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Leo turns three.

13/01/2010

At about this time 3 years ago, Leo was just hours old and James & I got the news that it was possible he had a low chance of survival (because of a positive test result for group B strep). Fortunately, it was a false alarm, but on this day, his birthday, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the nurse telling us he couldn’t stay in the room with us anymore; the nurse wheeling him out; the strained phone calls with the doctor; the group B strep fact sheet that casually mentioned the mortality rate; the IV antibiotics being pumped into his pink little wrist; and, oddly enough, the Shins playing on Saturday Night Live.

Enough of that, though. He’s alive and well. He reminds me of my maternal grandfather, though Doc Hoffman and I never had the chance to meet. Leo is stubborn, independent, moody and…well, smart. Tonight, when we got home from eating some delicious Razzleberry’s ice cream, he looked up at the cloudless night and made letters out of the stars. He looked at the stars and saw the alphabet. Yesterday he looked at a Ritz cracked and related it to a pizza. He has a way of thinking that just fascinates me.

Now, I realize he’s my youngest and I’m likely to dote on him. He hung the moon for me (as they all do in their own wonderful ways)…but I can’t help but think he’s awesome and not only in a proud mama’s eyes.

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Slow moving.

12/01/2010

The kids and I have found a new place to live; we started bringing boxes over yesterday and will do more over the weekend.  It’s a lovely little C house in the middle of town - much more convenient than living out west.  It’s a 6-month lease and after that I’m hopeful that homeownership is in our future.  One thing I’ve learned over the past 2 years is that I love stability, homemaking and family.  Renting is not the life for me.

I’m feeling very fortunate for all the good people here in Oak Ridge, and I’m curious about the year to come.  It’s already been a year of changes and we’re not even two weeks into it.

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March self-portrait (wild card inside).

27/03/2009

March self-portrait.

Ask Jason, ask the kids.

I’ve just been in a downright horrible grumpy mood lately.

I’m worn out, burned out, discouraged, whiny, quick to cry, quick to argue, slow to laugh; it’s the type of mood where the most minute details of life seem overwhelming and full of burden; the type of mood where old worries recycle themselves into cleverly masked reproductions and old hurts reappear despite my many previous reassurances of their ultimate demises.

It’s the type of mood that prompts me to write melodramatic posts…and then worry if I’ve been too melodramatic…or too honest…or too hidden…

: )

Anyway, yes, it’s the Anxious…the dread pirate Anxious has once again seized this vessel and is sailing her off to sea…

Only…I…I don’t want to go to sea. I want to stay grounded. I want to feel level. I want to be able to control these mood swings.

It seems like the solution should be easy; a quick answer to pluck from the sky and set into motion.

I know things I can do. Breathe, label my thoughts, focus on the moment. Be grateful for the bountiful amounts of good in my life (because there are, without a doubt, bountiful amounts of good in my life).

Sometimes, though, it just seems that all that good intellectual knowledge isn’t much of a match for the dread pirate. Sigh…

For tonight, though, I’m feeling good. Here’s a video that very aptly illustrates how I feel when I’m in a good humour. Fireworks and all. I feel it all.

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Me, my thoughts are flower strewn.

1/03/2009

I had the hardest time settling on a picture for today.

A while back, I decided that March would be “music month.” It’s something I already do every so often — draw connections between my pictures and favorite songs or snippets of lyric — but I thought it would be fun to make a month out of it.

I am an absolute music dork. I love music. My favorite music illustrates my life in the same way I want my pictures to illustrate my life.

Tonight — right now — trying to choose today’s picture, trying to find words to write, my thoughts are scattered, strewn, flower-strewn.

(’Find the River’, REM)

By the way, I ended up loving f/8 month! f/8 is great!

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February is for f/8!

1/02/2009

Ahhh…January is over!  ‘My Favorite Things’ month was fun and all, but I’m relieved to move on to something else.

Over the last several months, I’ve fallen into the habit of shooting at wide apertures, which produces a shallow depth of field (an example can be found here).  The habit intensified when I received the sweet little 50mm lens from Jason (which pretty much hasn’t come off my camera since Christmas day).  I love taking pictures with the lowest f-stop possible because it makes it easier to take low-light shots, makes the subject of the picture stand out and can produce beautiful bokeh.  I’m very comfortable taking these types of photos, but I think it’s time to experiment a bit.

So…February is officially f/8 or narrower month.  To be honest, I don’t think I’m going to like it very much.  It will be a challenge and an opportunity to learn.  It will drive me nuts.  It will be a good discipline for me to follow.

And now I would officially like to thank Wikipedia for helping get the terminology right.  If I got it right, that is….

P.S.  February is also ‘calm’ month, the word-theme I have chosen for the Shutter Sisters One Word Project.

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Traditions.

6/12/2008

Today is the first Saturday in December and traditionally the day of the Oak Ridge Christmas parade. I love parades (’cause in general, I’m a dork), and all day yesterday I mentally prepared myself to brave an hour of sub-freezing morning temperatures with the kids:

  • Coats? Check.
  • Hats? Hoods on coats? Check.
  • Gloves? Check? Well, a pair for the little guy. The others know how to utilize pockets. So yeah, check.

Anyway, last night I figured that I ought to double check what time it was to begin, so I hopped on over to the Chamber of Commerce’s website…only to find that the Christmas parade is not this morning, but Saturday the 13th, and at night! The kids will be with James next weekend…so…what do I do?

I feel like I’m floundering around this season, flailing about trying to find the Christmas spirit. The want is there, but I keep getting stuck. When I saw that the parade was on a different day and time, it really struck me that without the framework of that traditional day and time, I just didn’t know what to do. This funny little moment of panic set in, and I just felt like I was stuck.

I think it’s the same way with Christmas in general this year. The traditions that were built over the past ten years are no longer there. Last year, I knew just what to do at Christmas time, because that’s how I had done it the year before, and the year before that, and so on.

Now, everything is new and different. I’m in a new and somewhat unfamiliar house, there are new family dynamics still sorting themselves out, and I’m still learning to adjust to having the kids around only half the time. And without the framework of tradition…I’m just at a loss of what to do.

I think my blasted anxiety plays into this as well, and perhaps some unrealistic expectations of what Christmas should be like. Jason brought up a good point last night: should I even be feeling the Christmas spirit yet — when Christmas itself is still weeks away?

So, no Christmas parade this morning. Instead, a beautiful and frosty sunrise. Wingnut waking up at 6:04 and October still asleep at 8:13. Lilo and Stitch playing in the living room. A cup of coffee with chocolate syrup because we’re out of milk. A quiet kind of calm as I think about building new traditions and learning not to rely so heavily on frameworks.

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September self-portrait.

11/09/2008

I drove down to the Anderson County Courthouse this morning and filed a Complaint for Divorce.

My divorce isn’t something I’ve acknowledged directly on Camera Shy or the Journal; it’s not a secret, or something to be hidden, but it’s also not something that I’ve felt a huge need to broadcast over the internet. It’s a private, personal matter — but also something that affects me and my family in apparent, public ways. It’s the whole Camera/Shy thing all over again.

I took this self-portrait earlier this afternoon in the kitchen of No Name New House, which James has now coined The Westlook.  I haven’t lived at the Westlook since July, when James and I officially separated.  You know, Westlook is a nice house, but it’s never really been my house, my home.

But those lovely vinyl tiles do make for a good background for self-portraits.  : )

Hmmm…not quite sure how to wrap up this post…so, I’ll just wrap it up.

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I want you to know.

21/07/2008

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Planting Justin’s irises.

30/06/2008

We’ve now been living at the new house for nearly two months. It still doesn’t have a name…I kind of like calling it No Name New House, but I imagine that James will come up with something better.

We lived a year or so in Cemestos Gardens before settling on its name. I remember laughing about it, the absurdity of naming our 1,144 square foot house like it was some grand estate. Hell, who am I kidding? It was, and is, a grand estate.

The story of Cemestos Gardens is wrapped up in the story of my brother. I can’t think about that house without thinking of him.

My mom bought the house in 1997 with money she inherited from her mother. She already had a house in Clinton; this was her fallback if anything were to ever happen. The house needed an occupant, and my brother Justin needed a place to stay. At some point in 1997, Justin, 23, moved in.

I went to visit him once. I hadn’t spent much time in Oak Ridge and was totally confused by the roads. I was a little confused by the house, too, as it wasn’t completely apparent which door was the front and which one was the back. I knocked, but he was soundly asleep and didn’t answer.

In November, 1997, I found out I was pregnant. I was barely 20; James and I had been dating just a month. I really remember so little of that time…memories that I would like to be crisp and sharp are fuzzy, distant, blurred.

But not all of them. Some memories are sharp, and crisp, and sometimes feel as fresh as they had just happened.

On June 30, 1998, I sat, 8 months pregnant, with James on my old brown couch in my apartment in Fort Sanders. I had treated myself to cable and we were watching X-Files reruns on FX. The loud knock on the door made both of us jump. I was surprised to find my mom and step-dad at the door – almost a pleasant, confused surprise for the first moment, and then the dull instinct of something is wrong fell over me.

“Justin is dead,” my mom said. I very distinctly remember not understanding her, like she was speaking a foreign language. It just didn’t compute. I don’t think that it computed for a very long time; sometimes it still doesn’t compute.

Justin had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 12. He had a few scares over the years, and didn’t do the best job of maintaining his disease, but for the most part he was able to stay healthy. But not this time.

Who knows what really happened? He was at a party the night before. Perhaps he had a little too much to drink and fell asleep before he was able to eat a blood-sugar sustaining snack. Maybe he simply miscalculated – thought that he could make it until morning without eating. We’ll never know. Whatever the circumstances, he went into insulin shock early in the morning of June 30 and died in his bedroom, the corner bedroom of Cemestos Gardens.

His funeral was on July 9 at the Chapel on the Hill. I sat, still 8 months pregnant, and thought about my mom, who was 9 months pregnant with me when her father died. She told me that everyone worried she would go into labor at his funeral. She didn’t, and I was born 10 days later.

October waited a bit longer than that, and was born on August 6. I had moved out of my apartment a month prior, and James, October and I were squatting at my mom’s house in Clinton.

We needed a place to stay, and once again the Cemestos house needed an occupant. We moved in on July 26. My mom pointed out some iris stalks in the front flowerbed by the steps to the sidewalk. “Justin planted those,” she said. “Take care of them.”

They bloom year after year without much tending. I divided them once and gave out some to James’ coworkers. I lazily left a few out back, where they took root. Year after year, flower gardens. Justin’s gardens. Cemestos Gardens.

The day before we moved to No Name New House, I dug up several to bring along. Spotz and Lugnut volunteered to help plant them. Working together in the late spring sunshine, we dug holes, got dirty and successfully planted 9 or 10 irises. They’re looking a little shocked from the move, but they’ll bounce back. Irises are very hardy.

It’s been 10 years since Justin died, and the first year that I haven’t been in Cemestos Gardens on the anniversary. It makes for a little bit of melancholy on this bright Monday morning.

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California, we’re rolling.

28/06/2008

California!

October left this morning on her grand California adventure.  James and October rolled out of here at 4:08 this morning to catch her 6:00 flight.  Presently, she’s in Atlanta and will soon hop another flight to Los Angeles, where she’ll meet up with my dad.

This trip has been in the works for about 3 years.  October was so excited and chatty this morning she could hardly contain herself.  I’m actually not very nervous or anxious about her travels.  She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and I think the opportunity to do something like this without parents hovering around is fantastic.

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