Shelly Miles and her girls

My friend Shelly came by the studio the other day. We took a few newslady-ish shots so she could update her photos at work. 

"Hello, I'm approachable yet serious interviewer Shelly Miles. Tell me all your secrets Brangelina."

She also needed a few shots for her daughter's dance competitions. They happen to be prodigy superstars who travel throughout the year winning up all the awards in Texas. 

12 years old people.  

Then we went outside and took some funner pictures. Is funner a word? Spell check is not underlining it. Weird. 

Happy hump day. Also, thanks everyone who commented on the last post to say you're still reading. I love you guys. xo

Annnd there went the holidays.

It's misleading to call it the holiday "season" when really it's about four weeks of blur between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Four weeks. I have a still broken shelf that fell off my closet wall six months ago. I'm pretty sure four weeks is not enough to turn my life into a Pinterest board. Which, by the way, is a site you should totally avoid if you're trying to have a low key celebration, or maintain an ounce self esteem throughout the holidays. It is the insecurity-breeding meth of the internet.

Anyway, in the spirit of lowered expectations, and also because I'm pretty sure no one reads this blog anymore so who cares... here are some pictures from THANKSGIVING! Woo, only a month late!

We made our cornflake apple pie again.

I'm not sure what happens to them when they bake, but it makes for an awesome crust.
The girls preparing to become food bloggers.

We found a way to make even the vegetables unhealthy.

And then we went to the movies.
One way to get my son to let me take pictures of him is to tell him that I'm only going to photograph his sister. 

And I'm putting this random last picture in to celebrate all the rain we've been getting. Ever since we moved to Texas, I think I love it almost as much as I love the ocean. 

Hope your holidays were filled with everything that means the most to you. 

Halloween!

The holidays are here, along with cooler weather which is welcomed relief after spending the summer on fire. I find myself too eager to pull out boots and wishing for more reasons to be outside. But for as much as I love this season, it's also the time of year that I feel constantly overwhelmed. I know this is not unique to me. But I'm trying to be more mindful about the ways I spend my thoughts. So I'm setting two intentions for the next eight weeks: 1- to make my calendar correlate to my priorities (as much as possible), and to be in the moment (as much as possible). 

I know it's way easier said than done. I know that I won't be perfect at it. And a sense of calm actually just came over me as I typed that last sentence. We do so much, don't we? Performing. Expecting. Juggling. Planning. It's like the long way of trying to get back to ourselves.  

I'm not good at sitting still, and am the type of person who can barely go 30 seconds in the car without the radio on. For me, taking pictures has always been a kind of meditation. Because when you're taking pictures, you're forced to look at what is happening around you. When you're focused on that, there's no room for incessant voices and frenetic worrying. So yesterday, when I felt myself anticipating this seasonal overwhelm, I decided to bust out the camera again, maybe to use it as an anti-anxiety medicine. It helped me slow down. It helps me notice details. It helps me to actually be in my life. 

Even when life is as mundane and frustrating as the 5th grade homework. Dudes. I'm not even kidding, Jason spent an hour googling in order to help him, and I'm pretty sure that we are ill-equipped for the next ten years. 

The girls had to wait "ssooooooo long" before we could leave for trick-or-treating. To illustrate the extent of their boredom they spent at least half an hour rolling a marble to each other. Not like they have two entire bedrooms filled with toys or anything. 

Every year, I buy the worst candy in the neighborhood because I'm selfish and don't want to be tempted to eat whatever is left over. This year I might have gone overboard. People, I left this entire bowl on our porch while we went trick-or treating. It was full when we came back. 

Clearly not a fan favorite:

I'm not sure what Jason was. Maybe a suburban vampire. 

 Chance was Obe-Wan. I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but am too lazy to check. The Spider Countess kind of blew me away with her grown-up prettiness. These were test shots and also my favorites. I love the relaxed expressions of people when they don't think you're focusing on them. 

Emily on the other hand, had a fever for the second day in a row and was pitiful. She was TOTALLY AGAINST the idea of us leaving her at home, and was generally miserable. She couldn't bear the idea of missing out, so there she went, heated neck pad and all. 

Doug was almost as sad at the idea of staying home. 

When we got back, I let my daughter with a fever eat as much candy as she wanted. I might be a bad mother. But I've noticed that when I tell them they can eat as much as they want, they usually stop at a decent spot. Kids are amazing, and I want to be more like them.

Megan and her fiance Tyler came to see the kids. She even recycled her 70s costume from their party the prior weekend. The kids loved having them there. 

And I loved having someone to have a glass of wine and watch Housewives with. 

Good end to the day. Nice start to the season.  

Back to Cali / Mighty Summit

I just got back from the Mighty Summit. I think people usually get to go once. But a few days prior to the event this year Maggie asked if I'd like to come again as the photographer. I think it took me about five seconds to book my flight, in large part because of the incredible time I had last year. So many friends I met there, are now an integral, cherished part of my life. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet new women who would no doubt be (and were) equally inspiring. 

I was also excited because it's hosted in Guerneville, which is about 30 minutes from where I grew up. So I got to visit a few best friends from high school too. 

Coming from the Texas summer inferno where everything is dead or dying or on fire, I might have been disproportionately overwhelmed by the abundance of 70 degree beauty. I might have been so overcome that I was willing to risk a car accident to grab a few snapshots from behind the steering wheel. 

Hard to believe this is someone's every day. 

This photo doesn't do an ounce of justice for how beautiful this light was setting over the hills. 

It almost took away from the fact that my phone was dead and I didn't know where I was going. Realizing it too late to buy a charger in the airport, I tried to remember my friend Lisa's address from her text a few hours before. Note: it's not helpful when you only know the street name. I thought I would drive to her road and magic butterflies might emerge from her windows guiding me to her door with trails of glitter. Instead I knocked on three unresponsive doors until I realized I was going to have to wander town hoping for a Radio Shack to jump in my lap.

I even got out of my car at a gas station like it was 1999 to ask if anyone knew where I could find a car charger. That's when the cashier flatly pointed to the rack next to me that was FILLED WITH iPHONE ACCESSORIES. Seriously? That's when you know you're in silicone valley people. That's also when I got back into my car, and while waiting for my phone to charge, looked up and saw this:

Lucky! Car chargers in gas stations and A DIAMOND IN THE PARKING LOT. For real. Fifteen(ish) years ago I was walking out of this grocery store with my mom when she saw something sparkling in the asphalt. Turned out to be a loose half carat antique diamond. I should've purchased a lottery ticket while I was there. 

After charging my phone I made my way back to Lisa's street (again), only to be greeted by possibly the most charming human in the universe. 

I know I have three children and they are adorable, and I know all kids are sweet and amazing, I'm not comparing. I'm just saying that every so often Dakota Fanning or Jonathan Lipnicki comes along to knock you on the floor. Assuming your standing. If you're sitting, maybe they knock you back in your seat, or knock your socks off or the wind out of you. My point is that their precociousness knocks the crap out of you. Which now sounds like a rogue gang that might terrorize Disneyland. This is Stella. She's actually not terrorizing Disneyland. But one day she will be on television, or curing cancer or ruling the northern hemisphere. I spent the night being mesmerized by how much she could relate to adults. It was as if, in her mind, the only thing keeping her from letting us in on all the secrets of the universe were a few vocabulary words. 

The next morning I was on a mission to SEE EVERYONE AND EVERY PLACE THAT HAD EVER MATTERED TO ME IN THE SPACE OF HALF A DAY. I had a delightful breakfast with Lisa, pictured below with Stella Bella.

Then mid-morning coffee with Melissa and her girls, who let us talk for a few hours without even getting fussy. I've written about how much I love her before. It's always great to catch up in person. And I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season.

Crappy photo of the lovely proof that is fall upon us:

Had lunch with Vicki and Rochelle (two more HS friends). And it made me think about this weirdly awesome (albeit sometimes scary) facebook and twitter world, where even if you don't see someone for years, you pick up by talking about current events. No one needs to ask how many kids you have, where you're working, or what you've been up to all these years. We start with what we did yesterday. It makes me wonder what it will be like to be old in this world of easy connecting.  

To celebrate we took the obligatory, overly-processed, mounted-on-ceiling iphone pics of ourselves. ...You know, so we could post them on facebook.

Me and Melissa.

Rochelle, Me, Vicki.

You can check out the the photos from Mighty Summit on our flickr stream.   

Thirty seven

I've been sitting here for five minutes debating how to write this. It's so easy to slap up a few pretty pictures, say happy birthday to me and call it a day. It's harder to talk about what's going on under the surface. Especially when it's a relatively shallow issue, and I know opinions range from "ohmygod she's whining about her weight again why doesn't she just do something" to "ohmygod, she's not even fat she's so vain and ungrateful and needs to get over herself." 

But I hate the false perfection that sometimes comes across online, even unknowingly. While the entire internet may not necessarily be entitled to (or interested in) the details of my inner dialogue, if I'm being real I'd say this was the first year my birthday made me feel old. Not because I was turning 37. Because having (now) 30 pounds to lose at this age made me feel like I missed my window. I'm not sure what that even means, or how my life would (or wouldn't) change if I was thin again. But I think more than the collection of years, that "missing your window" feeling is what makes anyone feel old. Whether you want to get your degree, drink wine in Tuscany, or play in a sprinkler; it sucks to consider the loss of "I might never ____________."

For me, maybe it's being destined to wear an ass curtain on my bathing suit forever. It's superficial. It's embarrassing. People have real problems like divorce and cancer. Even in my life, this is the least of my worries. And maybe that's why I focus on it so much. It's a problem where the solution is still up to me vs. the real ones that are beyond my control.

I wasn't as much down about it as I was removed from the idea of celebrating. Until a conversation with Shelly a few days before when she said, "It's your birthday we are celebrating and that's that". She is sweet and bossy and knows how to snap you out of too much navel-gazing.

So I sent out a last minute invite for dinner to my favorite sushi place. My lovely friends showed up, some whom I hadn't seen in a really long time. I wish I'd gotten a photo of everyone because they made me feel grateful and happy, and reminded that there are much worse things in life than ass curtains. 

Like BREAKING YOUR JAW. My friend Neva (pictured in the left below) just went through that when she was running a few weeks ago. The doctors told her if she'd landed on her nose or head or neck she might not be here. Talk about perspective. And, talk about how running (and I'm pretty sure all forms of exercise) is really bad for your health.

Love each one of you who made my last minute birthday a fun night. 

If you're in San Antonio, you need to try Kumori. I think it's the best / most affordable sushi in the city, (coming from someone who has been to maybe three places). Still, you should go if just for the desserts. I think they made this one to help me celebrate that I'm now old enough to get a mammogram. 

Probably.

Since my birthday always falls on Labor day weekend, we thought it would be fun to "get away". So we booked a faux-cation to the Marriott. It's ten minutes away and we only stayed overnight, so it was awesome and easy. Okay, maybe there was one moment when I didn't think I or my ass curtain were going to make it to the pool. I may have pathetically texted two friends from the hotel bed while my family was swimming until I realized I was being a ridiculous example for my daughters. 

Leave it to kids to remind you what matters. 

It was so crowded on Sunday that we decided to rent a cabana the next day. Turned out to be unnecessary because everyone (who didn't live ten minutes away) was leaving. I'm glad we didn't know that before hand, because it was so worth it not having to solve any problems all day. They even brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the kids. I mean y'all, not having to feed my children is how I define a vacation... ten minutes away or not.

I even went to the spa, which had an interesting tradition called Los Siete Nudos (The Seven Knots). Each knot was supposed to symbolize a worry that you leave behind. I tend to keep my worries close (in my purse or pocket, or possibly tattooed onto myself). But the sentiment is nice, isn't it? 

Party animals that we are, the most glorious moment of the weekend was discovering that we could download Mad Men and watch it on the computer. I know I'm late to this train, but I've become so obsessed with this series. It's entertaining, but beyond that it's making me miss my Grandma, and wish more than ever that I could ask her all the questions I never knew to ask when she was alive. Like how much did y'all really drink at work? And did you really nap on your office couch? ... I might need to write a separate post about it.

For now, that's it. I'm officially 37. I'm good with it. And I'm making peace with my ass curtain.