December Photo Project

December 1^st and already a full calendar. Lots of plans. The usual holiday busy-ness. Some weekends overbooked. I guess “tis the season” for this sort of thing, right? Amid all these “to do’s” you might question what I am about to tell you. I have decided to participate in the annual December '08 Photo Project. 25 days of taking photos and sharing them with you. Hmmm...this doesn't sound kid-friendly or husband approved.

You may be asking yourself, “So why do it?” I have a few reasons (read: excuses). First of all, I want to slow down and enjoy my family. I am proposing that taking pictures of this month’s family moments will be good for me. To purposefully keep my eyes open to those blessings around me. Those living, breathing, human blessings.

My second reason is a little more obvious. I love taking and sharing the photo love. I think this will be a good exercise in stretching my imagination and flexing those creative muscles. It’s a free way to challenge my skills.

My third reason seems a little far-fetched to me, but I do think it has some validity. I hope this project will bring a little more organization to my day. I tend to do better when there is more on my plate rather than less. There have been multiple passion-filled and exhausting conversations about priorities between the husband and wife of this household recently. Stretching each other and ourselves to dump all the rocks out of the proverbial bowl and start over fresh, putting the important rocks in first and the less important pebbles second. I have much room to grow in this area. I think “tyranny of the urgent” should be my middle name.

Again, a daily photo project seems counter-intuitive here. But, it actually gives me hope and motivation. Motivation to put the important rocks first in my day (serving others). And hope that there is room in my bowl for this delightful little photo project “pebble”.

Day 1:

My sick child thumbing through Ezra Jack Keat’s The Snowy Day. Here she has landed on the poignant part of the story. It reads, “Before he got into bed he looked in his pocket. His pocket was empty. The snowball wasn't there. He felt very sad." One day our Florida child will understand what snow is and why Peter's snowball melted.