Bedtime for Bonzo

So I'm over the damage to my ego, lol. I've decided to try my hand again at professional stock photography; I can reapply in a month, and in the meantime I'll sort through my old photos and take new ones which will be better than those I submitted originally.

The tripod I received for Christmas arrived last Wednesday (long story; don't ask), so I can play around now with low light and long shutter speeds. Tonight I convinced the toddler to pretend she was asleep, and got this shot:



Opinions? Critiques? Anyone, anyone? Don't worry; I won't cry this time if you have something negative to say. My chin is up and I'm ready to learn and improve!

Is it too dark, or merely appropriately cozy? Does the lighting look natural? I messed with the manual white balance setting on my camera despite the fact that I know nothing about that and have lost the camera's manual, lol. Do you think this image would be useful, commercially? The site says they're up to their eyeballs in landscapes, sunsets, and flowers; they need more portraits and "contemporary life scenes."

Does it look as staged as it actually is?

Any input you can offer is appreciated.

Well, it's 1:45am so of course it's time to go get the baby.... Sleep eludes me again. ;-)


~RCH~

Everything disappoints

Life has a habit of turning out much nicer in my head.

We're only to Wednesday, mid-way through the week, and I've already suffered a slew of disappointments. I feel so pessimistic lately; I ought to look at the bright sides of things, but.... Nothing turns out the way it ought to and I feel sad about that.

I got an email on Monday telling me that my application to be a paid contributor on a stock photography site was rejected; my photos were not of sufficient quality.

*Punch in the gut*

I hadn't considered the possibility, frankly, that they wouldn't accept me. (Not me; my photos. I ought to stop internalizing that.) I don't know why. I have little actual art/photography training; I know I'm not some brilliant natural-born art world star. My life is rather prosaic; I guess it's no surprise that my photos, are, too.

Still, the disappointment caught me off guard and hurt my pride.

Later that day, though, I went to the mail to find a brown paper package with a Royal Mail stamp right above the destination address. Inside, the issue of the UK's Townswoman magazine that included a full page spread using the picture of my baby sleeping that I had uploaded to a free stock photography site. (It accompanied an article on teenage pregnancy, lol.) So my work may not be good enough to supplement my grocery budget, but apparently it's good enough to use in a magazine.

I left the magazine on the kitchen table, intending to find a safe place to store it until the baby was old enough to appreciate her stardom. But in the meantime, the toddler spilled her lunch of Cheerios and milk in the vicinity of Townswoman. It didn't get the baby's photo, but the first half of the magazine is now warped and the pages glued shut. Hardly the pristine condition I'd wanted to save it in.

Disappointed again.

This afternoon the FedEx man brought me the full color proofs of the cover I'd created for my brother's book. How exciting! But I opened the tube, unrolled the proof sheet ... and noticed something I hadn't noticed before, a last-minute mistake in all the tweaking that I won't mention here because it's pointless to do so. I wonder if my brother had noticed, too, but not mentioned it to spare my feelings.

*Sigh.*

There's always something to temper my excitement, isn't there? Nothing can go just exactly right. Nothing can go the way it does in my head, where my life is bright and shiny and all my endeavors succeed. I feel mired in mediocrity. I feel sad.

I'll get over it in a day or two, of course. I'll drive aimlessly around on country roads, listening to self-important folk singers on the college station while the girls sleep in their carseats in the back, until I feel better. Or maybe I'll just drink a few shots of Dr. Pepper (straight up, full strength, none of that watered-down diet stuff!) to drown my sorrows, lol. That would be the cheaper therapy, given the price of gas.


~RCH~

Sleep is precious, but here I am blogging

Last night was a doozy, the second in three days.

The baby fell asleep relatively early, and DH, fresh home from a business trip, went to bed early as well. I had the whole house quiet and to myself, a rare treat at 10:30pm (a good hour or two before the baby usually goes down). I should have followed their lead, but I'd had too much Dr. Pepper too late in the evening and felt comfortably alert.

I decided to work on a couple projects: Tweaking some photos to upload as stock photography and brainstorming designs for my t-shirt shop.

I created this design in both a brother and a sister version for one of my mommy friends who hopes to conceive a 2nd child soon:



I made this one because -- theoretically, anyway; it's still hot here in West Texas -- the days will start feeling crisp soon and everything will be full of color:



They don't look like much, perhaps, but they kept me awake and working until 2am. I am nothing if not slow and methodical. A tweaker.

I had more or less finished at 2 when I heard the baby stir and start to cry. She has an amazing knack of waking up right when I'm about to go to bed myself, lol -- it doesn't matter whether I try to go down early or so late that it's early the next morning; just when I feel wiped out and ready to crash, she's up and demanding my attention. I nursed her and snuggled with her for an hour. We watched an interesting episode of Digging for the Truth on the History Channel about the search for El Dorado, the Incan city of gold. The baby fell asleep in my arms, so I tried to put her back down -- which of course didn't work. She knows the difference, even in her sleep, between mom's protective grasp and the cold emptiness of her bed. But at after 3am, knowing her basic needs were met, I thought it best to let her cry it out. It doesn't usually take her very long to get back to sleep, especially at that hour and on a full stomach.

Usually. Not this time, of course.

She screamed and cried and screamed and cried, and even with her door shut and her sister's door shut down the hall, all the ruckus woke up the toddler. As the baby's cries finally faded into whimpers and then silence, the two-year-old slipped out of her covers and padded softly in footsie pajamas across the house until she reached our bedroom door. She gave it a good, squeaky shove open and startled me half to death.

I put her back to bed and returned to my own to fall asleep.

A few minutes later, she was back in our room. DH took her back this time, so I closed my eyes and let everything instantly melt away. He tried to get her to sleep, but apparently she stayed up and talked his ear off for a good two hours. I got up again at 5:30, when DH came back and the toddler trailed him in. I tucked her back in bed again, changed the music in her CD player to something more soothing, and lay down with her.

No sooner had I closed my eyes than the baby woke up at full wail.

I said goodnight to the toddler, closed her bedroom door behind me and locked it (mean mommy that I am) and went to nurse the baby again. We fell asleep together on the couch and, finally, everyone was out for the count. Thank goodness we have 11am church, because none of us woke up before 10.

So that's the story of our crazy night. I'd had a remarkably similar one two nights earlier, when DH was away on business and I had both girls to contend with all alone. I'm exhausted today. I ought to catch up while I can -- the girls are both napping as I type this -- but I'm blogging instead.

No, wait; they're not still napping. I hear at least one of the natives stirring, and the other can't be far behind. Ah, well.

Here we go again. :-)


~RCH~

On his farm he had some sheeps

I intended to spam all my loved ones with these clips of the toddler singing (she's always looking for new and inventive ways to avoid actually going to sleep at bedtime; last night's brilliant idea was to take pictures on the "cramma"). Sadly, when I looked at my email address book I realized that many, if not most, of the addresses there are out of date. But then I thought, hey! Why not just blog the clips?

Enjoy!

Old McDonald Had a Farm -- on his farm he had some sheeps
Baa Baa Black Sheep -- one for my master, one for my game
Row Row Row Your Boat -- Liza but a dream!


~RCH~

Speaking of design....

I added a new t-shirt to my SpreadShop, Leonine Designs. This is for my sisters, who are all awesome like possums. But anybody could wear it, really, because possums are cute.



Just so you know, I also have a gender neutral kids' version.


~RCH~

I don't know how the WAHMs do it

Last week I pretended to be a work-at-home-mom (WAHM). Masquerading as a graphic designer, I created and tweaked (and tweaked and tweaked) a cover for the book my brother is publishing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience; while my creative interests have ranged all over the map throughout my life (writing, photography, random crafts, and now design), I've always felt very fulfilled when creating. It makes me feel whole.

Problem is, while I'm off feeling whole, my children are running wild with the knowledge that mom's attention is diverted. We had all manner of ... incidents, including the time my toddler found and squirted white board cleaner in her eye while no one was looking. I took a break to flush her eye over the bathroom sink (she loved that!) while my sabbatical-taking sister held her down.

I don't know that I could have done it without the help of my sister, or at least not during waking hours. And with the baby's still somewhat erratic sleep schedule, I wouldn't have wanted to try in the dark of night -- I value the little sleep I get far too much. (On the other hand, I often work best in the wee hours, lol, so maybe I would have anyway and just skipped sleep altogether!)

Anyway. It was lots of fun, and I'd offer to do it again in a heartbeat. But it's given me a whole new appreciation for women who actually make a living at home while simultaneously making life worth living for their children. I have a looooong way to go before I learn to multi-task that effectively.


~RCH~

The difference between them

When my toddler was born, she seemed to me like an old soul. I believe that we exist before we are born physically, that the essence and intelligence of our spirits are eternal, so in some sense we're all old souls -- but it was more than that with my toddler. She seemed wise. Her lack of language simply kept her from expressing things we, her parents, were too primitive to understand.

This persistent belief colored the way I looked at her: I often wondered why she would behave a certain way -- cry in church for instance, lol -- when she, of all people, knew better. I'd watch in bewildered awe, and sometimes impatience, as she played with her toes -- doesn't she know about toes already? -- and have to remind myself that while her spirit may be old, this body stuff was still a whole new ballgame for her.

I felt differently about the baby from the start. She seemed completely new, blank and empty as the West Texas sky, just waiting for experience to find and fill her.

I don't know why I sense that difference between them, or if there's even anything to it. I certainly don't mean to imply that the baby is less intelligent, or the toddler less pure.... I guess these perceptions say more about me as a parent than it says about either of them.


~RCH~

Update again

DH just called again; he's on his way home after unloading and sorting just three plane loads of hurricane refugees. Looks like that's all we're getting for now.

I wonder if that means my sister's scheduled Red Cross shift, registering incoming refugees from 10:30pm to 7am, will be shortened. Or maybe they'll just have her help in some other way. Hmmmm.


~RCH~

Correction and update

Thank goodness, yesterday's bad news proved to be simply misinformation. DH went to the airport where he, his colleagues, and about 20 ambulances from this city and from small towns all around the region waited for three hours for the planes full of refugees to arrive. Rumors circulated about the delays and the condition of the passengers, but in the end ... nothing. Officials sent everybody home yesterday afternoon with no clear timeline on when the hurricane victims would actually arrive.

A frustrating waste of resources, sure (especially the ambulances -- these tiny West Texas towns can't afford to lend out indefinitely what, in many cases, is their only ambulance), but at least the two dead passengers rumor proved untrue.

Everyone went back today, and the planes finally came. DH called me after unloading the first two; as many as four or five more planes full are expected. He said they hadn't seen any serious illnesses or death so far, but that the experience still ranks as the most sobering and sad of his life: These people have nothing, he told me, but limp garbage bags filled with their few possessions; everything and anything else they may have once owned is lost. They are lost.

He said didn't know when he'd be home, but it might be after my sister (who is here on sabbatical) leaves at 10:30pm to volunteer overnight with the Red Cross. If I didn't have the two little girls to look after, I'd go too.


~RCH~

Here come the 'Fugees

DH left about 30 minutes ago for the airport; he and his fellow residents will meet two planes of hurricane refugees from the Gulf coast states and do triage, sending the worst off to area hospitals and the rest to the long-abandonned Reese Airforce Base just west of here. Well, the rest except for at least two -- they got word that two passengers have already died in transit.

Wow.

I returned from my trip with the girls on Monday, and have put off blogging because I wanted to upload some happy vacation pics and pretty day photos to share with you all. But that seems so pointless now.

I've been trying to wrap my brain around this natural disaster all week, trying to put myself in the proverbial shoes of the people floating around New Orleans on closet doors, waiting to be rescued, or holed up with thousands more, getting antsy and agressive, in a football stadium that's falling apart. I can't do it. I just can't fathom what it's like for them.

And now they're coming here, to what must seem like an alien climate of dust and horizon compared to the lush swamps they're used to. They seem like aliens to me, a little. I told DH to tell them they're in our prayers -- and they are, every day -- but somehow even praying for them hasn't quite humanized the refugees for me. I don't say that to be cruel.... I'm not sure I can articulate what I mean very well, or at all.

Their whole experience is just so inconceivable to me -- not the disaster, even in its tremendous scope, but the fact that they've been living on nothing for an entire week; that they've been scooped up and brought here, bewildered and bedraggled, with no idea what's in store for them next; that they have nothing to go home to, even if they could go home....

They; them; a separate entity. There but for the grace of God go you or I, but I guess it's somehow comforting to me that I can't imagine the refugee experience, that I get to stand a step away from the tragedy and shake my head with a gentle tsk-tsk at their loss and the region's unpreparedness for it. I need it to feel alien, if you know what I mean.

I try to avoid news of the disaster lately; it just gets more horrible all the time.


~RCH~