10 on 10 | October Edition

I am quite positive that something supernatural happens when you have a child.  You see, my husband and I have spent the last few months watching LOST on Netflix... we never watched it while it aired.  That can be blamed on having a child as well.  : )  All that to say, the concept of time has been quite on my mind lately.

Older people would always say how fast time was flying.  How much we'd grown.  Blah blah blah.  You roll your eyes and move on.

But holy cow!  They were right!

The continuum of time supernaturally morphs once you move from the realm of the childless to the childful.  You move your eyes around you and everything appears to be working just as it always has.  A minute is still sixty seconds.  You aren't aware of the change.  But you blink your eyes, and five years, yes years, have just vanished.

You still have those memories.  Five years of memories.  But the time it took to make them.... was so fast.  So short.  Days can sludge by seemingly to never end and yet, weeks whir by.  Months evaporate.  Seasons shift.  And then the years simply vanish.

In less than a month, Little Buddy is turning five.  Five whole years.  There is absolutely nothing about him that's baby anymore.  Perhaps all this will be a post for another day celebrating him.  But this looming day on my calendar has certainly gotten me wistful.

And what started all that wistfulness this morning was that it is time for my monthly 10 on 10 project again.  I would swear to you, if I didn't know that we are now on a different childful continuum, that I only just completed the last one.  But here we are, on the tenth day of yet another month.  Warp speed ahead.

The 10 on 10 project is where nine other photographers and myself have joined together and agreed to post 10 images over 10 hours of a day in our real lives on the 10th day of each month. Those are the only rules. Check out last month's post here.

I love to document my children's lives and I feel like I do a pretty good job of that.  I take pictures of every day things and love to include the details.  I don't try to orchestrate the environment or situations.  I let things happen as they really do and try to capture that.   And yet.

I have really enjoyed this 10 on 10 project thus far.  It has forced me to document things in our days... my days... that I likely otherwise never would have.  This will generate memories for me that I probably would have forgotten without the image to remind me when the rest of the years poof by.  I put a lot of focus and energy on capturing things for them.... capturing the things about them for me..... that I haven't  taken much that was about capturing things about me for me.  I wonder if that makes sense outside of my head. : )

It has been fun to document some of what my days in my world are about, aside from them.  I would have never gone here otherwise.

October's 10 on 10 actually took place in October this time!  October 3, 2011.  I looked at the calendar and realized this would need to be the day that I did this - a day when I could realistically have the camera out and about the whole day.  Then Monday came and I forgot about it until later in the morning.  This day I needed to finish up creating the program for the upcoming YoungLife Fund-raising Banquet.  Hello Photoshop.  (I love my macbook. I really, really do.)

Sigma 30mm f1.4

Monday.  That means catch up from the weekend on laundry.  The laundry room is in dire need of some reorganization and decluttering.  Shew.  But I'm all about authenticity and transparency.  Here's the real me, folks.

Nikon 14-24 f2.8

Lunch time.  I forgot the cilantro!  I can't believe I forgot the cilantro because cilantro is one of my most favorite things on the planet!

Nikon 50mm 1.4D

Preschool pickup.  He's doing such a good job learning to write.

Nikon 50mm 1.4D

She's really into wrapping herself around our legs lately.  Drives Shawn batty!  But if you pretend to try to shake her off, oh how she giggles.

Nikon 50mm 1.4D

It was about time to leave for Karate, but I heard them upstairs playing away.  They can bicker like cats and dogs! I feel like I expend 50% of my energy on breaking up their ridiculous bickering (and the other 50% looking for stuff that shouldn't be hard to locate but is).  But occasionally they will play together and it is simply glorious.  Not just because they aren't fighting and I'm not having to deal with that, but because they seem to be enjoying each other and engaging each other so much.  I love it more than I have words to express.

Sigma 30mm f1.4

I would probably never have thought to put him in Karate.  But it has been the very most wonderful thing for Little Buddy.  It has helped his physical development and ability.  It has boosted his confidence so much.  I am just so thankful for it, even if it is almost 30 minutes away twice a week.  They've been working on this activity recently where they have to steal each other's flags.  He LOVES it.  Oh my word, LOVES it, and he's getting really good at it, too.

Sigma 30mm f1.4

I love the temperatures of this time of year so much.  I am, however, not digging how much the light is changing.  How early it is becoming dark.  The sun is now so low in the sky when there is still so much day left.  I'm so thankful for all our tress all summer when they shade our backyard and make it usable when it otherwise wouldn't be.  This is such a pretty time of year when the leaves are on the cusp of changing colors.  Soon we'll be in over our heads trying to manage the mountains of leaves.

Sigma 30mm f1.4

Dinner time.  I want to do a better job capturing our real lives here on this front.  We eat at our tiny Island in the kitchen.  I'm just so not a dining room girl.  If only we could remodel our kitchen and remove the wall between the two rooms, maybe I'd really use it then.

Sigma 30mm f1.4

I've wanted to try this for EVER!!!  I don't even know what made me think of it this day.  The light was almost gone.  I was only still out shooting because it was 10 on 10 day. I tied my camera strap so it was like a necklace and short on my chest.  I set the timer.  Grabbed his arms and we began to spin.  They LOVE to do this... and I wish I could do it more, but man, getting older has changed my dizzy quotient and it takes me forever to recover!

Nikon 14-24 f2.8

Next on the circle is Chesney Maxwell.  I really, really adore Chesney's work and her style. Check out her 10 on 10 post here.

I shot these with my
D90
Nikon 14-24 f2.8
Nikon 50mm 1.4D
Sigma 30mm f1.4