This is has been an interesting week in our family, sprinkled with many tears, but also the kind of laughter that  goes to your very toes.  A roller coaster of  rich memories. I have decided to let my camera be part of my personal world again. After nearly two full years of the pendulum swinging to the side of my clients lives, I am allowing it to come to my own again. Before I went to Love Affair Workshop this year, I remember lamenting to my husband that I felt like I was capturing everyone else’s best moments, but missing out on my own. If nothing else, ( and there was so much more!), Love Affair encouraged me to find my life again. I believe the quote we said together all week was , “I want to live a beautiful sweet life, without fear!”.  Yes, I do,  and I will.

All that being said, this was the week that my sweet Annie was to depart for her sophomore year at Oglethorpe University, or the Oglefort, as she lovingly calls it. Katie, my eldest, was also heading back to UGA, but is commuting, which softens the blow for me a bit. (she is going to Spain in the spring, but that is another blog.) Life as a family unit was coming to an end again, and I knew it. I decided to bring my camera with me everywhere we went this week, as Annie and I shopped for school supplies, when our family had a final meal and “dance party” together, and finally, when we drove her back to the Fort. As I said, a roller coaster, full of highs and lows, sometimes holding our breath and sometimes throwing our hands in the air. I was gathering memories with speed and fervor, putting them on my flash cards, in my pockets, my heart, whatever would hold them.  I couldn’t hold them all, but I tried. I couldn’t stop time, I but I did savor it.

This is my family. We are for real. We do dance in the kitchen with sparklers, and have salsa lessons in the den. We raise our hands sometimes to pray at mealtimes, ( mostly on Chris’s lead), and we laugh and cry together. I love them so. Life will not be the same without all of them around me and I know this is the way it goes. Most of my friends still have little ones at home and I envy them. A lot. How I loved the days of reading books together, finger painting, and even the fits they would pitch on the kitchen floor when things weren’t going their way.  I did have a baby on the way four years ago, but lost him in my fifth month. He would be four now. I look forward to seeing him one day. I know he is beautiful, just like my others.

Anyway, here they are. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do

This is one of my favorite sights of the summer. My sweet Annie, journaling her heart and reading her books and Bible on the front porch swing. It is bittersweet to me. So sweet to see this now familiar sight, but sad to know she will be leaving for school in less than two weeks. This is her place of rest and I love that she finds it here. She inspires me to do the same. Perhaps I will take up this spot for myself once she is gone and keep it warm for her until she returns.