1. I am covered – COVERED – in bug bites. I was going to count them for you so you’d understand what “covered” meant, but I got to 7 just on my left ankle and gave up. I need to invest in some long yoga pants and a pair of Hunters so my poor legs don’t get any more torn up as I roll around in fields, hike through woods and lie in long grass to get a shot. I need a sponsorship from Off bug spray, stat. Or at least a huge can of it to keep in my camera bag for me and my clients.

2. Besides bugs, there are other hazards to shooting in scenic locations. Like when you ask a pregnant lady to take two steps forward and she steps on a snake. Luckily no one ended up in labor (instead, her husband showed my kid how to poke it with a stick) and she didn’t run screaming from the field. I’ve also ruined a pair of shoes by walking right into the ocean to get a shot, not to mention the little girl who followed me into a lake and ended up soaked herself. I’m already dreaming of a nice, snake-free climate controlled studio.

Sit right here, in this long, unmowed grass! I’m sure there’s nothing lurking in it!

3. Cutting down the number of photos I offer is SO HARD. My session package comes with 12 digital files the client gets to choose out of 30-40 edited pictures. I set it up that way so I wouldn’t have to spend a million years editing every picture from a session, since I usually take around 300. AND YET. I can’t bring myself to skip anything that’s even halfway good, so my galleries have 75+ pictures. I’m going to have to a) edit faster and b) learn to cut back so I don’t spend 20 hours on every session (which would mean I’m only making $5 an hour before you even add in travel and insurance and equipment). Yikes.

4. Setting up a business is a lot less fun than just taking pictures. There’s the tax stuff, the legal stuff, graphic design for business cards and web and more (huge thanks to my friend Alena for my logo), packaging, labels, price guides, what to wear inspiration, websites…it’s a lot, is what I’m saying. If I wasn’t already pretty good at this blog stuff I might have quit after the first 24 hours. I don’t know how the really amazing photographers can even be so good at both parts – the part of my brain that loves the artistic elements of photography curls up in a corner and cries every time I have to fill out a tax-exempt certificate.

Don’t even tell me if there’s a typo on my business card design. I am the world’s WORST proofreader (I ordered 200 wedding invitations without a time for the ceremony/reception) (not to mention birth announcements with the WRONG DATE) and I can’t handle it right now.

5. I love it. Despite the bug bites and snakes and crossed-eyes from editing and hours spent staring at different flash drive options and paperwork and having to answer the phone when strange numbers call and OMG TALK TO STRANGERS…I’m so, so exited. I’m getting better with every single shoot (practice makes ever-so-slightly-closer-to-perfect) and the experience is priceless. I’m still sort of stunned anyone would pay me in real actual pennies to do something I enjoy so much. AMERICAN DREAM HELL YEAH.

OK, I swear I’ll blog about something else soon. Who wants to hear about how blue-colored Icees turned my children in MONSTERS yesterday?

 Website / Facebook Page for Ginger Snaps Pictures

I thought I didn’t like newborns, but I was wrong. Well, except for the fact that I could barely walk the next day I was so sore from crouching/squatting/kneeling/bending in weird ways to get the shot. I need to get in better shape for this.

We’re down to mere weeks before Mineola elementary schools starts and it’s hard to believe. On the one hand, YAY SCHOOL! Our town offers public pre-k , so Evan will be going 5 mornings a week. On a bus. Apparently typical four year olds are better at public transportation than I am, since I barely managed to catch the bus in high school, let alone pre-K. On the other hand, 5 days a week is a lot of school. And it never really goes back – it gets worse. Next year he’ll have full day kindergarten, followed by 12 YEARS of school at least 180 days a year. It almost makes me want to keep Caroline home instead of sending her back to preschool.

Almost. But not really, since going to doctor’s appointments alone is an indulgence I can’t live without anymore. Although I haven’t officially registered her at all, so I hope there’s a spot at her current program. File that under Things I Always Forget To Take Care Of In A Timely Manner, although that file might be kind of full since Find Out When Evan’s Classroom Orientation Is, Buy School Uniforms, Get A Copy Of The School Supply List, and Update Both Kids’ Health Forms are already in there.

I learned a lot of lessons in the last year at preschool: Never underestimate a child’s talent for getting paint on the ONE outfit you like best. Putting a note in a backpack does not mean the teacher will get it, ever. And label everything. LABEL. EVERYTHING.

Last year I relied on my shoddy memory and the availability of a Sharpie to label all the kids’ stuff. We lost a lot of cups. I also got a lot of “Just a reminder! Smiley Face!” notes home when I forgot, and nothing makes me feel worse than Smiley Face! notes from the teachers. Might as well write “Failing As A Mother! Smiley Face!” on them.

This year, I’m getting a little help from Stuck on You. They have a huge selection of products you can personalize – not just labels, but pretty much anything you can imagine. They sent me a family starter pack (with 2 kids, everything gets shared) and it is faaaaantastic.

Shoe labels that stick in the heels – this picture was taken right after I stuck them in. I wasn’t 100% convinced they were going to stay but after a week of hard wear (including leaving them out in the rain) they still look exactly like that.

Mini/pencil labels on our sippies spotted out in the wild! This one has been through the dishwasher several times already.

Perfect for summer school lunches!

Iron in clothing labels. LOOOOOOOVE. Once I got the hang on it (stick a towel under the jacket/shirt so you can press down nice and hard) it took 5 minutes to knock out every fall coat and sweatshirt. BOOM.

These have been in for a week. Notice how you can still read them?! Amazing. PLUSALSO, they use non-toxic eco-friendly inks.

These are some well-labeled children right here: lunches, cups, folders, shoes, and sweatshirts.

If I was really smart, I’d order another set with my phone number on it and stick them on all Caroline’s favorite toys and dolls, so when she leaves them at the beach/aquarium/mall/playground/library there’s a chance we could get them back.

She likes that idea.

Sigh. This is what happens when I say “Make a cute face!” It has nothing to do with labels, except that I’m labeling her a weirdo.

The gingers say “What are you waiting for?! These labels are the coolest!”

To help you get ready for school, Stuck On You has two $20 gift certificates to give to my readers! Just leave a comment telling me what you’re doing to get ready for the school year to enter for a chance to win. And definitely go check out their site, they’ve got everything from place mats to puzzles. You’ll be stuck on them (ba-dum-ching!)

Disclaimer: Stuck On You gave me a family pack of labels so I could try them out. No other compensation was provided and I swear I really, really love these labels. One entry per family. Two winners will be chosen using Random.org on August 14th and contacted via email so please use a real one.

This post was going to be full of sidebars and parentheticals, so I’ll try to sum them up with a general disclaimer: like I’ve said to many people and had quoted back to me by astute readers – one person’s hard does not invalidate someone else’s hard. I am not saying “Woe is me! Pity me! This is the WORST EVER!” I am saying “These are my feelings and maybe you have some feelings and we can talk about our feelings and maybe braid each others hair if you want or you can call me a spoiled douchecanoe if you want and either way I will understand.” Because, feelings.

I have been on a cleaning tear (Tear might be too strong a word. More like a cleaning small rip in the corner of a page) for a couple of weeks. My housekeeping skills are not great and in general everyone is fine with that situation. The children certainly don’t care. But things reached a point where I didn’t even want to open the door for the pizza guy. Every time I would look at the pile of mail by the door or the pile of school papers on the piano or the pile of birthday decorations on the table I would freeze. Where to START? What’s the POINT? Why should I even BOTHER?

When one thing in your life feels hopeless and out of control, it’s easy for that to reflect into other things, and in this case the mirror was clearly my house. The thing being reflected is bigger than a few stacks of paper though. I’ve been off birth control and hoping for a baby for 9 months now without success, even though it feels like everyone around me is getting pregnant and having babies. Tons of babies. Babies everywhere. You get a baby and you get a baby and YOU get THREE BABIES! (True story, a friend from high school is having spontaneous triplets.)

There’s a whole online world of trying-to-conceive message boards and secondary (tertiary?) infertility boards where people talk about this stuff, but because I never had any trouble the first two times I’m mostly unfamiliar with them. To be totally honest, until I started talking privately with some of my friends about how I’m struggling, I had no idea how much planning COULD even go into getting pregnant. Ovulation sticks and fertility apps and trying disgusting information involving mucus became things I Googled on a regular basis. The biggest surprise was how many people casually mentioned “Oh yeah, I used those OPK sticks to have my daughter”. I think a lot of people err on the side of privacy when it comes to their baby-making-attempts (because, yeah, no one wants to know ALL THAT and no one owes the internet their medical history) but it gives the impression if it takes more than 5 minutes you’re sort of a weirdo. A “Surprise! Pregnant!”-baby (which I am totally guilty of) is more blogable than endless “Not pregnant! Again!” posts, so someonr announcing it when it happens means you don’t really know what people have gone through. I’m a tiny bit concerned that the IUD I had after Caroline was born caused some sort of terrifying, permanent problem (Dr. Google totally agrees) but before we’ve been trying a year no real medical professionals (Dr. Google obviously got his degree online) want to talk to us.

I realize 9 months isn’t that long to be trying, but when your friends who said “Yes! We’re trying too!” back in November are actually giving birth to their babies it feels like forever. I also realize I have two beautiful children so complaining about not having a baby is going to sound selfish and disgusting to some people. But two was never our plan and close together is so much fun, I liked the idea of adding more sooner rather than later. I guess that “Man plans, God laughs” adage is pretty apt, although I if anyone embroiders that on a pillow for me I’ll punch them in the face.

So instead of thinking about my sad, empty uterus constantly I’ve been cleaning. CLEAN ALL THE THINGS. It’s part super-premature nesting, part feng shui and part at-least-this-is-a-problem-I-CAN-solve, but it’s helping. Sort of.

Yes, it’s definitely helping. Just looking at that room and knowing all the birthday decorations (from APRIL, good God woman, you’re so lazy) are put away makes me feel better.

I’ve got the guest room and the kids’ rooms to tackle next, including a couple of terrifying closets I haven’t fully opened in years. I even wrote a garage sale on our calendar and I’ll be running in and out of the house throwing stuff in the yard all day. Maybe space – a space, lots of space, many spaces – will leave room for more good things to come in. It’s better to think about it as space than as emptiness. I’m tired of empty.

I don’t even remember this week. Seriously. It’s all just  a blur of hot, hot, rain, rain, hot, rain in my head.

Sunday:

Recycling is fun!

Slip and slides are NOT fun. Especially as an adult.

Yes, clearly that part of the immensely overgrown garden needs more water.

Monday:

I found 100 of these photos on my camera roll. I did not take them.

Working on potty training. I took the carpet up not long after.

They’re surprisingly fast for small children. I didn’t get in a real focused run, but it was definitely exercise.

Tuesday:

First day of summer school is a happy day for EVERYONE.

Exhausted from summer school.

MOMMY TIME.

Wednesday:

Funny, that’s the outfit I wear when I clean too.

Grilled cheese love

She cried off all her butterfly facepaint (from being super tired and cranky) then passed out.

Thursday:

Morning Netflix in the bounce house.

The bush in my yard exploded with hydrangeas, so I filled my house with them.

“Mommy mommy mommy sumpin’ else to eat” – REPEAT FOREVER

Friday:

My house always gets messier before it gets cleaner.

He suddenly remembered he loves trains

Looks: Innocent. Acts: Like a TERROR.

Saturday:

The kids were SO excited to see the Pigeon.

Selfies during story time

Adding their own pigeons to the wall

This week is going to be another one I barely remember. I’m determined to get my house – and life – more organized, so we’re alternating busy days out doing stuff with boring TV days for the kids while I CLEAN ALL THE THINGS. I’ve made it 75% through the first floor and am officially able to have people over for playdates again without dying of embarrassment.

A Brief List Of Lessons I REALLY Should Have Learned By Now But Can’t Seem To Keep In My Thick Skull:

1. Eating too much crap will make you feel like crap.
2. Wash your face before bed.
3. Wear sunscreen. No, really. Wear it. All the time.
4. Don’t stay up until midnight when you know your kids get up at 5:30 am.
5. Going grocery shopping without a list is ineffective and expensive.
6. Procrastination just makes you anxious about that thing you have to do, so then you’re anxious AND you still have to do it.
7. There is no such thing as “Just checking Facebook really quick”.
8. Ignoring the check engine light in the car doesn’t make it go away.
9. If you spend all your money, then you do not have any money.
10. It’s really hard to end a list at only 9 things.

This post is partially inspired by Amy’s list of lessons she’s learned, which is a great list and can all pretty much be added to THIS list, since I’m sure I won’t remember to put any of it into practice. I feel like a major part of being a grown up is getting to a point where you stop making the same mistakes over and over, which is why I will NEVER be a real grown up. I’ve been making the same mistakes since my very first homework assignment was due in school, the first time I ever got an allowance, the first time I went to a water park without my mom. And yet! Yesterday I put off a writing assignment I had due, spent unnecessary dollars on candy I didn’t need (and shouldn’t eat), and already sunburned my nose twice this season.

I wish there was a definitive way to change a behavior, permanently, forever that ISN’T just “will-power and hard work.” I realize that makes me lazy, and possibly a shitty person in general, but if I have learned anything about myself it’s that I can’t do it all. Something always slips. And at this point in my life the areas where I cannot afford to screw up – mainly the two small, blurry, red-headed areas usually hovering around my knees – take a lot of energy. If will-power has to be used for either “Don’t eat that cookie your kid just handed you” or “Don’t shout at your other kid for grinding that cookie into the carpet”, I usually eat the cookie. Even when I make things as easy for myself as possible (I bought face wipes and left them on my nightstand so I would ALWAYS clean my face before bed. I still forget.) I can’t seem to follow through. Do I have a chemical deficiency? Am I without a brain part? Did I miss will-power day at school?

Maybe the trick is baby steps. Teeny tiny itty bitty changes over a long, long period of time. If I start drinking a glass of water first thing every morning, maybe in a month I’ll drink 60 oz a day. Maybe if I can go to bed at 11:45 for a few nights in a year I’ll be in bed at 9:30. Maybe if I can skip that iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts and save my pennies in a hundred years I’ll be able to hire a butler to make me all my iced coffees at home! Or maybe I’ll start trying to make changes some other time. Later. Maybe after I check Facebook.

p.s. Unrelated to anything in the post – except for maybe the procrastination thing – I asked Siri (in my iPhone) to sing to me yesterday and this is what I got. I know making Siri say funny stuff is really old news, but it still cracked me up.