Work Unfinished

My day has been tiring and I want to be done.  Done.  But I am not done.  I am almost done.  But my work is not yet finished. Today I exercised my passion and my passion turned into work.  Lots of work

Today was Make A Difference Day.  Every year my church has lots of fun projects that they do around the city and for the last 4 years or so I have been taking the photos to commemorate the event.  I am the historian, creating the Ebeneezer Stone to memorialize the event. Well they want to post fun slides of the event at the next church service.  Make A Difference Day is on a Saturday.  For those that don’t attend any sort of church service those happen on Sunday.  So take photos on Saturday, Have them ready and in slide form on Sunday, THE VERY NEXT DAY!!!

I am not taking quick snapshots from my phone.  I’m taking actual photos from my DSLR.  For those that don’t know, that means my camera is a ‘good’ camera, or at least better than any camera phone that you got.  And I don’t just take some silly snapshots.  I sit and try to compose the shot.  I go for heart felt meaningful expressions, and that says something when taking photos of people painting, or sweeping, or just making coffee for all the volunteers.  I care.

I care and I want to show the effort and results of all the hard volunteers.  That involves lots of photos.  Lots of photos that I spent three hours in the sun taking.  I came home and wanted a nap.  Instead I dumped all the photos on my computer I went to editing.  My workflow in Lightroom is fairly efficient right now so I was able to get all the photos edited and then posted to the Facebook page.  It was after the optimum time to post to Facebook but these kind of things tend to get enough likes even after optimum time that it always goes a little viral (well at least viral in our little church world).

But that is not what I need to get done still.  What I need to get done still is the slides.  The slides are collages and I always do them in a kind of fun mix.  Fun background with families volunteering together before and after photos.  And that is where I am.  My brain is a little fried, creatively speaking.  I want to go to bed.  All the other volunteers came home from volunteering and took naps, while I put my nose the the grindstone.  I’ve only done about a third of the slides for tomorrow and I know I won’t have time in the morning but I wanna just curl up in bed, read a good book on the couch, anything but those slides.  Shoot, I’m writing this blog right now because it gives me a break.

But alas, I will finish, sometime before midnight or so.  Everyone likes seeing the hard work that was accomplished on the slides in the morning and to be honest I like the small accolades I receive for the photos taken.  So back to work.  Or I might get a snack first, we’ll see.

Shooting for the Moon

I have been asked by my girls troop leader, along with another mom to help produce a monthly newsletter.  I was not aware of how daunting a task that this would be.  I’ve done church flyers and postcards and posters.  The kids invites to birthday parties are stellar and the valentines that they give out every year are the talk of the play ground.  I continue to receive compliments on the Christmas cards we send out well into the summer.  When it comes to putting together a good comprehensive design integrated with photos, I am pretty awesome at.  But this newsletter is something different.

1st issue from a design perspective.  The other mom is the wordsmith of this operation.  And she believes in content.  Lots and Lots of content.  We are featuring two girls in the inaugural newsletter and some of their artwork.  Every article needs at least one picture if not more and we cannot have to many.  And when I said she was a wordsmith I meant it.  She wrote tons on everything.  One of the articles was three pages long.  Ok it was a large font, but my statement still stands.  Making this into a coherent, and flowing newsletter would not be as big in issue for a multi-page spread but this is suppose to be an e-mailed newsletter!

2nd issue.  An e-mailed newsletter!  It needs coding!  Coding!  I don’t know how to code!   Coding is like a language all in itself.  A language that I don’t speak.  And it looks very intimidating.  Intimidating and scary.  Like if I get it wrong the internet trolls will all get clubs, find me, and beat me. To death.  Don’t laugh, I actually feel this way. Plus coding for e-mails is harder than regular coding.  Something about e-mail clients never getting the memo that the browser wars were over.  I didn’t fully understand it, but if enough internet trolls say it, it has to be true, right?  Well, codding, yay.

After dwelling on these issues a bit I realized that I was fretting my way out of an opportunity.  These were not issues but challenges.  Challenges that needed to be risen to.  Yes this would take more time and effort than all my previous projects.  But I am being asked to shoot for the moon.  I shouldn’t just throw in the towel but instead just go for it, shoot for the moon, and see how close I can get.  Wish me luck.

Good Company

For a good conversation I prefer to have a group of 4.  Four individuals is enough to add diversity and depth into any group dynamic, with story swapping, and funny interjections.  Any more than that and there is a risk of one voice being buried underneath all the others.  When you have less than that it seems that the conversation lends itself to a more intimate variety instead of lively or boisterous.  There are many types, but that is my favorite.

A Literal Confession

Words matter.  They should mean something.  With that in mind I have a confession.  I use the word literal literally to much and not in the right context.  I use the world literal when I, in reality mean figurative.  When I say that my mind is literally blown, my brains are not actually falling from the ceiling getting grey matter all over my laptop.  When I say I am literally starving, I am not actually skin and bones with nothing to eat and no way to get food.  When I say that I am literally going crazy, there is no clinical diagnosis where people in white coats need to take me away for my safety or the safety of others.  What I really mean is that I am shocked, I want a pizza, and that I would like someone else to take my children for an afternoon.  Words matter and I have used them wrong.  I am sorry, and if I do this again feel free to call me on this egregious oversight, I literally want you to.

Hello Internet

Hello Internet, or World, Vastness of the Cosmos.  This is me, Amanda, wife of Husband, mother of four, semi-professional photographer, arm chair philosopher, former PTSO vice president, current leader of the church tech team, digital scrapbooker, faux graphic designer, self taught historian, half-way decent cook, horrible housecleaner, and basic Jill-of-all-trades.  Well at least I try to be.  I also aspire to become at least halfway proficient at whatever interest my children happen to be involved in.

After a fun troop meeting last night Uno, the 9 year old girl child, wishes to be a structural engineer.  The concoctions out of trash that have been devised lately are more artistic than structural lately, but it is the thought that counts.  Uno may also be referred to as The Clone from time to time.

Dos is the girl child of 6, and her current interest that takes up the majority of our time together is music.  Piano to be precise.  I struck a deal recently with a good friend where I trade photos for piano lessons and am now reteaching myself how to read music and very basic musical theory so I can help her mid week between lessons.  I also refer to Dos as The Blonde every once in a while.

Tres, the 4 year old boy child, constantly constructs forts from pillows and bed sheets.  He is also slightly obsessed with all things lego and pirate.  I would say he was easy to keep up with if he didn’t run so fast, or if he had in off switch.  I also call him The Boy from time to time, but I may soon have to find a different name soon, mostly because of…

Quatro, another boy child claiming only 1 year of life, but that could be considered a great accomplishment surviving me as a mom for a whole year, but that is another story.  His interests involve hugging stuffed animals and trying to eat whatever is on the floor.  I spend a large part of my day taking Tres’ legos away from Quatro.  My other name for Quatro is The Baby for obvious reasons.

My thoughts, feeling, passions, and ideas seem to change from one day to the next depending on what is going on; with myself, with my family, in the world in general.  My hope for this blog is that I can chronicle that progression.  Life is a journey, feel free to follow mine.