spark

delurking is delightful

It's National De-lurking Week. Or at least I think it is. We'll just declare it to be so, ok? So, here's how it works: once a year it's lovely for the people who read but don't comment to leave me a little note. Even lovelier if you continue to comment when you visit! It's nice to know there's somebody out there. :o)

whatever happened to...the word of the day?

(word of the day 341/365: chill)

My father-in-law asked me last week how the blogging and the word of the day photos are going (he and my mother-in-law are regular readers), and my answer was: they're not.  I expected that the 365 project might get old, and it did.  First it became excessively restrictive to use an assigned word, then it became tiresome to even pick a word before taking a photo, and eventually even taking a daily photo and picking a word later became a chore, and giving myself permission to leave the camera at home for a day or week made sense.  What I didn't expect was that after the fall started and all three kids were in school for at least part of every day, that I would end up somehow busier instead of less busy, and wouldn't pick up the project again or have time for writing.  

So: WOTD is essentially dead in the water.  Well, sortof.  When I feel inspired to take a photo or document an event, I choose one to add to the WOTD collection, and think of a word to represent it, but there's no real "project" at this point, although I'm sure a few more photos will be added before the end of December.  It was fun while it lasted, especially while Griff and I were working on it together in the first few months.  Will I do it again? Maybe.  A while back, I noticed a Toy 365 group and thought it sounded right up my alley.

The photo on this post represents "chill', which is what is in the air here, as it was about 34 degrees outside when I shot this less than an hour ago.  The mahonias have set their buds, which will bloom from January through March.  They join the rest of the Word of the Day 365 set.  Some might still be blogged, the others will just live in the flickr set.  

There are other unfinished projects here on the blog and things I have promised people I would write about and/or share.  Perhaps they will be another "what ever happened to..."

pointless ineptitude

It was suggested to me yesterday by an honest friend that I might portray myself as a little more put-together and having-all-the-answers than I really am.  I'm not completely ready to admit that she's right (I mean, come on, I have an entire enuii category and the occasional honest-about-things-like-spanking post like this one or about lousy days, or about feeling like I don't know what I'm doing).

So, today, I'm going to share with you some recent little things.  I'm going to save the big, I-don't-know-how-to-raise-this-kid stuff for some time when I know where the hell to even start with it.  Today, a few little things:

♣ I don't know how to get dingleberries off a dog's butt.  This is bothering me because a dog is staying (temporarily) with my family, and he has a little problem today with hangers-on, and I may have offended him for life via a handful of baby wipes.  

♣ I've known all fall that I might need a passport in January, and now it turns out that I do need a passport in January, yet I haven't filed my application for a passport yet.  First-timer (another cause for shame...really? I'm 35 and have never needed a passport? Lame.).  Right there I'm already in expedited-applicationland, with the associated fees.  So. Got my forms, documents, photocopies, check all ready, went to look up one last thing, and realized that you have to make an appointment to present your application at the Post Office.  And there aren't any available until December 6th.  Because freaking everybody is trying to get a last-minute passport in December.  Smart move, Jess.

♣ Undeterred and unabashed, I call the kids' hair stylist because I haven't written down their appointment time, and I can't remember if it's today or tomorrow.  And she's all, "yeah...it was last Monday."  And somehow she had the wrong number for me.  

So, even though those are only a few things, now you cannot say that I always put up a front of having my shit together.  I am officially handing in my Queen of Organization tiara in exchage for the bells of the Jester of Ineptitude.  

Get real in the comments about your own minor lapses of competence, yo.  Also, if you would like to see a particular chink in the girl-who-has-it-all-together armor, tell me about it.  

the lonely blog(ger)

My name is Jess, and it has been 21 days since my last blog post.

We won't get into how long it has been since I updated my more personal family-cutesie stuff.  I don't even write stuff down any more.  Five million cute things have been uttered and gone undocumented.  (Oh, wait, today Reese said something about mint gum with a spear through it.  Maybe you had to be there.)

I'm wondering how it is possible to have everybody in school for 3 hours, 5 days a week and yet be more busy than before.  How I can be organizing things and yet feel so much less organized.  How I can go to so many school events and social events and yet feel so disconnected.  

Forget the 365 project.  I mean, I'm still taking photos, but I'm feeling intimidated by those possessing better skills and more experience than myself, and I'm lacking inspiration, and I've been alternately feeling like bleah, you can't make me pick up the camera and doing stupid dizty things like accidentally turning the camera off and thinking it's a dead battery, and not being prepared for the dead battery, either.  

One computer died, and I still need to get it fixed.  I need PhotoShop back.  I need a monitor on which I can see photos clearly.  I would also like to win the lottery, so that I can buy some L glass.  I want bokeh so smooth and color so rich and grain so non-existent that you just wanna drink the photos right off the screen.  

There's also the part where I'm moving my son from public school (this is where you all say in unison, "but we believe in the public schools!") to a private school, in the middle of the school year, in a prolonged-yet-not-prolonged-enough moment of raw idealism mixed with deliberate repression of the looming budgetary issues.  That might be causing some angst.  Maybe.  In a good way.  Mostly.  It kinda works in opposition to the whole better-lenses thing, though, but you can't put a price on the importance of a learning environment that actually supports actual learning.  Oh, wait.  You can put a price on it.  And it's worth about 5 pieces of L glass.  I can take photos when they're in college, right?  Wait, I have to pay for college, too? 

Yeah.  It's more about creating a creative environment than actually being creative right now.  

So it has been dead here.  Not that it was ever lively here.  I'll try to work on that.  Or something.

 

word of the day 169/365: spark

This blog is all about the things that capture my attention at any given moment.  The discoveries I want to share, the passions I have to follow, the moments that start a chain reaction in my mind or in my life.

Today brought a completely unexpected spark.  Patience asked me to join her on a Guerrilla Goodness mission and it turned out that she and I were just as much on the receiving end of that goodness as the family whose love we were capturing through our twin 50mm lenses.  Not only did we have the joy of spending the golden hour with these beautiful and fun parents and children, but we also discovered a level of playfulness, of teamwork, of shutter sisterhood that came as a pleasant surprise, and it has us thinking about how else we might join forces in the future.  I can't wait to share this photo shoot with you very, very soon!

hello!

If you just found us through RVA News' Raising Richmond, welcome! And a big thank-you to RR bloggers Patience Salgado and Valerie Catrow for including me in their list of favorite parenting-ish blogs. What an honor!

Griff is currently on hiatus from our 365 Project but plans to join me now and then.  I miss our joint exploration of each day's word and hope he'll rediscover his passion for it, but I completely understand how a daily routine can get a little stale.  (Maybe I need to bring something new to it, too...hmmm.) His input continues to show all over the place, though, and with the return of Spring I'm sure our family will have a lot to share. He has requested some simpler words (read: words he doesn't need defined for him) to balance out the awesome new-to-him ones we already have in our hat.  Care to share your kids' favorite words in the comments?

trust women

 

I didn't know about Blog for Choice Day until it was over, but had to pass along the link to this powerful, thoughtful post by Elizabeth of Spilt Milk. 

Trust Women means trusting that women not only have the right to soveriegnty [sic] over our bodies, but that we are capable of making decisions about them. Trust Women means that a pregnant woman can choose for herself what is best for her body and her life. Trust Women means that a woman is – and should be – in charge of whether she wants to be a mother, and when, and how many children she will have.

I hope you'll follow the link and read her entire entry.  "Choice" is about so much more than abortion.  I was reflecting yesterday that the first time I really had any idea about my own menstrual cycle (beyond the 28 day average, a basic mention of estrogen and progesterone, and the concept of ovulation and uterine lining) was when I researched birth control pills on my own, in a public library, at age 19.  I didn't have any understanding of cervical mucus until I was 29, after I gave birth to my first child and started reading Taking Charge of Your Own Fertility. (My OB later disregarded my conception date because he preferred to go by LMP and his ultrasound.  Guess who actually knew when I got pregnant?)  My parents are both medical professionals (one is an obstetrical expert), I was a "well-educated" youth at the top of my classes with a love of and aptitude for the sciences, and I entered adolescence, adulthood, and parenthood with more than an average level of information.  So why didn't I know these very basic things?  Why is "average" so low?  How can we expect women to have a fighting chance at reproductive autonomy if they know so little about their own bodies and the rights that affect them?

Choice is about educating children, giving trust, refraining from shaming, offering options, honoring pregnancy, allowing autonomy, supporting birth, caring for victims, supplying information, respecting differences, providing funding, letting women make their own choices for better or worse.  It is sex ed, freedom of sexuality, abortion rights, adoption options, healthcare funding, home birth and VBAC, hysterectomy options, breastfeeding, contraception.  It affects women at all stages of life. 

Trust Women.  

To read more Blogging for Choice 2010 entries, see the list on their sign-up page.

owning it

A discussion about photo privacy on Shutter Sisters made me curious - has anybody used my photos online without my knowledge?  I thought it possible that at least one or two have been copied or shared among people I don't know, it's common for people to share images they like with friends.  But how would I ever know?  Going out on a limb, I did what I thought was obvious, Googled theloushe flickr - my username and the site where I share my photos most publicly - and here is what I found credited to me:

1. My own photostream.
2. My own blog
3. Article about traveling with children (photo of my child and a friend's children)
4. Flickr "Hive Mind" page that collects photos with the tag "siblings" (by the time you go there, the pics of my friends' children in a peach orchard will probably have slid by)
5. Hive Mind "best" page of pics featuring Cary Street...the chandelier from the Byrd is mine. Not sure how long it will be considered "interesting."
6. A collection of click beetle photos (three of mine from May 23 are in there)
7. An announcement featuring a recent Byrd photo of mine
8. "Knowledge-worker" blog entry using a "pedestrians keep right" photo I took on the bridge to Belle Island
9. Something I cannot read (Russian?) that I'd like to translate, because it includes a photo of my sons jumping in a puddle.
10. Search for non-theistic images that includes a shot of my bookshelf, containing The God Delusion
11. Gifted education post with photo of my older sons on Belle Island
12. And old favorite shot of vitamins used on a health entry.

...and the last pic I can find, which the blogger has captioned "child communicating with his hands", is...

13. My eldest unintentionally flipping the bird at the camera.  The blog entry (translated from Spanish) is titled "More gestures lead to a better vocabulary."  Oh, joy.

Who knows what uncredited photos are out there.  Based on what I've just found, I'm content that people are finding me, not feeling like I've shared too much.  There's a delicate balance between exchanging information and putting creativity out there and exposing yourself.  Many people worry about what might become of their photos.  There is a strong concern about photos of children being available to "perverts" and disagreement about how likely this is, and how much harm is really done.  There is also concern about creative ownership. It seems likely that there are uncredited photos of mine out there, and I'm not sure how much concern I feel over this.  What is the actual cost to me or to my family?  Thus far, I feel that there is more to be gained than to be lost by sharing, so I will continue to use sites like flickr.

What parts of yourself have you put out there for all to see?  What is fair game, and what do you think you should protect? 

supersister for a day

Today is the day!  Please head on over to PBS Supersisters, where it is my honor to be a guest writer.

My hat's off to anybody who writes on a deadline on a regular basis.  I learned through this that I really do ADORE writing, but that writing and parenting small kids is a rough mix!

are you a supersister?

I am SO excited to announce that I'll be guest-blogging for the PBS Supersisters this summer!  Click on over to their site, read up on the ins and outs of the lives of these three sisters raising nine kids among them.  Wild boys, confident daughters, new babies, dirty words, family codes, lies, pride, hope, worry, and so much more is there.  Jen, Kristen, and Patience have made this site a real labor of love (and two of them have been in labor since starting it). It has been awesome watching the blog start to take off, as more people find out about it.  When you drop by, be sure to leave a comment.  In cyberspace, nobody can hear you read. ;)

I'm deeply honored to be invited to write for them!  Stay tuned!