Project: Photo Journal

The need for this project stemmed from several areas in my life. First of all, I'm a firm believer in everyday documentation. Personally for us, I use a combination of this blog, Instagram, journaling and photography to do that for our family. The problem with all but one of those avenues is that they're all digital mediums. And being a photographer in the digital age, means that I have thousands (yes, thousands) of pictures on our hard drive that have no life outside of being viewed on a screen. Doesn't that make you sad? (wait, that's just me? ok.) 

I wanted some way to be able to enjoy photographs of our everyday life that was more than just clicking through them on our computer. Scrapbooking was the obvious solution, BUT I don't like traditional scrapbooking, it's just not my style. And also it's easy for it to get expensive. If I pay a lot for something I put pressure on myself to not mess it up. I didn't want that for this project. I wanted to be able to have freedom to create without fear of making mistakes. And (although I need to be more consistent) I love journaling. I love seeing entire pages filled with handwritten words. It's beautiful. Now all I had to do was find a way to combine my love of writing, photography and the need to document our life! 

If you follow me over on Pinterest, then you've probably seen where I drew a lot of inspiration for this project. I filled up this board with lots of ideas and, being such a visual person, it really helped with what I wanted my end product to look like. 

I started out with a simple sketchbook (I think it cost a little over $10). 

My way of getting quality pictures printed in a cost effective way was Shutterfly. If you sign up for account, they send you emails all.the.time with coupon codes (I can get tons of pictures for sometimes under $10!) I recommend at least signing up for it if you want to try something like this out.

 I used the free computer program Picasa to create collages of the pictures I wanted to use so I could later cut them out to fit the format of my photo journal. 

All that was left to do after that was figure out my page layouts and use things like journal cards, doodles and lots of washi tape for simple embellishments

 Each page is different and has it's own style. Some a little more ornate and some very simple. I like that nothing is the same. 

It's a far from a perfect system (notice all the mistakes? ha!) but it works for me. I divide it up a month at a time because that seemed like the best way to not get overwhelmed by all that I wanted this journal to show. Once I pick out the images from each month I want to use, I get them printed and journal away! I've found that it's somewhat therapeutic for me to take the time to do this. And I believe that being able to flip through these pages and remember all the mundanely beautiful, fun, hard, momentous and wonderful things that have happened in our life is something that I will always treasure. 

So there you are, just a way that I've found to preserve memories and life happenings around here. I love that I can leave this book out on our coffee table for us or other people to pick up and remember what's happened in our life over the past year. I really hope I can keep this up in future because I believe it's so easy to not remember the everyday things. Our life and what God has done with it is too precious of a thing to forget. And really, that is reason enough in itself to take the time to do a project like this.

 I know it might not be your style and that's totally ok! I just encourage you to find someway that works for you to document your life and do it! What are you waiting for? :)

Today

one month until

the hurting begins

the sweat and tears come, salty on my skin

the swaying and heaving starts

and the 'just keep breathing' repeats

the shaking, and pushing

the clutching tight

and then

this joyous meeting 

your crying out and our hearts answering

us reaching to touch you, finally

 the end of waiting 

our eyes locking into one another

and the all grace and glory of that 

is 

a call to not give up

the fuel, flaming us to finish this 

our banner cry through the waiting days

a burning light leading us home

and our hope that will not disappoint 

p.s. I feel like maybe this post needs to come with a little 'disclaimer' so here it is: 

As of right now, we've been told that our son should arrive around the second week in July. But as we all know, things don't always go as planned or hoped. He could come early, he could be late, his time on this earth might be way shorter than we thought it would be. Who knows what could happen? I sure don't, but I still believe the words you just read up there would still apply no matter what the outcome of our baby's 'birth story' may be.

I didn't write any of this to depress you but just to say that we're giving it all up to Jesus.  He's got a plan for our son and all we can do is take it one step at a time. He knows what's coming. Due dates, potential health issues, natural birth vs. c-sections; all included. We may not know the future but we do know Him and that's all we need. Jesus, our Hope.

#whatourhouseandmyheartreallylooklike

If you've known me for any period of time, you'll know how much I value good ol' fashioned honesty. But me saying that doesn't mean that it's something that always comes easy for me. So I'm challenging myself to be more open and honest in this post about something that I get very frustrated with: our home. 

Now wait, you're thinking: Why would she get frustrated with her house? It's all cute and stuff, I've seen pictures and everything!

Well...if you thought that, I'll just stop you right there and say that I'm photographer. That means I know how to work angles. I know how to 'style a shot'. And I'm pretty handy when it comes to using an editing program. It's true. If there's a telephone pole ruining the back of my shot, or I'm having an acne breakout in that portrait, I can whisk it away with no problem. 

Whoosh! Voila! Perfect images. Snap! snap! snap! 

Now don't get me wrong, I try to make our images (professional or personal) as real and as beautiful as they can be. I love being able to edit pictures but I don't believe in 'over-editing'. I simply adjust or remove things that deter from the message I want our pictures to convey. It's what I do, my form of art. But sometimes, in our day-to-day life pictures, it can come across that we always have a clean, uniquely decorated and cozy little house. 

Ha. hahaha. haha. 

In a word….nope. 

So I'm taking time to share some views of our home that you maybe haven't seen before 

(let's get down to the nitty-gritty's).

Here's a shot from our living room. Not too bad, right? Look closer. Please notice the adorable yard-sale chair. It sadly doesn't match our walls and I put it there for the lame reason that I don't have any other place for it right now. You might've also spotted Sadie's rawhide bone on the wooden chest. She just leaves it wherever and picks it up later. And finally, that's not cool bokeh effect in the window, that more gifts from Sadie. I desperately need to clean where she's smudged it up so badly. 

Sadie in her typical spot in the living room. What you don't see it is that the floor is probably coated in fur. She sheds a lot and keeping up with it is a daily battle (that I often lose).

Two images that are very normal around here. The couch cluttered with random things that I'm working on and part of our unfinished wall in the dining room (notice the renovation residue + artifacts). 

Ah…the baby's room. It's quickly becoming my favorite part of the house and has had the most improvements of any room in the house lately. If you've been following me on Instagram, you've seen little peeks of it and you might think you know what it looks like. I just haven't shown anyone the mess that's in there right now. His crib is full of curtains that need to be hung and a giant stuffed animal lion. There's boxes on the floor full of his clothes/toys/baby supplies and it's going to look like that until I clean out the one closet in there that's full of assorted junk. 

Also, here is Sadie pictured with a random kitchen chair (that was here when we moved in) and a piece of the sectional in our living room that (once again) doesn't have anywhere else to go right now. We're getting rid of the chair and eventually buying a new couch so both these things are on their way out. Sometimes plans just take longer than you originally thought :)

 With the baby due in July, comes with it a small bit of anxiety. I'm not just referring to labor and delivery here, I'm talking about our house. It's not finished. There are many projects that we're chipping away at but I know we don't have time to finish them all up before our son arrives. That means that everyone who's coming to see the baby will also see this house in all of it's unfinished-unpainted-untrimmed-and-unmatched glory. And you know what? That's ok.

But I'll be honest. Getting to that point (and I'm not all the way there yet) has been hard for me. Really hard. I've complained to Jonathan a lot, to the point that I've flat out discouraged him by how ungrateful I am for the house God's provided for us. Isn't that sad? I suppose this post turned out to be not so much about the 'unattractive' parts of our house but more about the ugliness of the sin in my own heart. 

Thank You Jesus for Your forgiveness and grace.

And praise God for helping me to see, not what makes this place our house, but what makes it our home:  Our bed that sags more on one side than the other because we sleep so close together there. The worn down pillows on the couch from where we've watched many movies and tv shows and laughed and snuggled through them all. The smudged up stove from meals I've been able to cook for us. The dusty tables, the never-ending laundry and all the repairs yet to come. It just shows me that…hello…we live here.

 We live. 

Here. 

In all this right now. 

Isn't that amazing? And wonderful? And something that I need to stop missing out on because I'm waiting for something better? 

No, this isn't what I want things to look like forever, and no I'm not giving up on bringing everything in this house to it's beautiful potential but I am giving up on the pursuit of perfection and trying to impress everyone.

The curtains that don't match, the walls that aren't finished and the floor that needs replacing is our life right now. It just is. We're working on it, but we're choosing to live in it too. So when you come over this July to celebrate our son's arrival, don't expect a completed work of Home & Garden, Pinterest worthy perfection. I may blush when you see the size of the dust bunnies under the table, I may apologize for that hole in the wall but I do want to welcome you here despite all that. This is our home and I'm so glad you're here. So come on in, let's just do real life together, ok? 

Whew…if you're still reading this after all that, bless you. I wish I could give you a high five right now. Instead, I'll end this post with some up-to-date baby belly shots because I know you are just dying to see how big we're getting ;) 

33 weeks

34 weeks

And just to keep this whole honesty thread going, look at the right picture. See my tired, kinda puffy eyes? Yea, I noticed them as well when I went to edit that picture. But I posted it anyway because I look happy. Really happy (psstt…that's because I am). Sure, I'm dealing with house frustrations and life frustrations. And sure, I'm at the point in the pregnancy where sleep takes planning, back rubs from Jonathan and many well-placed pillows but...I'm happy and I'm living. More than that, I get to live this life with Jesus walking beside me, my husband holding my hand and our son tucked all snug inside me. 

Wow, just...wow. I truly hope I never recover from the wonder of living in all this. The honest-to-goodness beauty for me to treasure, all of it, a holy gift.

We're Still Here (and so is this blog)

First of all, thank you so much to anyone who prayed for us three as we traveled. God was so kind to grant us safety the entire way, there and back. Plus, this third trimester mama was able to endure the looong car ride, three different types of beds and lots of walking with just mild discomfort. It was all a true blessing and we're grateful that Jesus answered all our prayers in the way He did. 

We're back home now and I'm looking forward to getting everything from our trip put together so I can share it here. My camera and heart are overflowing with all we were able to experience on our getaway. As you can imagine, there's much to process and organize in my thoughts from it all. That, coupled with the fact that we are in major 'baby prep' mode around here, means that it might take longer than I would like to be able to share the all stories + images I want to. But, I do plan on plugging away at it when I get the time; there's much to tell! We fell head over heels in love with Maine and it's mist filled forests and rocky coastline. The adventure of exploring completely unknown places together was something that both our souls needed. We're so grateful that we were able to experience it.  So keep your eyes peeled, and (hopefully soon!) you'll be able see it all here on Light & Letter.