Three Foot Point of View

My middle boy has been wildly fascinated with anything I find myself doing. Since we cook quite often, we've recently stumbled on a pretty decent helper in Eli. Lately, because of a month long photo project I've been doing with, He's been asking to take photos. I recently dug out my old coolpix camera (a cute 10 year old point and shoot) and let him carry it about his days. He's had it for a week, so I thought it would be fun to upload it and see what we have.

He's something.

Excited to see if his love for photography will grow. at the very least, it gives me a glimpse into his point of view.

Creativity Centered vs. Centrifuged :: Some thoughts on where we're going.

When this blog was first formed, it was made out of boredom and hype. A lot of people were creating blogs and it was the currency of the time. We wrote our thoughts and then added pictures (or horrible pixelated graphics) to commemorate the season. I'm not sure if longevity was the goal, or not, but it was the birth of the social media realm for me.

This blog was the first place I began to grow more vulnerable. Embracing the large screen as a friend,  when the positive feedback rolled in (oh the glory of having a small group of real friends to read your blog.) it in many ways emboldened me to live out my life with the same honest vulnerability I typed out on a keyboard.

This blog was the first place I wrote about our marriage, our children, our miscarriages, our travels. Desperation and hope are held within these online posts. Culture shock and being a misfit, thinking I'm much more informed than I am, and being humbled at the realities I'm presented. Found. Here.

So in a lot of ways, a lack of posting feels similar to the way I feel when I haven't called the friend whom has been on my mind. That lingering anxiousness. The need to say something, but the deep desire for it to be meaningful.

I think I had a large amount of creative juices that needed somewhere to go, some 9 years ago when this blog was birthed. It comforts me that those creative juices are still on this side of the screen somewhere.  No longer in a centrifuge, they're centralizing in the four walls of my home. Getting spent on fort building and tender word choice to explain sin in a way that speaks truth and yet leaves my kids free from fear.

I think those creative juices are now being poured into the unique styles of teaching my children the ways they most need. In being critical thinkers on if a curriculum is suiting our family; In forcing my heart into a place of grace and hope and finding creative ways to let go of silly things that need not define me.

Yes, it is weaving its way into complicated conversations with my husband, dancing in the tenderness of dreams and aches and evaluation. Time and again we circle. Is this what we're wanting? Is this life we're creating what we're feeling called to? How do we hope this will look in a year, five?

I'm comforted that the cleverness (because goodness, did I think I was clever when we started this all!) isn't all gone-although for a while I wasn't sure. No, it has just had a chance to simmer- an aromatic presence in my home. Now my kids can laugh at my lame jokes. A kind audience, once again.

If you're wondering if I actually think I'm clever, the answer is a resounding YES. But fear not, I have an acute social-anxiety to go with it so I ask my husband regularly "you think I'm funny, RIGHT?!"

Side tangent. In the little prince movie on amazon, there's a scene where a man has a top hat and is on his own world. Top-hat man announces he's the 'most clever and most handsome on the planet,' to which little prince replies something along the lines of "but you're the only one on the planet" and then top-hat-man responds "well, do me this kindness, admire me just the same."

I quote that to Ben on a weekly basis. I am top-hat man when it comes to cleverness in my house.

end tangent.

...that creativity has moved into the hours when my daughter feels compelled to rush to the table to journal out some image she has in her mind. Into the seconds my kids join me to 'help' at dinner.

I hear it in my terrible aussie accent, while we're studying kangaroos and in the perpetual attempts of intentionality on walks. (goodness, being "ON"  for small people is an incredible challenge for me, and yet one of the best I've challenged myself with.)

This desire to create content, a life of beauty, for many years was confined to this blog.

But now?

It's leaked into the crevices of what matter most. Spent up on the small souls I am undeservingly privileged to serve.

I've been processing the purpose of this space for a few months now. I haven't arrived yet. Attention is the new currency, I'm reading. I've plenty of presence online through Instagram and otherwise so I'm trying to decide just how much this space deserves your and my attention.

The question begs to be answered.

So, how is this blog useful in the realm of allll the other social media?

I think I'm in a place again of needing to flush things out. To visually see sentences of concepts we've been processing. Perhaps they may prove useful to you as well.

So, to set some expectations, You'll see a lot more journalesque type posts. Sorting through this season, working out how we're going about our living. The ethos of what we're aiming for.

You'll be seeing it in the form of Life Lately, as before because my love for photography is never ending, but a bit more heavy on the external influences (what we are reading, adventures that are shaping us, plans etc.) Essentially, my hope is to make this space less and less about just baby faces (goodness me, do I love baby spaces) and more about working through how a human lives in this tension of being intentional in her home, in her community, and in her unique design.

Hopefully this will serve more as a resource and less of a monthly newsletter. I know you have plenty of resources out there (pinterest, etc) but I'm starting to begin to chase after my individual friends and ask them what THEY'RE reading. Not the big names, but the quiet humans that are living their days.

hope some of you quiet humans hang around, so I can hear you. I want to know what you're doing and reading and finding useful for your lives. hopefully we can carve something out of this.

If you've made it all the way to this end, Is there anything you love reading? I almost never answer these questions. But if we were in real life and we were going to talk about something. What would it be?

I'm eager to know.

Cheers and as always, Thanks for reading.