I wish I could do this . . .

                                     

Recently, I was thinking about how I never leave a shoot without learning a few lessons.  Really!  And most of the time they are helpful lessons about living, making choices, attitudes and raising kids.  I'm thankful.

This shoot taught me a lot.  Aside from being completely and utterly astounded at this awesome, incredible, X-games'ish' talent, I learned much about intentional living.

This was to be the last full summer with everyone at home, so it was the perfect time to capture some moments.  The weather was definitely not on our side, but hanging out with this fine family was a reminder of how important it is to live as we wish.  I loved seeing their place at the lake and hearing the stories about making the switch from town to lake life.  It made so much sense!  They loved the lake.  They were happy at the lake.  They were always at the lake.  Why not move there?

Maybe we can't all pick up and move to the coolest water source around, but there are tips for us here.  This summer, as we were making our move, I thought a lot about this family.  I remembered about the need to do more of what brings joy and less of what scrunches up my shoulders.

I don't have it all figured out.  I'm assuming this is one of those lessons that I might keep being taught, but I've got new pictures in my mind's eye of an amazing young man flying through the air and a family enjoying each other even more, as they do what they love.

Thanks for that, friends.

Click here to see our whole session:

Masseys at the lake

Laughing and Loving on the Lake . . .

What a blast this shoot was!  

If you bring together five siblings and all of their loved ones, add a lake and a long weekend; you've got the combination of a most special occasion!  

The love was palpable, the laughs were everywhere and the Lake Oconee was the perfect background for this awesome extended family.  

Enjoy the smiles of all ages and the moments they shared. . .

  W

List 25 - Ten things I'm loving this summer . . .

 

I'm loving summer.

I hope you are, too.

I've been thinking this week about what makes it so good, and I thought that make a good list.  I guess some of what makes summer so delicious is intangible, but it seems like a fun exercise to try to pin it down - if we can.

I dig living in a place with seasons and love the excitement of the surprising newness when each inevitable change rolls around.  I guess I'm a kid in that way.  I'm good with that.

Here's why I'm loving the summer of '12:


1.  The pile of flip-flops at the bottom of the stairs - reminds me that happy people are around, that they've just come in from something fun and that something sneaky and crazy is happening upstairs.

2.  Summer faces.

3.  Peaches.  So far, every one I've bitten into since mid-June has tasted like childhood.

4.  No bedtimes.  I love the way we get to ease up on the rules and regs.  It's fun being able to just be with the kids, enjoy rising up and calling it quits at the same times.

5.  Movies.  The three dollar popcorn bucket.  The dollar movie candy we sneak in.  The cool.  The dark.  Go see Brave - not the usual kids' movie.


6.  Having stuff to look forward to on tv - Tour de France, The X Games, Wimbledon, the Olympics.


7.  How Sunday nights don't lead to typical Monday mornings.

8.  Watching people 'get to the pool.'  So fun to see the anticipation of the cool, the relief, the fun.

9.  Caprese Salad.  I'm not sure why, but I can't seem to get enough this summer.  Mmmmmm.  The juicy tomatoes, the fresh mozzarella,  the basil leaves, the drizzle of olive oil, the sea salt, the cracked black pepper.  Luckily, I've managed to hook my kids on it, too.  Wondering . . . could I eat that for breakfast?

10.  The days when we achieve the lucky four - sun, swim, shower, snuggle.


Hope your summer is peachy, too.  What are you loving?

List 18 - My Dream Jobs

Okay, friends, it's time for the Friday list.  Let's pretend today.  (Or, as I said as a child, 'Let's ten-like.')  [Or, as my sister said as a child, 'Let's benten.']  Call it what you will, it's time to undertake a bit of make-believe.

Let's imagine that there are no barriers, money is no object, no training or education is needed.  What would you do, even if just for a day?  What would you like to try?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I'll go first.

When I grow up, I want to be:

1. One of the people who looks awesome in a wet suit and trains the dolphins.  I'd be the one who rides the dolphins and gets thrown, flying into the air, arching into a magnificent swan dive and entering the water gracefully to swim with my dolphin friends over to hand-feed them (I'm the only one who can feed them - they like me best).
2. Aretha Franklin.  
3. A safari guide/driver in the Serengeti.  My old Toyota Land Cruiser has been on the job for a long time and is weathered in that cool way - folks can stand up on their seats to look up and out of the open top and get a better view of the animals.  I'm a specialist at big animal location and the other drivers often search for me to find the best areas.  
4. A SCUBA diver for National Geographic, responsible for all special coral reef exploration, all over the world.  My underlings search out and find the best dive spots on the earth, and I am the first to dive their pristine waters and uncharted areas.  
5. A Mexican cliff diver.
6. Annie Leibovitz.
7. The top chick on the world's best roller derby team.  
8. The host of a super cool travel show on tv.  My people scope out unknown travel spots, which I am flown to.  I am wined and dined by the locals and stay in the best suite.  I'm daring, so sometimes I am in quiet corners where no Americans have been.  My experiences are varied, affording me amazing adventures that are fun to talk about with my tv viewers.
9. A stunt pilot whose plane is uncrashable.
10. An artist, author, anthropologist combination who lives in a historic beamed cabin on the top of a mountain in the forest, surrounded by amazing views, artistic pieces, fine wine and fabulous friends.  

Ahhhhhhh.  That was fun.  Try it!  Put your career options in the comments section of the blog - I want you all to meet each other!  

Loosen up, friends, and ten-like you can do anything!  Go for it!  

List Fourteen - 10 things I remembered at the amusement park.

Ten things I remembered while we were at the amusement park:

1. Everyone laughs, screams, whoops and hollers in the same language.  
2. Getting a little bit scared is really fun and probably good for you, from time to time.
3. There comes a time when going around and around and around and around and around in a circle, while spinning around and around and around and around one's self is not a smart thing.  
4. Sometimes you get a real surprise and the souvenir cup is 50% off.
5. There can be too much of a good thing - all the soda one can drink in a day doesn't make you feel good.
6. Don't judge anything before you try it.  (Heights might actually feel higher than they look from the ground.)
7. Go-carts never get old.
8. Hearing screams of delight makes a person feel lighter.
9. It always helps to hold hands when you feel a little nervous.
10. The world and its people look really, really happy and friendly from above.  It's good to get a bird's eye view every now and then.

Parenting perfection . . .

Every now and then, things are just wonderful.  You know what I mean.  The sun is shining (it always is when you have this feeling), the little folks in your home are not killing each other at that exact moment and for no particular reason, you just think you're a swell parent.   Usually (as in any other arena when you begin to think too highly of yourself) one, two or three children burst your bubble and send you plummeting back to earth - but for that moment, that one shining moment, your home could be on a television show.

I remember one day a few years ago when I began to have those magic thoughts inside (Deana, Deana, Deana, you are really a great one.  You are THE mother today; these children are so, so lucky.)  I should know by this point that the immediate second that I think anything like that, I should STOP - I will soon be shown it untrue.  But, alas, we go with it.  For one fleeting particle of time, we relish the thought that we might be doing some wonderful things and our children just might not parade their childhood years in front of God and everybody on the Oprah equivalent of their day.

On this particular day, my children each had a friend or two over.  I had cleaned off (well, used a one-armed swipe to slide the stuff into a large bag) the kitchen island.  I had introduced those poor souls (who had never known the thrill of victory) to the sheer joys of shaving cream.  I was changing their lives, one pile of cheap sudsy cream at a time.   The babes giggled as they created masterpieces of mountains and flowers, they tossed blobs of the slimy mess onto each other, and I - oh great I in my laid-backness just giggled happily.  It was an illustration for all of you, from me, the great one.

With a smooth segue from shaving cream to pizza fixings, we cheerfully cleansed the artful island to make room for our next adventure in fun moments.  Out came all of the ingredients of a tasty pizza - whatever you could dream of - all in little bitty bowls to make it even more precious.  The children were delighted.  One little dab of shaving cream on each bitty turned up nose and a plop of pizza sauce upon every chubby cheek.  Each child stood happily on a chair, enabling them to reach all of the needed parts of their own pizza extraordinaire.  It was surely a moment they would never forget.  It was beautiful.  I pitied the poor parental fools who weren't like me, who didn't understand the secret of these moments.  I was sorrowful for their boring souls - those regular parents, the ones who didn't come up with these unforgettable afternoons.

Some of the memories have left me now, but I am certain that some cheerful children's music played at just the right volume in the background; learning songs created just for the moment, I am sure. Other children in other places must have been thrown idly in front of their televisions, sad and bored, but oh no - not at my house.  I was in the middle of parenting bliss and victory.  I was good.  I was managing many.  They were happy.  They were engaged.  They were creating.

And there I was, thinking about how darn easy it all was, how sad I was for those around me who just couldn't figure it all out.  Poor things.

(Here is where I would make the loud car-brake sound if I knew how to spell it.)

Here are but a few of the things that happened in the next milli-second, the one following my thinking I was such a divine instrument of parenting perfectness . . .

• one child slipped off of the chair and began crying
• someone's shaving cream from their shirt got a little bit mixed up in the pizza sauce
• there were not enough pepperonis to go around
• a couple of the children did not realize that the same hand motions used in manipulating shaving cream were not the same motions needed in pizza assembling
• one child tired of the pizzas and grabbed the can of shaving cream
• two children began to argue, thus sending a few of the toppings into the air
• another child slipped off of a chair
• there wasn't really a great way to mark each child's creation to be identified after the baking
• a couple of the little darlings weren't really hungry
• and then - worst of all - one of my darlings looked up at me, with big beautiful brown eyes and asked the unthinkable - "Mama, what are we doing next?"

WHAT?  Next?  Next, everyone under the age of forty will be air-lifted from the kitchen through a hole I will now blow myself and flown to another continent! And we will never ever use shaving cream again or make pizza again or maybe never eat again - that's what's happening next!  Got it?

Hmmmm.  Maybe that wasn't one of those moments of parenting utopia I had thought two and a half minutes before.  

But, even though I know better, they still happen . . . had one the other day.

And, I believe tomorrow I'll tell you all about it.  

I'll get to that or maybe not.

I trust that with just a glance at the above two photos you quickly concluded some of the things that this blog WILL NOT be.

I'll elaborate just a bit for those of you who aren't quite sure. While these things are admirable and often coveted by me, this blog WILL NOT contain . . .

• photos of my home-made bolognaise sauce, from tomato seed to garden to shabby chicly (I know that's not a word; I made it up.) organized kitchen to bubbly goodness in brightly colored Le Creuset to extended farm table on the porch with family and friends of all ages enjoying the delicious, colorful, nutritious goodness while mason jar candles sway in the light summer wind.
• tales of the sheep and I together, beginning with that that first shearing and ending with antiqued photos of the sheep being cuddled by my three children in their mother-knitted sweaters for the cool fall hikes along the river's edge.
• a pdf. of the shopping list I've designed, with spaces for notes about which store I visit for which staples and symbols for coupons best to use at each location.
• my tips for organizing the linen closet, neatly enclosing each sheet set inside the matching pillow cases, labeled shelves for each bedroom's linens and that uncluttered area saved especially for readying the home for guests.
• how-to's on "last minute breakfast ideas for hurried school mornings" and "welcoming the children home with loving treats at the end of the school day."

My truths aren't like that - those aren't part of my story. I may spend too much time worrying about not pulling off the "Martha Stewart with scruples and a loving touch" but I just checked to see that the Le Creuset oval dutch oven is $234.95 and I am involved in other pursuits.

Truth is:

• My pots and pans don't match, though there are some really nice pieces that have held up since the wedding and we gave Tim a cool wok for Christmas. Last night, I proudly prepared and served a delicious and nutritious slow-cooked meal that everyone devoured- when Emma and I bragged to two friends what a scrumptious, garlic-infused dinner we had enjoyed, they simultaneously asked, "Where'd y'all go?"
• I don't have a sheep. I did lovingly raise four chickens from birth to adulthood at school last year, coddled them, photographed them, taught children to love them, cleaned up after them, talked to them, chased after them on Washington St., and learned their different sounds (really). I can sew, but not on a sewing machine; and when my children need patches 'sewn' on for scouts, I much prefer the sticky stuff that binds the badge to the material into eternity.
• I have been a coupon person, and I hope to be one again. I have known the feeling of 'beating the man' at the Publix, leaving with a "saved" total larger than my "paid" total. I just couldn't keep it up, though. I couldn't win the race. I quit. I did. I just wasn't in it to win it. I bowed out. For now, I am eternally grateful that Tim is willing to do the grocery shopping far more than me.
• I organized my linen closet once, and I found a lot of neat things. I found a stained glass window that Tim bought before we married. I found pictures in frames that were on my desk at my job in Raleigh in 1998. I found some gifts for 'that special someone' I had bought right when we moved into this house nine years ago. I found a lot of ball point pens - many, many. And a large plastic red and white clothespin. I did organize the sheets in sets, and it looked great. I felt so good whenever I opened that closet. I did.
• This morning at breakfast, I signed papers, Tim laughed with the kids, Molly looked for 'needed' art supplies and ate the gluten-free, sugar-free breakfast she prepared herself, Emma ate - oooooo, I'm not sure what Emma ate, and Harry ate birthday cake from his friend's birthday dinner last night. Really. I haven't yet prepared this afternoon's loving, tasty and nutritious welcome home from school snack.

So that clears that up. I want to do those things; really, I do. You could say that I am somewhat of a procrastinator. Or, you could wait until later to say that. Or you could write it down on a list and just know that you'll say it later.

Sometimes I don't get to the things I want to get to. I wanted to get the house beautifully decorated for Christmas, with lights strung from the rooftop to the lowest branch, all for my children to love. I did. The photos above were taken this morning on the front porch, January 5, 2012. This is part of my 'claiming what makes me special' campaign. Two days before Christmas Eve, Tim surprised the kids with blinking lights on a few bushes on the left side of the house. They loved them! On Christmas Eve morning, Harry and Emma took the box of lights to the front porch, faces aglow with anticipation of the spectacle they would soon create. They took down the groovy carving that hangs on the back of one column and carefully strung lights two thirds of the way up the post, using wide blue painters' tape to secure the hold. They still hang there proudly. Today, the box still sits on the small, Granddaddy-made picnic table to the right of the door, and the groovy tree carving rests atop, as if he patiently awaits his return to view. All of that is true.

Let's face it; the house didn't shine out as our neighborhood's example of taste and beauty in celebration of the birth of our Lord. We don't have our Christmas decorations 'put up' and our tree proudly stands now to celebrate Epiphany tomorrow. I didn't have small, decorated gift bags for those un-announced friends that drop in and the last minute art project we tried two days before Christmas didn't exactly work and has been 'taken care of' by Tim.

All of that is not to say it was not a holy and wonderful celebration. It was! I was late, as usual, at doing some of the things that needed doing. But we did 'press pause.' I could tell you stories, and maybe I will, of the fun that Emma and I had gluing together a wreath out of cheap, shiny red balls. I could tell you about the singing that I heard from sun up to sun down from Molly, as she 'hung out' and went about her days off. I could tell you about the "hole" that Harry and his friends dug in the back yard and how it became a lake and how proud they were and how gorgeous the new water feature is. (Okay, not that last part.) I could tell you about all of the laughing we did and the way the fire went non-stop on Christmas day and about the way my grandmother ended up telling us old stories about how great it was growing up, poor, in a mill-town, surrounded by family and friends as far as she could walk. I could tell you about how I am still cleaning up sheets and blankets and pillows from all over the house because there was family and friends and neighbors who played and laughed and spent the night and stayed lazy in the mornings. I procrastinated, as usual. I did. But somehow it always works out. Stuff gets done and some amazing things happen that can't be planned for.

Just now, as I took a break from cleaning to get edit some photos and then took a break from that to work on this blog and then put that off for just a minute to check out what was happening on Pinterest, I found this:

The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life. -Jessica Hache

So, for now I think I'll write a blog and take photographs of people I really dig!