baby parade

sophie and sadie hold nothing back when it comes to cuteness...





so my friends have started having babies in the past couple of years. to my relief, they are really cute! you see, i'm not really a little baby person. i can get into a kid once he/she reaches a year and can make eye contact and giggle but not many babies really do it for me.

maybe it's because i love my friends so much, but i really see so much charisma in their wee ones. for example, i got to spend the first part of my midwest trip with my six best college ladies plus two. sophie and sadie both take after their mamas in that they are lovely, have great smiles and are full of fun and good energy. i have met sadie a few times before (she is always one of my favorites to photograph) but it was my first time meeting sophie. aside from being fun to look at, she likes to swim in the bathtub and swing in the rocker chair and tolerated sadie's curiosity with a lot of patience. i already see good things in her future.

i'm off for the weekend to go to deep creek lake for some relaxation, time with good people and more summer eating. i have a feeling that things are going to get real busy before costa rica and keep on going through the fall which is full of weddings and my 300-hour training. it's already gotten busy (why does everything good want to happen at once?) and i've had to pull together my self-care skills again. i'm getting slightly better at saying "no" to things, which is helping. i also know when to escape, which is when i stop feeling optimistic and a general happiness about life. i did this this week when i took my laptop to spa world so i could soak it up between emails and photo editing. i felt much better about everything when i walked out of there.

for me, it's really hard to remember to take care of myself when things are not going well around me. it always seems more logical to me that i fix the outside problems first and then after all that is well and done, i let myself relax. when i listen to the news and hear about fears of another recession, it makes me want to do something. i need to book another photo job or find a "real job" or help the people i love to make a plan so we can protect ourselves from some dark, ambiguous fate. but i know better. i know that things will work the way that they will work in the larger scheme and what i do have control over is staying calm, staying positive and enjoying the smallest parts of life that i possibly can (such as the key lime pie i made yesterday out of the lime juice and egg yolks leftover from making pisco sours this weekend). i think it's a bold statement to say that i trust in goodness to come my way, but i think that making that statement is what will guide me through harder times with a sense of connection to myself and a willingness to be of service to other people.

i remember listening to a "this american life" a while back that had some older recordings of people talking about the great depression. they talked to this one lady, who was a girl at the time, and she spoke about remembering how much fun she had being silly with her friends while waiting in a soup line. i've always thought about that, how attitude and resourcefulness can transform any experience into a good memory and a chance to spread positive energy, if we are willing to change the way we see it.

i don't know what's going to happen, in my life or in the world. i know lots of things are happening that are sad and hopeless-feeling. if i thought change could come from more people being scared and upset or feeling sorry for people, then i would advocate that. but i think that real change comes from a place that is deeper and inspired and takes a little dedication to sit with. it's hard to explain but when i find the feeling place of it, it sings to me and i know that is where i need to be coming back to again and again.