 8 children plus parents in their homes.

So I take this road often and I'll admit right here and now I am soooooo jealous when I see these homes. Would I love four bedrooms? Of course. Would I love a large home office, you bet! Two or three full bathrooms, other than having to clean them. Yes.

We were talking that if, IF, we wanted a house like that I could go back to work. Having left the work outside the home world as a head of department in a retail store, I have no doubt I could jump back into a high paying job.
We could have four bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, formal dining room, game room, and walk in closets too.

But of course then I would be working fifty to sixty hours per week, as well as what my husband works now, around fifty hours per week himself. My daughter would be in daycare twelve or more hours per day. I remember working and I always came home exhausted. I would usually eat and drop into bed to sleep. So then my daughter would only see me for an hour to two at best. Some teacher would be raising her. My husband and I would NEVER have time together. And of course we'd have to pay for a maid to clean the house, I wouldn't have time. Maybe even pay for laundry service too. God knows we'd be eating out a lot too. I guess we'd be paying for lawn service too. And so much for having time to grow a garden.

While my husband and I talked and both admitted all these nice houses are lovely, the price to have them is much more than money, the price is too high in the cost of quality of life and what is really important.

Even new motherhood has unreachable fantasies to live up to.

A few weeks ago I saw this photo on a magazine at the checkout lane.

Now this is a beautiful photo. I don't know who the celebrity is, but she is gorgeous. Adorable baby too. Nicely photographed. (click the photo to be linked to the orginal article.)

Then something else hit me. I NEVER looked like this after giving birth. Well I never looked like her on my best days, but my point is here is this photo, as wonderful as it is, but it is soooooooo far from reality that it is almost humorous.

I started thinking more about yet another impossible to reach fantasy that we've being fed and probably being expected to live up to.

Now here is a photo of me. I don't know if Char was the same age as the baby in the above photo, but it's close enough.

Here my daughter is a week old. Now I did go through a c-section so I was recovering from that. But this, this is reality, mismatched (but comfy) clothes, all cotton by the way. No my hubby did not use a flash here I was really that washed out. And yes I was as tired as I looked.

It worries me that women who haven't had a child may think that they'll look like this, the top photo, when they will actually look more like the bottom.

Motherhood is beautiful and you'll learn things you never thought you would but it's kind of like boot camp. The worst of it is those first weeks, two months. It's all about no sleep, sore boobs, aching backs, your body still feels like it's somebody else's. Now all of this fades of course but it's not this glamorous photo of a SLEEPING baby, well coiffed mom wearing makeup, jewelry, and silk shirt. Most of your clothes have spit up on them, trust me you would never wear a silk shirt even if you had one.

We need to not only realize what real motherhood is, but celebrate it's REAL beauty!

Kelly

Photography 101 Part 3

Content

Even if you feel that you already know what kind of photography you like to do, it’s always a good idea to try your talent at different aspects of photography.
Pictorial, this is a general term but it applies to any photographer who’s goal is simply to create beautiful photos. This breaks down into smaller subsets but the most popular form is landscape and nature photography. This is what I do and it’s tempting to go on and on but I will just say that this form of photography, to me, is a real art. At least that is goal to create art in photographic form.
It is the goal of the photographer to use their abilities to capture an image in it’s moment of beauty and simplicity.
Portrait, this can be people and even animals. It also includes wedding photography as well. This is an aspect of photography that can be a lot harder than it seems. Not only do you have to know your basic photo composition but you need to understand what makes each person look their best. You must know how to bring out their personality and character in the shot. If you love working with people this may be your field. It’s fun and challenging.
Photojournalism, now this isn’t just press photography, though that is one aspect of it. It is also documentary photography as well, the latter doesn’t always need an event to occur right in front of you. Either way the purpose is to tell a story. Really good photojournalism shouldn’t need the text below it to tell you what is going on. It should be compelling and storytelling. Composition still plays a part, you can’t tell a story if the story can’t be seen. And while these photos can be beautiful in their technical aspects they aren’t necessarily beautiful images. The story telling is as important.
Abstract, probably not as common of a form of photography but I’m seeing it more and more. This is usually characterized by extreme close ups of detail of something, so much so that you can’t identify the original subject. But in this case that doesn’t matter since the abstract detail or pattern is the subject of the photo. (Color can also be the subject as well.) Basic composition still plays a part, maybe a bigger part in this form of photography.
This week’s assignment: Four rolls of film again.
Roll one, pictorial, get outside and try your best using all your abilities to capture moments of beauty and simplicity. Composition is key here.
Roll two, portrait, get somebody to volunteer for you. Remember composition but really focus on finding the shots that make that person look their best. Different light, background, camera angles, or even clothes.
Roll three, photojournalism, outside or inside anywhere you see stories. This can be as simple as a child playing with their toys. Find the appropriate moment to take a shot that tells the story. Roll four, abstract, details, details, and more details. Get in close, make sure that you can’t identify the subject but find beauty in the color or details of the item.

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal