Trash talk

And don't you forget it!!!

forget smores!

This is what you do when you're sitting around a campfire with nothing to do but hang out with your friends and entertain your love of photography. These were done with a hot poker, a long shutter speed and about 100 takes to get the perfect shot. It was a blast.

But speaking of smores, my husband happens to make them perfectly.

CAMPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am a photographer.

I have spent three years scared to say those words. Three years ago is when I purchased my Canon digital rebel but prior to that I was the girl with the point and shoot that always had their camera in someone's face. With the acquisition of my precious digital slr I took it to another level. Though I didn't understand my camera and its functions all that well, I used it relentlessly. I never traveled without it.

I have loved photography in such a heart-centered way. It really makes me happy, all aspects of it from setting up the composition to the editing. I have learned a lot through trial and error and good old fashioned time.

So now here I am in my 35th year of life ready and excited to say the words "I am a photographer". It is the following reasons why the time has come.

1). I actually understand my camera now, understand it in a way that I can comfortably shoot on manual settings. This has been beyond liberating! I can now tell my camera to do that which I was doing in the editing process. It has been the most empowering aspect to not only my confidence as a photographer but to bettering the actual work.

2) I have done this consistently enough through the years to know in my heart of hearts that this is something that I love to do.

3) I have put a lot of work and energy into my photography. I have tens of thousands of pictures on my hard drives (it's actually quite ridiculous). I have spent an obscene amount of time in the editing processes. And I still love it.

4) I'm getting gigs. Over the weekend I shot my first wedding. Friends have used me for family portraits. The feedback has been inspiring.

5) I have so much fun. This may be the biggest reason of all.

 In the past I have been scared to say the words "I am a photographer" because I felt it diminished the work that actual photographers have done. I didn't have enough confidence to step out of the novice waters and make the bold statement, enough confidence to say that I was an "actual" photographer. Even though I could watch myself in action and see that there was an intuitive level of confidence that arose whenever my camera was in my hand.

I no longer feel that I'm diminishing anyone else's talent by saying that I am a photographer. Art is art. I make my art as others make theirs, and in the end it all gets released into the universe to inspire or not inspire. I put up self imposed barriers to myself and I am ready for those to come down. I am doing this now. I am doing it and I love it. Capturing the sweet moments of life brings me the most profound joy.

I am a photographer.

Friends

Some little friends are friends by default. They are born knowing each other.

And as they start growing they are lucky enough to always have their friend(s) around.

When they're bigger they start making their own decisions in life.

Pretty soon they are friends by choice. 

We continue to be so blessed with our favorite next door family. They are such a part of our community, our friendships, and our hearts. We love you guys!

Mornings, and facts about them

Fact: I very much want to be a morning person

Fact: I love staying up late.

Fact: Sometimes I'll set my alarm for "early" and then slug my body into the living room and just sleep on the couch, usually with my mouth wide open and drooling

Fact: My husband think I'm hot.

Fact: That was probably sarcastic.

Fact: I often have my running apparel all ready to go for that early morning jog. 

Fact: My nighttime idealism almost always makes me laugh in the morning.

Fact: When I do get up it's extremely painful to my eyes, which become mere slits of burning red eye flame when I try to open them up in the morning. 

Fact: I should probably not wear my contacts so much.

Fact: I don't like wearing glasses as I can only see in the tiny bespeckled part of my face.

Fact: If you're going to attack me, it's best to come from the side when I'm wearing my glasses.

Fact: I don't want to be attacked.

Fact: I should learn ju-jitsu. Snap kick! Hi-yah!

Fact: I need to be working now.

Fact: I'm awesome. 

But I'm not as cool as this kid.

"Are we here now?"

Ellie, you ask me this whenever we go on a car trip. It's the cutest take on "Are we there yet?"

smitten

Honestly, you crack me up beyond measure;I look at you with pure amazement. The world seems to be making sense to you, and your take on it is beguiling. To hear your high pitched voice insist on cold water in the tub because "Momma, I like cold things now" requires a conscious effort to not laugh from the cuteness. Your artistic abilities are starting to take true form, maybe not so much for us but for you "It's a teapot". "It's a cow". "It's a basketball". You have words for everything now and it's such a pleasure to be able to communicate with you using language.

I still tell you that you'll always be my baby, because honestly, you will be. But you take this very seriously when you get out of the tub and insist that I wrap you up in a towel and scoop you up because "I am momma's baby".

You are growing up and you are pure beauty. I just fall more and more in love with you everyday.

When you ask me "Are we here now?", I reply "Yes, baby. We sure are".

I want to savor here and now more than I could ever articulate.

Where in the World is Queenbloggy?

Back to three

Yesterday morning Ellie woke up and said "Mommy, are our friends leaving today"? (She was referring to my college friend Kyna and her boyfriend who have been with us for a week).

"Yes, Ellie, they have to go back home today."

She said "Is Izak leaving today" (She was referring to her cousin who has been with us for two months).

"Yes Ellie, Izak has to go home today."

"Why is Izak going home today?"

"Because his mommy misses him."

"You mean I'm going to be all alone?"

Gulp.

"No honey, you won't be alone. You have Mommy and Daddy. We can do something fun today, like go to the zoo or the museum."

"Or play with markers?".

"Yes. Or play with markers."

And such is the brain of a child.

***************************************

We are on the heels of a whirlwind summer. We spent the past week nestled in an adorable mountain town with our friends, and the past two months integrating my nephew Izak into the family.

Oh Izak.

Ten is hard, and well, just so different then THREE, which is what I know. But I think we did okay. We had a lot of fun times. There were some hard ones, too, but as I've written before, it's all a part of the whole.

I liked being a family of four. I'll just say that.

Losing our fourth family member is bittersweet. It feels nice to get back into our routine again, but it makes me so acutely aware that our family is not complete. Why is this so challenging?

This is a rhetorical question. I'm tired of hearing "You just need to relax about it". "It will happen when you're not putting so much energy into it". "It's just not your time".

STOP. It hurts and stinks and I don't understand it and I can assure you that none of the above statements makes me feel any better. It just is.

*****************************************

I know that families don't always manifest as you envisioned them. Sometimes having a big heart and a loving home will bring people to you, in my case nieces and nephews. I know they are not mine to call as my children. I know I did not give birth to them.

But like an adopted child, which we may one day have, you love them because you are love. You set four (or more) plates at the table and you eat together. You drive people to various locations. You go about the routine, changed or unchanged, because that's what families do.

I have a lot of love to give. And a lot of place settings.

Today I feel sad and inpatient waiting for Ellie to have a brother or a sister. This is not how I feel every day, but today, on the heels of hugging my nephew goodbye, I feel "the loss". We all do.

Fashion Friday: When Mama DOESN'T Get a Say

Gone are the days when my child would willingly  wear the outfits I meticulously pick out for her. It's kind of hard sometimes to not want to force my fashion sense on my daughter. She wears a LOT of raggy t shirts these days, which, whatever, it's for school where she's making whipped cream collages and fingerpainting. But still, all those pretty dresses hanging on the closet and slowly dwarfing in size to her ever growing body? Well, they sure look pretty on those hangers. Now even bribery is not able to stand up to my daughter's very strong will and sense of haute couture.

So you pick your battles in life. And sometimes you just gotta let a kid be a kid. 

Here is what she came up with with absolutely no input from momma. 

I'll have you know I even took her to the grocery store in this little ensemble. Fashion Friday material fo sho!

Top: Elmo pajama top

Bottoms: silky thrift store find

Socks: I mean, those are kind of cool

Hat: Made by the little sparkle herself.

You are too cool for school, kid! I just love ya!!

Me lucky charms!

I'm going to sit here and totally admit that I just binge ate three bowls of Lucky Charms.

Three pretty big bowls.

Bowls that I convinced my husband to leave the house to obtain. Obtain because I was CRAVING Lucky Charms.

I do that from time to time, with the Lucky Charms.

Cereal that, should it not be for this confessionary blog, I would blame the newly low contents of on the effects of gravity; a settling of particulate matter.

Nope. I ate it.

I also met an old high school friend out tonight that I literally have not seen for 17 years.

And I had three glasses of Prosecco.

And my husband picked up my moderately buzzed bee-hind, complete with two kids and a pizza that was taken out of the oven mid cook.

(my husband is awesome)

The Prosecco  made the cereal eating legal.

Well not really, but dietary legal matters become less important when you are buzzed.

Cereal. Prosecco. I still need to chart. (Blehhhhhhh) Look at me writing a blog post.

My daughter wants me to read to her.

Tee hee, mommy's got the giggles.

So  I did have a laugh tonight!

And I thoroughly enjoyed me Lucky Charms!

Old friend Mark. Still awesome.

SuperNag

As I'm sitting here staring at my blank blog post I'm realizing one startling, kind of sad thing:

I can't remember the last time I laughed.

WHY is this? Laughter is the best medicine, right? I used to laugh all the time. I have solid parentheses around my mouth from being, generally speaking, a pretty happy person. Who laughs.

I mean, not that caring for dying patients isn't a hoot and all, or the aging process of caring for two kids isn't wrought with comedy, but come on! A good solid belly laugh? When was my last good solid belly laugh?

Crickets. Laughing. (those bastards)

I learned yesterday that 35 of my PTO hours that I thought were mine, were, in fact, not mine. They were a glitch. That wasn't funny. That made me want to twist my face into some weird contorted position and yell out "NOT FAIR!!!!!"

My time at work is being analyzed, in a major way, and I've had to do this time tracker thing where I analyze everything I do in my working day. Drove in car to so and so's house: 13 minutes, Booted up computer: 3 minutes, Talked on phone: 4 minutes, Assessed patient: 35 minutes. Farted. No, I didn't fart. That was meant to be funny.

But maybe I can't remember how to be funny?

Home from work I then get one kid, usually Ellie first. Adorable. Man do I love that little sparkle! Then we get Izak who does not provide the usual run-and-hug-cause-missed-you-so-much kind of greeting, but still, it's good to see each other. Now it's here, at this juncture, where my personality reflects its lack of personal laughter. It's when I miraculously turn in to:

Thirty-something-mom-who-overly-nags. One word.

As the nagging spills out of my mouth I am fully aware of my new image. "You need to wear the sunscreen lotion on your face, not the spray". "Pick up your toys". "Wash your hands.""Put away your lunch bag". "Wash your hands again". "Time to take a bath". "Three books only". "No ipad!"

What. Have. I. Become?

I've become so uptight that I can't seem to access the relaxation required for a good solid dose of laughter. Please someone come over here and unwind my inner bitch. Come show up in a clown suit. Moon me. Tickle torture. Something!

I want what she's having.

Four of us.

So we continue our summer as a family of four.

It's strange to suddenly have a new family member in our routine, in our culture. It's required some adjusting. My nephew Izak has been with us for a month now and all in all, I'd say he's fit in pretty well.

I will be honest and say it's not always easy. Somedays my patience runs very thin. Sometimes getting two different kids to different locations and getting to work on time is, como se dice....challenging? Unless I have everything prepared the night before: clothes picked out, lunches made, KEYS LOCATED, work phone and computer charged, etc etc then we can get out relatively unscathed. But this is usually the exception to the rule.

But this is the thing I remind myself when I'm in those crazy making moments: this is a summer to remember. I hope don't think the kids will remember our frustratingly crazy mornings or the pinch in our wallets or the constant nagging to wash your hands.

What does a child remember? At three? At ten?

I hope they remember the camping. The singing. The hula hooping and the hiking. The evening walks. The car drives to new and exciting places. I hope they remember playing "Circle of Life" on full volume over and over in the car. The feeling of being together: happy, safe and loved.

Life is not meant to be all sweet. There are many flavors to living. But hopefully the sweet parts will be the most memorable.

Month in review: July 2012 (the dog days of summer!)

Where in the World is Queenbloggy?

working through this

Roughly 7 miles away from my home is where 12 people lost their lives in a horrible mass shooting. In a hospital roughly 6 miles away lays a young mother, in and out of consciousness and paralyzed, who still does not know that her 6 year old daughter was among the fatalities. Fatalities that include a 27 year old who was celebrating his birthday, a 32 year old mother, a recent college graduate, a recent high school graduate.

Last month at "Jazz in the Park", a concert series in the park 2 blocks from my house, a woman police officer, off duty, was shot and killed.

In Park Hill, the next neighborhood over, there is gang related activity reported on a monthly basis.

I will never understand this. Why do humans inflict this kind of terror upon each other? Why must innocent people..children..be killed?

I have to recognize this hard knot of grief for what it is, even though it is entirely difficult to name. As a mother protecting her daughter from the dangers in the world, as a public nurse working in a large metropolitan area, as a woman who is starting to feel a real sense of anxiety in crowded spaces, my world is being rocked with fear. And that's such an unhealthy little monster to to live with.

I don't want to go to the public pool and be worried about gang activity, but I am.
I don't want to be scared to go on a walk after dark, but I am.
I don't want to find scraggly looking men going through the dumpsters in the alley, but I do.

I love Colorado. I am happy here. But my happiness comes more from the mountains, in nature, where all things feel right with the world. Here, less than 2 miles from downtown, we are urban. And though I personally feel a tight community of friends around me (and that does, also, give me true happiness), I find myself questioning if choosing this urban lifestyle is worth it while raising a young child. My husband makes the argument for diversity. I don't like that argument. I'm not looking for diversity, I'm looking for peace of mind and safety.

I feel shaken to my core with this recent movie theater shooting. My feelings are confusing and difficult to navigate. I know that I feel deep sadness for all the families of the deceased, and for that woman that goes in and out of consciousness, still unaware that her daughter is dead? I honestly don't think I'd want to be woken up.

Is this morose? Sorry. This seems to be the world we live in.

I want to be IN the mountains.

Where in the World is Queenbloggy?

Exactly where I am.

I am entirely through with ever questioning my judgement about living elsewhere. In the past few years I have been afflicted with the ideas that somewhere else is better. Closer to family (well that's a hard one to discount), closer to the ocean, closer to places that resemble my own childhood.

There is a feeling of true euphoria when I get in to MY element: the mountains. It never dims. I feel like a child running through a playground with a wide mouthed grin. " LOOK!"

I think it takes a lot of personal know-how to figure out where you belong. I don't have the tight family unit with parents living in the same house I grew up in. No where near that. I have a family of travelers and wanderers, living on opposite sides of the country. I've lived on opposite sides of the country, on two different oceans, at different points of my adult life. And now I live in the middle. I'm ocean-less. I traded in my oceans for Rocky Mountains, and for me, that was the better trade.

I'm going to start a new series called Where in the World is Queenbloggy? Clue: It will likely be in Colorado. The Colorado summer is JAM PACKED for us; it is like this every year. Every year we save up money and energy for the glorious summer and autumn season where we are climbing 14,000 foot peaks, boogeying to bluegrass music, or simply chilling around a campfire with a microbrew.

I will not lie that sometimes life is extremely challenging, especially with the summer months being SO busy. But when I leave the hustle and bustle of the job and the city, I'm back to where I belong, back to the peacefullness of the mountains and back to the inner KNOWING that I'm exactly where I should be.

I will always pray that Ellie finds her bliss in the mountains, so that she could always be happy living close to her mama and papa, and so she will know the humbling gratitude that is just outside her door.

slanted light

When the Sun hits the Earth, 

slanted light,

the world is sacred.

Bathed in silky, honey gold,

dew drops glistening, 

the morning songs of birds,

it is here that my heart feels whole.

Before the children wake up, and 

the work duties begin. Before the 

cleaning and the doing and the getting 

to places on time, it is here, hovering

below the surface of the busy world

that magic is happening.

I long for this time,
when I don't need to look good
or be a certain way or try to please anyone.
Where all that I am is only perfect,
where I can be
the wild, loving creature that I am.

I forget this, sometimes, 

and in hurried fashion try to compose myself

for a day of responsibilities.

I miss the magic when my heavy heart

is too busy to stop 

and remember the healing that is

hovering below the surface.

Today as I felt my muscles move my bones 

along a path bathed in honey gold

I felt tears welling up inside, wanting 

to spill out. Grateful, for the reminder

that wholeness is here for the taking,

.here, when the Sun hits the Earth,

slanted light

and the world is sacred.

Death: when everything goes RIGHT

I lost another patient. He (maybe a guy, maybe a girl, but I'm disquising it for HIPAA) was only 50. Fifty and INCREDIBLY vibrant. We used to talk about his adventures, climbing large foreign mountains, his photography, his really great taste in decorating. I liked him, a lot. We had some very poignant existential conversations.

(One time I spied on him on facebook. I actually do that quite a bit on my patients. I learned about really truly amazing things this guy had accomplished. I was very impressed.)

Watching a tumor in the brain grow is difficult. A myriad of things could happen, it just depends on what part of the brain is affected. Things start happening that are not normal. With him it was difficulties saying what he meant: word salad. You knew he understood but he couldn't get the words out to acknowledge it. Sometimes conversations took a good amount of patience and a certain finesse in trying to make the conversation less frustrating.

Eventually, and in a rather slow fashion, there was paralysis, a growing need for assistance in all activities of daily living. Eventually barely even able to speak.

And then the normal trajectory occurred: bedbound status, inability to swallow, sleeping all the time and eventually a comatosed state.

But throughout this process was a family that was advocating for his best care. He had his "team" which was me (the nurse), a social worker, and chaplain who gathered together frequently to figure out what modifications needed to be made to support his current status (which was constantly changing). There were music vigils (an AMAZING perk at The Denver Hospice where I work) where a a harpist played and sang soft, soothing music while family gathered around him, holding hands and crying, not needing to use confusing words. He ended up having several music vigils. He had visits from a priest, and most importantly he was always surrounded by people that loved him.

He died peacefully on Wednesday night with his entire family at his bedside, ready to say goodbye, loving him dearly.

It was the perfect death.

I often feel sad in this job. I get attached to people or I have empathy for their family, making the death of my patient feel very heavy on my heart. It's impossible to avoid the sadness sometimes. Being so close to death can be so intense on a person's soul. But sometimes, and often on the rarer occasions, everything goes right. Sometimes the patient and all that surround him find peace. And in those occasions the sadness is not as prevalent as the gratitude: gratitude for the person, for my job, and for the experience of being there to help make it perfect.

We are all going to die, and as I watch people do it with grace, it makes my own mortality feel sacred.

I sometimes go back in forth in my belief systems on what happens when we die, sometimes claiming to be an atheist. But if I were to be true to myself, true to my what heart feels itself knowing, then I believe that spirits really do soar, far beyond the cold capabilities of a dying body.

When Karma comes to bite you in the bee-hind

So it seems we are again a family of four, again because last year at this time my niece Maya was staying with us. This time around it's my nephew Izak, a sweet and loveable 10 year old who has always tugged at my heartstrings. He's with us for two months, and despite some rather annoyingly redundant conversations about all the tricks his new cell phone can do, he's really quite a delightful kid. He's never been to Colorado before, never been away from home really, and so he is brave and wonderful on so many different fronts. Unfortunately the gap between him and Ellie is somewhat gargantuan in kid time: 7 years, but she still finds his presence exciting and pays no heed to the fact that he really isn't all that interested in pretending to eat fake food or saying her newest favorite phrase "wooshie gaga!" a million times during the day. He tolerates her and I can spy a very sincere and sly smile spread on his face when she gets his attention. He ain't foolin no one!

So do you want to hear about how I did something bad and then pretty much manifested that bad thing upon me IMMEDIATELY and how let this be a lesson to all of you that those karma points are real, yo!? So we decide to brave the fireworks, at a rather annoyingly large venue but one of the few actually HAVING fireworks, as, I don't know if you've heard but Colorado is sort of on fire right now. (so sad). Anyway we get in the line of cars, which we were leery to do anyway, see that it's a million miles long, slowly creep our way to a road that's blocked off, ask the parking attendant "how do we get out?" and he pretty much tells us that we can't. The road we got there on is now a double lane one way road. I repeated the question, "so how do we get out?", I mean he's standing in between us and a free and clear ROAD with a couple of little measly cones on it. He gives us a MAJOR attitude and he's really just being such a jerk that it ignites something in me. Who is he to say that we can not leave this MASSIVE CROWD of people?  So this is where the words fell from my mouth and started gathering together to figure out how to make this happen. "Look, we're having a medical emergency here!"(Don't judge me, I meant it as a harmless fib to get us out of the MADNESS). This of course is awesome to tell a lie right in front of impressionable children in the backseat of the car and one of my finer moments in parenting. The guy is a full blown jerk who very begrudgingly lets us through yelling as we make our way through the cones "HURRY UP!!" and soon he is a rearview thought and we are on the sweet road to freedom. We truly did INTEND to leave but last minute decide to access another, MORE awesome part of the park, because, well, suddenly we could.

This is the part where karma came and BIT ME ON THE ASS. As we are waiting for the fireworks to start there is a gloriously grassy hill that all kinds of little kids are rolling down. Ellie is ON IT. Excited beyond measure! Rolling down in awkward little bursts and having the time of her life. Even my nephew joins in on the carefree frolicing. And then, in a mere moment, Ellie stops mid roll, cries out in pain "OUCHIE!" and starts cradling her arm. I actually got it on video.





I look at it. It doesn't look broken. But the "ouchies" are relentless. The fact that she's cradling it makes me completely nervous. She won't straighten it out.

And that folks is why our 4th of July fireworks turned into a trip to the ER.

p.s. It wasn't broken.

Month in review: June 2012

Mike had a birthday!

Ellie spent much of the time with just her swim hat on.

Brewfest! Man was it HOT!

I had a birthday, too.

Backyard jam sesh, 3 year old included!

We got to meet POPPY!!

And I got to hang out with my lovely ladies.

This is called urban campfiring. 

And see this totally badass and AWESOME terrarrium? (please note the unicorn)

Handmade by this girl. I LOVE IT!

Kalie came to town!  (And we went to a lot of Jazz in the Park's)

Little birthday ride with my friends up to Vail pass.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with my new and very cool friend, Olivia!

We had some sad times, too. Sad times where we got to be with our family .

We had to say goodbye to Kelly. This was deeply sad.

But in that grief we got to connect with family we don't get to see very often. (Come visit us again soon!)

This is us at a wedding in Breckinridge.

This is the bride and groom, Derek and Becca. I told Ellie she was a princess.

This is what we did after the wedding.

Ellie got swim goggles and thinks they are the coolest thing ever!

I got a banjo and think it's the coolest thing ever!

Sitting on top of the world.

Ellie's first ever fireworks. The sky turned to magic!

This was a really intense month. Intense heat. Intense sadness and joy, Intense fear and intense peace. I don't know that I like to say that I live so "intensely", but man, I can sure say that life is full! 

And summer continues on!