Glass half full or half empty?

I’m writing this outside as the breeze blows with perfect calmness against my face and my toes breath in sunshine for the first time in months.

A wasp flies out from under the umbrella I just raised.

Watch my kids perform in the school play.

Get targeted by a predatory lawyer.

Have a nacho picnic on the lawn with the kids.

Read about bombings in Iran.

Take Gavin to swim lessons.

Loose reliable childcare for the 29018th time.

Sort tiny socks.

Put the flashlights the kids were playing with back in the emergency box.

Go to sunrise yoga.

Read about school shootings, epstein files, food recalls.

I keep hearing people ask - How do we even continue to act like this is normal?

We don't.

I think about Kate Bowlers devotional book - Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day - and how that’s just the truth. The two are impossible to separate.

At any moment, you could swing either way - glass half full or half empty?

I am an optimist 90% of the time, often to a fault. My husband laughs at me because I can be wildly naive about seeing the best in people. There are also many moments I am wildly low about the suffering I feel helpless to change.

I am a gemini through and through.

I also have choice. And I think if I don’t keep choosing to be optimistic, I may just crumble entirely, which doesn’t do anyone much good.

Have you ever thought about how photographs could be about more than just capturing something pretty or how someone looks? I think about it a lot. AI can make pictures now, but it can’t make pictures of the moments you’ve lived, and because of that, I have never once felt pessimistic about my job being replaced by robots.

I ask people to pay a decent amount of money to make those pictures, but is it a decent amount?

Or is it money towards one of the only things in life that’s truly real and grows more valuable over time?

Glass half full or half empty?

When people pay money for something, it's an exchange of values. The results become more precious with an investment made on purpose.

Purpose is important to me. I show up with a lot of it to every session I shoot, and that’s part of the exchange, too.

I also think purpose is just another extension of paying attention.

Paying attention to where we spend, how we speak, what we see, what we let go.

And paying attention — really paying attention — is maybe the only thing that lets us see the beautiful terrible days as more beautiful than terrible.

Pet your dog, buy some flowers, get bread from the bakery on the corner, hire a photographer you trust to make non-stuffy pictures of your family.

If we don’t have delight, what else is there?

// new + noteworthy //

SOMETHING TO READ // I officially gave up on my second fiction book of the year - someone please help get a good one in my hands. I'm onto Shauna Neiquist's I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet about big changes in unexpected seasons, relearning faith, and other heavy topics that she handles with wit and approachability.

SOMETHING TO WATCH // This feels dumb to admit, but I told someone live on a podcast this week so it's already out there. We watched the latest season of Start Search on Netflix with Kira and it was actually pretty entertaining, okay?!

SOMETHING WORTH BUYING // Get yourself some Merit makeup. I am not an affiliate for them but I ought to be. It takes the cake for my skin - light and natural, stays put, great colors. Yes please, decided. I just ordered the Signature Lip blush in Vendôme after noticing that my lips are impossibly becoming next to invisible and the Minimalist complexion stick as a lighter warm-weather stand-in for The Uniform, which I've been wearing religiously for about a year now.

GOOD THINGS ON THE INTERNET I SAVED THIS WEEK //

A personal attack on my work-from-home husband ;-)

The legendary Annie Leibovitz

Filing this away as a spring/summer local gatherings idea <3 (get on the list for updates here!)

My hot take carousel this week seems to be striking a chord.

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CREATIVITY | FAMILY | SIMPLE JOYS

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