Finding the Light, Reflection

I have been waiting years in search of the perfect photography assistant.  Someone that I could mentor, that I could have a blast working with, that would learn and grow in life with me.  I have finally found that perfect assistant.  Ok, so maybe it could be consider child labor, but I just love my new photography intern.

Look at her work

I invited my sweet and very artistic daughter to join me on a photo session a few weeks ago to assist me with lighting.  Occasionally she has come along to wedding sessions with me to carry my bags and help hold my lighting equipment.  Idaho wind tends to pick up my umbrella and carry it like a sail, so bringing her along to hold down the tripod is very helpful.  However, she hasn't always enjoyed that job; "its boring".  So when she was excited to go with me and help this time, I was elated.  This time, she wasn't there to hold stuff, she was there to learn and actually work.

Her job assignment, "Kya, find the light from the sun, and reflect it on to their face".  I am a lighthouse fanatic; the symbolism, its sole purpose, everything about the lighthouse intrigues me and draws me near its story.  When it comes to light, I am always looking for the analogy.

As Kya is my daughter, I found this moment of teaching her to use the reflector properly, as an opportunity to teach her about life and how our influence on others around us and the universe can affect how the world goes round, and how we can find peace and love in our own life.  Find the light, and reflect it on others.

The light.  In our faith, the light we focus on is The Light of Christ.  All that He exemplifies in service and kindness, in sacrifice, in loving all people.  Finding this light in our own countenance is crucial to our own happiness.  Finding this light takes effort each day, through prayer and developing a solid and loving relationship with God our Father in Heaven, through service for others.  Often focusing our attention on other's needs over our own offers us to see others the way God and our Savior see them.  It brings empathy and honest love into our hearts, and helps to put our own "issues" or concerns into perspective.  Once you have found that light, then share it.  I like to use the word "reflect", not only because it directly relates to photography lighting, but once your light is shared, it comes back to you, if reflects.

I am a firm believer in karma.  What you put out into the world, does come back to you, twofold.  I have seen this and experienced this first hand in my life, many times.  So when I teach Kya to "find the sun's light, and reflect it onto my subject", what I am hoping she gets from this practice is to find His Light and Reflect it onto the world that surrounds her, with her own glowing countenance.

Look how she glows! She takes her work serious! And usually doesn't like when I take pictures of her unexpectedly. hee hee

She found the light.  Its tricky and takes practice to find it and then be able to hold just the right amount on the subject as not to blind them, or cast too much highlighting.  And as Kya found, when the clouds are out, its a little more difficult to find the light, but it is always there, you just have to seek it out.

Shedding the layers, embrace the present, plant seed for the future.

I am a DIYer, to a fault.  I only say that because, often I just throw things together, haphazardly, only  in hopes to move on to the next project.  However, the older I get, the more my heart wraps around each project with earnest desire and care for an honest, result with integrity and beauty.  When we first bought our "fixer upper" house, 9 years ago, the en suite bathroom was put together with a very tight budget.  Stock vanity, paint for the shower walls and a quickly as possible to ensure a move-in date was efficient, as we were anticipating the arrival of our second child, Zander, while he grew in our hearts and snuggled in Tess' belly.

Sadly, I forgot to take a before picture, I was too anxious to just get started on the project.  Here is the vanity, with its 20" girth and glory.

A few years ago, I wanted to update the bathroom a bit, but still with my "reuse, reduce, recycle" ambition, I simply created a counter top with painted MDF, set that on top of the whole sink base, cut a hole in for the water to drain and fashioned a new sink out of a upside down light fixture, found at Restore for only a few dollars.  It was genius, so I thought, very little money spent and I didn't have to do any plumbing.  While this was a great idea and worked for a few years, eventually, the sink cracked and all the water running into the original sink, was just creating a buildup of hard water and mildew....ewwww!  We were breathing this in, with our teeth brushing rituals.  YIKES!  Something had to be done.  Again, on a budget, and quite honestly, I still like to find the old and bring it new life. I did however, order a counter top sink on Amazon, about 6 months ago, with the intention to start this redo then....life got a little in the way.

Here is where my project becomes more of a life lesson, than just a project.  I needed a base for the vanity, and with only 22" to spare, I was on the hunt.  Antique stores, Restore, DI, Salvation Army, you name it, I searched.  I certainly didn't want to just by new, and this needed to be custom made, for the space available, and for my own soul.  So I came across this darling sewing desk, just begging to for a new purpose.

Isn't she quaint?

 As I began to sand away her layers of dirt, grime and stain, her glorious natural beauty began to peek its way through.  I could feel her breath a sign of relief, of gratitude, for the ability to shed her past, to brush it away.  Her past didn't come without pain, sorrow and of course many beautiful and precious memories.  She has a wonderful story that has made her who she is, but some of her tarnish has been holding her back from her new purpose, her new story.

She's breathing, opening herself up for a new story

She even found a friend, looking for a new story as well.  They will build their story together.

With her authentic beauty exposed, she's ready and willing to accept this new story.  For her, it begins with the addition of structural support and design, adding a drawer to the bottom.  Then she dressed in a new coat of rich stain, adding a deep enhanced beauty to her physique.  And finally, a new top to support her purpose, as a bathroom vanity.  She wears her new story well. 

She's clean, and elegant and now owns her new purpose.  She will continue to share her story for years to come.

We all have a story, some desperate to burn the old, but unsure of how to create a new.  Through our infertility years, my story was messy and some days I wanted so badly for it to just go away.  In hind side I am truly grateful for the struggles, the nicks and bad stain, the spills and wear and tear.  But now, I am grateful to be writing my new story, just as our bathroom vanity has done.  A story that's been developing since the day our daughter was born.  Honestly, long before that, but just recognized then.  I love a good story, what's your new story?

Echos of being good enough in parenting

Been doing some thinking, after some frustrations with customer service issues and reading parenting thoughts by other bloggers.  Namely this mother at Lishous.com where she wrote THIS article.  I recently dealt with a member of our club that was upset when a membership was not cancelled on his time.  In the short of it, policies and procedures are laid out for a reason.  I am firm believer that the customer is right, and sometimes, we as business owners have to bite our tongue, suck up your pride and give in.  However, I am not a proponent of disrespect. When someone speaks to me (mind you, this someone is nearly 20 years younger than I) with profanity and swearing every other sentence telling me I am wrong, I do not take well to this.  I certainly am not perfect, and as an imperfect human, am very willing to own up to my mistakes.  However, bullying me into getting your way, disrespectfully, is not going to get you anywhere.  Ok, now that I have vented, onto my reason for this post.

As a parent, respect is a big deal in our home.  This world is losing its respect for self, for others, for mother nature, for religion, for just plain everything.  In the article mentioned above, this mother talks about how her perspective of parenting changed with one sentence.  I love her take on this view, and certainly will be considering this as a mother myself.  However, I do have some other thoughts.  I hope she would agree, but here's what I have to say.

Yes, we should be speaking to our children with respect, to get the same respect in return, and certainly getting down to their eye level.  Its important that our children don't feel they are being talked down to.  But when a child speaks to you with the same disrespect I got from the before mentioned member of our fitness club, then the tone will change, naturally.  Not because it should, it just does.  This is where we as parents have to learn self control with our own emotions.  And prayer has been the key for me in this endeavor.

Yesterday, my 8 year old son was dealing with some tough emotions.  He was reprimanded at school for "disrespect", and when I talked to him about it, asking what he had done, his immediate response, as is his usual effort to justify his actions, was to share with me how he feels the other kids were being mean to him and he was retaliating with anger.   Then shortly after, when asked to complete a chore (cleaning up dog poop from the yard), he lashed out in anger yelling at me, spewing mean words in the mix, with tears in his eyes.  Storming out of the room, he slammed the door to the outside behind him and proceeded to drag his feet while gathering the necessary tools for the job.  Admittedly, as a younger mother, I would have retaliated with similar behavior, in an effort to show him how ridiculous he was behaving.  The whole approach of mimicking, or mocking.  Either way, not a good approach.  It has not proven to be effective in our home as a quality parenting skill.  However, at times, it has brought laughs and lightened the mood.

So I sat there, wondering what to do with my heartbroken and troubled son.  Yes, he was out of line in disrespecting me in his moment of anger, after feeling attacked at school by both his peers and teacher.  I am not saying he was not at fault, but that is how he felt.  I stood up, went outside and began to help him scoop the poop.  Not only were we literally scooping our dogs poop, but we were cleaning up the mess that was made of our emotions that afternoon.  Scooping the poop from our lives.  As we quietly surveyed the lawn for Ozzie's little lawn treats, Zander began to cry.  This was a different cry than the angry cry while he yelled at me, this was a quiet whimper, where he was burying his head in his jacket.  I asked what was wrong, to which he replied, "I don't like when I hear those words at school and then say them to you".

My sweet, big heart-ed son had felt the sting of true sorrow and remorse from his actions.  He didn't need a mother to yell at him, he didn't need to feel belittled by parents he looks up to (literally), he needs to be heard, he needed to be in his thoughts and emotions, and he needed to see his mother put aside her own emotions and serve him.

I am not always so calm, but I pray each day for the effort to try to be.  In a talk given by Elder J. Devn Cornish found HERE he says,

"If we must compare, let us compare how we were in the past to how we are today—and even to how we want to be in the future. The only opinion of us that matters is what our Heavenly Father thinks of us. Please sincerely ask Him what He thinks of you. He will love and correct but never discourage us; that is Satan’s trick."

Our children deserve to be heard, they deserve to be able to express their own emotions and learn to deal with them.  They don't need to have us rub their noses in the poop, for them to understand that sometimes, it just sucks to have to deal with people and poop.  I have learned a lot in the last couple years from my children, that even though I am the mother, and my husband and I lay down the ground rules, my children still have a voice and it deserves a place in our home and our hearts.

Final quote by Elder Cornish from the same talk, 

"If you will really try and will not rationalize or rebel—repenting often and pleading for grace—you positively are going to be “good enough.”