As Chris and I reach 15 years of marriage this summer, we have found a rhythm to life that feels constant and satisfying. He has achieved so much of what he has set out for and sometimes he wonders what more could there be for him? He got the girl (yes, that’s me...the hottie), he has the idyllic home setting, two kids...a boy and a girl, a dog, a cat, a job that does the job, and an athletic life that many would envy. As 40 looms, he wonders if his challenges are washing up? I feel the total opposite. I have to figure out how to make a passion into a career. I also have to help mold my kid’s into responsible adults. Then I have to avoid the dreaded muffin top and I have to face sags and wrinkles. It all seems daunting to say the least. Somehow he takes the task one by one and accomplishes them as I spin around helplessly. So he looks for challenges in the most obscure ways to keep life interesting. The Ironman no longer makes him nervous yet it still makes me throw up...literally. 50 mile running events...he’s been there done that. Marathons...he makes them look like a walk in the park. His new challenge? The bicycle brevet. Leave it to the French to design some insane bicycle event. He will ride anywhere from 150 miles to 800 miles in a matter of a less than a day to just under a few days. It’s a bit of insanity and my rear end hurts just thinking of it. But it challenges him and at the age of 39, he needs just that. So I dumped him at the airport at 3:30 am to head out to the Lonestar state to trek across the Badlands. Hopefully this trek in the sweltering heat will help make him feel challenged. My hope is that it doesn’t make him feel too challenged. If I get a phone call to pick him up on this one, I think he’s on his own. I’ll admit that I think that biting off more than you can chew is good for the soul. When completing a task feels like a miracle, you’ll know it’s a worthy one. Have fun Chris. I’ll be back here holding down the ranch as you ridem’ cowboy! Yeeha!
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Ahhh, it must be Mother's day. The one day a year, I have my Cheerio's delivered to me and with a flower to boot! I am one lucky mom. My son even gave me a coupon of one "free" photo shoot that I can do of him at my own convenience. It doesn't get any better than that. Thinking of photo-shoots, over the past three years, I have taken lots of photos of mothers with their children. In fact, I never leave a shoot without that mother-child photo. It usually is my favorite shot because a mother never needs to try hard to show her love for her child. It is a photographers easiest and most rewarding subject. As soon as I tell her to not look at me and instead look at her child, immediate warmth radiates in the picture. Every day that we get to be with our kids is mother’s day. Without my children, I think I would be without purpose in life. I also wouldn’t have any gray hair. But, our need for each other is undeniable and because of them, I have really learned how to love. Mom, you are the best teacher and I thank you for everything. Happy Mother's Day to all. Just a few of my mother child favorites.
A few days back, an educator friend of mine told me to run out to her car and grab something for her. “Sure”, I said then asked which car was hers. She looked at me perplexed and said, “I don’t know who makes it, I just know it’s tan. “ I knew right then and there that it was probably a Subaru. I walk around the bend and a tan Subaru looked me in the eyes. I had to laugh not because she couldn’t remember the make of her car, but because all of us Subaru owners don’t think of our vehicle as an extension of who we are. Our car is not our status symbol. The bells and whistles that come with the car are really about the activity that happens around it. Most Subaru owners are pretty happy just to have a cd player as a highlight. This commercial makes me laugh, because Subaru got it right in realizing their target audience needed no sexy bikini clad woman draped over their car to get customers. No thank you, we just want to get there in one piece and not spend so much on our ride that we can’t enjoy the experience. Pete and I are off to go catch frogs. As we throw our nets and buckets into the car along with our dopey mutt, we look forward to another one of life’s adventures. OK, I may be showing some signs of age. I must confess that recently, birds have surprisingly fascinated me. I think my little obsession is grounded in the fact that I find them so difficult to photograph. Over the past month or so, our yard has gone to the birds. It isn’t the actual birds that I find as fascinating as the process they go through to make their nest. Just a few weeks back, a big fat robin flew back and forth like crazy for days on end, mouth full of twigs, berries, and whatever else she could fit in there. I wondered if she picked twigs by color and design like we choose our baby layette. Watching her made me feel lazy like I should be folding laundry or something. But since I have nested twice in my life, I could understand her urgency to get the job done, so that everything would be right for the arrival of the stork. Her nest would end up perfectly round adorned by a single egg in the middle. “ Truly, this was an ordinary miracle to look at. It was a picture of simple and tasteful decorating. As a shower gift, I put out a bird feeder so she could have her meals right at a beaks length when the baby came. I have taken to keeping the cat indoors at night to protect the new fledgling hoping that it will thrive. I guess I’m now a bird watcher. Who knew? As my own crow’s feet begin to show, I guess this is how it’s going to be and I think I’m ok with that.
Hope this brightens up your day. For a few days every year, the orchard up the hill demands some attention. It got mine today and will get some more before the week is out. I often wonder how many of us moved to Middlefield because of this view alone? It doesn't get any better than this.
Hey Girls...maybe we should do some spin classes together!We hope to go from this...To this...It's time for an intervention…I am beginning to resemble some of the fine ladies that I photograph. While they are all curvaceous and and have some pretty jewelry, I feel as though i am joining the herd. As 40 looms, I have found that I am no shrinking island. I seem to add real estate every year to my growing physical property. Working at home in PJ's in front of a computer seems to have added to the problem. Elastic pajamas help you forget how tight your jeans feel. After 10 years of non stop exercise, my injury plagued body begged for a reprieve begging me to find another hobby. At least my camera is so heavy, that my right arm remains strong, but that doesn't help the rest of me. So one year off became two and five pounds turned to 10. How then does one pick herself up out of crisis mode? A couple of weeks back, opportunity came knocking to teach a spin class practically in my back yard. Could this be the miracle I needed? 5 classes later, my ass is killing me, my injuries are whispering sweet nothings in my ear, but I feel hopeful. It's been a couple of years since I have led the sweat fests that I have come to love. Once again, I am scouring the far reaching places of ITunes hoping to find a song with a beat that will inspire other people to move. This time around I'm taking the "it takes a village" approach as we work together to skim the fat. Come on down and join the party. Richard Simmons I'm not, but I hope we can progress from bovine to gazelle in short order. Move over "Fat Bottomed Girls", your playlist days are numbered. "Bootylicious" here we come. Ok...I went looking for a funny Richard Simmons workout video and found this instead.Last Sunday I did a family shoot up at Bushnell Park in Hartford. Everything was beautiful and the mood was happy as I breathed in the warm weather, the flowering trees and the colorful tulips. Then I hear the screech of a loud speaker and a man screaming toxic words. The mood had decidedly changed. I had inadvertently came upon a protest march. I had never been to one thinking to myself that there's a first for everything. I wanted to send my words of protest to the thousands of people that were blocking my clean shot of the capitol building. I guess what seemed most confounding to me was the fact that people would take a beautiful spring day and in my opinion, throw it down the tubes to spew anger into the fresh air. People jeered and cheered and then many switched gears and walked over to the carousel to go for a "happy" ride. Quite contradictory, but maybe this would help them simmer down. So I did my photo shoot with a really nice family while the rally seemed to taper off. I guess what I just witnessed had been American freedom at work. It is amazing when you think that in this country we can have our differences, voice them and still live together peacefully. Perhaps, a miracle lay in that fact. I finished the shoot by taking this shot into the sun, on my belly to get an ants view of the capital. Like the protestors around me, sometimes it's good to take a different perspective. I liked what I saw in the layer of flowers against the monotone building capped by the blue sky. Whatever your perspective is today, enjoy the view.
I took this in New York city a couple of weeks back. I am not one to make political statements, but after the removal of Bin Laden last night, we are fortunate to have one less bad guy in the world. Hopefully our children are more safe and freedom will provide opportunity for them.
My daughter’s not a loser, she’s a GLEEK!. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s about a bunch of high school kids in the glee club and their personal stories. These kids have pipes and their teacher is super hot. Most of them hail from Broadway fame so it’s like watching a Broadway show in your easy-chair. I find that as I get older, it has become increasingly difficult to find anything on TV that I can watch with my kids that doesn’t make me want to hurl. The shows aimed at preteens on Nick and Disney should be banned for lack of substance and are a terrifying insult to our intelligence. Glee has little lessons prescribed in a somewhat inane story line. Every week, kids get pelted in the faces by Slushies for not being cool as they are the constant underdog. Redemption is always around the corner in the form of song. Miraculously, they have somehow made cheesy radio 80’s ballads bearable. But beyond this, the show makes you feel hopeful. My normally quiet daughter now sings throughout the house at the top of her lungs. She has even decided that she wants to give the school talent show a whirl this year, despite her dread of performing in front of people. I can’t help but think that being a GLEEK has has something to do with it. The feel good feeling that the show emits is enough to make me sing so everyone hold your ears. I’ll take a slushy to the face. Blue rasberry please, it matches my North-face. My favorite Glee song so far.
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