Category: Family

  • the crash

    One of the feet of my grandparents’ 1940s couch…the couch lives in our bedroom now, but this photo was taken as part of a series I did several years ago called One Hundred Sixteen.

    Yeah.

    I’ve given up cheese and bread and most processed foods. Most of the things I’ve survived on for the 46 years of my life.

    So it stands to reason that when I get hungry, and let too much time go between meals, I’d get a little despondent.

    Several years ago, probably in 2016 or so, I thought I was dying. I’d had radioactive iodine ablation therapy on my thyroid the year before, and my thyroid levels were not leveling out as they should have. And my calcium levels were high, and I felt terrible, and my endocrinologist was not sure there wasn’t something screwy going on with my pituitary gland….

    And I took several of the photos I’d taken in the five years’ prior, and converted them all to black and white and made them into square formats, and made a photo book out of them, and called the project One Hundred Sixteen, related to our address at the time. And I had Ilford silver gelatin prints made of all the photos in the book…..I wanted my husband and kids to have the best of what I had done with the previous five years, in photos, things that my eye had captured over the years.

    The photo above is one of those photos included in the book and prints.

    And that is how we came to have a crap ton of silver gelatin prints of my early work around the house, and even more live in a drawer in our dining room now, just taking up space.

    I don’t have the exif data from that file above, since it’s so heavily altered. But if I had to guess, I took that photo above with a Fuji X-T2 and probably the 56mm f1.2 lens or the 35mm f2 lens. Around that time period all I would have had was the 16mm, the 56mm, the 35mm f2, and the 90mm, all Fuji X Series native lenses. It was for sure either the Fuji X-T2 or the Fuji X-Pro 2 camera.

    I laid down for a nap earlier this afternoon because I was tired, and when I woke up I was in an awful, teary state.

    I sold off 4 GFX lenses and the second GFX 50sII body this summer, and now I deeply regret it.

    If I had the second body, I could go around with both Cinelux lenses on.

    If I had the 45-100mm and the 100-200mm lenses, I could better do wildlife photography.

    But at the time, I had things I wanted to do and we sort of needed the money and well…. so they went.

    And so my meltdown earlier today was about that, and was also about the fact that while nobody paying me doesn’t mean I’m not a photographer, I also realized what I have given up in closing down my business. Even if it cost massive amounts of money I never made with it.

    I miss people asking me to take pictures of things, and I miss even more having the gear I had to be able to do so.

    Now, arguably, the X-S20 is better for some of that than the GFX gear.

    But once you have shot with a medium format camera….it’s hard to go back.

    It’s sort of like people who have to downgrade lifestyle stuff.

    And I have worked hard these past couple of weeks. Our house isn’t perfectly clean but it is better. The window coverings situation is certainly better, having a dedicated laundry day is better, Nancy is better, having the garage emptied out feels better…..

    Having the garage empty means I can get back to my studio selfies. I should plan to do that in the next couple of days.

    But then I got through with my pity party enough to go make myself my smoothie– almond milk, wild blueberries, spinach powder, and a banana– and two sips into my smoothie it hit me:

    I was despondent because I was hungry.

    HA.

    Y’all, I am so used to processed foods and cheese and all the yummy goodness. But the things I am eating (today’s breakfast was late and it was almond flour crackers, decaf coffee with marine collagen, and walnut pieces, and I did allow myself a protein bar this morning)….. they metabolize faster. And take more preparation than just grabbing a string cheese and a protein bar, or some goat cheese and sunflower seeds……

    *sigh*

    I do feel better. I went to bed not depressed last night. It was nice to just know it was time to go to bed and not feel like the world was ending, or like someone was out to get me, a frequent feeling late at night.

    And there is personal drama I don’t care to go into going on, both for me and for Jared, and there’s just a lot going on.

    And I don’t feel particularly inspired to pick up my cameras, even if I pine away over gear I parted with.

    It all feels manufactured and pointless. Jared takes me to the Marina and I sit there with the camera in my hand and remember, not even really seeing what is in front of me.

    And honestly, the sunrise photos at the Marina and the duck pictures in the evening are boring at this point.

    It’s time for a personal project. And a reckoning.

  • absent but busy

    I’ve been quiet because it’s been busy around these parts.

    October 2 was our 21st engagement anniversary. We went to Sutton’s for dinner– yummy pecan chicken fingers! And we went to watch band practice. Jared got me the cutest little bunch of sunflowers, leaving them to surprise me as I walked in the door from my ladies’ group.

    Friday came the sad news that Eats in Atlanta is closing effective October 18. Makes me sad, but then I read a little and found out that the pasta bar– the station that I’d picked up the only thing I’d eat there– pasta with olive oil and garlic– had closed with the pandemic and never re-opened. So, we are not trying to go one last time before they close. It does make me sad, though.

    Late Friday night was preparation for the yard sale that we had Saturday. It was mostly a flop, we made a grand total of $17. But it was still a massive win because we borrowed my Mama’s truck and hauled off every last little bit of the stuff we had out, either to the convenience center or Goodwill. Not a bit of it came back in the house. So our garage can park both cars in it again, which is a massive, massive win. I am thankful. Goal achieved.

    Mostly since Saturday has been recuperating from Saturday.

    But, I am back to having a laundry day! Per Dana at A Slob Comes Clean, you don’t really know how much dirty laundry you have in a week until at least the second week, and that proved true since this is the second week. Mondays are laundry day and I was able to get all our clothes laundry plus all the towels clean today, so massive win. Everything is put away.

    I’ve been making dietary changes, too. My T3 is low– my endocrinologist wants to repeat the labs now that I have stopped drinking Athletic Greens– but I think my body is just not converting T4 to T3 as efficiently anymore, and I don’t know why that is but I’m going to my primary care doc to investigate at my next physical because I don’t know that the endocrinologist is going to be that helpful.

    I’m not waiting for my physical in December, though. I have gone mostly for an anti-inflammatory type diet. Today’s breakfast was a smoothie with a banana (a whole one, and yes! I chopped it in and put it in myself– those of you who know me will know what a big deal that is), a cup of wild blueberries, a cup of almond milk, and a cup of powdered spinach (!) (and yes, I drank the whole thing, really. Those who know will know how big a deal that is, too). And I downed a couple of tablespoons of sunflower seeds with the smoothie.

    Lunch was my beloved almond flour crackers, along with a 1/4 cup serving of walnut pieces.

    Snack was a 1/2 cup of banza pasta with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

    And dinner was half a container of egg whites, which equates to about 5 egg whites’ worth.

    It’s a far cry from my preferred bread and cheese fare. And I still have goat cheese in the fridge, but it will have to be an occasional treat now.

    Only really two days in (well, Friday and Saturday sort of counted until I threw in a Little Caesar’s Italian Cheese Bread in Saturday night and a strawberry banana smoothie from Costco which sounds good but has 25g added sugar), but I am feeling pretty good. It’s not going to be able to be an all-or nothing kind of diet– I cannot do this forever without little treats occasionally. But progress counts, right?

    So that’s where I am….still fantasizing about sugar and cheese. But much less grumpy and for once, not depressed.

    Also, the hell-beast cats have been released from their captivity and Nancy seems none-the-worse for wear.

    Anybody want a cat or two? For real?

  • a good day

    Atlanta fine art photographer


    No pretty pictures from the day. This is a photo from 2013, 3 houses ago.

    But one night sleeping without coverings on the double doors, and new window treatments are on the way.

    I spent the day ironing. Lots and lots of ironing.

    But, all the windows have their new treatments. I am happy.

    And, all of a sudden, I am re-invested in my house.

    And maybe hyped up a little bit that I actually have an interest in (and have completed) a project.

    I am so very, relieved to love my house again. It’s been quite a long time.

    Today, I feel like I’ve been a good wife and mother.

    I worked my tail off today, no joke. I didn’t sit down much.

    And, while I was ironing window treatments, I also finished laundry day.

    Laundry day doesn’t have to be one day, as Dana from A Slob Comes Clean says. And she’s right.

    In our case, laundry day actually wasn’t that bad. It started half-heartedly on Monday since I didn’t think of it until halfway through the morning and only worked on it a little bit (I always like to have laundry day be Monday) and it will end about 10:30 PM tonight, when the last load finishes in the dryer and I am able to get everything put away.

    And now I don’t have to think about clothes laundry for the rest of the week.

    Sheets will be another thing: I should get all the sheets in the house cleaned sooner than later.

    I think tomorrow will be another good run through the floors and putting the clutter in the primary bedroom away.

    At some point in the next couple of weeks I have to get to Porter’s room finally.

    I was listening to one of the many podcasts I listen to today and somebody said (I cannot remember which podcast) that the state of your home mirrors the state of your mind.

    In my case, that’s probably 100% true. There’s lots of dust, and clutter, and dirty laundry and dirty floors in my head, too.

    It was a good day. Oliver was inducted into the National Junior Beta Club, and we got to see the live broadcast of the CHS Trojan Band on the Gradick Sports Facebook page when we got home. They did such a great job, like they always do.

    It’s harder for me to be charitable about Central, my alma mater. The inside jokes are tired and they are inside jokes from well after my time. It’s hard to feel like an outside as an alum from my own band. But it’s been the case for a decade or more.

    I got to meet Oliver’s new girlfriend and family. They seem nice.

    Yes, my 6th grader has a girlfriend. *sigh* We managed to skip these things with the big boys, and are still so far even. It’s not even Oliver’s first girlfriend.

    I have tried, however, to encourage all of my children to not get into serious relationships until well after high school. I speak from experience on how that can go really, really, really awfully bad. Most of you probably know that story and if you don’t I think I made another post about it here somewhere.

    At any rate, I will go to bed tired tonight. And I desperately hope I wake up in such a state that I can do it all over again tomorrow.

    You can read more about my angsty self here.

  • not a soul-sucking day

    Just outside Newberg, Iowa last February

    Picture of vastness nothing Iowa cornfields that I took last February because it’s pretty akin to a desert, and I am kind of in that sort of mindset right now. It was a cold day.

    I’m not exactly depressed but not exactly vibrant and bubbly like I prefer to be.

    Nancy is better, and she seems to be eternally grateful to be alive. For once, she is very loving and interactive, which we are taking to mean that she understands that we did quite save her life (or at least her tongue) by getting her to the vet the other night. No more black drool or black crusty stuff around her mouth, and she’s eating and drinking as she should.

    We are not holding our collective breath that Nancy’s change in disposition is at all permanent.

    We put Nancy in Porter’s room, and moved Bess in there too, along with all their litter boxes, and have been feeding them canned food since that is what Nancy needs for at least the next few days. They both seem to appreciate the treat, and probably the respite from chaos of the dogs.

    And, I have gotten beyond my frozen action on cleaning the house: Today I cleaned the entirety of our guest bathroom in our laundry room. I cleaned the floors, baseboards, toilet, corners of the room, and sink and toilet. And dusted off the top of the intercom even though we never use it, and cleaned the top of the trash can even.

    The whole endeavor took me about half an hour.

    If I can spend this kind of dedicated time on even a section of a room in the house each day, then the house will be relatively clean in a few weeks.

    That is encouraging.

    I have also started budgeting more in earnest. Or rather: I am making a concerted effort to not spend money we don’t have right now.

    While Jared and I went on a date to Gallery Row tonight, we are not likely to do that on a regular basis.

    I did try a little photography today. This is a cameo ring I made for myself; I have several of these cameo rings I made. I had planned to post them on Etsy but honestly, I am not feeling it a great deal as far as Etsy stores go right now. I missed focus on the girl in the cameo and had to clean it up with Topaz Photo AI. This was with the GFX camera and the 37.5mm Super Cinelux lens– it’s. a great macro lens.

    I do not know how old this bird is; Sarah Belle gave it to me when I was in third grade but she said then that she had had it since she was a little girl, and she was born in 1920.

    And tonight, I am going to bed with hope for the future. I am almost ready to seek out more regular volunteer opportunities. I am ready to reinvest myself in our home, which I did quite fall in love with in 2021 when we found it.

    And today…..today was a good day.

  • for real: anybody want two cats?

    Abby and Trixie did not feel like having their picture taken this morning.

    I joked in the post about Nancy yesterday about whether anybody wants a cat, but it really wasn’t a joke– we really are looking to re-home Nancy and Bess. They’re a package deal though; a bonded pair.

    Bess
    Nancy

    On a wild hair one Saturday afternoon probably 3 years or so ago now, I wanted to go visit the cat cafe. And I wanted a cat even though I was noncommittal to Jared and the boys. And we came away with Nancy and Bess– a bonded pair.

    They’re good cats. Nancy may have a slight death wish given her recent shenanigans, but they’re good cats. And to all appearances Nancy and Bess are not a bonded pair, but things do go wonky with Bess’s litter habits when Nancy is not around, in all transparency. She is fine when she has adequate litter and Nancy. And to be completely honest, Bess is the lap cat– Nancy is definitely not.

    I just cannot keep up with the care of 5 pets. And MowMow is for sure Oliver’s baby, having spent much of the last 3 years in Oliver’s room since she doesn’t get along with Nancy. And Abby and Trixie….well…. They’re here for the long haul. They’re our children as much as our people children. And Trixie is Porter’s baby, and Abby is my therapy dog as much as I am her therapy human.

    Note that in the photo above Trixie was ambivalent about the camera, but Abby….Abby looked away because big cameras terrify her. I do not know why but the longer the lens, the more afraid she is.

    Plus, being 100% real here: the financial cost of caring for 5 pets is astronomical. We couldn’t afford them when we took them on and we can’t afford them now.

    Nothing will change if we can’t find homes for them. They have a home here as long as need be. We do love them and want what’s best for them.

    And all the boys know, and they all understand. They don’t like litter duty any more than we do, and they know our financial situation as much as is appropriate given their ages. Liam wasn’t in favor of more cats when we adopted Nancy and Bess.

    Liam is the most level-headed person in the house.

    I am trying to be more responsible, and being more responsible is doing what is best for everyone in the house. Including the cats, including the boys, including Jared, including myself.

    But if anybody local wants two cats….. well, it’s a serious thing.