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1,000th Post & Some Questions Answered

Barry & me in Newcastle, Australia watching the sun come up on our favorite beach. 2005

For some reason this 1,000th post seemed significant to me and I haven’t really been able to pinpoint why I feel this way, but this morning as I started thinking about how I wanted to answer some of your questions, I realized that this 1,000th post for me is more about why I blog and what it means to me and our family. I still remember in 2005 before Barry and I were getting ready to leave on our January – June Australian adventure and he set this blog up as a way to keep our families up to date on our trip. We’d clock into an internet cafe and I always had to whisper-talk to Barry about what ‘code’ to use because he’d set up the writing portion of the site for a computer nerd – and computer nerd, I am not.

By the time we came home from Australia and got our jobs, we weren’t really sure what to write about and the blog fell off the grid for a bit. It makes me sad to think about that time because we had plenty going on  – camping trips, dinners with friends, bike rides, and plenty of fun. We’ve got pictures and some half-accurate memories, but I wish that we’d kept writing during that time. Shortly after we got Sydney, I discovered The Pioneer Woman and her pictures and ability to write about the everyday adventure inspired me beyond words. So, we launched the blog up again and during our wedding planning we started to post with more frequency, with horrible pictures and writing that wasn’t coherent. (Can’t say that we’ve improved that much in the past five years, but we’re more thoughtful than before!)

It wasn’t until Little Miss Maggie Mae showed up on the scene that I realized how strongly I felt about documenting our lives. Time seemed to speed up and I could hardly remember one day from the next. I’d always found an outlet for my thoughts through writing – journals, notes, letters… – and the blog seemed to fuel that need that I felt to dump out my thoughts. Today when I think about our blog, I feel thankful that I’ve kept it up. I hardly ever go back and proof read  (sorry, folks!) and rarely do I regret my writing.

Personally, I think everyone should document their life – through pictures, words, drawings, songs – just document who you are. I know that I love reading my baby book and the notes that my mom wrote about me. It gives me snapshots of who I was as a young child, but more importantly, who she was as a young mother. I hope that someday Maggie will read this blog and she’ll get a feel for who we were, her parents, when she was young and even before.

Sure, so much of our lives isn’t on here, but the snapshots that are make me feel happy, proud, excited and extremely blessed. So, this 1,000th post is significant to me because it makes me realize that the words and pictures that have followed us on this blog from 2005 are truly the fabric of our lives. I blog to document that ever-changing fabric.

And now for some of your questions…if you’ve got more, feel free to ask. Seeing these come through has been really fun. We’re not using formspring in the traditional way, but we’re still getting some of your questions. 

How old was Maggie when it was evident that she’d have curly hair? 

Oh, the hair. I’d say that around 5 or 6 months we knew it’d be curly. We took a trip to Hawaii when she was almost 6 months old and that was the first place that I remember thinking that her hair was ‘having a party on top of her head’ for the first time. That said, I also remember very, very early on another parent of curly-haired children informing me that it looked like Mags was going to have curly hair, something that wasn’t obvious to us yet.

Where do you get majority of Maggie’s clothes? 

Most of Maggie’s clothes have come from local consignment/second hand shops. We’ve had some hand-me-downs from friends, but I really enjoy trying to find great deals in the local shops near our house. My mom has also made Maggie many dresses, skirts and pinafores. Occasionally I’ll find something on zulilly.com or a Groupon and buy it, but for the most part we’ve been able to buy used items. We almost always buy new shoes.

What kind of camera do you use to take your pictures?

I have a trusty-old Canon Rebel that I love and adore. Sometimes I daydream about upgrading my camera body from time to time, but I really am happy with my current set up. I have a number of lenses, with my two favorites being the 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.8. I try to only shoot with natural light and shoot in Manual mode as well.  I edit my photos using Lightroom. I poured over my owner’s manual and read many online tutorials when I first got my camera and still follow fellow photographers whose work I find inspiration.  I still have a lot to learn, but I love taking pictures.

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ARE YOU AWESOME?

*It should be noted that these images are from a trip to A-Town a few weeks ago and have NOTHING to do with my awesomeness today. But how much do you love the one of Midge and Mags? Adorbs!

I keep telling myself if I could just slow my thinking down, take a moment and record some words to go with the images of our life these days, I won’t regret it. Sometimes writing feels like working out. It is the best and worst part of my day. Sometimes I don’t want to do it, but when I do get around to doing it, I always, always feel better. Sometimes I have a really good workout/purging of words and other times it is just  boringly ho–hum.

This morning I found myself at the pool strapping on my lap suit, goggles and cap and I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d been at the pool to actually get some exercise. (Side note: Barry and I took Maggie on her birthday and we got to frolic around the splash park section together as a family. Two things about this: 1. Maggie loves the water and I can’t help but feel a bit proud about this, but the girl was jumpin and a jivin’ in the water. 2. We’re the family that totally matched. Barry and Maggie packed the swim bag and failed to mention that Maggie and would be sporting our pink polka dot suits together. If that wasn’t bad enough, Barry and Maggie both wore goggles perched on top of their heads the whole time, at Maggie’s insistence, of course.)

So I found myself at the pool this morning by myself and I was delighted to see that there was an open lane and only two other people swimming laps, along with the water aerobics class full of short-haired ladies. I shimmied into the open lane (which happened to be the Fast Lane, which = scary lane usually) and immediately started doing my lap swimming thing. My lap swimming thing looks like this: crawl stroke, back stroke, kick board, kick board above the head,  breast stroke, some more crawl stroke, just arms and repeat until I find myself wanting to do hand stands while I catch my breath. At that point I usually get out – after doing a hand stand or two.

I happened to be in the middle of my kick board/ kick board above head routine when an older gentleman got in the lane next to me. I had noticed him wading in the shallow pool with his water noodle earlier. We made eye contact and I gave him a smile, hoping that my slowness in the fast lane wasn’t bothering him. Turns out it wasn’t because he gave me a huge smile and said:

“I think you’re awesome. “

I couldn’t have heard him correctly because older gentlemen don’t usually use the word awesome and my ears sometimes play tricks on me. Plus, I was about to put the kick board above my head and kick my way down the lane until I hit the wall on the other side and by my standards of awesomeness, which I think are fairly high, ramming a kick board into the pool wall did not define awesome.

So I smiled at him and said,

“Excuse me?”

He smiled back and at me, and by this time he’d affixed his ginormous goggles on top of his wrinkled forehead, and said again:

“I think you’re awesome…”

By God. I did hear him right. He used the word awesome. But his words didn’t stop. I think because I had asked for clarification he felt the need to continue. And this this is what he said:

“I think you’re awesome for coming here. It takes a lot to get here, but I think you’re doing a great job.”

And then he again smiled a huge-ass smile at me, all while wearing his equally huge-ass goggles.

I thanked him and sheepishly swam away with my kick board above my head.

And you know what?

That old man totally made my day. For a split second I wondered if maybe he had mistaken me for some other chubby girl that has been going to the pool and swimming until she does hand stands and I felt bad that I’d stolen her compliment.

But then I decided not to feel bad about it because some mornings it does feel like a lot to get out the door and take a few moments to myself before Barry goes to work. And who cares if I couldn’t remember the last time I swam by my self.

Because I am awesome. 

The old man said so.

I left the pool with the whole “Pay It Forward” mindset and tried to hold onto it all day long.

I saw a guy rollerblading up a huge hill while we were parked at a light waiting for it to change and I wish that I could have found my courage to yell “You’re awesome!” at him.

I lost my mojo and tomorrow I plan to find it again….and tell someone that I don’t know that they’re really awesome.

Because even though I didn’t want to go to the pool this morning, I’m glad I did….there was a whole lot of awesomeness waiting for me there. I also didn’t want to write a blog post, but, by golly, I’m glad I did.

This must be what awesome feels like.