Can success be harder than failure?

Last night I drove a couple of hours to visit with three of my oldest and dearest friends. They’re the kind of friends who remember those awkward, embarrassing years of bad hair and weird clothes and love me anyway. The kind of friends I see every couple of years, but who know me so well that we just pick up right where we left off. I love hanging out with them.

The beauty of a friendship like that, is that we have special permission to talk about those issues that are usually off the table. And so the conversation last night eventually turned to a topic I’ve been stewing over for the past few days. Each of us, okay well I take that back … three of the four of us would readily admit that we’ve met with our share of successes and failures over the last ten years. We’ve each conquered some big goals and we’ve felt the sting of rejection on a scale that we never expected. Growing up the four of us would have been lumped into the “most likely to succeed” category. I know that personally, I never really expected to taste failure. And maybe, after feeling like a failure for leaving medical school, I never really believed that I would taste success again.

As my photography business has taken off over the last couple of months, I’ve started to realize that there are a lot of similarities between this time of success and the dark time when I decided to leave medical school. Both consumed my time to the point that I couldn’t go for half an hour without my brain circling back to the topic. Both drew a lot of public scrutiny. Both put me in an uncomfortable situation because of the scrutiny. Both came as a surprise to most people in my little world. Both made me think about the importance of balancing time with family and time at work.

I am afraid that if I’m not careful, I’ll let this new business adventure consume me. It’s hard to know how many sessions to book in a week, because on paper the three sessions that I had lined up this week don’t seem like too much. When you add in 8-10 hours of editing for each session, my week ended up being jam-packed.

When I got back home last night, around midnight, I spent two hours editing. Then I got up with Bridoodle this morning at 6:45 so that I can finish up before my 11am session today. I’m burning the candle at both ends. I still feel that I should be in summer Mommy mode right now. We should be going to the pool, the zoo and on family camping trips. Yet here I am scheduling 35 hours worth of work for myself too.

So anyway, don’t feel too sorry for me. I am LOVING the thrill of this adventure. It has been an amazing experience so far. But be a little bit patient with my haphazard blogging for a little while. I am stretching myself thin these days.

OMT Syndrome

I have a disease. My husband became aware of it about fourteen months after we started dating. On Halloween that year, I showed up for class at 8am and had an obligation that accounted for every hour of the day until 3am the next morning. I attended class, meetings, work, volunteered at the hospital, went to a BSU party and then met friends for a post-football game celebration. I drooped across his shoulder at the Waffle House while my old friends from high school told stories about me, and he patted me on the back. “I don’t know where you find the energy,” he said.

If left to my own devices, I tend to pack activities into my weeks like a fat kid piling goodies onto his plate at a church picnic. There’s always “one more thing” that I want to do and “one more thing” that I think I can squeeze in to my schedule. When I look at my schedule it makes me smile if it’s all jam packed.

Even I can admit that the last ten days have been insane! I’ve had two photo sessions to edit, breakfast duty for Sunday School, my family came to visit, I taught 6 year olds in VBS this entire week, hosted friends at our house for dinner one night and attended an awards banquet with Hubster. I haven’t even been to the pool. It’s been that busy.

I think I’ve learned my lesson this time. (I always say that about my One More Thing Syndrome). But this time I really mean it. I will cut back on my obligations, not take on any new obligations, try to do better from now on. We’ll see!

Are you bored yet?

Just let me know when you get sick of me posting pictures from work. I can’t help it! They’re so darn cute. These were taken last night at a family maternity session for my friend Kelly. I’m so jealous of her gorgeous figure!

The Spontanaeity of Youth

I’m pretty sure that I misspelled spontanaeity. But maybe not. My spelling seems to get worse as I get older. But these pictures. They make me feel young again. Dive in!

Client Collage

These portraits were taken last night. The clients are family friends of ours and I just love the way they turned out. Thought you might like to see how things are going! Let me know if you want to see more and I’ll send you a link.

Working Girl

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. My heart has been pounding and I’ve been trying to absorb tons of new information. I recently started a business and it’s taking off so quickly that my head has been spinning. I’ve already had clients and filled orders.

I can officially take a credit card and I have business cards to pass out. It’s like I’ve added a whole ‘nother hat to my collection. And I must say, that I’ve become obsessed with this adventure. At church yesterday, Hubs made me promise not to bring up this subject in Sunday School. I felt like I was chomping at the bit. There were times when I had to just sit quietly because the only thing I could think to talk about had to do with photography.

So that’s where my head has been for the last few weeks. Never a dull moment. I’m so thankful that my teaching job gives me enough time to play dress up with other interests. Last summer I tried to write a novel. The summer before that I spent a lot of time painting and crafting. This summer I’ll be a business owner. We’ll see how it turns out. All that I know is that the Lord has been in this every step of the way and the doors are opening so fast that I can feel the breeze!

Train Study

Today was one of those kind of days. You know. The kind where you set out to run a twenty minute errand. Like, maybe you need a signature from the health department. Only you get stuck at a train on the way.

Then you get stuck in the waiting room until they’re ready for you. (Because they had to finish the sudoku puzzle tucked neatly under a stack of charts.)

And then you get stuck in a social history with a nurse who needs a cup of coffee.

And then you get billed $18 for the list of ridiculous questions preceeding the simple signature that you came for in the first place.

And then you get stuck at a train on the way back.

It was one of those kind of days.

Feel

When I look at this photo, I feel the magic of childhood again. The triumph of standing where others thought you would fall. The serenity of not worrying about bills and choices and responsibility. The wonder of the sunlight streaming through the air. I feel all of that.

For more captures this week go to I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Odds and Ends

A few leftover pictures from our Memorial Day weekend trip. They were too cute to pass up.

Saturday breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Bri’s already learning to multi-task. She can color and sip juice at the same time.

Princess Bri

We were folding laundry. Despite being under the weather this weekend, Bri and I have managed to get quite a bit of housecleaning done. Hubster even helped out with vacuuming and the dishes when he got home from work. As I was folding the clothes Bri was testing them to see if they were “Hot.” And I came across one of the dresses we bought on Memorial Day weekend.

Bridoodle wore this dress to church with her cousins last Sunday. (Today we stayed home because our drippy noses and hacking coughs would raise eyebrows.) These pictures just don’t do justice to the cuteness of this dress. I had to *wince* use the flash on my camera for these shots. It was too dark to go without the flash like I usually do. And I really hated to miss this moment between baby cousins.

Anyway, I went to hang up the dress and as I was putting it away, I stumbled across a purple princess dress that Mimi bought for Bri a couple of months ago. She’s never going to get a chance to wear it before she outgrows it, I thought mournfully as I passed over it. I pulled the dress out at and looked at the satin roses and crinoline. Bri leaned around my legs and pointed up at the purple chiffon, “Pretty!”

So I did what any good mother would do. I let her play dress up. Forget the laundry! We grabbed the camera and she had fun posing and playing in the glowing morning sun.

Then she decided that she wanted to ride the pony. So I staged a few shots with our resident rocking horse as well.

But don’t let those sweet smiles fool you. There were plenty of royal temper tantrums mixed in with our dress up game. She played her part very well. Maybe she’s destined to be a real princess. (Or maybe she’s just really spoiled!)

“Spoiled? Me? Why you wouldn’t believe that, would you sweet intahnets?” says Bri. “I not spoyed.”

Look out world! She’s irresistable.