The snapshots we never take.

My husband and I were sitting in the study last night talking.  He was playing the part of the tired man and I was playing the part of the crabby woman.  So, you can imagine that the love was not exactly flowing.  The past week has been a hectic one.  Hubby has been very busy with work.  The kids are in several sports in the evening. (yes...we eat dinner at 4:30 now) and they are all starting school.  I'm aiming at being super organized and start making dinner at lunchtime. :)  But, I'm struggling a little with this school schedule.  6am is WAY too early to be up.  I'm a night owl.  I love staying up until 1am to fold laundry or clean the kitchen and bathrooms.  But, when I tried that and then had to get up at 6am, it wasn't pretty, my friends!

So, as we were sitting and arguing talking passionately about piano lessons for the kids, I looked up and saw that the computer was playing a picture slide-show of our greatest hits.  We are literally smiling or doing something fantastic in every picture.  And it made me ponder on the fact that we don't usually take pictures of the rough parts of life.  I wonder how it would impact me to have a slide-show of the "real" moments playing out on my computer.  What about the picture of Hubby and I completely exasperated with our children...or our family broken by sadness and loss.  Where's the picture of us crying, fighting, or just being boring.  Now, I'm not suggesting that we start carrying a camera around to capture the mundane of life.  But, I do wonder if it would provide a more balanced view of myself.  Because, quite frankly, if I judge my life based on the happy photos scrolling across my computer, we're a big fat party!  The reality is, more of my life is filled with me on my knees in prayer, or looking at facebook (Hello, my name is jill and I am a facebook addict).  I can most often be found in my kitchen cooking or helping my kids fight through homework, or breaking up fights, or breaking up fights, or breaking up fights...sorry. It does feel like a broken record sometimes.  I can be found putting my kids to bed and just laughing and talking about their day.  Or taking a bath and getting lost in a new book. (yes.  we are all glad that there are no pics of that!)  Or, just staring at my husband and soaking in all of the features that I've know so long...but still get butterflies over.  The story is, that we don't take these pictures.  We don't have them in a collection.  And we don't have the opportunity to see how silly we look when our veins stick out and we yell.  I guess the album will have to be in the stories my children tell.  They will remember all of the good, bad, and ugly.  They will remember all of my crazy quirks...and hopefully they will take with them (along with the wonderful photos we've gathered along the way) the entire picture of who we are and what we're about.  Although, I will be a little more intentional about the pics I take in the future.  Here's my first effort.  A pic of me...writing this blog...photo credit goes to D-Dog.  He took a lovely posed one, but then he set up this shot.  We both agreed that this face was closer to reality than the first one.  So, sorry for burning your eyes! :)