6 posts tagged “life”

I know I know, I've been slacking on the blog this last week.  It's been a crazy week.

The day before Thanksgiving, we received word that our good friends lost their twin boys prematurely.  She went into labor at 21 weeks and, after several days in the hospital trying to stop the labor, the babies were born and did not make it.  We are all heartbroken for the loss of those two precious angel boys.  I know there are no words that can be said to ease their pain; only time and faith can heal that wound.

In other news, our entire household has been battling head colds for the last week.  It hasn't been fun.  Last night Jon started running a fever.  He came into our bed about 3 a.m. and coughed his poor little head off until about 5 a.m.  Diametapp cough seemed to help along with a good rubdown of Vicks, but no sooner had I settled back to sleep, Katie woke up crying and wanting to crawl into bed with us.  I ended up laying with her in Jon's bed and we both slept for those last few hours until it was time to get her up and ready for school.  Jon seems to be doing okay this morning.  Cough has subsided and his fever hasn't returned, so I'm hoping we're on the mend.  

Betwixt the medicine doses and nose wipings, I spent last week scouring eBay auctions for studio equipment.  I've managed to put together a budget studio setup for a couple hundred bucks and am anxious to get all the equipment so that I can practice practice practice.  I've got my website pretty much done (www.carleyschaffer.com) minus a few little tweaks I need to make here and there, and ordered some business cards today free from Vistaprint.  (I heart them!)  So I guess I'm now officially running my own business.  Wahooooo!  I don't have any pay clients yet, but I will.  I've been working on my pricing structure, online ordering system, and signed up for an account with Miller's Professional lab.  I've been a long-time customer of Miller's consumer service, Mpix.com, so it was a natural thing to go with them when the time came.  I still need to work on marketing the business, of course, but have some ideas on how I can achieve that. 

It's been a bit scary making all this happen.  I vascillate between being excited and charging ahead, to being scared and unsure.  Right now, my greatest detriment to myself is confidence.  Am I good enough?  That's the question that I ask myself 4,000 times a day.  I think I just need to shove that fear aside and keep pushing forward.  I'm certain that is the same question everyone who has ever ventured out into business for themselves has had to struggle with. 

Who knows what will come.  I can't remember where I heard or read this, but someone said "do what you love, and the money will follow."  No doubt, photography is my passion.  It is the one thing I never get sick of, the one thing that always challenges me.  There is nothing like the thrill of going on a shoot and getting that one awesome shot, either through mastery of the elements or pure accident.  You can't wait to get home and upload the images, tweaking them just so to make them pop.  There's a little bit of a rush.  A little high.  It's awesome. 

You just shoot and shoot, keeping at it, trying new things, absorbing everything you can get your hands on about the craft, and learning from your mistakes.  Kinda sounds a lot like life...

In the spirit of the season....I am thankful for so many things.

For my children.  For every time Katie says "Mommy, I had to go poopy," which is my cue to come wipe her hiney.  For every "I want chockonuk" from my son EVERY morning before he has even opened his eyes.  For every hug, every kiss, every dispute I have to referee betwix them, I am thankful. 

For my husband.  For his patience.  For his dedication.  For his unwavering support, his boyish charm and devilish laugh.  For his hairy back that he begs for me to shave (NOT IN THIS LIFETIME, BUSTER), I am thankful.

For my family.  For Dad being able to have his first Thanksgiving home in over 26 years.  For his freedom.  I am thankful.  For my sister and brother and their precious families, I am thankful.

For my health.  For all my gifts and talents.  For faith, hope and love.  For God.  Without him, none of this would be possible.

It's bizarre how getting ready to go on vacation feels a little bit like you
have to really get your shit together--and by that I mean more than just
making sure you don't forget to pack your underwear (which, for the record,
I notoriously forget OFTEN when we go away. Can't tell you how many times
I've had to trek to K-Mart down the shore to buy undies. Too many, I'm
afraid). To that end, I've got my lists -- my packing list, my shopping
list, my stuff to take care of before we leave list, etc. etc. And then I
have this totally insane list for the kids' caregivers, my dear MIL, BIL and
future SIL. And that list is insane because it has like, everything, in
it. All the important phone numbers, school info, the pediatrican info, bus
pickup/dropoff times -- I've even included the dropoff/pickup procedure for
Jonathan. It's freakishly detailed, so much so that my inlaws are likely to
think that I've completely lost my mind. They might be a tad correct in
that assumption.

At the beginning of the week I was still feeling that mixture of
nervous/excited that I spoke of previously. That was quickly replaced by
complete and total panic as I was typing up said "insane psycho
control-freak list". While doing so, I realized that if, God forbid,
something were to happen to Shawn or myself, we had nothing down on paper to
say who gets/does what. With anything -- the kids, the house, the money
(not that we have much of that, but still). Nothing. Not that we hadn't
discussed it--we had guardians picked out ages ago, but no will or other
estate planning stuff that would legally spell out all those terms. In a
bit of a haste, I bought and downloaded Quicken Willmaker 2008 and drafted a
will just to get the general "who gets/does what" should something happen to
the hubster or myself.

We still have to execute it, which we plan on doing right before we jump on
our plane Friday morning. While it doesn't clearly have all the directives
that I would like it to have (like specific dollar amounts and shares and
what to do with this or that), it's something.

This type of stuff is never fun. All the what-ifs, imagining the worst case
scenario (if we both die together), will we have enough life insurance to
cover everything? Do we have enough? Those answers are not yet clear, and
we've got some more thinking and discussing and planning ahead in that
regard.

In other news, Mexico is less than 48 hours away and, after the day I had
with my two rugrats, I'll likely be running on to the plane. Katie is off
of school Wednesday-Friday this week, and she and The Boy fought nonstop
today (must say that 80% of the battles were instigated by Jon, as per
usual). I also had my girlfriend's 4-year-old today. After a breakfast of
homemade french toast, we did a quick trip to the library for storytime,
followed by a visit to the soft pretzel factory (it's becoming our Wednesday
tradition), then back home. In a desperate effort to ward off any whining
and bickering, I had this wacky brainstorm of a craft idea where we
hot-glued pinecones to paper plates, painted coffee filters with
watered-down tempera paints, attached a red pompom, googly eyes and pipe
cleaner legs. Voila, a turkey! I even had the kids run out into the yard
and scavenge for some fallen leaves to glue to the plate, so it somewhat
looks like the turkey is sitting in the leaves. They turned out really cute...

1. We leave for Mexico next Friday. First trip ever without the kids. I'm
excited/nervous/excited/nervous. Repeat ad nauseum. Depending on how next
week goes, I will either run on to the plane like a crazy person just giddy
at the prospect of spending five days in paradise with her hubby sans
kiddos, or someone will have to shove two klonopin down my throat and drag
me on to the plane by my hair. You just never know how it'll be. Why? Cuz
part of me can't wait to go, and the other part is worried about leaving her
kids for five whole days. Gulp.

2. Speaking of hair, I got my hair cut. Like, really cut. It is up to the
nape of my neck in a cool 80s hipster stacked bob thingy. It is presently
thrown up in a cheap plastic headband but when I actually take (have) the
time to do blow it out, flat-iron, shine and spritz it up, it looks quite
schnazzy. Additionally, my hairdresser foiled it with three different
tones: a rich brown, an auburn and golden blonde for highlights. She deemed
this little work of art "autumn harvest." Given my complete lack of
consistency and follow up re: my hair, I wonder how long before my roots get
so bad from neglect, the blonde highlights are ashy and dirty looking, such
that I go from "autumn harvest" to "white trash ho-bag in need of a dye
job"? I should take a picture before it gets like that, huh?

3. Katie and her pee issues. Her urinalysis came back from the lab totally
clean. So, we've been referred to the Dove
Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The problem is still a
problem. During her party Wednesday at school, she went to the bathroom
four times. Before school each morning, she goes at least four to five times before we
even get out the door. I try to talk to her about it, but she doesn't seem
to be able to articulate what, if anything, might be causing her to go. I
am not going to push the issue anymore. We see them on the 27th, and I hope
then we'll get some further guidance.

4. Last I heard, my BIL and future SIL have set a date for their wedding:
July 11, 2009. I am so damn excited, and also thrilled because that date is
special for Shawn and I as well. We will be together 17 years on that
date. Weddings are so much fun. And this one is particularly special since
the four of us are in it. Should be interesting to see what Jon does in a
tux.

5. I register for spring classes today. Litigation and Civil Procedure and
Business Law I. Woo-freakin-hoo. Actually the former should be a
breeze--spent the early part of my adulthood as a litigation secretary. I'm
excited about Bus Law, tho. That's one area I'm not all that acquainted
with, so hopefully I'll get a lot out of it.

Ba dee ba dee ba dee, dat's all folks!

What experience or moment in your life have you learned the most from? 
Submitted by AngieK. 

I can't pick just one event--all of them have affected and defined me (or redefined, in some cases) in some form.  I learn something new almost every day.  I think if you aren't learning SOMETHING from your experiences, then you need to rewind and pay closer attention.

I'm so disappointed in myself.  I realize I've been making exactly ONE post per week since I started back to school.  Unfortunately, these last few weeks have been busy in all domains of my life -- work, home, kids, school.   And, in regard to going back to school, I had conjured up in my mind it would be a fraction of the amount of effort it took to survive my final coursework at Drexel, especially considering I was doing two three-credit courses in six weeks' time, plus selling out every Saturday for two years to attend classes.  It was intense.  Kinda like doing step aerobics with a medicine ball strapped to your ass.  I had expected these two little classes I enrolled in at GCC would sort of be like taking a long, leisurely walk, without kids, with camera in hand for stimulating interest. 

Unfortunately, it hasn't quite been that, especially since both kids have come down with illness, work has been totally batshit every night for the last two weeks, and we've had some stuff happening at home.  Stuff like, oh, forgetting to pay the water bill and having the water shut off (DOH!). This little PITA, along with other little snafus, the sum total of which have seemingly happened right at the moment when I'm entering into what I've lovingly come to term as "Carley's monthly crazy time."  And that, as you may have guessed, is the premenstrual phase, when even the most trivial of mishaps suddenly feel like the apocalypse is imminent. 

I mentioned before that Jon had pneumonia two weeks ago.  This week it was Katie's turn. Tuesday night she complained of a headache, and a little while after that she started running a temperature.  It turned out that she had come down with some virus that I SWORE was the same pneumonia Jon contracted two weeks ago.  But, after a trip to the ped, it was determined to be a virus after a listen to her lungs proved clear.  Her tonsils were huge and red with those lovely white patches, but a throat culture proved negative for Strep.  The throat culture was pretty intense and not something I'll want to endure again anytime soon.  I had to hold her in my lap and cross my arms over her to restrain her while the nurse practitioner swabbed her throat with those super-sized q-tips.  She gagged, kicked the nurse square in the thigh, and reared her head back and almost took my nose out in the process. 

Thankfully, she's all better today and will be returning to school tomorrow.  I had class this morning, so I dropped Jon off at his school and my neighbor agreed to keep Katie while I went to class.  She had a lot of fun over there -- made a cute halloween craft and my neighbor went through some of her teenage daughter's old toys and gave Katie this gigantic bag of Barbie dolls, increasing our household Barbie population to greater than 20.  Only problem is we don't have enough clothes to dress them all, so what we have here is essentially a plastic nudist colony of Barbies and Kens.  I just trekked through the family room where Katie has her new colony all spread out and it looks like Hedonism down there.  I just chuckled and made a mental note to add "Barbie Clothes" to the Christmas list.