lynsey mattingly: the blog

Shark Season

2015-05-01T17:29:00.002-06:00

I’ve been on my period since March 9th. I realize that this is way too much information, but being that I have been bleeding from the vagina for 53 days, I’m at the point where I:

A.) have had so many doctors have their hands all up inside my lady parts, I have no modesty left.

B.) have apparently become okay with the term “lady parts”, even though I’ve always found it a bit ridiculous.

C.) have possibly become so iron-deficient that my brain isn’t working properly.

D.) don’t really have anything else to talk about because I haven’t done anything in the last 53 days that really required special energy. Except bleed. From the vagina.

I’ve decided that this is my punishment for always making vagina jokes on Facebook. Between the vaginal knitting, the Gwyneth Paltrow vagina steaming, detoxing your vagina, urine sipping, and making your own vagina yogurt (that one looks especially interesting--watch out Yoplait), it seemed like 2015 was prepped to be the Year Of The Vagina. The Vagina was having A Moment. And I wanted to be a part of that.

I also think it would be nice if people weren’t uncomfortable with the word vagina. (VAGINA!! VAGINA!!! VAGINAVAGINAVAGINAVAGINA!!! When you have a 53 day period, you get pretty well okay with screaming it from the rooftops or at the very least, writing it in all caps.) But apparently my desire to help bring the vagina center stage was wrong and now I must be punished. In a very memorable and specific way.

Don’t get me wrong—I want to tell you about other things. Things more interesting and more fun to talk about. Like how I finally got a plant to live in my office space, and because it’s a rosemary plant and I also happened to have an old lemon on hand that was certainly past it’s prime, I finally tried that Williams Sonoma scent hack (even though I’ve never actually been inside a Williams Sonoma). It’s currently simmering away on my stove and my house is smelling very……..Williams Sonoma-y (I assume).

And that last night I got an email from one of my editors about “really nailing” my last article, and that made me all singsongy.

And my birthday is coming up, which I am not celebrating because I need to do something to remove the Curse That Is My Birthday—a day where 4 foot windows have fallen in bedroom and shattered right on top of my sleeping body at 5am, a day of break-ups and toxic people infiltrating my space, a day of general terribleness for the last 5 years straight, but this year I am calling it Botox Day and treating myself to a healthy injection right in the middle of my damn forehead.

And I went to marijuana dispensary because I live in basically the first town to make it legal and really accessible, and to be honest, I was in the neighborhood, saw the sign, and figured why not. And even though it was fairly non-eventful and quite straight-forward (ATM right inside!), I could suck a blog post out of that experience. I could.

I want to talk to you about all of those things. Oh bloody hell, how I want to talk to you about those things!

But I can’t, you see. Because I’m on my period. Still. Possibly forever.

There are not a ton of upsides to a 53 day period (other than the obvious: AMAZING TOPIC FOR BLOGGING!!!). I did advance to the front of the ER line the other day when the third doctor to attempt treating me sent me straight there for a possible blood clot in my leg. The nurse was so sweet about feeling sorry for me, I could hear her telling EVERYONE in the hallway about my troubles, “Someone has to help this poor girl next!! She’s been on her period for like an entire month!! I didn’t even know that was possible!!” The male physician’s assistant came in shortly thereafter and did the very best he could to ask me questions while hiding his uncomfortableness and order (likely) thousands of dollars in testing that I am hoping will take me straight to our deductible so I can find a doctor to remove every single organ I can live without as an elective procedure for free and possibly end this never-ending story.

Oh, and when I was telling the cashier at Target about this (no modesty, remember?), she was telling me about her worst period ever and I think we really shared a moment. I gave her one of the 6 doctor’s business cards I had in my purse—the one for the doctor that was sort of helpful and kind of nice—and hopefully that will work out for her. So I feel good about that. (New friends, yay!)

And there is the added bonus of the fact that I don’t care that I have become a miserable person to live with. Don’t get me wrong—I am well aware of the moody bitch I have become. I know that I snap at anyone who dares to be within 2 feet of me. And my eyeballs actually hurt from all of the rolling they do. And I am coming real close to making The Silent Treatment an Olympic Sporting Event. But…….I just really don’t care. It’s like my kitchen floor; I know it’s disgusting and I know it’s been months since it’s seen a mop, and I have a slight view of it, even now, sitting at my desk…..the dog hair, the crumbs of 500 different types of crackers, something that is either a brown peanut M&M or really old, really large raisin. But it doesn’t bother me a bit. And it better not bother you. YOU’RE NOT SUGGESTING I NEED TO MOP MY KITCHEN, RIGHT?

Anyway. Riding this endless crimson wave is going to become a gift, I just know it. Maybe this is a disease and I am the first one to get it and they will name it after me and that will be my legacy. Or maybe I will become a medical experiment of sorts and be paid very handsomely to be on my period forever.

Or, at the very least, I will become known as The Woman Who Dared To Blog About Vaginas and Periods. There are worse things. I can think of at least one.

YaaaaHOOOOOOOO [exclamation point]

2015-04-16T11:44:00.002-06:00

Yesterday Yahoo posted an article I wrote about mine and my husband’s little shopette. It was exciting and wonderful and amazing—especially when my terrible hair and obnoxious smile showed up on the Yahoo! Front Page when another set of editors picked up the story.

Smack in the middle--move out of the way Jill Duggard!

I received some super sweet messages, emails, tweets, and letters by carrier pigeon about the article yesterday, and because it’s the internet, I also received some negative responses. These were some of my favorites and I hated the idea that you, or anyone really, would maybe miss out on this fantastic and helpful commentary.

I wanted to figure out a way to make sure you got to read them all.

And then I had a brilliant idea: I’LL PUT THEM TO SONG!

But, alas, try as I did, I was not able to get them into rhyming form. So instead I created poster versions of some of my favorite comments with clip art that will hopefully be handy in helping them make sense.

I can't wait to hang them up all over my house.

And because some were very kind, I give you this and this...............

NSFW, ICYMI

2015-03-12T15:28:00.002-06:00

A while back I showed you a sneak peek of sorts from a project I wanted to begin.....

In case you missed it, months ago I started a project about Real Women showing their real bodies "un" dressed and other "un" things. This project started in my head, where things often have to marinate for a long time before coming to fruition. So when the very first (brave/beautiful) woman I asked agreed to model for this without hesitation, things moved a lot quicker than my thought processes usually do.

And after seeing her first image, lots of women wanted to do their "un" pictures and emailed me.

And then I had to freak out for a while,

And I blame that on the holidays and the cycle of the moon.

So I had to stall the whole thing out for about 6 months to keep my timeline in sync with the head marinating part.

But now that I have had time to worry and analyze it to pieces, hate it, love it, rethink every part of it, and then come back to it again, exactly as it was--in my head and with this first model, who trusted me and believed in the process.

It's not so much getting off the ground at this point, as it is getting some lovely little wings, but forward motion is always good. I hopefully still have several dozen willing models and now, the un-holiday timing and maybe a good moon cycle, to get these photographs out of my head and into something tangible. Email me if you're still interested. :)

Some thoughts on being .."an adult now and should be in a better place where you don't have to lash out and hurt people"

2015-02-19T20:12:00.001-07:00

When you "tell your stories" people may come out of the woodwork. People who are living a smaller life often have the kind of time it takes to contact you and attempt to rewrite the role they had in your story. Or convince you that you're wrong. Or try to make you relive it. Or do whatever they need to do to feel better about you sharing your truth. They will spin it and coat it with sugar and falsehoods, and do their best to convince you that your truth is fiction, that your stories are fables. If they felt confidently about their past actions, about the part they played, they wouldn't do this. Because doing this is their way of feeling better about what they did to you. And if they did nothing bad, why would they need to feel better?

Whether it's a blog or a book, a letter or a picture or a piece of art, your creations about your past and your memories and your truth are yours, and yours alone. You are not bashing or "lashing out" or behaving like a child or in any way in the wrong or trying to hurt people. Those of us that tell our stories of past traumas, would never do that. We are all too aware of the cost because we continue to pay it.

You are brave.

I am brave.

I know that because it took a long time to understand what bravery felt like--to visit this light I only saw in the distance for years.

Maybe you are not there yet. Or maybe, like me, you visit here as often as you can, but it's still hard to be a permanent resident of Bravehood. Just seeing that light though or knowing that it's there......that, my friends, is an act of courage within itself.

While we don't owe apologies or niceties to those that were key players in the saddest parts of our histories, we maybe owe them a back-handed Thank You. For the unending material, for doing something that sparked a piece so deep in us that required us to stop at nothing to get it out of our system and turn it into good.

And a Thank You for writing us silly, condescending messages that maybe don't get read right away, but once they do, fuel the fires within us that become the words on the page, the paint on the canvas, the very creativity brought to life that is how we have learned to heal our truth.

For our truth, our stories, are important--to few, to many, to ourselves.

Every Other Weekend

2015-01-04T20:15:00.002-07:00

I had a stepmother once. She married my biological father when I was 2 or 3. I was quite a novelty to her in the beginning—a real, live doll that only required her care every other weekend. While her and my father attempted to conceive a child, something they would ultimately never do, she was quite content to dress me up, do my hair, and once, in a story that still infuriates my mother, cut terribly short bangs on my waist length golden locks.

She was quick to tell my mother how to parent, discipline her for what she was doing wrong, and repeat her favorite sentence in sarcastic singsong to me: “Lynsey gets whatever Lynsey wants”, meant to imply that I was a brat that always got her way with her father at the cost of other people’s (read: her) needs. Though I can’t for the life of me ever remember what they possibly gave me that wasn’t basic food and shelter (every other weekend).

My father and I were never, ever close. Seeing him as rarely as I did and being the only child to come from the very short union of him and my mother certainly didn’t give us much of a relationship to work with. I’ve always been my mother’s child. I realize now, this was likely a hard pill for my stepmother to swallow. A man came along that she wanted to start a new happy life with, and here was this constant reminder from his old life in pigtails and overalls that was never going to go away. Thirty plus years ago, blended families weren’t near as common so there were no blogs or books to navigate it.

Things at their house took a huge turn when my father and stepmother adopted a little girl of their own. After coming home from their house for years telling my Mom that my stepmother was sick all the time ("She takes her temperature every morning and writes it down!”), one day my father borrowed a 7 passenger van and him, my stepmother, and I drove to Wyoming. I’ve never known the exact story of how this 2 year old girl came into our lives and who is to say that my memories haven’t become whatever my emotions needed them to be to deal with the situation. All I remember is a gas station in the middle of nowhere and a curly haired girl from Idaho coming back with us with nothing more than a trash bag full of stuffed animals. I’m hoping that some Lifetime Original Movie I saw at some point is infecting my ability to recall things exactly as they happened, though nothing surprises me anymore.

The little curly headed girl from then on was my sister. The answer to my stepmother’s prayers, assuming she prayed for a child of her own. And this girl didn’t go home to another mom, another life—she was the real deal. Ten year old me was made to believe that I was no longer needed. Some of my feelings on this are certainly legitimate; my belongings from the bedroom I occupied every other weekend were moved from the 2nd bedroom in the home to the den so that she could rightly have her own space and I would sleep on a sofa for a bit. It’s not like I had much stuff anyway. It was never discussed—my father isn’t someone I ever remember saying much of anything, except maybe: “Go get me a beer” and “Why don’t you go play in traffic?”, but that’s how things were back then. I think. I was never assured of my place in the family or told that I was still loved and wanted. And later they would move to a bigger house with a guest bedroom in the basement where I could sleep, so that was nice. Sometimes I would go to my sister’s bedroom upstairs, on the same floor as their bedroom, with her canopy bed and personal belongings and toys everywhere and her full closet of clothes and feel a little jealous. But I had all of those things at my mom’s house. There have certainly been children who lived with less and suffered more.

Flash forward a few years and my stepfather—my Dad—adopted me. It wasn’t the perfect answer, but it was an answer to a question that no one could make sense of and my mother was the only one kind enough to ask on my behalf. Because I needed an answer. My last name was changed and I got a new birth certificate as though the first 13 years of my life hadn’t really existed. Many times I wish they hadn’t. I have two younger brothers whom I adore, and parents that have taken great care of me and still do. When my car makes a weird noise, I want my Dad. So I call my Dad. And it’s like my biological father never existed.

But he does exist. In the same home I lived in (every other weekend) for a brief time. With my former stepmother. They never had or adopted more children and I think of them and my former sister every day. That little curly headed girl grew-up to be a mother of three in a life that seemed to plummet more than it climbed. She and I briefly connected a decade ago and it wasn’t pleasant, though I don’t blame her for that. For as much as I felt cast aside, she felt inferior to me, her father’s only biological child.

All of this, this long drawn out story that I don’t talk about much, wouldn’t really mean anything at this point in my life if I didn’t have stepchildren of my own now. Stepdaughters. Who probably feel all the emotions I felt at one time or another and then some. And I feel terrible about that—to know how they feel and to have it be so completely foreign to me all at the same time. There is no training for being a stepmother. Though being a “real” mother first has given me an edge for sure. They wouldn’t say so. Nor would their mother, who is certain I am ruining their life. Sometimes I am too. But I survived it—having a stepmother, one who is much less than the one they have. I lived to tell the tale of a terrible step-parenting experience. And, on the other side with my Dad, a not so terrible experience. And I have a blog where I can say whatever I want and, supposedly several hundred people read it—though sometimes I think Blogger lies about that.

So, my stepdaughters can have a blog. And talk about how they were their dad’s one (three) and only until this woman came along. This woman who did the best she could. This woman who was dealt a hand to a game she had no instructions to play. This woman who tried and tried again. This woman who was smart enough to separate the unfortunate and foolish actions of their mother from her feelings toward them. This woman who failed often but didn’t leave. Didn’t force them to leave. Didn’t move their belongings into the den. Didn’t cut wretched bangs on any of them, not even once.

And who truly loved them—not because she had to, but because she did.

The holidays are a little f*cked up for all of us….and that’s okay.

2014-12-24T16:42:00.001-07:00

Last year I offered to take my soon-to-be stepdaughters Christmas shopping to get them a gift for their mother. She said that this was the most “uncomfortable and weird thing that anyone had ever offered” and proceeded to go out of her way to make the next 11 months of my life a living hell. Looking back, this may have been where I lost a little holiday spirit forever. The straw on the barn floor that broke the Frankincense and myrrh-hauling camel's back. The humbug in my bah. The rat poison in my Peppermint Mocha Latte.

I’ve never been extremely “into” Christmas. This probably stems from my childhood, but I’ve just never gotten far enough in therapy to get to that part. But this year has been especially non-fun or non-spiritive or whatever I am supposed to say that allows you to understand that I’m just not feeling it, but doesn’t go so far that you suppose I am a miserable person to be around year-round if you’ve never met me.

Would a miserable person include their dog on their holiday card? I think not.

Christmas brings out so much in all of us: stress…….sadness….a desire to eat our feelings. Even though few of us have a Norman Rockwell holiday happening, there is the pressure to throw on a smile and have yourself fit for a ~~straightjacket~~ suit of festive cheer. And to that I say, Hogwash! Even though I am not certain what Hogwash is exactly, it seems fitting. So, instead I offer a realistic holiday wish for you and yours. For the single parents who dread all of the “normalcy” they see everywhere else this time of year, I’ve been where you’re at and it sucks. For the people who end up alone, either in spirit or the literal sense, I’ve been where you’re at and it sucks. For the ones that this season evokes past trying or terrible times, you are not alone, though it still totally sucks.

May your day be filled with fun and family.

And if it’s not, may those two collide at some point later and may you have the peace to accept that as good enough.

May you get to see the joy in your children’s faces when they see that Santa has indeed, stopped and left them gifts even though, if we are being completely honest here, they certainly could have behaved better this week, never mind the entire year.

But if you don’t get to be with your children on Christmas morning, may you be able to celebrate with them on another day and may the people that they do spend Christmas with have the decency to take them shopping to buy a gift for you.

May that gift be a fancy coffeemaker or a gift certificate for a pedicure where you probably won’t get an infection, and not yet another bottle of lotion or a candle with a scent that makes you want to vomit.

And should this not happen, may you have a thankful heart and know for certain that divorcing him was a good idea after all.

May you not be so exhausted that by Christmas, you just want to curl up in your closet and enjoy some peace and quiet for 2-24 hours ALONE.

But should you end up wanting to die a death marked by fatigue and disappointment, may you get at least one shower over the course of holiday break that’s at least 3.5 minutes in length without anyone banging on the door. And, may there be hot water.

May your children express such excitement at the gifts you drove all over the state to find, spent way more than you could afford on, and had to hide at your neighbors house because you don’t trust anyone you live with further than you could throw them.

But if they don’t, may they experience this blow themselves down the line with their own children. And may you live long enough to selflessly remind them of their selfish years that you kindly put up with, because you didn’t raise them in a barn.

May you have wonderful in-laws that feel more like your own people than people you happened upon through marriage.

But if you don’t, may you resist the urge to spit in the food of anyone who refers to you as “that girl my son married”.

May you have someone to talk to at every family function that doesn’t make you want to stab a candy cane straight through your eyeball.

But, if you don’t, may you get away with wearing sunglasses inside that allow you to nod off as needed without notice, because you’ve always been the “artsy” one.

*May you be permitted to sleep until past 5am on Christmas morn.

*May your children not drive you so crazy asking about Santa, their presents, or The Damn Elf On The Shelf that you start considing converting to a religion that doesn’t allow gift-giving. Or winter break. Or a creepy little stuffed thing you have to move every night to a new location, as if it flew to the North Pole by magic.

*May you not have to cook anymore than you enjoy. Or wrap. Or shop.

*May you not have to stay awake until an ungodly hour, waiting for kids who should know the deal by now to Just. Fall. Asleep. Already. So you can play Santa and keep the damn spirit of the holiday season alive and all that.

*May you get to spend a moment reflecting on the year that’s past and the year coming up and may that moment not be so infused with booze that it turns on a dime from happiness to despair.

And mostly, may all the children of the world get together and sing.......and may all of your enemies die like pigs in hell. :)

Unaltered. Uncensored. Unapologetic. Uncompromising. Unabashedly. Undressed.

2014-10-22T19:53:00.001-06:00

Image #1

At the risk of continuing my title of The Naked Photographer.........

2014-09-25T13:18:00.001-06:00

Hello My Friends!

Even though I have met so few of you, some days I just want to hug each and every one of you! (Though, not being a huge hugger, most days I would happily settle for the chance smile at you and perhaps offer a friendly handshake.) For a long time now I have been wanting to start a new photo project and it’s been slowly taking shape in my brain space which I typically just overthink every move I make and mentally rearrange all of my furniture. I am finally to the part where I need a few willing subjects….a few willing bodies. And, for this, I mean that quite literally. I would like my next photo project to speak to how beautiful the female body is, with all it’s curves and shapes and wonderment. I’m not talking a fake, photoshopped centerfold image—I’m talking about real images of real women. I have 3 stepdaughters now and I just refuse to let them grow-up anything but proud of their perfect and unique bodies.

I want to take fun (or maybe serious), beautiful, tasteful pictures of women that celebrate the female form. Pictures that help the subject see strong muscles instead of stretch marks……soulful features instead of soft spots…….a tremendously beautiful presence instead of bony hips. My hope is that the images I take are all different—some may have a bit of clothing and some may not—but that all of the images introduce a new appreciation for our bodies, in both the subject and the viewer.

I realize I am going to need some brave souls—but I know you’re out there! And because I’m asking for a lot, I’m going to put a little out there myself. This is a picture of me taken by an old friend about two years ago. I have always hated my shoulders—they are all freckly and even bare I’ve always thought that I sport 1985-era shoulder padding. And after nursing two children for what felt like FOREVER, my chest just ain’t what it once was. BUT! I look at this picture and and it makes me happy! It’s taken 35 years, but I know my body. I’ve been heavier and I’ve been skinner, but I’ve always thought I looked okay….and in this picture, I feel beyond okay. I feel strong and confident and perfectly fine with my shoulders. This picture was a game-changer for me; I would love to have the opportunity to photograph some game-changers, some I’ve-worked-so-hard-to-get-here, some I’m-perfectly-happy-with-my-body, or some Please Help Me See It Better images for other women.

Email me if you’re interested: info@lynseymattingly.com
(At this time I’m only doing these shoots in Northern Colorado, they are of course free, and the upmost permission, respect, and collaboration will go into both the shoot and the deciding of the final product.)

a 100 verses and never the same line

2014-08-11T18:34:00.001-06:00

Today found me taking my 14 year old stepdaughter to freshman check-in at her high school. Her high school which she starts next week. Her high school where I had to go to parent orientation last week. To say I am in a foreign land is the biggest understatement I have ever made.

This one, the oldest of my three stepdaughters, lives with us full-time and with her father working one of those normal jobs where he leaves the house each day in something different than yoga pants (which is also likely because he doesn't own yoga pants--a tragedy I feel bad about for all men), the day-to-day parenting of this gorgeous child falls to me. For the most part, this thrills me. It's a tough situation for everyone involved, but it was her choice and when I ask her every once in a while if she wants to change it, to possibly live with the biological parent she has lived with most of the time since birth until I came along, she acts as though I'm asking if she wants to be the bait for a shark hunt.

So we get by--her trying not to take advantage of being parented by a woman who has absolutely no clue how to parent a teenage girl, and me making it up as I go along, pretending like I do have a clue. There have been a few bumps, but a lot more instances of random hugs, asking advice, and coming to my side of the bed when sick in the middle of the night. When she needs a parent, she comes to me first, every time. When she wants a mom, I'm her first thought. When she fills out forms for school, I'm the first listed guardian. I love her to the moon and around Jupiter 17 times and I never have to doubt that she feels the same because she tells me every night.

Though Emily Bronte didn't mean it quite like this, sometimes I believe this daughter of mine is more myself than I am. Which is probably why I am sick with worry and anxiety for her to start high school. I want her to have a better time than I did. I want her to enjoy it. I want her to take every single opportunity that is offered to her. I want her to meet a boy and think she loves him and have her heart broken and then fall in love for real and understand the difference. I want her 4 years of high school to be nothing like the 43 days I spent there.

So I am reposting a blog post below that I wrote years ago, with a few changes. In the idea that everything does work out the way it's supposed to. And that both her and I are going to be just fine.a 100

A thousand years ago, in a faraway land, lived a girl. By all accounts, from the outside looking it, her life was fine. Not a life of privilege or complete storybook normalcy, but fine nonetheless.

The girl struggled, as girls typically do. With friends and boys, clothes and belongings, sense of self and confidence. This was not seen as odd, given that many of the other girls in the village—in all villages-- struggled with these very same things. But the girl knew, as did the people who knew the girl well, that her struggles got a little bigger, a little faster than expected. And as life continued down a slope of hills and valleys for many of her friends, the girl’s hills started to be more like mountains and the valleys started to be more like pits. Of hot lava. With snakes. And rodents of unusual sizes.

So, after what felt like decades of ridicule and some of the nasty treatment that can only be done by one of the nastiest groups of people alive—high school girls—into the fall of her 14th year with fine grades and a good head on her shoulders, the girl decided with the help of her parental folk, that a life of normalcy and standard issue compliance would not be in her future. With no real plans or goals, she left school after her 9th grade Biology class on a Tuesday and didn’t return on the Wednesday. Or ever again. Options were looked into by all but her: private school, a different school, home school, but she was much too tired. Too tired to think about finishing the all-important education, and too tired to understand why it was all-important. Too tired to care about the assumptions of drug use, pregnancy, mental insanity, and all the other possible reasons that others had come up with to explain her unusual disappearance. For they had spent so much time trying to come up with the answer, but, in part, they had also been the answer. They, and a weakness in the girl that didn’t allow her to stand up for herself.

Life stumbled by in a fog. Days, upon days of a sinking, rotting feeling, that depending on who you asked, was either basic teenage angst or severe depression that needed to be medicated, inpatient style. The girl made friends with other “outcasts”, and even though it was the exact group where she should have fit in, she was a bit of an outsider there as well. Mercifully they let her stay there a while to find her footing even though she couldn’t properly identify a bong and had never tried to use one, or any other pot-smoking device. Outcasts tend to be nice like that.

A boy came along, as boys often do. And helped her buy a ticket. And that ticket saved her life. And for a couple of years that ticket, a crappy call center job, a Geo Prism, and a small duplex on the northwest side was enough—in fact, at the age of 16, it was more than many had. But at some point the boy realized he was still just a boy, and the girl realized that she was still just a girl and that despite any glamorous fairytales they had read about, their storybook had more chapters to be filled—separately.

The boy rode off into the sunset and the girl packed up her shit and moved into her grandparents house, because that’s what you do when you’re 16, have a 9th grade education, and don’t want to move back to the very town that breeds rodents of unusual sizes in hot lava pits. With snakes.

The girl would spent about a year wallowing in a lonely depression that many are spared, that some don’t live to see the other side of, and that a lucky few learn to make good with. Then one day she would wake-up. The day would be the same as the last and would appear to be nothing special. She would eat breakfast with her grandfather, leisurely head to the shower, and then handle the few tasks that she was asked to do in exchange for no one harassing her about her current path of least resistance: go to the grocery store……take her Grandfather to chemo……sit with her Grandmother talking about everything no teenager wants to talk about……breathe. Nothing significant would happen on that day. Or maybe it did. It’s easy to remember lightning bolts and weeks of nothingness; it’s harder to remember slow build-ups, of course. Maybe it was a college course catalog laying around she leafed through. Maybe it was an offer of monetary help from appreciative grandparents, hopeful that the sum of her life was equal to more than This. Maybe the planets aligned that day and Venus moved out of retrograde and the angels harked down and said “today, we change her life”. Or maybe it was just time and she was just ready. One can never really say for sure about these things.

But on that day, the girl mustered every ounce of courage that she had and walked onto that college campus with no understanding of how public education worked, no transcripts of any kind, and just enough money to pay for a couple of classes out of pocket. She, quite literally, closed her eyes and pointed at the list of programs and majors, her finger blindly falling on Certified Drug and Alcohol Counseling (CAC). Which couldn’t have been more perfect as the program was short, much like the girls attention span when it came to the process of typical and proper education. A quick, impromptu meeting with the Department Chair, a man who knew nothing of her past and was only excited that a private pay student, different than the sometimes recovering/sometimes not former addicts this major usually attracted was interested in the program, would shove her in the direction of a local detox facility for internship position towards credits needed, and the detox facility would kindly offer her not only counted client hours, but also a regular hourly position that one could almost call a job at first and later even a career if you squinted your eyes and tilted your head just so to see it.

The girl would make friends. Have experiences outside of the small space, both in her head and in her house, that had been her comfortable cell for several years. The girl would call the boy on occasion, and the boy would answer from a distance. The girl would accumulate enough college credits that most people wouldn’t really care what her high school education had looked like. She would earn certificates of attendance and, though a string of careful steps, life experiences that when looked at as a whole, were almost enough to create a past that looked normal. Life would move on, this time at a pace that was slightly more accepted by the general public.

But the girl would never, ever forget that feeling of the miserable way that girls of any age treat their fellow girls for reasons that no one really understands. Nor would she forget the horrifying feeling that accompanies the constant question of why she couldn’t just do things the normal way, buck up, and deal with these problems like everyone else seemed to be able to do. And the girl, from then on, would always be ridiculously grateful for any friend she made or any success she had, as she would spend her life having the times where she had neither, feel so fresh that they could have been yesterday. And she would never forget that in an instant it could all slip away and the memories of yesterday could easily become the reality of tomorrow. And even when things looked really, really peachy to others—so peachy, in fact, that others would question just why the hell did she get to have it so peachy, she would desperately want to tell them that things weren’t always this peachy, that she had put in plenty of un-peach-like time. That she knew she was damn lucky, not a day going by that she didn’t thank some god above for the fact that she made it across the snake pit of hot lava once. Though she would doubt if she had another trip in her soul and would worry that if asked to cross again, she would fail.

People along the way would find out her truth. For as much as she had tried to escape, past beasts always find out where you are hiding. Friends would say that they didn’t judge, but would treat her differently once they knew the details of her sketchy educational background…..of her close relationship with mental health professionals…….of realizing that basic math told us that the girl had spent a lot of time trying to find her place in the sun.

But, her place in the sun would be found! It would have cloud cover on occasion, the way that places in the sun often do, but it would be a warm patch where she felt the most comfortable, for the longest she had ever felt comfortable. It wouldn’t be the obvious place that people thought it was, but it would be her place. She would spent much time worrying about the sunny place moving without notifying her or inviting her along—worrying if the cloud cover would get darker, for longer, while she waited and waited, finally one day to realize that there would never be sun again. But, for the time being, the sun shone—brightly and often.

And the boy and the girl would get back together to have what they would later prefer to call a successful breeding project instead of a failed marriage and they would remain friends in a way that few understood. This all of course making a path to the girl's true soulmate who was the one person in the world with the ability to move the branches out of the way, clearing that place in the sun for the girl as often as possible and not being bothered by the time he had to spend doing it.

The end.

Moral of the story: be nice to each other damn it, as you never know who you may treat poorly, only for them to later start a wordy blog in which they write self-indulgent tales where you appear in hypotheticals as a total and complete ass.

Why is it so hot and how did I get in this basket?

2014-07-24T21:05:00.001-06:00

I read this article on dPS, a site that I often write for, and I was immediately enchanted by the idea of using photography to help me solve a personal issue. Lately the personal issues 'round here that require my attention are stacking up like dirty dishes in a sink after a dinner party for 20, so I’ll try just about anything for a little give.

I have been very sick. My body, furious at me for the additional stress I have taken on, has finally all but given out. My doctor says that this is the worst my “unclassified autoimmune disorder”, what she has always called it so that I don’t have insurance issues, has ever been. And she’s right. But saying Uncle in the smack middle of summer just really isn’t something a mom can ever do, so I have been pushing it. And pushing it some more. I kept working and I continued to do my best to keep track of 5 kids when I needed to. Which is often for 3 of them and a little less for 2. Mind you, I wasn’t dragging them all to Disneyland or WaterWorld everyday—ideas like that haven’t been in my wheelhouse for quite a while, but I was making lunches and attempting library afternoons. And then coming home and crashing in my bed like I had just scaled a 14er.

Guilt, being my go-to emotion has gotten the better of me. I desperately want my kids to have a fun summer filled with all the things they want to do. Partly because I like people in my world to be happy and get everything they want, and partly because I feel so guilty for moving them away from everything they knew to a town where things aren’t going as easily as I had hoped. To soothe my guilt, I opted to try this photo project—one picture each day. One picture that shows my boys are fine. One picture that tells me I am where I’m supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to do. One picture that proves to me that I am doing the best I can. One picture that makes me believe that the best I can is enough right now.

Yesterday an emergency trip to the doctor had this woman who I have relied on heavily for 6 years, this woman who is educated beyond ridiculous, this woman who has seen me at my very worst saying “maybe you are really an introvert and your body is just exhausted from all this extrovert activity.” Of course I immediately dismissed the idea as poppycock and in an exhausted tear-filled summary to my mother later that day, I touched on it to find out that my mom thinks there is something to that. As do a few close friends I’ve had the nerve to ask. And perhaps that’s the case. It will be something to think about over the next few weeks while I am taking it easy and finally listening to the advice what I once called poppycock. Actually, I called it bullshit but poppycock sounds so much more fun.

So, here they are my first three days of my picture a day for a month project to help me gain a little prospective. I hope you’ll join me on Instagram if you so desire (#doingthebestican). Better yet, take to photography to see if it can give you a little late summer guide.

Motherhood: you're so lucky.

2014-06-28T17:41:00.001-06:00

My mother spent a lot of time in bed. Often, I would come home from school to a quiet house and her in her bed, maybe on the phone or maybe just laying there, sad. Sometimes inconsolable, sometimes not. Make no mistake—she had plenty of reason to cry: she was stuck in a small mountain town by no choice of her own, isolated from anything that a mother of small children needs for basic survival, 45 minutes down a mountain canyon from a grocery store with a gallon of milk, married to a terrible alcoholic, living with well water/a septic tank/no cable or TV of any kind/anything else hard you can think of, with a life where decisions had been made that were completely out of her control. I never blamed her and to this day, I still don’t. She is the epitome of “doing the best you can with the hand your dealt” and while this doesn’t speak of the times I came home from school to fresh-baked cookies or the fact that my mom made me a cold lunch every single day of my elementary school career with a peanut butter (crunchy) and jelly sandwich (strawberry) on white bread (crusts cut off) in Tupperware so that it wouldn’t get smashed, those things and more happened. All the time.

Motherhood is hard as fuck. Plain, simple, my-kids-don’t-need-special-services-and-I’m-still-married-to-the-father-of-my-children-and-we-don’t-have-money-issues Motherhood is hard. Add-in any extras and it just gets harder from there. Money issues, kids with quirks, remarriage, stepchildren……..it’s a bit like saying: we are going to send you up in the space shuttle! Now we know you have no training, and we aren’t exactly sending you with supplies, but do you know how many people want to go in a space shuttle and don’t get to???!!! You’re so lucky! And you better damn well be thankful. You’re right—there’s no food. But there is these seeds! And there’s water! So really all you have to do is grow this lettuce and BAM there’s food. And you’re right— there’s no medical care or oxygen, but here’s a First Aid Kit, so you’ll do fine. You’re a Mom! People write stories and bumper stickers about you! You’ll do fine! You’re resourceful and have that Mother Bear instinct that no man, no person who isn’t a mom understands—let’s call that your training.

I’m not “bed mom” so much as I’m a "closet mom". Every house I’ve lived in offers this glorious closet where I can hide. A closet that gets wifi and a cell signal and I’ve throughly prepared it with a pillow and Kleenex because this isn’t my first rodeo. Or, like today, I haven’t, but there’s a pile of dirty clothes in there with a towel for wiping tears and snot, and a door that closes. And when people (namely the people I share my home with), say “where were you??? We looked EVERYWHERE!!” I say,

"I was in my room! The whole time!"

“But we checked there!”

“You did??? Well that’s where I was!”

“Weird!”

You mean, child/husband/teenager it didn’t occur to you to check the closet where the door was closed and it was dark? And there was a small sobbing noise coming from the door jam? I don’t know what to tell you!

Because that’s where I was.

This morning I lost my shit over earrings. Earrings that are MINE but not where where I keep my earrings. Earrings that were “real” and therefore expensive. Earrings that get borrowed a lot. Borrowed by kids that didn’t come out of my uterus. Earrings that magically showed-up after I had lost my shit. But it’s never about the earrings. It’s about all of the other things. It’s about the mountain town, the alcoholic husband, the special needs. It’s about the closet or the bed or wherever is your place. It’s about not having a place. It’s about the spaceship and not knowing how to do it all and not getting a seed packet. It’s about how long the days are and how often the kids wake YOU-NOT-DAD up in the night. It’s about having to cut off the damn crusts on the sandwiches. Which you do. Even though it’s ridiculous and you’re tired and there isn’t a clean knife, never mind Tupperware. It’s about having to stop while I was writing this to apply a Spongebob glow-in-the-dark Bandaid to a bleeding toe. It’s about that your mom did it, so why can’t you? It’s about how lucky you should feel. And how awful it is that there is a split second every day that you would trade it all it to be by yourself. For a minute. For 5 minutes. For an hour. For a day, or a weekend, or a week. Or maybe a month. But don’t tell anyone that. Oh my god, you’ll be crucified.

But you don’t get a day off. Or a week. And no matter what, certainly not a month. Because you live here. In this bed, in this closet, in this spaceship. You built this house and now it’s yours. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE?? There are women all over the world who would love to go to space. And do this laundry. And make these crustless sandwiches. And put Spongebob Bandaids on bleeding toes. Day after day. And THOSE women would never get upset. They would never hide in their closet or cry in their bed. They would just be grateful. To have the peanut butter and the jelly and the Tupperware and the Neosporin and the Band-aids and the constant need.

So snap out of it already.

Being Neighborly And Why I Don't Wanna

2014-03-19T14:17:00.000-06:00

The learning curve is steep when you marry and subsequently move-in with someone that you haven't known for very long. Obviously I feel as though I know him well—I did swear in front of Dana the girl working the County Clerk & Recorder's counter that fateful day a month ago that I wanted to be legally bound to him, and while specific vows were unspoken at that exact moment, both of us had agreed prior that this was a lifetime deal. I knew he was a registered republican and how many bigger pills could there be to swallow than that? I knew that as far as people in our past who would forever be a part of our lives went, I drew a bit of a short stick. I knew that he has received quite a few speeding tickets which is baffling given that every time he drives us somewhere I'm reminded of being a passenger in my Grandfather's Buick where the understanding was only crazy people with a death wish go the actual speed limit.

I knew that he was adopted as an infant and that he would have to learn to stop making jokes to my boys about being found in the forrest by a group of hobbits because they believe that kind of thing and it would only lead to an awkward exchange someday at a family gathering.

I knew that he was both long-winded and terrible at secrets so I could count on harmless pieces of our lives being shared openly and in great detail with his little gal pals at work (gal pals/big, rough, likely republican oil field worker men/whatever), making me sharing things on this very space of internet real estate free game.

I know that he is basically always in a good mood, that he is as open and honest as the day is long, that he constantly does little things for me that mean the world, and that when he walks into a room I feel more than butterflies reminiscent of a middle school crush. I know his heart and that is both wonderful and enough.

But there are always quirks you learn about someone later. It wasn't until we were unpacking that I found out he is basically a hoarder when it comes to things like spices, pasta, and boxed dinners. I threw away a box of Hamburger Helper that expired in 2004 and we are currently in ownership of enough grilling spice mix to start our own steakhouse. And It wasn't until we had to share a closet that I realized he has more than 20 duplicate t-shirts in different colors. I'm talking that exact same t-shirt. In 23 different colors. This means that the man had to go back to the same store in several different seasons and buy the exact same shirt in every color available.

This isn't even all of them because I wore one to bed last night, several are in the laundry, and the rest couldn't fit in the picture.

Don't get me wrong—I'm sure being married to me has moments of non-picnic-ness. His Laundry Nazi ways were certainly shocked to find out that I am truly fine with all of the clean clothes sitting in a basket unfolded on the floor for weeks on end. And I imagine it wasn't pleasant news that I own over a dozen chairs in various stages of beat-up condition that are not to be used, nor thrown-away because some day I am really going to work on them and make them into beautiful art but until then, all of them have to be stored in his parking spot in the garage. Then there's his way of starting a project and completing it in one single sitting which doesn't exactly jive with my habit of starting 17 different projects at once and then taking a break to watch some tv for a month.

But the very pinnacle of all of this (so far) has been his relationship with our neighbors. Something he is all for and I am completely against. The relationship, I mean. I know we are always going to be stuck having neighbors—I just don't want to communicate with them. Ever. After spending nearly a decade living in a home where I knew every single neighbor in every direction thoroughly and well, I enjoyed the relative anonymity I had in my rental of six months where I could walk to the mailbox in pajama pants and no bra and not care who happened to notice. Or that I could have parked a hearse in my driveway for a week and even if people thought something of it, it likely wouldn't be enough to come over and actually introduce themselves in order to find out what freaky thing I had going on. I was hoping to continue that blissful unawareness here, even if that meant there would be no welcome cookies or casseroles.

My new mailbox is across the street and down a few houses and that's a long enough walk to be forced into a braless conversation with at least seven different neighbors that I want no part of. I honestly don't care how long you have lived here or that you were good friends with the people that owned the house before us. They don't live here now. So the fact that you have been in my bedroom only creeps me out, not make me want to invite you back in it to see what we have done with the place. Not to mention that if we get to know all these people, it will make it really uncomfortable to make fun of them on my blog. Not that I was planning on doing that for sure, but I would prefer that door at least be left open.

Take the Hoffelbarfs for example. The Hoffelbarfs live next to us to the east. We were told who they were by Stefan, our neighbor next to them, two doors to the east of us when he was out walking his dogs Tundra (a poodle mix) and Boulder (a German Shepard). We were spray painting plywood in the front yard (a task I want to be able to do often and without the neighbors input or knowledge) for one of my crazy projects that was a random idea of mine that my husband insisted on bringing to fruition in a single day. Of course their name couldn't really be the Hoffelbarfs but Stefan (which, oddly his name actually is and that's not pronounced Steven) said their name so fast that we didn't catch it when he stopped to make forced pleasantries: whatcha painting??!! and how about this weather—could it be any more beautiful out!!??…talk about a great day to paint outside! So now they have to forever be the Hoffelbarfs because I don't want to have to ask again and look like idiots. The Hoffelbarfs have a couple of kids, and Billy Bob and Thor or whatever their names are, are somewhat close to some of our kid's ages. This was said to us with great amazement as though we were destined to be lifelong friends now. That this one common anomaly and our address were enough friendship material for us to all vacation together yearly in Florida long after the kids are grown. Dude, I have five kids……chances are pretty good that one of them is going to be a similar age to one of yours no matter who you are.

So now every time I leave the house braless or not, I have to wave and smile at the Hoffelbarfs when they are outside which is always. My friendly husband likes this. He thinks it's "neighborly" and good for our kids and, I don't know, maybe we will need to borrow a cup of sugar one day. I say there is a Safeway right down the street so I don't need the Hoffelbarf's stupid sugar.

Then there's Loud Talker on the other side who refuses to make eye contact. That alone would have put her in my good graces but then she had to come over and ruin it by chatting it up with Mr. Chatty Cathy over here and now we know that in addition to screaming at your face while looking six inches to the left of you, she has three sons: one in high school, one at CSU, and one at, as much as it pains her to admit it, CU. The one at CSU is getting married next year. He's a senior, his fiancée a junior. The one at CU is a disappointment beyond just his college choice. Did I need to know this? Does it enrich my life in any way? No. No, it does not. But there she is.…….two doors to the west in the blue house with her crazy eyes and probably a cup of sugar she would be happy to loan me after an hour of pointless yelled conversation.

It's not that I'm not friendly. It really isn't. It's that I hear people's life story wherever I go. I find out about their kids and their hobbies and this one time when their husband cheated on them with a girl at the office but-what-am-I-telling-you-this-for-you're-just-waiting-in-line-ahead-of-me-at-the-post-office (true story). I apparently have one of those faces that says "NO NEED FOR BOUNDARIES WITH THIS ONE!" I was hoping that with this new address in this new town where I know only a few people and none of them on our street, I could keep my interactions of the neighbors limited to "I had to sign for a package for the dude with the dogs with the stupid names today" or "The people that live behind us and never close their blinds are grilling and it smells good—I wonder which spice mix they are using because I am sure we have it in the pantry."

And so, here we are. A friendly and kind man that can make conversation with anyone, married to a woman that works from home, feels no need to fully dress everyday, and doesn't mind if we aren't invited to the neighborhood BBQ.

Last night my new husband was near asleep and I decided that was obviously the best time to offer him a spoon to stir my pot of anxiety regarding what we don't yet know about each other. It went something like this:

"Do you realize we haven't even known each other five months?"

"Shhhhh."

"I'm serious. That's not even two seasons worth. What if I'm a real bitch in the summer?"

"Then I will work a lot of overtime."

"I don't want you to do that."

"Then I will hang-out at the reservoir with all my friends that have boats."

"You don't have any friends with boats."

"Then I will make some."

Which will probably be easy to do. Because just now on the way to the mailbox (bra on, for the record), I spotted a speedboat of some kind in the Hoffelbarf's garage during our now daily exchange of forced-for-me hellos. I hope they enjoy my husbands barbecued wings at the res this summer. I hear they're really good.

Where to put the sex canvas: the story of my move thus far

2014-03-11T12:35:00.000-06:00

Last Christmas I got my husband who was not yet my husband a sex canvas. I mean, no, it wasn't actually a sex canvas, but that's what we jokingly referred to it as, making it great more fun to tell people what our Christmas exchange consisted of. Love Is Art is a company that sends you a kit of a large loose canvas, body-safe paints, plastic drop cloths, and a handy leaflet of "instructions". You are to get naked and roll around together in the paint on the canvas, creating a completely lovingly custom and personal piece of "art". Honestly I bought it on the shock value alone. This man isn't easy to shop for and there it was in the Uncommon Goods catalog between a salad bowl that looks like a row boat with wooden tong oars and a make-your-own sushi kit. Neither of us like sushi and I already have a salad bowl shaped like a submarine.

He unwrapped it, we had a good laugh, and one evening after several bottles of wine we set out to, hmmm.........do art. Laughter ensued and not a paint drop of sex was to be had that night. It turns out that paint is really cold when it's all over your body. Also turns out that I'm a little freaked out by idea of paint everywhere—not just on my body but the hardwood floor and my beloved bird throw pillows. And getting stuff in my hair is not my favorite..........never mind other places.

They give you these bootie things to wear to get to the shower and if you have never ran naked through your house covered in wet paint, wearing nothing but paper booties, you are not missing anything. It's cold, awkward, and a bit embarrassing when you realize that you didn't close all of the blinds in the house and you have to turn on lights bright enough to land a plane in the bathroom in order to actually start and take the much-needed shower. Sexy, 'tis not. They also give you a loofah which is about a joke and a half given that a water-safe belt sander is a more appropriate tool for this mess. It was the first and the last shower I have taken with this man and hopefully the only shower we will ever take together in hysterical laughter combined with horror while saying things like: "what do you mean, there's paint there? Like, there there?" and "what if we end up having to go to the ER to get this all removed? What are we going to say? Seriously—let's think of something now."

Once the canvas has dried and the painted has washed off and your shower tile returns to it's original color, there is the question of what to do with the damn thing. Out of the five kids, the only one that really said anything about this new 48x36 colorful art leaning on my old bedroom wall was the 8 year old girl who just randomly stated that it looks like one of those paintings elephants do. I'm super excited about telling that little remark and the entire story of the sex canvas to adult her one day while I watch her cringe in embarrassment and agony. While I could probably go with this and say that we got it at the zoo and proudly hang it above the fireplace, it just feels wrong on so many levels. So for now it hangs above our bed in our new house and I am forever having to decorate around magenta, gold, and silver which sounded fun at checkout and now looks a little like the colors an elephant would pick out.

Anyway internet, I have moved. It took three former professional movers, a 26 foot truck, and the entire day to move all of my earthy possessions from an 1800 square foot house in Longmont that fit 3 people just fine to a 3600 square foot house in Fort Collins that will fit 7 people just fine. For the most part, nothing on my business side will change—I will still drive to Longmont to photograph my nearest and dearest clients. And over the course of March I will still be shuttling my boys back and forth because this entire move ended up getting planned around TCAP standardized testing, and therefore giving me a new distaste in the public school system on the whole. So other than my name, address, home phone number, people I share my home with, amount of children I care for, stuff in my house, my schedule, my trash company, my mailbox number, my regular grocery store, my regular gas station, and my regular Target……nothing will change. :)

And as I try to make sense out of 15 rooms and a garage that look a lot like this:

I take refuge in the one room in this house that is clean. And happens to house our non-sex sex canvas.

If you send them a picture of your finished work, they give you a 50% coupon for another kit. Next time I'm picking out colors that compliment the new kitchen. ;)

The bride wore Chucks, jeans, and most oddly, a grey sweater.

2014-02-20T12:02:00.003-07:00

I lied. Kinda.

Earlier this month—February 3rd to be exact—I was having a quiet evening at home with my man. I was wearing yoga pants and an old t-shirt of his, finishing up some work while I was waiting for him to get off the phone with his mother (whom is quite lovely, for the record). We were drinking wine—him while on the phone, me while typing or editing or staring at my screen like I do when I'm "working". His phone conversation went longer than planned and I ordered a pizza. Fast forward a bit and in a spontaneous moment that couldn't have been less planned or more perfect, he asked me to marry him. I said yes and shortly thereafter the pizza arrived. Pepperoni and pineapple from Abo's. Their pizza is delicious and if you have never, you should totally try it. We were drinking a wine called Once Upon A Vine, bought completely based on the name and label which is slightly less delicious, though obviously it's now going to be something we always have around. And I suppose if you're going to have a special wine based off a special night, Once Upon A Vine is better than, say, The Devils Locker (which is way more delicious, should you be interested).

And that was that. Both of us were a bit freaked out for a day or so. I texted one of my dearest and oldest friends "I think I'm engaged" and she responded with perfect words because she always knows exactly what to say. I mentioned it to a few close friends, my son's teacher in a very odd moment, and for reasons I still don't understand, a clerk at Dillard's in the swimsuit department…..but again, really odd moment. For crying out loud, I don't even remember what I was doing in the swimsuit department in February anyway. For a few days I enjoyed teasing this man about that time he proposed over pizza while still wearing his work clothes. We aren't exactly "hire a caterer, take dancing lessons" kind of people. We have five kids between us. And a blind dwarf dog. So it's not like there was ever going to be a big "let's set the date" as much as his three daughters would have enjoyed a huge wedding, possibly with a reality tv show in our honor.

Let's fast forward again. To to last week.

After a morning full of errands, we found ourselves at the courthouse at 1:45 on Valentine's Day. We had the paperwork completed by 1:50, but the sweet girl at the county clerk desk said we should just write 2pm on our marriage license, so we did. Actually he did. Because he has nicer handwriting than I do and I asked him to fill it out. And somewhere between jokes about not knowing how to spell each other's middle names and raising our right hand to swear we weren't first cousins to our knowledge, I made a silent vow that that afternoon was ours and ours alone. Because after all, we were a family of seven now and so very few things were going to just be ours. I mean I have this blog, I can't shut my mouth on Facebook, and this man I married talks with his co-workers like a teenage girl. No joke. An oil field in the middle of nowhere and from what I understand they are a bunch of girls. Cry baby girls.

But I will tell you that I was having a terrible hair day and the "in front of the courthouse" selfie we attempted will never, ever be viewed by anyone. Oh, and that I stole the pen we signed our marriage certificate with. My very first act as a married woman was theft, followed by a bad selfie.

So….I got married. I got married, and only told a few people (because otherwise I was going to explode), including that same dearest and oldest friend who said something so perfect, it doesn't even fit on the screen.

And I tried to go about my business, I really did. We decided to say that we got engaged on Valentine's Day so we could actually feel a bit celebratory and possibly give people a few days to get used to the idea. We wanted to tell our kids first; We had good and honest intentions of doing that with all of them together in this magical moment of celebration and joy until we realized that with 5 kids, one of them is bound to take us stealing away without them a little hard. So we threw that out the window, told our kids, and now……I'm telling you, dear blog reader/Facebook Friend/Random person that Googled pepperoni and pineapple pizza and ended up here.

Anyway, I got married. I got married to a man that wakes up at 4:45am five mornings a week to my alarm because he sleeps through his own alarm and so that means that I wake-up at 4:45 too. I got married to a man that has 3 daughters that the moment I met them, felt like they were the girls I have been missing. I got married to a man who tends to get a little long-winded. I got married to a man who insists on Tide (original scent) and folds together socks like it's a physics project. I got married to the most gorgeous man I've ever met. I got married to a man that has a coffee habit worse than my own. I got married to a man that doesn't know how cranky I am in the summer. I got married married to a man I knew exactly 110 days. I got married to a man that has the patience of a saint. I got married to a man that is everything I'm not. I got married to a man that is not what I am. I got married to the love of my life.

Oh, and I'm changing my name.

Anyway……how was your Valentine's Day? :)

NO SLEEP 'TIL.....(guitar).......Fort Collins :)

2014-02-03T19:54:00.001-07:00

I'm moving. Not tomorrow and not far for what it's worth, but my children and I are in fact moving. I had no intention of telling anyone, any of this, anytime soon, but apparently my kids announced it at school today, much like the time they announced that I "take pictures of people when they are naked" after seeing me edit images for a charity undressed calendar. The emails I am getting about the moving are a lot friendlier than the naked photography ones though.

In short this man that used to just keep a toothbrush here has taken a liking to my cooking (I make, maybe, 5 things so we can also say that this man has very low expectations) and the fact that I may be the only adult ever to make a total mess out of grocery shopping and can't be trusted to complete a simple list of milk, bread, and eggs without getting distracted by pore strips and Christmas candles on clearance, only to come home with a box of Shells & Cheese and a donut. For myself. That I don't share. This man that talked me into lunch on a random Friday afternoon in October, this man that talked me into letting him pick me up AT MY HOUSE for said very lunch when I had never met him before, this man that introduced his kids to me a week later and they asked if we were married, this man that now unofficially lives here and shovels the snow in my driveway and deals with the blind dog that drives me crazy and brings me Panda Express when I'm sick and calls before he comes home to see what he needs to pick-up at the store that I forgot………..this man loves me and has made me happier than I ever thought possible.

And also I have this tiny bathroom and no closet space. And he has 3 kids of his own. And while it's been fun to make-shift sofas and mattresses into sleepover madness a few nights a week, ultimately we need to change things or I have to go on anxiety medication and drink more wine. And doctors say you shouldn't do that.

And, and, and.

So one day a few weeks ago he proposed us sharing a Comcast bill over a candlelit dinner and champagne and I said yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Not really. I don't like champagne.

What does this mean though?????

To anyone first hearing this here, not much (unless you're this man's mother, in which case you should know that I asked if we needed to tell to you first and he said—and I quote--"she found out I was in a relationship on Facebook, so what's it matter?" With that in mind, please know that I am a good person who loves your son and is a fairly normal flavor of batshit crazy and if the news of your son and granddaughters sharing a house with a woman he JUST MET freaks you out, know that I make a good margarita and I will happily make you as many as you need to feel better about this.) I will still have a blog and post on Facebook and work from home--in my pajamas more often than not. I will also continue photography in the Longmont area. The only thing that is really changing is that you won't have to worry about jump starting my car in the Hug & Go Lane at my kid's school when I leave my radio on for the 30 minutes I end up waiting there or running into me at Target. Assuming these were even possibilities for you in the first place.

And it's big and scary and wonderful and terrifying. And maybe my kids and I will love it. And maybe we won't. Maybe we will come running back to Longmont. And maybe we won't. Maybe this will be the reason my kids end up seeing a therapist three times a week as adults. And maybe it won't. I feel I've given them enough material for weekly appointments, so I suppose it's just a matter of how they process and if their future therapist is out-of-network. There's no way to know. What I do know is that I will regret not trying. I will regret not throwing my heart and soul at this amazing chance for my family—the very heart and soul that has ached for less than this because it would have never occurred to me that this—in all it's wonder—was even a possibility.

Longmont was the town where I became a mom. The town where I became a photographer. The town where I met My People. Accidental as it was, Longmont has been my home for over a decade (and also 1995-1997, but I don't like to talk about that). It's where my kids were born. Where my many of my friends are. Where I can drive 1.2 miles to my mom's house to borrow a cup of sugar or a shirt or whatever I left there yesterday. Where I can't run errands sans make-up and a terrible hair day without running into a dozen people I know. It's my adopted hometown. But it's not my home. It never was. My home is were these two boys that call me mom are……where these three girls I have been trusted to co-parent are……where this man that has accepted me just the way I am, this man that loves me not despite of my crazy but because of my crazy….is.

And I am so grateful and happy, and yes.....I am moving.

2014: Tenth verse, same as the first

2014-01-21T14:08:00.002-07:00

Since they could write, my sons have been writing me notes. The first one ever, written on the back of a paper napkin ring from Old Chicago's, my oldest wrote some sort of message in 3 year-old scroll thanking me. Likely for ordering him French Fries with his pizza. I've carried it in my wallet for years.

This year, like many years past and also like every single person in the Pinterest/Instagram/Facebook/Internet world, I too started a 365 grateful projects of sorts. I opted to leave it without definition, thinking that this would surely enable me to stick with it. Each day I would write a little sonnet or verse, or take a photo, or even just tape my fortune from my Chinese take-out on a page. This time I would see it through. Every day. Because after all, how hard is it to get take-out and find tape, right? Certainly easier than committing to taking 365 pictures over the next year, theme or not.

We are a good three weeks into the year. My last entry reads January 4th. Don't get me wrong—I've thought about it A LOT over the last 17 days. I have beaten myself up almost daily for forgetting, or rather ignoring, my gratitude. How dare I? Ungrateful bitch that I am, how dare I not jot down that sweet little joke the youngest told me? Thankless am I to not print out the picture of this damn blind dog looking all cute in my lap while I am trying to work a mere 12 days ago. Unappreciative is the nicest thing someone could say about a woman who doesn't write down when her amazing boyfriend (a word she isn't even comfortable with at the age of 34) says: "Oh, you're still out of my league. I've just accepted the fact that you're slummin' it. And I'm grateful for that." Sure, I typed it in my phone in that moment, thinking that I would in fact transfer this little gem into my Big Beautiful Book Of GRATITUDE. This quote was made for My Big Book. And yet, somehow watching the plane crash episode of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix made it on to my schedule—more than once—in the last week, but I just can't seem to find the 10 seconds to get a pen and My Big Book and write this shit down. In my defense…..have you seen the plane crash episode? As someone who resisted watching Grey's for years, as the very person who rolled her eyes at all of you acting like it was the most amazing show ever for the last decade, I say to you: I was wrong. If you do nothing else today, watch an episode of Grey's and see how it relates to EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE. Probably.

My reason for not keeping up with The Big Pain In My Ass Book is actually quite simple: I screwed up to the point of no return. I missed a day. And then because I missed that one, I had to miss all the others. Because then I could just fail and be done with it. Which is way easier than making my own rules, the very beginning of how this was supposed to go, and just being grateful whenever I am, and documenting it whenever I can. The very rules and perimeters I put around this project were the very things that I was using as my reason for not doing it.

Yesterday I got a text from a beautiful almost 14 year old girl that I refer to as my faux step-daughter, but the man that is grateful for my slummin' it prefers me to refer to as pre-step-daughter, or really anything else really but a word that essentially means fake. It was a nothing text really—I get something similar to it every day from her, typically a teenage request that falls on some level between "I'll die if if this doesn't happen" and "This is so important, I need you to drop what you're doing and answer me now before I die" and it started as they always do lately:

Do you see it? It's subtle. (Much more subtle than the teenage texting abbreviations that drive me crazy to no end that I am vowing to stop being all grown-up about starting now.) And maybe you have to be divorced or a single mom or in a relationship/blended family……or be me……to see it. She groups me with her father. I am being granted the highest of honors, the biggest of trust, in her world. Or......she just knows that between me and her father, I'm the one that's going to know what she is talking about and will respond quicker. End run or not, she asked me. I am now a de-facto parent to this amazing girl and her two younger sisters. And I'm grateful for that every day.

But how do you journal that? How do I put that in my Big Book That Nags At My Soul Much Like Failure Does all neat and pretty and crafty and creative? And if I don't print out the text or just write it down on the proper page or maybe draw something symbolic about it, never mind that I don't draw, am I less grateful? Is the project a failure before it even began? Will I remember all of these things that happened if I don't write them down in this big fancy book that was practically made for this project? Are these projects just scrapbooking, cleverly disguised to make you feel the optimum level of guilt only appropriate in January?

I don't know. But damn you Pinterest and your sassy sister sites of guilt, making many of us feel like ungrateful and un-crafty failures.

And on that note, I'm teaching a class on social media this summer.:)

This little blog that I have started writing in semiannually of late and I have been in our rocky relationship for a solid decade now. It used to be where I went to write, to show photos, for therapy, and sometimes just to have a place to lay out the thoughts in my brain. But then I started writing in other places, delivering photos to clients instead of taking the extra time to post them here, and going to an actual therapist. The thoughts in my brain still needed a place to breathe, but that took a backseat to more important things like Facebook and Pinterest. This year I am hoping to return here more often. Not in a way infused with guilt, but rather in a "let's just go ahead and tape another damn fortune on the next page 17 days later and be fine with it" sort of way.

Happy 2014 folks. Let's go a little easier on ourselves this year. :)

The Flood

2013-10-01T16:42:00.003-06:00

Over the last few weeks, my adopted hometown of Longmont, Colorado made national news for a 100 or 500 year flood, depending on who you ask. And it was and continues to be tragic and odd and sad and somehow uplifting.

All of the people I know and love are accounted for. Some friends have had major loses and a few others are still somewhat stuck on what has become an island of my original hometown, Estes Park.

Beyond some mopping of basement water that didn't ruin anything and forced me to pick-up the million Lego pieces off the floor that I had been putting off for a month, I wasn't directly affected. I sat paralyzed for 48 hours in a waiting game, assuming that at some point, I would be evacuated. There is a certain exhaustion that comes with waiting for a disaster that may or may not force itself into your immediate world. I made cookies. Because I didn't know what else to do, and lots of times when I don't know what to do, I make cookies. I watched what has to be the only three Law & Order: SVU episodes I hadn't yet seen. I reaffirmed my deeply close and personal relationship with my couch. I worked. From my couch, but I have a job where I can do that. I decided we needed to get a dog and dragged my kids to two different humane societies in a day. The perfect dog wasn't there, but a few days after the flood, I found out I was chosen to foster-to-adopt a 7 month old yellow lab that is blind and has a form of dwarfism. You can't even make that shit up. She will be arriving here by van. A van driven by volunteers, full of homeless dogs that just narrowly escaped death. I haven't figured out what the right medication is that will allow me to have to witness this when I pick-up this puppy whose name I don't know yet, but hopefully I will.

It's funny the things you do in times of stress. Who you call on, and who checks in on you. Who listens to you whine, who sits silently on the phone with you while you together, apart, watch the news seeing streets you drive every day overcome with a river of flood waters and people evacuated their homes by boat.

Every park that I love and shoot at is closed until further notice. My kids were home for a week because school was canceled. Try explaining what a flood is to two kids that were born and raised in an area where rain is so rare, it's a novelty. I had the forward-thinking to turn off my sprinkler system. And the sadness to be upset that I am the only adult that lives here and if I don't think of it, no one will. I packed a bag, and got together all of those things you think you'll grab in a fire—pictures, my laptop and hard drives, a few sentimental things, and for reasons I still can't explain, a box full of magic markers, crayons, and art paper. Apparently where I was going, there was going to be crafting.

And as quickly as the floods came in, life moved on for many. Even those directly affected started posting cat videos on Facebook or emailing me about pictures.

I often revert to the power of threes—bad news, big events—the superstition of things coming in 3s. So maybe because this was my third thing of recent, I took this event harder than most who were as little affected as I was. Or maybe because the idea of people losing everything takes me to a place of complete emotional exhaustion, as it does for many of you I'm sure.

As I try to finish writing this post I started a few weeks ago, the blind dwarf dog, Helen, is happily chewing on my office chair—she may be blind, but she's still a puppy. And I'm on hold with Comcast. Because life moves on.

closure: (noun) an act or process of closing something

2013-08-18T13:41:00.000-06:00

Last week I closed on the sale of my house that we had resided in for the last 7 years. I had written the note below when I first put it on the market as a love letter of sorts, hopped up on wine and emotions. My plan was to edit it a bit and then actually give it to the buyers at closing which in my wine-fueled cry-fest seemed like a beautifully poetic idea. Then it became one of those ridiculous house deals that so many of them become without warning and while wine-fueled cry-fests continued, they became much less beautiful and poetic.

First the buyers found a silly little HOA rule about only allowing two 2 pets per household and freaked out, requiring me to convince them that the HOA police weren't likely to show-up at the door and demand that they produce all of their pets for a surprise count. Then after a quick walk-thru to show one of their relatives on the day I was moving, it came up that maybe she didn't like the house as much as she liked my stuff. To which I about offered her all of it because packing up all my crap ended up being the most complicated and exhausting thing I've ever done (and we are counting the unmedicated childbirth thing and the divorce thing and that time I had to put together a 324 piece MDF bookshelf from IKEA thing). But we make it to the closing table. An hour late because apparently when you are the buyer you can show up whenever you want. I kid. I'm sure they had a good reason. Like having to get that big down payment check prepared for the SCREAMING DEAL they got but, I digress: we get to the closing table. Where a few extremely random things happen and get said and I immediately get about 50 Shades of Pissed Off and spend the next hour not looking at anyone or saying a word until I signed the last document and I asked my realtor if I was done. Then after wordless placing (okay, slamming) a handful of keys and 2 garage door openers on the table, I stormed out, managing to get to the parking lot before the tear duct cleansing began. No doubt living my unsocial ex-husband who was beyond supportive of the whole thing having to explain that I was tired or upset or drunk or whatever story he went with. Hopefully not "she pissed as hell at you fuckers and here is her new address if you want to talk to her in the future".

Writing is often my go-to therapy, mainly because my therapist is unwilling to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week just for me, and also because sometimes she's extremely rational and that doesn't always work with my pissed-off-ness. In that spirit, I wrote a different letter to the new owners that ended with something like "AND GOOD LUCK TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE GARAGE CODE NOW!". Sadly, given that I moved roughly 8 houses down, they are neighbors of sorts and I decided that maybe it wasn't the best idea to ever let that little love letter see the light of day. And truth be told, I think my realtor has the garage code and would happily give it to them if only because she knows that I am hanging on by a thread and having to field one more thing about that house would likely make me lose my shit in a way I haven't before. At least not in a long time. So, in the name of closure and trying to find crap I can update this damn blog with, I present to you, dear loyal reader (Hi Mom!) my original letter with a few edits………..

Dear ~~Future Resident of My Humble Abode~~ People That Bought My Damn House,

Congratulations-you have purchased a wonderful, lovely, and sturdy home in a ~~much desired neighborhood, hopefully for top dollar after a long bidding war in which I profited in substantial ways~~ neighborhood with weird HOA rules for an amount that makes me sick and will surely end up being one hell of an investment for you, that perhaps later you will use the profits of to buy a beachfront condo or something, laughing at how smart it was to low-ball a woman desperate to sell and move on right when interest rates went up. It is contains some happy memories, some painful ones, and many more just average in weight and importance. It does not, however, contain any of my personal property that you apparently really loved because you got enough of my very soul already. Purchasing this house was a great dream of mine that didn't work out quite like I thought it would. I know that because I am not currently buried in your backyard which is the only way I had originally said I would leave. I think we are both glad that isn't how you came to own this place though.

While it is lovely and straightforward for the most part, there are some things you should know…….

The stair third from the top squeaks. But for reasons I could never figure out, it only does this if you are leaving a sleeping child in the next bedroom after spending hours trying to get him to fall asleep. The closet in the big bedroom sticks a bit—you'll need to pull on it from the inside. Don't bother with WD-40—it will only serve as a lesson in frustration. Someday you may catch the light just right and see that the wall at the bottom of the stairs has been patched; that happened the first time and last time my youngest was able to push through the gate at the top and luckily only the gate went crashing down the full flight. Also, you'll notice that I have left you a tremendous gift—screws in the most likely places you'll want to hang things (actually, it turns out that in an effort to be helpful, my ex-husband took it upon himself to take all those out the day before closing. Luckily he didn't patch anything so the holes will be real easy to see. Let's call it even for that punch-list of inspection requests you promised you wouldn't ask for when I accepted your offer, but then did, and I kindly completed them for you on my dime). ~~Use these—they were left by the family that owned this home before me and they are not just well placed, but have been put in properly and with great precision.~~ That and the red and yellow tulips in the front yard were the most wonderful surprises left by them and you will likely enjoy them even more than I did. As for the surprises (let's call them gifts!) I am leaving you…….

I have a big DIY spirit with slightly less know-how. Every light fixture in this house has been replaced. A few just days before you saw this home for the first time. The green dining room? It's been beige, purple, blue, and chocolate, and it's never been used as a dining room. I hope you wrote into the contract that you wanted to keep the black bookcases on either side of the fireplace that were used as faux built-ins (you didn't. Good luck trying to figure out a seating arrangement that works!). If you didn't, you'll find that the quote to do it for real comes back several thousand more than believable. Plus, you'll want to put wood floors in there first, so let's call that the 10K project I never got to. Maybe you'll get to it. But tackle the backyard first. And while we are talking about the backyard…..I'm sorry. I'm just not the gardening type. I'm not even the "outside" type. The brick patio works well for toy cars though. And kids do learn how to short throw as to not land footballs and such over the fence, but until they do, both neighbors are nice about you going and retrieving what inevitably ends up over there. Plus, since I graciously left the trampoline at your request, your kid will have plenty of other things to play with.

Speaking of neighbors, you have a lot of them. A young family to the west—people I thought that I would watch their kids grow a few years behind mine but will probably not talk to near as much in the future. To the east—he is endearing if you give him time. He's had a tough life but has a good heart and lots of tools. Try not to catch him on an off evening or it will be a long conversation for you and whatever you do, don't get him started on the HOA; that's a passionate conversation that no amount of vodka can make pleasant. Across the way you will meet a row of 5 different families of all shapes and sizes. They will tell you if you leave your garage door open late at night or if your sprinkler system is leaking. They will likely even snow-blow your walkway—and it's a long one so don't screw that up. And all of them always have a cup of sugar or an egg and are used to the people living in this house, not.

A family of bunnies lives under the front porch. Just let them be—they are really no trouble. Monday is trash day which is good if you entertain but is a true bummer of a long week if you forget. Both of my sons came home from their first day of kindergarten here and if you lean just right from the master bedroom, you can see the bus stop and watch your children safely board. Or maybe you'll be more social than I was of late and actually hang out with the other parents there. My divorce was decided in the kitchen, but nothing was thrown so you won't find any evidence of this. My dog died in the front hallway, but again, you'll likely never know this. In the summer when the trees are at their full glory, the whole upstairs feels like a treehouse. Try to remember this when you are noticing that the AC never kicks in upstairs like you want it to and maybe the treehouse bit will be charming. This is also likely when you will be grateful for the remote-operated ceiling fan in the master bedroom that I installed myself—a project that tested my physical strength and electrical abilities far greater than I imagined possible and didn't end until months after it had started. It's no small miracle that every light switch in that room works as it was meant to and that it's all to code—something I was able to make sure of after dating an electrician, which in itself would have been something handy to have done before starting the project on my own. I spent a lot of time in an adult version of a time-out in the master closet. If this is something you end up doing, a pillow can be nicely stored under the shelves and both the cell phone reception and wifi signal in there is fantastic.

I was always going to change the outside light fixtures…….pull out the dogwoods in the back…….put knobs on the kitchen cabinets…….paint the island……replace the fireplace surround with slate……but I didn't get to it. You see, everything that was done to this home I did on my own. And a girl can only replace so many light fixtures and paint so many walls before she realizes this wasn't the original deal. And then she gets really tired. There isn't a corner of this home that I haven't touched, that I don't know by heart. There are Legos in the vents. Dog hair buried deep in the carpet. And a lot of random paint choices that didn't turn out exactly as I expected.

My kids didn't take their first steps here. I never could get a living room furniture arrangement that worked well. And the half bath downstairs drove me crazy from day one. But…….my nurse friend pierced my ears in the master bath. I was 32 and it was a bloody mess, done in whispers because the kids were asleep down the hall. I tried pot for the first time at the age of 29 in the garage. (Don't worry—that didn't happen much.) I had my first huge fight with an 8 year old in the upstairs hallway and the reason the door to the far bedroom swings so quick is from constant slamming, that was no doubt involved in said huge fight. The kids bathroom is my masterpiece; you will likely hate it, but as you are changing it, know it took me 3 years to get it that way. For two months I shared this home with the man you met at closing after we had decided to divorce. And on that note, I can tell you that anything you say in the master bath, in even the quietest voice, can be heard in the guest bedroom.

There are outlets in all the right places. In all the faucets, hot is actually hot and cold is actually cold. The garage can hold more than you will ever need to store in there, possibly compelling you to bring more stuff home if you are anything like me. There is excellent hidden storage for Santa just under the stairs in the basement. And if you have talked me into leaving my beloved washer and dryer (you didn't--I won that one, suckers!), you will love them almost as much as you love the big fancypants refrigerator. If I may offer you a little advice—take the change filter light seriously because water goes from tasting perfectly fine to like you're sucking on a penny in about a day. And so you never have to wonder, allow me to mention this: there is no possible angle that allows viewing into the master bathroom window, so you can walk around in there naked as the day you were born. You know, if you're into that.

I leave behind a shell. It has great and beautiful possibility. I take the memories, both good and bad, the karma, and unfinished hopes with me. So that you may start fresh here, perhaps creating what I was never able to in this space: comfort.

Oh, and the driveway gets really slick and this one time my car rolled right out of it in. With a Christmas tree strapped to the top and my children screaming from the garage. But that might have been more how my life works and not anything to do with the steep driveway. Still—I suggest lots of salt.

And call my realtor if you want the garage code.

Etcetera. Even though I swear I have used this as a title before.

2013-08-02T22:33:00.001-06:00

Lately I have been writing quite a bit for a photography website about various things photography-related (although I try to sneak in some random BS when it works). This has brought over new readers to this very sad site your eyeballs are currently feasting on, who are possibly disappointed about all the nothingness that goes on over here. At least I have been getting emails saying as much. At first I thought all of these emails were from my mom, trying to boast my confidence and make me feel better, but my mom isn't really tech-savvy enough to make-up fake email addresses and then be productive with them. The woman can cook a Thanksgiving dinner for 30 on 5 hours notice, but anything beyond control-alt-delete is a bit overwhelming. I know this because when it's beyond control-alt-delete, I get summoned over to fix the problem. (Don't get me wrong—I'm happy to do this and know it's my duty. Also this duty gets me free babysitting and no-interest loans, so it's not like I'm ever going to complain about having to run an update or fix a router problem which is the extent of my abilities).

Then I got a Match message (Yes, I am on Match. I'm a 30something single woman. Having a Match profile is Chapter One of the manual they give us.) from Random Dude who was able to figure out my name from here and then got to my blog and then sent me a message about calling a Junk Ball (see below). Which any normal person would find creepy but my first thought was: YOU READ MY BLOG?? DID YOU LIKE IT??? ARE YOU GOING TO READ IT AGAIN?? The answer to those things is likely no, after the message I sent back about my thoughts on organized religion (no thanks) and drinking (yes please). So, another possible reader.….scared off……yet again.

The truth is I haven't had a bunch to write about that works here. June and July were assholes. My May birthday was easily is in the running for Worst Ever. I had a little "situation" with a man for a few months that ended with with me having a few of his old t-shirts, a bunch of songs I never want to hear again, and a newfound hatred of car dealerships (nothing really lost there though). I moved last week—8 houses down from my old house of 7 years—and swore that I will never, ever move again and will be buried in this backyard. I put both my therapist and my realtor on my "Favorites" list on my phone of out necessity and both of them have had to hear what was meant for the other one more than once. And been really nice about it. I was without internet for a week and made some really good friends with a couple people over at Comcast, especially Claire, who recently kicked her boyfriend out and is feeling a little down lately, and Mikahla who restored my faith in humanity and loves Thin Mints and, like me, street names that make sense (I prefer Samoas). I completed my state exams, passed, and am now a registered psychotherapist and Reiki Master. Which will surely come in handy if I am ever stuck on a desert island. Much more so than, say, being able to start a fire. Which, thanks to my father badgering me throughout the years, I can also do. Assuming I have matches.

And that's honestly about it. Though if my therapist were to read this, she would laugh out loud, but never LOL because she knows I hate that phrase. It's been a hell of a summer. But in 12 days, 10 hours, and 42 minutes my kids start school. And I am convinced that's when the world chills out a little. I'm also convinced that by then I will have all of these boxes unpacked and life will get a little easier. I may also learn how to start a fire with nothing more than a stick and a piece of paper. Because I'm on Pinterest and they love that kind of shit there.

Because I never post without a photo...........I needed some new bio shots and after going down my list of photographers, I ended up having to have my 9 year old take some of me. He took this. I am renting him out for double my rate. :)

Junk Ball

2013-02-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

My 3rd grade son has started playing basketball in our town's large elementary school league. It's been interesting for about 5000 reasons, which 4999 of them are for a different blog post that I will never get around to writing. The referees rotate, but several times we have one that is my very, very favorite. He is one of the older ones, and by that I mean that he is old enough to not only buy beer, but possibly have a child that is old enough to buy beer. The other ones are clearly doing this either for community service or beer money which they will give to their older sibling who is actually old enough to purchase it. I don't know this refs name, but for the purpose of this story, let's call him Fred. Fred is clearly doing this little Saturday morning gig because he enjoys the sport and seeing the kids learn. Fred does things like stop the game so a kid can tie his shoes or explain to a kiddo what he did wrong rather than just calling a foul. Or helping turn them around so they play the right side on the right side of the court, which happens about twice a game at this level. Fred is a good guy and possibly the only ref that doesn't get yelled at by the overbearing parents that act like we are watching the Final Four.

At the last game I noticed that he was calling out something that sounded like "jump ball" a lot. And I had no idea what that meant. But that certainly doesn't mean anything because I don't have any idea of a lot of the things he calls out. By the second period and 5th jump ball call, I realized he was actually calling "Junk Ball". Now, all the moms I sit with are much more versed in the ways of the elementary league basketball terms than I am (and some other things, but again, a different blog post) and I didn't feel like I could ask what the hell Junk Ball was without being laughed at. And right now my goal is to not get laughed at or get in a parking lot brawl with anyone that feels the need to scream "TURN AROUND MADDOX!!! EYES ON THE BALL MADDOX!!!" or anything else that ends with Maddox. You know why? Because Maddox is my kid. And unless you are saying "GOOD JOB MADDOX", shut your damn mouth. In fact, I don't care who you are yelling at, because THEY ARE THIRD GRADERS, PEOPLE!! I am not above decking you in the parking lot. And with 6 more weeks of this shit to go, I think we can probably assume that it's going to happen. I've been working on my right hook, and I'm feeling pretty confident in it. And that's to say nothing of my kicking abilities.

So, not wanting to out myself as an idiot, I rushed my non-sports-mom self over to my son's team coach, who I spent the better part of a decade married to, and asked what the hell Junk Ball means. To my surprise, I wasn't given the typically eye roll I usually get when I ask sports questions. He laughed and said he had no idea, it just must be this refs "thing". I can't tell you the delight I got in telling all those moms who had no clue but would have never let on that they didn't know either. As the game progressed I realize that Junk Ball is when things take a turn that can only get ugly. Its Fred's way of calming things down before it becomes Foul City or someone gets hurt. Once Junk Ball is called, he rotates teams or picks the team most in the right to throw it in and start the game again. It's the 3rd grade boy sports equivalent of let's all just calm the fuck down. It's control/alt/delete in an F5 sort of way. It's a Try Again. The sweet man called 32 Junk Balls in that one game. God love him.

Now, hold that thought while I go somewhere else—I'm going to bring you around the bend, I swear.

I like little mantras. Things I can pull out of nowhere to remind myself of…..whatever I need to remind myself of. A little go-to phrase that brings me back to the present moment instead of going down the 10 mile path of worry and stress that I often travel for no necessary reason.

Yesterday I had the most fabulous day. Nothing big happened—either bad or good. Actually, that's a lie. I found a pair of jeans on sale that fit me like a giant hug that I would actually like receiving. And I think we can all agree that's a huge thing. That's a once in a lifetime thing. Because about the only thing I hate worse than forced hugs is trying to find jeans that fit. But jeans thing aside, it was a great day. I saw some of my favorite people, got some good news, and you know, the jeans. I was the best version of myself. Then I hit a little random speed bump of worry or anxiety or the other 648 emotions that by force of habit, give me a little pause. And out of nowhere, I found myself saying, oh that's just a Junk Ball.

I'm telling you people, use it. It's the next big thing. I'm going to make this ref famous. I'll have him on Oprah by the end of the season. :)

Oh, and in addition to the jeans, I got a new boyfriend. His name is Mike.

Pulling from places you didn't even know about.....

2012-11-09T13:50:00.001-07:00

For the last couple of years, I have been writing for several different blogs and publications under a different name. Not to be sneaky or anything, but so that I didn't have to tone-down my swearing.:) But now I find myself in this lovely position of not having to play to a family friendly denominator; I don't do a ton of photography anymore and chances are if I do it for you, you already know me pretty well. And you know that I swear. Like a freaking sailor. :) And write about all kinds of stuff and have a bit of an open-book quality to my life. If we can consider that a quality, which we very well may not, particularly here in a few years when I am paying for both of my children to get boatloads of therapy because their mom wasn't the "muffin-baking type" so much as she was the "has a blog she swears on type".

I missed blogging over here on my sweet little piece of internet real estate. I really did. So I'm going to try to do it more. Maybe even—GASP—regularly. And the best way I can do that right away is pull from stuff I've already written. Because I have a house full of laundry that needs to get done, am buried in editing, and have a paper due on I don't even know what at midnight. This is something I wrote in July of 2011 for a little blog about dating, and though I promise this will never become a blog dedicated to my dating life (no one needs to read that), it has given me some pretty interesting stuff to write about, so….with that……here's this. If I may add a disclaimer, can I just say that I am slightly nervous about this whole "not writing under a fake name" thing and that I have had enough coffee today to fuel a plane's take-off. It wouldn't be unheard of for me to completely change my mind about all this in an hour and delete the whole damn thing. Just sayin'.

Dating & Lawn Care

Well, I’ve officially killed my lawn.

It started off with the best of intentions. As things often do. First the sprinkler system got all angry as apparently it wasn’t blown-out correctly last winter. Then there was the realization that I don’t care for mowing. These things together meant that by June I had Sad Grass. Which would be a great name for a band, and if you are currently in need of a great name for your band, you feel free to take that one, no charge.

So in one of those hasty moments of half-ass productiveness, I found a bag of what I AM CERTAIN was called “Weed & Feed” in my garage, which I took to mean that it would get rid of the weeds that were somehow surviving without water and it would feed the brown starving grass. I had about half a bag and roughly 5 minutes so I sprinkled it around what seemed like the worst parts of my front lawn and patted myself on the back for being the kind of woman that takes the time to do yard work before she goes for a 3pm Starbucks run. Or whatever I was doing. I don’t really remember, but Starbucks is always a fairly safe bet. Point was, I was a single woman and god damn it, I was keeping up with taking care of this house. I don’t need no freaking man.

A few days goes by and low and behold I have the most fascinating pattern of dead, crunchy grass. Almost as if my drunk pet monkey, which I don’t have but wouldn’t it be cool if I did, decided to just go hog wild, or rather drunk pet monkey wild, dancing around on the front lawn one night on a particularly potent bender with an open bag of something that kills everything it touches.

For the sake of this story, we will call that bag of something Weed & Feed.

Now, none of this would really bother me all that much—it’s not like I am running for Best Lawn in the HOA awards—if I wasn’t dating. Stay with me, I’m going somewhere with this.

For the last year I have been an active, albeit begrudgingly, participant in the dating game, which for the sake of this story we will call Weed & Feed. Weed & Feed has it’s high points. I’ve met some really interesting men, had some fun times, and learned a lot. And when I say that I’ve learned a lot, that’s code for: I’ve been freaked out by shit I don’t even want to tell you, because no one should have to be subjected to the mass amount of BS that goes on in other people’s game of Weed & Feed.

In general, I have dated mainly divorced men and what I have learned from this is that ex-wives are crazy. Every last one of them. I know this because every divorced man has told me so. I would like to research further, but I am afraid that if I ask my own ex-husband, he will only confirm it, and then what? Well, I suppose then I will have to give him credit for being right and I’ll be damned if I am going to be nice to him, because after all, I'm crazy.;)

There are three standard complaints regarding ex-wives: They withheld sex, they used sex as power, and they didn’t appreciate that a man needs to have sex often. Sure, there are other complaints. Apparently many of us ex-wives are clinically depressed. Some of us never truly showed affection or caring on any level. The vast majority of us blew through money like water. Mainly at Target, if I am understanding correctly. But, for the most part none of us put out. Like ever. Well, maybe once or twice if we had one or two kids, but that’s it.

Do I take issue with this constant thread of conversation? Sure. Does it matter? Not really. I got bigger problems. For crying out loud, I have a dead lawn.

Flash forward to, oh I don’t know, yesterday. When I found myself at the home of a man I went on a date with. (People, save it. There is nothing scandalous here—as we have already established, I am someone’s ex-wife, therefore I don’t have sex, I am clinically depressed, and I don’t show affection. I was only there to use him to take me to Target. Obviously.) In a long and complicated story of which the details are totally unnecessary to get the point I have promised you I will come to, this man….let’s call him Bruno (why not?), has purchased and moved into the house that his ex-wife owned and lived in since their divorce 5 years ago. It’s a lovely home and I think it’s nice that in this game of Weed & Feed, we all end up doing weird shit like buying our ex-wife’s house for the sake of these creatures we are trying to co-raise and share amicable gestures that pay respect to the time spent. I really do. Lord knows the ex and I have had to do some weird shit as well, and probably have more of it coming our direction. In bags, being sprinkled all over our lives by drunk pet monkeys.

In the grand tour I was taken on, I was shown the backyard. It sort of resembled mine, except it looked like someone at one point had actually enjoyed gardening, so rather than randomness of weeds growing everywhere, there were large garden beds that contained the massive amounts of weeds. Bruno says, and I’m paraphrasing, “Five years of neglect. I can’t believe she let it get so bad.” And that’s about where I wanted to die. To climb back into my car, drive back to my own weed infested yard and scream to the heavens IT’S FUCKING HARD, OKAY? MAYBE SHE WAS JUST REALLY FUCKING TIRED AND DIDN’T LIKE YARDWORK IN THE FIRST PLACE!

I didn’t of course. Because I’m a women, and in general, we don’t stick up for each other or have any sort of girl code, especially one that would alienate a possible male subject of interest.

So, now it’s not enough that I am doing my best to leave my crazy at home. To act like I have it all together and show that I am emotionally stable and totally ready for a commitment. Now I have to have a nice fucking lawn too? Because that’s a lot of stuff to keep up with. I was proud that I was managing to find babysitters and wash my hair on a regular basis, thinking I was putting a fairly nice foot forward in Weed & Feed and being a decent contender.

But if I have to start doing things like aerating and regular fertilizing, I quit. I’d rather stay home with my drunk pet monkey.

Men as sofas

2012-11-07T19:54:00.001-07:00

The nice thing about having amazing creative friends, is that random morning texting often becomes a little writing exercise. :)

He's like a high end sofa that's really pretty to look at….I just don't know if I could ever get comfortable on it.

He's like that sofa you see on the side of the road. For someone, it's going to be a real find…..you just don't want it in your living room.

He is like that old Pottery Barn sofa that you are somewhat sorry you got rid of at that garage sale. Sometimes you wish you still had it…….but not really.

He's not even a sofa—he's a couch. A comfortable, affordable couch that matches everything. And then one day you are sitting on it and a spring pops up and jabs you in the ass.

He's that fancy sofa we lust after at a boutique. But we could never afford it and it's not like they offer delivery anyway.

He is a perfectly average looking brown sofa…..that no one realizes folds out to become a scary sex den.

He's like that comfortable sofa that needs reupholstering. But you know you'll never get around to it and even if you did, that would change everything you liked about it in the first place.

He is that sofa you find on Craigslist that sounds really good, but you get there and the guy selling it is obviously a serial killer, so you take it only because you don't want to end up locked in his basement.

He's an inflatable sofa…..seems like such a fun idea, but sit on it in real life and you'll only end up falling flat on your ass.

He's like your grandmother's sofa. Comforting in a way, but ugly and has a plastic cover that makes no sense.

He is a leather sofa with matching ottoman. Looks all kinds of slick in your living room so you don't even mind that you stick to it when you wear shorts.

Fender Benders

2012-11-03T18:13:00.002-06:00

Let's skip that part where I make jokes about how long it's been since I last posted and our typical exchange of pleasantries. We've done that enough before. We all know each other here. We all know I'm flakey as all get-out when it comes to this kind of thing. Though, I'm oddly responsible in other areas, I swear. Like I fed my kids dinner tonight. A real one that required pots and pans and stuff. Pots and pans that are still dirty and on the stove, but that's besides the point. There were nutrients in there, and my children consumed them……Game ON. I'm covered for several days of feeding ice cream as a meal without guilt.

Last week I received 3 emails asking me if I was ever planning on blogging again. I honestly hadn't put a lot of thought into it, as I have been busy writing mind-numbing papers, an article, and editing myself out the hole I work myself into every fall, no matter how much I swear I won't do that again next year. Plus, I don't have a ton to talk about. I had cereal for breakfast. I came to the conclusion that I hate Halloween. I'm terrified of the upcoming holiday season. I have on pink underwear, and am drinking a triple shot latte as I write this. And now you've read all that and I think we can all agree that it didn't really enrich your life any. Unless you hate Halloween too and you were feeling guilty about hating it, but now feel a little better knowing that you're not the only one. And if that's the case, you're welcome.

My therapist (Oh yes, I do. Weekly. Twice a week if something bad happens. Or if nothing good happens.) says that I live a 75 mph life in a 45 mph world. To that effect, I have been trying to slow down a bit. Live today in today. You know, that "in the moment" shit that people put on sweet little jpgs with meadows and frolicking birds and squirrels, and then post on Facebook and call it inspiration. It's not easy. Like, at all. For me at least. BECAUSE HOLY SHIT, WHAT ABOUT TOMORROW?????!!!!!!! I mean, if I don't plan tomorrow up and down, side to side, THEN WHAT??!! So, I'm trying visualization. Because I had to write a paper on Alternative Therapy techniques, and may as well kill two of those damn frolicking birds with my one giant, stressed-out stone. Oddly, I'm not a visual person. I know—the irony. But in an attempt to make the voodoo bullshit work for me, I try. What I came up with was a house. A house that I am walking around in. I don't have to race up the stairs and hide in closet. I don't have to live every day terrified under the covers. Or on the porch, waiting for the next unexpected visitor to stop by without warning or invitation and throw a glitch into my tomorrow and all it's plans. I can just walk around, see what's there. Enjoy this room a little, then that room. Maybe see if there's fresh coffee in the kitchen. Maybe the door bell rings and I ignore it. Who knows? It's crazy like that in my little House of Visualization. I spent all of yesterday in the garage, but that wasn't exactly by choice and that story is too long and uninteresting for a blog post.

Today I have been hanging out in the family room, trying to help a 3rd grader with a serious crush navigate life. This crush has been going on for a couple of years, so I didn't realize that the world was going to fall apart today, yet here we are in TearVille Central. Apparently there is a message en route to an unsuspecting beautiful 3rd grade girl and WHO KNOWS how she will respond on Monday. And this is all we can worry about today. BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE MIGHT BE THINKING RIGHT THIS MOMENT AND HOW THAT WILL AFFECT HER ANSWER ON MONDAY!!! I still haven't figured out what she is answering or why this is such an issue on a non-school day, but since it's a miracle I was allowed this much information, I'm trying not to push it. While I desperately want to roll my eyes, I am realizing that I too have a somewhat similar adult equivalent situation going on and if someone rolled their eyes at me right now, I'd punch them. Square in the face. Actually, in their eyeballs, so the lesson of why eye-rolling is incredibly mean is truly learned. Me and this 3rd grade boy are quite a bit alike. When something is going on in the emotion-specific area, it's hard to think of anything else. Him and I have no trouble keeping our focus, just so long as it's in the heart space of our lives, and not say, I don't know, a spelling test or a 4 page paper due tomorrow on the various models of memory. Double spaced, Times New Roman 10 point. For example.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a car accident in California (my 75 mph life takes me to odd places with little notice on occasion). It was totally minor; one of those things were the clean-up and fixing of the situation is the biggest pain of all. My life didn't flash before my eyes, which is unfortunate as I would have loved a preview. Nor did I have any revelations about needing to do, well, anything. But it was a moment where I learned a lot. People show you what they are all about in those moments and I was grateful in a strange way for that. I learned a little about myself in that moment too. That when you live life at 75 mph, you're pretty good in that situation yourself. Until it's over and you drive yourself crazy thinking about it and feeling guilty because it was your brilliant idea to go to the beach that day, and had you just say, gone to a movie, the accident would have never happened. Again, for example.

It's a funny place you're in when the car accidents themselves are easy to manage, but the wake nearly kills you. When you can half-ass your way through college, or even the 3rd grade, but should an unexpected situation come up with a man or a 3rd grade girl, life gets all 50 shades of crazy.

Anyway……..anyone listened to the new Taylor Swift album? Pretty good actually. Supposed to be sunny all week. Football tomorrow. Carry on.:)

80% of the fried chicken

2012-08-27T20:22:00.001-06:00

This morning I woke-up to the very loud sound of dishes clanking together in my kitchen at 4am. On the way down the stairs to investigate in my pajamas without my glasses, half-asleep, no possible threat to anyone or ability to defend myself, I had pretty well convinced myself that we were being robbed by a bugler who knew that I had the last five Pier One "Bird Song" plates available in the state. You can't even get them online. I know that because when I bought the five of them at the Boulder store on deep, deep clearance, I said to myself, I'll just get three more online and have a full set! But NO. Pier One was having none of that. And they aren't on eBay either, so don't so don't go thinking I haven't checked. If you are wanting five Pier One Bird Song plates, you are likely going to have to rob me. But know that you will never, ever find those three to complete your stolen set.

As it turns out, it was not a highly efficient robber with incredible taste in dinnerware, but rather my 8 year old son. Unloading the dishwasher. At 4am. Now to some parents this would be very, very strange. And I am one of them. However it quickly dawned on me that he was trying to earn points (I have my kids on a point system for chores which they trade in for money), and was likely awake anyway (kid has just as much trouble sleeping as I do) and had the motivation to think to himself "okay, it's still dark out, I'm awake, and if I go wake Mom, she will kill me and likely make me eat hot lunch, a fate even worse than death…..how can I make the most of this time?".

And so there I was, staring at my 8 year old kid UNLOADING THE DISHWASHER AT 4AM, starting off my morning with insane jealously over his motivation. He is saving up his points for some ridiculous Lego set that I refuse to even look at online because I'm not ready to come to terms with the fact that I am going to have to actually shell out a hundred bucks or more for this damn thing very soon. When he asked if he could work on points for this, it was 67 points ago. Each point is worth a dollar. I didn't think he would be able to hold out, as neither of my kids has ever gotten very far past the "cash-in minimum" mark of 10 points. But here we are—me staring down the barrel of another expensive Lego set, bought squarely with the kid's with hard work, genuine motivation, and terrible insomnia.

My own insomnia, which enjoyed a little honeymoon period of being cared for by Melatonin and better sleep habits that is totally over, has never been near as productive. Oh sure, I lay there thinking that I should be, say, washing my Bird Song plates, but do I ever actually get up and do that? Hell to the no, I don't do that. Instead I lay there paralyzed with fear and worry. And sometimes with the juice of one anxiety lemon. On the bad nights, a sprinkling of sheer terror and panic spices up the dish and boy is that a treat.

In the spring I started regular therapy. I'm a fan and have always gone off and on, but this time I showed up all a mess and said in a really polite way: I'm going to need a regular weekly appointment, your email, your emergency contact information, and 90 minute sessions. Okay—that's a lie. She actually only does 90 minute sessions, but what isn't a lie is that I continued going to her mainly because my life moves too fast to pack it all into 45 minutes a week. And because she's fabulous and mixes up energy work and traditional therapy. And because she helped me get to here.

So where's here, you ask?

Here is pretty damn interesting. Here is becoming a reiki practitioner last month because it has called to me for years. Here is taking six college classes right now to walk down this crazy path that involves combining both current and past areas of interest. Here is scaling back work so that I can do homework. Here is taking out a decent size student loan with the idea that I will finish my goal—something that requires a little more faith in myself than I am used to having. Here is writing an essay on Travis' Iceberg Wellness Model, all while rolling my eyes a bit at the concept; because I love me some "voodoo bullshit", but like to pick and choose my doses of it. Here is trying to have the motivation of an 8 year old boy with a Lego addiction and terrible insomnia.

Here is a little scary. Here is a little terrifying. Here is very, very hopeful.

The other day I sent a text to my dearest friend who gets me beyond all others:

She's right. I don't say that. Ever. But I have learn how to. To my sweet neighbor that wants help with furniture painting, and pregnancy questions, and needs a friend. To a man that has popped in and out over the last year, happy to enjoy my time and offer little in return. To people who feel that I still do free photo sessions because I need the portfolio work. To people that have "needed" me in the past and have always been told yes.

"I'm sorry, but I can't right now."

My therapist compares my situation to being a runner at a popular buffet restaurant (mainly because her and I both Thrive on a visual I think)—there are all these lovely and hungry people out there and I am in charge of getting the food from the kitchen to the buffet stations. There is a lot of food. And they are really, really hungry. So I load-up my trays and I make the trek. But……damn those trays get heavy. Last year….or even earlier this year, I would have just dropped the trays out of complete and total overwhelmed panic. And then go running out of the place, home to my bed. Now my goal is different. 80%. That's it. I just have to get 80% of the food on the trays from the kitchen to the station. Just 80%. The other 20% can totally fall off the tray. It just can. Because I am getting the bulk of it there. 80% of the people are going to get 80% of their fried chicken and creamed corn. And that's pretty damn good.

And for all I know, 20% don't even like creamed corn.

Hungry? I get that. And I totally want you to get your fried chicken. And, I might even want to be the one that gets you your fried chicken. But no more fried chicken for the masses from me. I mean, eat all you want, but I personally only have this bucket full. And I have to be picky about sharing it. Because I just dropped 20% of the creamed corn back there. So, if you want THIS fried chicken, it's just not as readily available as it once was. Which is a very fancy way of saying……..

I have scaled way back. If you are not on my 2012 schedule by Friday, I will not be able to make room for you as I have in years past. If you want a photo session (or furniture help, or a volunteer for something), I only have so much time and most of it is spoken for. Does this mean I don't love you, love taking pictures, love that I have been so lucky to make a living out of this for the last 9 years, or love friend chicken? Hell no. It just means that…..well, there's only so many pieces of chicken……and I don't want anyone to have to share a drumstick. I mean, as it is, you're only getting 80%. :)

I have 2 sessions left/available for this year. Should these classes all of a sudden get easy and Dr. Travis' Iceberg Model starts looking a little more interesting to write about, I may open up a few more. But I'm not planning on it. So, if you are wanting fall pictures and want me to do them, email me.

And…….I can't believe that I have managed to not only write about fried chicken once again, but also compare my work to it. On the flip side, who doesn't love fried chicken, right? Especially if it's served on one of the five remaining Bird Song plates in the state.

One Great Picture: the endless summer edition

2012-07-24T12:54:00.000-06:00

Every once in a great while I do a One Great Picture event over a weekend—a super quick (and painless:) photo session that generates at least one (but usually more like 5) "great" images that are given to you as high res jpg files with full printing and usage releases. It's a budget-friendly, simple way to get family photos, a portrait of the kids, a great picture of the coveted family hamster (you know, if I photographed hamsters…..but scratch that because I don't think I want to), or a great shot for a profile or professional need. This year I am offering 3 dates for these sessions—July 29th (Sunday), August 10th in the evening, and August 11th in the morning. The cost for these sessions is $55 and while I never rush a kid into the idea of pictures, they typically take about 15 minutes. One Great Picture sessions are very limited and always sell out quickly. For more information or if you would like to book a session, please email me at info@lynseypeterson.com