I'm Choosing Grace

I realize that it's been a while since I've updated this blog. I feel kind of guilty because I've been posting something EVERYDAY on my Other Blog. I guess I find the One-Photo-One-Paragraph-A-Day thing a tad more manageable. Well, like the title of this post suggests, I'm rejecting the guilt and I'm choosing grace for myself on my laziness around here, and I'm not even going to try to catch up. Thank you all for understanding.

And it seems that my laziness has spread from the world of blogging to taking photos of Cadence. Have I already mentioned this? I don't even remember. But yeah, it's true. I looked through my flickr stream and these are the the only photos of her I can find from August. I better get on the ball with that, or August is going to look pretty bleak when I make my annual calendar for the grandmas.

Well, I do have a few other shots of her, but they're set to private because they're part of photoshoots I did that I've chosen to keep private for the sake of the other kids in the photos. This one happens to be from last week's VBS at our church.

I know I said I wasn't going to try to catch up, but I did want to mention that we visited Scotch Hill Farm last Sunday to help weed the vegetable patches and to hang out with Tony and Dela, the farmers, and their CSA subscribers. Spending a few hours down in the dirt amongst the prickly squash plants pulling weeds with your own bare hands (although I recommend gloves) gives you a new perspective on something that seems as ordinary as putting food on your table.

And then I happened to pick up Wendell Berry's novel Hannah Coulter for my commute last week, and I felt that familiar lump in my throat and aching in my heart for a slower, more connected way of life.

And then while researching cooperative nursery schools, I stumbled upon this website that sparked the hope that our family might actually be able to participate in a housing cooperative someday.

Daydreams, I know...But I'm thinking of writing all of mine down in one place so I can refer to it regularly and keep hope alive...

Get On Board

So I've had a number of emails from folks who've had problems subscribing to the feed for this blog. When I changed domains, there was a bit of a mix-up. I won't go into all the details, but if you are interested in subscribing and haven't been able to, just copy and paste the feed URL into the reader of your choice:

/atom.xml

My apologies if you somehow got subscribed to the old site.

That's all, folks!

Happy 2008! And Welcome!

Welcome to the new domain, y'all! This is my first official post on shutterbugmama.com! Hope you guys are as bright-eyed and bushy tailed as Cadence on this first day of 2008.

We had the most boring New Year's Eve possible in our home. Ted and I both had headaches (his was beer-induced, mine was a migraine) all day. Poor Cadence had to fend for herself. I had wanted to take her downtown on the train (it's what she wanted), but my headache didn't go away until around midnight (just in time for 2008!). We stayed in and watched The Straight Story, which is a sweet movie and all, but about the most boring movie you can watch on New Year's Eve. Yeah. We're a dull bunch around here.

That's alright, though. We had enough excitement on Sunday night when we hosted a chili party for (mainly) our Berry Church friends. It was so exciting I didn't take any photos pretty much the whole night, unfortunately. Actually, I kind of feel stupid taking photos at parties, probably because I hate having my own photo taken, but my friend Amy tells me that most folks like seeing photos of themselves afterwards, so now I regret not taking more photos.

Anyhoo, we had around 40 people show up, and Ted made JUST enough chili. It was a lot of fun, and of course the homebrew flowed like we were in the Promised Land. Cadence had a blast, as her friends Fischer, Ada, Rudden and Baby Jack were there, and I was happy because their PARENTS were there. I wish I had taken photos. Did I say that already? Oh well. Next time.

There's a fresh layer of snow on the ground calling our names to be turned into angels, so I gots to go now. Have a wonderful 2008, everyone!

Keepin' It Real...Or Trying To...

A while back, Ted mentioned that I should blog about something to motivate me to take action about that said something. I've been mulling it over because I don't really know how to blog about it, so I'm just gonna do it. My thoughts haven't crystallized, so if I sound like I'm rambling, that's because I am...

Anyhoo, one of Ted's passions in life is Voluntary Simplicity. Yes, I know you all thought all he was interested in is beer and homebrewing, but he's actually more complex and contemplative than I usually let on. I'm all for Voluntary Simplicity in theory. But when it comes to day-to-day living, man, do I totally suck at it.

For the past 3.5+ years we've been living together, Ted has been trying to get our family to minimize our possessions and to declutter our living spaces. Poor thing. You see, he married a packrat. Needless to say, it has not been a painless process for us. But I think I'm beginning to see the light. I recently had a daydream/visualization of the world just filling up with stuff and stuff and more stuff at an astronomical rate, and it really freaked me out. I can see that happening in our home, and it's really got to stop.

I like to think of myself as someone who is bucking the system, rejecting material consumption, and who cares about the environment. Truth be told, however, I'm sooooooo lazy at it, which makes me question my motives. Do I really care, or do I just want to keep up appearances because Green is the New Black [could someone explain this phraseology to me?]?

Anyhoo, I'm not being hard on myself or anything here. I'm just trying to sort out what's real, and if I've been faking it all this time, well, I gotta come clean one way or another...To Be Continued...Indefinitely...

Still Thinking About Anonymity

So I've started the process of moving my blog over to an anonymous site. Some of you may have noticed I can't make up my mind how to sign my comments on your blogs. I don't want to put my full name any more (stupid of me to do that in the first place). Sarah is just too common a name. So I've come up with something else. It's actually Ted's nickname for me. I'm not going to put it here in this blog post because I'm paranoid like that, but when y'all see it in your comments section, you'll know it's me.

Now I have to figure out how the hell to move all my posts over to the new site...