More than one

I had a bittersweet moment today. Chie was playing by the couch and looked up at the wall, where we have a picture of her and Gus' dad framed. "Papa!" she exclaimed. "Yes," I said, "that's Papa." But then I added, "That's Daddy's Papa." Every once in a while, it occurs to me that the only papa that my baby knows is my husband's father. He's the one that she identifies, loves, and is cuddled by. She'll know about my father at some point. But will he ever be a tangible person in her life? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

In search of managed soil

I feel like an immense weight has been lifted since I finished my last summer session class. I was just feeling so frazzled, in every area of my life, and I don't think that I could have continued much longer. The question, then, is begged: How am I going to do this fall term? Right now I'm registered for 13 credits. We've been discussing the possibility of me taking two night classes, as opposed to two afternoon classes, so that Gus would be home to watch the baby and reduce our childcare expenses. However, my semi-part-time job has the potential to increase, as the board just approved 10 hours a week (and a pay raise!). I don't have to do it but the truth is that I really like my job. I also like feeling like I'm contributing, in a real way, to our finances. Add to that work on our photography business and then the normal life of a wife and mother of a toddler and... I can feel my blood pressure increasing as I type that. Gus and I had a really serious talk the other night about expectations and actually tossed around the idea of doing some couples counseling in an effort to come to more of a meeting place. He tries to help-- he really, honestly does-- but I often feel like what he sees to be done and what's really there to be done are light years apart. We agreed that I would put together a list of everything that needs to be done, which I have yet to do, and I'm hoping that if we can really, for once, get on the same page then it might actually be possible to live a semi-sane life. It will definitely take more organization than I've ever implemented. Even though I like things to run smoothly, I'm really not as fabulous as I often come across at doing things to make that possible. As Gus pointed out, "Some times you slack, and other times you clean obsessively." He's right. And for our life to continue to function at the pace that it has been, and likely will for the foreseeable future, I need to find that middle ground once and for all.

Word of mouth

So, we have our first non-friend client! I think that I mentioned meeting Michelle, the Paper Zone district manager in an earlier entry. Well, when I went in to pick up marketing supplies today, she said that they (she and her husband, who together are EclectiKid, a children's clothing line) want to hire us to do a shoot for them! Woot!

Just a teaser

OK, so I couldn't help myself. I did a round of photo editing this morning. There's still a lot to get through (Gus went hog-wild on this shoot!) but here's one of my favorites:

Not a lot, and yet

It's hard to believe that four years ago, nearly to the minute, Gus and I were standing in the sealing room of the Portland temple. Our friends and family were surrounding us with congratulations on our minutes-old marriage and I couldn't stop grinning. The day would go on, some of it craziness and some of it drama that I'm only now beginning to be able to laugh at and some of it wonderful loveliness. For those few hours in the temple, though, things were perfect. We each have an incredibly poignant memory from that time, and lots of little others that we savor. We were together, we were about to be married or married itself, and that was all that mattered. If I close my eyes and let my mind drift, I can still feel for him what I did then. It's different now. We've been through the upheaval and growth that is years of marriage. Some of it has been difficult, excrutiatingly wrenching growth, times that we weren't sure we would make it through. But we have, together. Our love is deeper, now, and yet sometimes I still feel a newness, a freshness, and it takes me by surprise. Last night, after soothing our baby back to sleep, I crawled into bed and just watched him sleep, tears welling in my eyes, amazed once again that he's mine. I couldn't be more pleased, or more grateful, to be going through life with him at my side.