Home Decor and Finding Out Who You Are

I've been learning, lately, who I am. Heck of an accomplishment (or endeavor) for someone approaching her 42nd birthday, but there you have it.

It started with my photography career, I guess. I never knew, before I had to use the one thing I knew how to do to feed my children, that I was an artist. I can't carry a tune in a bucket, so singing for a living will never happen. I have absolutely no eye-hand coordination, even my penmanship stinks. Really. My ADHD is so rampant (I really don't bounce off walls, so don't take that too literally) that I've never been able to discipline myself to learn an instrument. My blonde hippie guitar teacher at age nine ruined it for good when he made me cut my fingernails way down. So how could I ever be artistic?

And here, post-40, I find that I am. I have an eye for the beautiful, and since I can't paint or draw, I paint with light. God is so amazing! He created each of us, and He created ways for each of us to be whole and fulfilled. My God is an awesome God. One of the things that has really amazed my right-brained self is how very much I love digital design, and really anything to do with the computer. Okay, I don't mean writing HTML here. I mean benefitting from all the hard work of the guys with the real brains.

So, the next step to finding out who I am was by studying an interior design book. Really. I've been wanting to remodel my home, and over many years I've had these conflicting ideas of what I want it to look like, and they kept changing all the time, so I've done nothing (well, finances may have had something to do with this, too, the doing nothing part--but I haven't even painted anything, because I wasn't even sure what colors are me).

So, I go to the library and get these three books on interior design. The one that was revolutionary for me was one that broke design styles into chapters. There was Art-Deco, and Traditional, and Country Cottage, and Eclectic, and Americana (I think that's all correct). See, there's the problem. I look at Country Cottage rooms, with all their white wicker, and blue and yellow flowers, and I love that. I would so love to stay in a summer cottage with a sun-room like that and enjoy my coffee and Lindor truffles and read a book. But do I want to live with it? No!

Then I look at rustic Americana kind of stuff, like my sister has such a knack for creating, and her house is so cute, and I love that old rustic stuff. What great stuff for backgrounds in portraits, old barn-wood and doors, softly out of focus! So I ask myself, is this what I want to live with? No! Which amazed me, because I love all that simple Amish-design and that old patina on an antique kitchen sideboard.

And I love antiques, so I look at the Traditional section (you'll notice I skip right over the Art-Deco--some things are no-brainers, even for me) with all of it's old and elegant style. And while I can pick out touches and pieces of furniture that make me feel all warm and wistful, I know this still isn't me. So what in the world is me, because these are the three styles I've struggled so much over! Don't I even have any style at all??

And then I find it. The Eclectic section. (My goodness, this is so telling!) With it's modern leather furniture, it's old gilt picture frames and heavy, almost gaudy, coffee tables and side tables, and all the gold and black, and rich fall colors! Wow! Just looking in this book, I felt at home. I thought, I could live in those rooms! I could curl up on that sofa with my cafe vienna and my Pride and Prejudice (okay, I haven't read the book yet, but I adore the BBC movie, and I'm going to read it!) and feel at complete peace. I peeled off another layer of finding out who I really am.

If you haven't watched Runaway Bride lately, you should. I just did a few weeks ago, and I got it in a way I never have before. This is not a romance. It's all about finding out who you are! What kind of eggs do you like? Goodness, I just recently discovered that my favorite breakfast in the world is Brie and bagels, with grapes and green tea! I love that we're never too old to make new discoveries. And that I didn't die before I started learning these things about myself.

So, does my home decor define who I am? Absolutely not! Nor do my bank statements, or my Lexus (one can dream) or anything around me that I can see or touch. What defines me is my heart, and what I choose to do with my heart and with Jesus. That's all. But in this temporal world, where beauty can be appreciated and even sought after, I'm enjoying finding out more about who I really am. Not who someone close to me has tried to make me to be, or who I tried to be so that I could be at peace or please any other person. I am enjoying finding out who I am.

My Amazing Kids

I have the most amazing kids.

My youngest daughter has such an eye for art. She doesn't even realize how good her eye is for composition, for color harmony, for light and posing. She has no interest at this point in photography (mostly, I think, because all the controls on a camera baffle her, like they used to do to me, and still do on occasion). It's tough when you're right-brained, and you know what would look great, but you have to learn those manual creative controls on the camera to get what you're after. Anyway, she wants to go into counseling. She's not quite fifteen, so she has some time to figure out what she wants to do. She listens to God, so she'll get it right in the end.

My oldest daughter is in college in another state, actually two colleges, getting a dual degree in nursing and Bible. She is getting such good scholarships that she's practically getting a free ride--she sent me a huge check today because her scholarships and grants exceeded by double what she needed for the semester. And, she paid off her car! The truly amazing part is that she voluntarily sent me a huge amount she could have kept to make her life easier, but she sent it to me to pay toward the nominal college loan I've had to take out on her.

There isn't even enough cyber-space for me to tell you all the reasons I'm proud of my girls.

My middle daughter is an absolute blast. Like my oldest, she will be 20 this month. Her favorite things to do are to have a balloon go whizzing past her head because I blew it up and let it go, to have Dr. Seuss read out loud in an animated voice, to have bubbles blown around her head, and to play "catch" with a soft ball (as long as the thrower strategically aims toward her lap, so she can catch it). She has no teeth (her last ones got removed less than a year ago), so she makes the absolute most hysterical old-lady faces. Sometimes I think she does it just to make me laugh. She can't talk and tell me, so I have to guess. She has a purple and black wheelchair, and a love of life that makes me smile when days are very long and hard. She is my sunshine. And I know she loves me, because she yawns every time I kiss her. She doesn't do that for anyone else, just me.

I have the most amazing God. Much has gone wrong in my life, but these girls make everything right with the world. God knows me so very well, and he gave me these three kids who are so very different, and so very perfect for me. I love them all so differently, but I love them all equally.

Did I tell you that my kids are not perfect? They're not. Heaven forbid! What would they ever do with me if they were! They would have thrown their hands up, as soon as they were old enough to walk out the door, and said, Enough already! The woman's nuts! Save me! But instead, they were given to a mom who loves them with all their bumps and wrinkles. Call it unconditional love, or call it self-preservation....I mean, if I love them that way, they have to hang in there with me during the tough times, too, right? That's just good planning, the way I see it. I won't be a lonely old lady.

You gotta know you've done something right when you're the one your kiddo calls from college just because she wants to talk. You gotta know there's God (I didn't say a god, some random impersonal being, but God!), when you mess up like I have, and have these kids to show for it. You gotta know!

Busy with My Move

I haven't posted for a few days because I've been so busy with my move. My photography business is run from my home, for the most part, but I've been renting a camera room for all indoor photo shoots that aren't on locations. I have to move by the end of April, since I'm not renewing my lease, so I'm converting my master bedroom into a camera room!

I'm really pretty excited about the move, for several reasons. I have a daughter who has cerebral palsy (she'll be 20 this month!) to whom I'll be closer to when I'm doing a session. I'll have even more flexiblity with my clients. I'll be able to go in at 11pm and practice lighting techniques if I want! Okay, 10pm, while my other daughter is still awake to model for me! Also, I have a cool fake brick wall that is actually authentic enough to not look tacky, so I can do alley shots in the dead of winter without the senior or me freezing our butts off! YEAH!

Hey, I don't think I've mentioned who I am and what my business is! I'm in Topeka, Kansas, and my business is Portraits by Cheri. My web site is www.cherisimages.com . As I said, I work mostly from my home, which will change to completely from my home within the next 10 weeks or so.

Elephants and Blessings

I was watching a PBS program this evening about African elephants. The narrator had followed a particular herd of female elephants for 15 years, an elephant family that he came to know by distinct personalities and traits. Over the years, he was amazed at how much playful fun the elephants would have, frolicking in water holes and such. Then he got an opportunity to go to the desert in Namibia and witness some elephants there. The narrator was amazed at the differences he saw in the elephants there, trekking across the desert where water holes might be 70km apart. Those elephants were all about life and death, about survival. There was no light-hearted playfulness there, just living, getting to that next life-sustaining drink.

We Americans are do not appreciate enough, I think, our Savanna. We take for granted the lushness and the sheer plenty that is all around us. For us, not having enough is driving a 10-yr.-old vehicle. It's not starving (for most of us). Good grief, have you heard of Bling bottled water, which costs a disgraceful $450 each, sought after by the incredibly vain and shallow creature who has more money than sense, and just has to have what is unattainable for the rest of us?? While leprosy can be stopped in its tracks for $150 per patient, and $175 can buy a source of fuel for a family in an African village, and some lost souls are out there spending $450 for a dog-gone drink of water.

But, I digress. My point is that we Americans, and other privileged citizens of other countries, are in great part clueless about how the rest of the world has it. I cannot imagine not getting a hot bath on occasion. Now, I can imagine not having time for one. But I cannot imagine never in my entire life having a hot, soapy bath, or even one in clean, albeit cold, water.

We have much, much, much to be thankful for, every single day.