First Day

*sigh* I have been thinking long and hard about something profound to say about this photo and my girls first day of school - alas, I am at a loss for words.

Treat

Today was my first day back at work, a day full of what were possibly the most boring professional development meetings in the history of education. I am all for being professionally developed, but several of the hours bordered on sheer torture. My only salvation was the giggling of terms that should probably not be used in conjunction with curriculum by a speaker and the playing tic-tac-toe with my neighbor on her iPhone. In all seriousness, I completely understand and usually appreciate learning in any form, but it was nearly impossible for me to concentrate.

Perhaps it should have been a lesson on how NOT to teach in your classroom, and that is more of what I learned from the entire experience.
After the long day I picked up my girl and headed home. With a migraine moving into my frontal lobe, it would have been very easy to collapse in the chair and forget about putting much effort into what was left of the day. Instead I said "why don't we go and get ice cream" so we finished up an early dinner and headed off to the local frozen custard place. We enjoyed our treat while sitting at the playpark in the late day sun on a coolish summer day, and it was wonderful!

Me Time

Two whole days without my girl! I always have a million things in my head that I would do if I had a day to myself, let alone TWO!! Of course I never manage to do even a quarter of them. It usually takes a couple of hours, at least, to decompress from the activity that goes on day after day that we move through without ever realizing exactly how much energy it takes.

I had completely forgotten that Karl had volunteered some of his Sunday hours for the summer reading program party at the library. Now I had a few hours of total and complete alone time on a beautiful cool summer day - what to do? It crossed my mind to grab my camera and head out for a shoot, or I could edit all of the photos I have taken over the summer and not had time for. I really needed to prepare lessons for school that would be beginning in a week, so I grabbed my computer and headed to the local coffee house to do some work. I ended up sitting outside and rather than doing much work I found myself tuning into the casual conversations of the customers, the music drifting outside through the open window above me and the pedestrians passing by. In those moments I realized how much I tune out in a given day and was happy to have a few hours by myself to pay attention to the world that continues to happen around me.

Perspective

The past few months I have really been trying to focus on how I look at things. I am becoming well aware of how my interpretation impacts my reaction. As a result I have tried to eliminate behavior that will bring out a less than positive reaction, be it my own behavior or my exposure to certain behavior of others. I am the only one who has this control.

Film

Holga - Porta 400NC (expired film)

When I picked up the processed roll of expired film I shot in Chicago with my Holga, I was so excited to see that there were actually more than one or two clearly visible images! I have not had much luck using this camera in the past. I couldn't wait to be able to scan the negatives and see what I was actually able to capture, however, time did not permit me to do that right away. I was finally able to spend a few minutes tonight while Anna was in the bath to scan about four negatives and play around a bit. I just absolutely love film (still). I'm not sure if it is the anticipation, or rather the lack of instant gratification I get with digital, or the feeling of working with a seemingly "forgotten" medium.
There is something exciting about having that roll of the unknown in my hand, walking into the lab and smelling the chemicals that gives me the sense that I am interacting with the medium and going a bit out of the way to create an image.

Be

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace. ~ Buddha