For Better or Worse

As I said before my mind likes to skip around a lot, so before I get started I have to say that I love the Genius Playlist feature on my iPhone, IT ROCKS!


Ok so last week I went down to check out a venue where I photographed a wedding on Saturday.  The wedding was at night and so I wanted to see about getting the city scape in the background, night photography can be tricky.  But anyway it got me thinking about the vows you take as a married couple and how sometimes it can be easy to forget them. 


I take you to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.


These are not just words, there is so much meaning behind them.  I have to say this is one part of the wedding that can always make me cry, the other is when the bride is walking down the isle and the groom sees her for the 1st time.  When a loving couple looks into each other's eyes and they say these words, in which ever variation they have chosen, it gets me every time.  Luckily I have a camera in front of my face so I can hide my tears until I get to the back of the church/venue to wipe my eyes.


Once the honeymoon is over and the newness of being a newlywed wears off, it is easy to get caught up in the mundane motions of life.  You may even take the other person for granted, just always expect that they will be there.  You shouldn't though, take that person for granted.  You never know when your last day with him or her will be. 


For my "day job" I work for disability and when I first started I was on the phone with a claimant and she was talking to me about her daily activities.  She had really bad arthritis or neuropathy in her hands, I can't really remember, but what she told me I will never forget.  She said that her husband helps her with the things she can't do by herself.  She gave the example that he will cut her food up so she can eat, he will help her with brushing her hair, ect.  All of these were really sweet, but when she told me that he will paint her toenails and fingernails for her, that really got me.  She said that she was so lucky to be married to her soul mate, and I thought she is so lucky that she has someone who loves her enough to paint her toes. 


I believe in soul mates, I also believe that our souls have multiple lives on this earth and that we make pacts with other souls to be part of their life the next time.  I have to say that I am lucky that I married my soul mate.  Billy and I dated in high school.  I was 16 and he was only 14, I know I was robbing the cradle.  We had a connection from the very first time we hung out together.  I spilled a diet Dr. Pepper on his white North Carolina jersey, he didn't get mad at me.  And for those who know Billy, he hates when things get spilled and back then he loved his jerseys. :)  I am a little impatient so I made the first move.  I called him to ask him out on a date.  When I called he told me he was just picking up the phone to call me, I didn't really believe him, but 13 years later this still rings true, lol no pun intended.  A couple times a week I will call him and and he will say that he just was dialing my number. 


I realized that I am pretty lucky because when I told Billy about the claimant at work he said that if I ever couldn't do anything for myself he would help me.  He would paint my toenails if I needed him to. He said it so matter of fact, like DUH, of course I would do that for you.  I heard a song the other day and one line talked about when we are old and we don't die the grey out of our hair any more, we can sit in our matching Cracker Barrel chairs and reminisce on the life we've had.  How great it is to have a love for each other that lasts that long.  And how amazing that songs and music are the sounds tracks to our lives. 


For Better or Worse till Death do us Part!  

A Video Postcard - Hello World I'm Here -- Love, Camryn

As I was pumping today on my break at work I was looking through some old videos I created and I found this one:

Camryn's Birthday

It is of Camryn's birth.  It brought tears to my eyes I can't believe that she is already 5 months old.  This morning as we were having our mommy and me time, I was looking at her nuzzled under my neck with her little blue eyes staring up at me, I wished I could be a stay at home mom.  People say this age is when they really get cuddly and I was waiting for it and just within the past couple weeks Cam started to really cuddle.  I mean the I want to lay my head on your chest and just listen to the sound of your heart beat.  Not really tired or trying to fall asleep, but just be there in each other's presence.  I love it.   

Any way hope you enjoy a little video postcard from our life!

How we got here!

So, I have been toying around with the thought of writing a blog.  My mind tends to go about 1,000 miles a minute at times with lots of different thoughts popping up here and there, which can be exhausting.  So I thought maybe if I try to get it out on “Paper” or at least the virtual kind, then maybe my head could quit spinning like the little girl on The Exorcist.  Fitting since we just had Halloween. 

My head is like a busy train station.  With all the different trains of thoughts I have, I am often left on the dock of the train station, and well there went my train.  Don’t worry there is another one coming down the track and if they aren’t careful they may run into each other, this happens often.  I think my friends would agree based on the random comments that often come out of my mouth.   I can tell by the puzzled look on their face they are thinking, where did that come from?   

So many things have happened to my husband (Billy) and I this past year it is hard to at times to just sit there and enjoy this LIFE.  Let’s see, we both moved to Marietta (our hometown) from Columbus.  He left a few months before I did and on the day I left Columbus I took a pregnancy test and found out that in a little less than 9 months we were going to be having our first baby.  We thought that we would love it back home, but I couldn’t make the adjustment.  I left a nice government job and went to work in an attorney’s office, that was the wrong move for me.  About one month into it, I was trying to make arraignments to get back to what I felt like was my home, Columbus.   I told  Billy I wasn’t happy in Marietta and I wanted to go back.  I have always been told by my wonderful mom, “NO matter where you go, there you are!”  I couldn’t agree more, but I in this situation I had to go with my gut.  So the week before Christmas I came back to Columbus, to my nice government job and moved in with some amazing friends until Billy could get back up here too.  He stayed about another month in Marietta until he was able to come back.  Everything happens for a reason.  Billy was able to spend a lot of time with his brother Jeff before he passed away in a tragic accident on April 9, 2010.  The months we spent apart while I was living here and he was living there were for him a God-send.  Jeff’s death left a hole in the hearts of everyone who knew him.  There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him and wonder how different our Postcard from Life would look right now if we had not experienced this loss in our lives.  The fact is that God has a plan for everyone, even when we don’t understand why.  On May 21, 2010 I gave birth to our little baby girl, Camryn June Parks.  She was a ray of sunshine busting through the storm cloud that had been hovering over our family for the prior month.  When she smiles or laughs you can’t help but to want to just hug her and never let her go.  I do have to say that I pride myself on being empathetic, however, I never really understood what my mother-in-law or father-in-law could have been feeling when they had to bury their son, until now.  When I look at my little monster (and believe me that is a term of endearment) I can’t imagine having to go through the loss of a child, no matter how old they may be.  So isn’t that how life goes?  You’ll have joys and you’ll have pains and we live this LIFE one day at a time.

We have so many things to be grateful for and what a more perfect time to talk them than in this month of Thanksgiving. 

1.       A most wonderful husband, who has the best heart in the whole world.  He is the type of guy who will pull over on the side of the road to help someone in need, or help an elderly person to their car with their groceries, and will always hold the door for others.  He is truly amazing and I love him more than words can explain, he is my best friend.

2.       A healthy, beautiful, 5-month-old baby girl.  Who lights up my world every morning, even if it is 4:30am and I have a 10 hour work day ahead of me starting at 6am.  I really never understood the love you experience when you have children, until now.

3.       The best family and friends anyone could ask for.  I have the most honest and caring people around me and it makes me feel very good to know that I can count on them whenever. 

4.       Passion for photography – you may think this is a silly thing to be thankful for, but for me it is amazing that I can create a work of art that can bring tears to a mother’s eyes when she sees her images for the first time.  To be able to capture an image that will be around forever and to have such a powerful emotion attached, words can’t explain the joy that brings me. 

I know there are so many more things that I have to be thankful for, but these are just a few.  In a time in LIFE when it is hard to look on the bright side of a situation we do have to think that no matter how bad it feels, there are always things we can be grateful for.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t cry or put ourselves into time-out, because we need to do that too.  I am learning in LIFE there are many days when we need to just let it out, cry so hard that you can’t catch your breath, or close the bedroom door and have a pillow fight with the bed, or laugh so hard that you almost pee your pants (oh heck just go ahead and pee them already.)