They don’t like to cooperate–they are three boys.  The wearing of hats was an enticement.  The teenager was annoyed.

They wanted to pretend they were the Beatles.

They dress themselves.

We may have to try this again tomorrow–preferably when I have wardrobe veto power.

Why is a blank page so intimidating?  Whether it’s here or at work, the blank screen sends my heart racing.  Sometimes I will write words–words of no significant meaning on the page just to fill it up a bit and take the pressure off.  An outline, notes, old documents to use as a starting point, anything will do.

With photography, I begin a shoot with test shots.  I aim at the ground, adjust my white balance, focus on a few inanimate objects to check my exposure and focus.

It takes a while for me to begin to see.  Whether it’s to find the words to shape what I want to communicate or to find the light to create the image I want to capture, I have to mess up things a little bit before I get started.  In complete opposition to my approach to housekeeping, I find it easier to organize and clean up my thoughts/ideas once I shake them all up and splash them around a bit.  Actually, upon writing that that’s how I clean too.  I have to get things all out in my vision so I can organize them and find their homes.

Assuming not everyone approaches their creative process this way, but it works for me.  As I’m sloshing around poking at things from different directions, all of the sudden I find what I was looking for.

I’m a mom.  I’m a blogger.  I’m a photographer for crying out loud, but have I captured my memories of your childhood?

I know I can’t hold on.  I can’t prevent you from growing up–from becoming an amazing man.

But you’re my beautiful little boy too.  You will always be my beautiful baby.  Even if you won’t cut your hair “until baseball season starts.”

As proud as I am of the incredible person you are becoming, I miss the little baby who disappears with every passing minute.

You are my reserved one.  Never my obvious cuddler, never one to be effusive.

Those giant blue eyes that you hide behind that hair–they take my breath away every time you let me see them.  I’m so grateful you give me a glimpse of them from time to time.  I’m sorry I grab my camera every time that you do, but I don’t want to miss these moments.

Because seven years of them have already gone by.

Happy Birthday my baby.  I am so proud to be your mom and I will love you forever.

This is what we woke up to this morning.

It was covering everything.

Nature made interesting sounds.

Ice skating on the sidewalk was possible.

I may or may not have finished clearing out the garden this fall.

The world was brown and grey.

But interesting in the details.

Who was clipping papers on my deck?

Probably those meddling kids.  No school for them today.  Made working from home–well–challenging.

Love can make you feel incredible.

It can warm you like a cozy sweater.

Sometimes it can break your heart.

But love–real love–is unconditional.

Like the love between a boy and his dog.

The last thing I made?  A hat!

It wasn’t this hat, but a blue one–and it’s ribbed (yes I’m giggling like a 14 yo).

I used soft worsted cotton in a beautiful jewel-toned blue.  I’m not in love with the way the pattern turned out, but I MADE it!  A hat!  And you could wear it and it wont’ fall apart.

Why am I so proud?  It’s just a hat.

But it’s more than that.  I finished it.

The perfectionist in me begins many projects but is often too afraid to finish them for fear that they won’t turn out to my standards.  So if I don’t finish something, I didn’t fail.

Yes I’m 40 and still battling with this.  Hoping I’m just a late bloomer.

Do I have something I want to create next year.  You bet I do.  I’ve been working on setting up a photography business for about eight months now.  Every new session is an opportunity to be creative and improve my skills.  But there is more, more I need to do to really turn it into a real business.    There are forms to fill out, forms to create, a website to build, products to try.  So often it all seems too overwhelming to accomplish with a full-time job and family and other responsibilities, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to take my logo–once finalized–and blow it up huge to remind myself of my goal.

And of course I want to make more hats.

*And I know that I’m talking about a photography business and posting fuzzy pictures of myself, but I assure you my real photos are much better.  This was a quick self-portrait on my cell phone taken after I finished my first hat.  What?  I was excited!

This post was inspired by the #reverb10 project.  The prompt for today was this.

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

I’m saying it out loud, so now I have to do it.

I’m starting my photography business!

There is so much to do to set up a business let alone working on a craft to support it.  It would be easy to keep putting it off–to wait until I had everything perfectly in place–but I know me and there’s no such thing (or time) as perfect.

And if ever I feel my confidence fail, I’ll look back at these faces.

A logo is being designed, a website will come too but the doors are officially open.  And the prices are good if you get in early during my portfolio-building days.

Look what I ordered for my camera today!

Is that a sweet camera strap or what?  Even better…it’s going to have orange minky material on the side that goes against my neck.

I found it on this cool site called PhatStraps.  Ordered a wrist strap too.  They might not make my photos look any better, but woohoo will I be looking good!

Just when I thought I wouldn’t survive another gray sky, a series of gorgeous spring days have settled in on my little corner of the world.

I sat outside soaking up the sun this morning and noticed a pitcher I had left outside all winter.  This was the wrong winter to leave it outside I thought.  The weather was rough.  As I looked at it more closely, I noticed the patterns of wear and the flakes of paint.  It was more interesting.

And in the pitcher, I saw me.

A friend had arrived on my birthday last year carrying it in filled with hydrangeas.  It was painted to look vintage, but now it truly was.   I loved it so much more.

Forty is feeling less and less intimidating every day.

If you missed part 1, you can catch it here.

This post really should be titled “The Kindness of Others.”

First up: Tracey Clark

Tracey is a woman who makes me feel at ease the moment I’m in her presence. When I’m around Tracey I feel like I’m the most creative and beautiful and interesting person. And I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Tracey sees potential in every woman to be creative and beautiful. This is evidenced by her work building the collaborative photo site Shutter Sisters and by a new project she has launching soon.

We had a talk about Shutter Sisters at the Mom 2.0 Summit. She was talking about her goals for the site–about how she wanted everyone to feel like they had something to contribute there. I told her how much I loved the site, how much it inspired me and my photography but I admitted that I would never have the confidence to submit a photo to the site. I have this giant fear that the collective Sisters O’Shutter would sigh and feel sorry for me and my feeble attempt to capture the theme.

I think she fake slapped at me when I said that.

You have to understand. Tracey is a REAL photographer. She studied photography. She’s worked in studios. She has her own business. People pay her real money for her photos of things like banana bread.

Photo by Tracey Clark

How could I deign to include myself in the same group she belonged to?

But you know what? Tracey makes me feel like a real photographer. She excitedly showed me her new Epiphanie camera bag (go check out the site they’re having an incredible give-away to celebrate the launch of their new bags). We talked about light. She talked to me like an equal about her upcoming photography workshop (by the way I’ve already signed up and you should too).

Tracey’s confidence in me (in all women) gives me confidence to think of myself as a photographer and the freedom to find my creative style.

How’s that for inspiration?!

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Her first email to me started with the line “Hahahah.  I don’t do design anymore” (because she’s so busy with her new business).

Could have fooled me.

A week before the Mom 2.0 Summit I realized I didn’t have blogging business cards.  I had a new site and new URL and I was about to hang out hundreds of fabulous women and have no way to tell them about it.

Of course I lamented about this on Twitter.  And what happened?

Amy “Dish On Design” Moeller spent her valuable time creating one for me because she likes to “pay it forward.”

I was ready to scribble my URL on a bunch of index cards and hand them out, but no.  Amy wasn’t having that.  I’ve worked with paid designers in my professional life who were less concerned about the outcome than she was.

Amy and I have never met in real life.  We haven’t been reading each others’ blogs for years.  She saw another woman in need and stepped up to share her talent because she could.

In working together, we got to know each other better and each gained a new friend in the world.

Amy’s generosity reaffirmed in me the ability we all have to make someone’s life better by doing what we know how to do.

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I hope these two incredible women inspire you too.

Who or what inspired you this week?