Tag: Photography

You can’t promenade alone, can you?

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And now I’m back on schedule!  Woot!

I was fifteen and a freshman the first time I went to prom.  I can hear it now: “How the…What the…Huh?  Aren’t those for upperclassmen?”

My freshman year, I befriended an upperclassman who asked me to go to prom with him.  I, of course, was flattered beyond belief and quickly said yes.  Since he waited till the last minute to ask me, I scored a great dress for a nominal price.  A couple of older girls took me dress shopping since I didn’t have a car and even offered to do my make-up for me.  Dressed to the nines, I was all set to enjoy my night, despite the fact that we were being chauffeured by his parents because my date couldn’t drive.

Friends and fun – what could be better?
Photo by Kay Kauffman

Here comes Miss Freshman, escorted by Mr. Junior…

Fourteen

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Yesterday I took a day off from most social media, with the exception of a Facebook post (I heart The Princess Bride!) and a couple of Twitter updates.  Partly I was trying to get caught up on what I’d missed Friday and Saturday, but mostly I was spending a lovely rainy day with family.  I had a productive day, even if it wasn’t exactly productive in all the ways I had hoped it would be.

But!  That was yesterday, not when I was fourteen.  That’s the age we’re up to, as I recall.  Fourteen, what a year.  I was still living with my aunt the first part of that year, but that fall I started high school.  Once again I’d gone from the top of the heap to the bottom of the totem pole.  But with an awesome circle of friends, I was sure it would be a fantastic four years.

Mommy’s big little boy
Photo by Kay Kauffman

Suddenly I’m reminded of those old Iowa State commercials, the ones that asked what you wanted to do with your four years.  Or maybe they asked how you wanted to spend them.  That might have been it.  Tomcat and I saw one once when he was four and he looked up at me and said, “Mommy, I want my four years to last forever so I can stay your little boy.”

But, as usual, I digress.

Love-Me Plant Lady

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I’ve been trying to get a bunch of things done today, so I’ve been ignoring my computer.  When I finally took a few minutes to check my email, I noticed I had a new one from my aunt with some information about where I could view my cousin’s wedding pictures online (I posted a few of them back in July when I wrote about the wedding – you can read that post here).

I just finished looking at the pictures.  They were awesome!  Aaron Borchers did their wedding photography and he did an absolutely fabulous job.  But that’s not what this post is about.  As I was looking through the pictures, one member of the wedding party stood out to me (and no, I don’t mean the bride, though she was gorgeous, or the groom, who looked quite dashing in his tux).

More memories from the year I turned twelve are this-a-way! Follow me!

Old friends are the best!

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Growing up, I was the oldest kid in my neighborhood by a couple of years.  There were only a few other families with kids around as we lived in an older neighborhood.  A couple of kids were three years younger than me, a couple were five or six years younger than me, one was nine years younger than me.  The closest kid my age – my best and oldest friend, and my maid of honor both times I was married, she is awesome – lived three and a half blocks down the street.  While that wasn’t exactly far away, the situation didn’t exactly lend itself to easy visitation, either.

After my mom passed away, my dad used some of the life insurance money to replace our sidewalk (which really wasn’t sidewalk so much anymore as it was part of the yard) and to build a garage.  One day when I was eleven, my sister and I and the aforementioned best friend were riding our bikes around the newly-poured driveway and garage foundation (the garage had not yet been built).  One of the neighbor kids wandered over and wanted to play with us.  She and my sister were pretty good friends, even though my sister is four years older.  My sister has a talent for making friends – I think she was good friends with every kid in our neighborhood at one point or another.

Anyway, we decided that we didn’t want to play with her that day.  As a rule, I never wanted to play with this particular girl as she always kind of got on my nerves.  But how many people always love all their siblings’ friends?  Anyway, since we didn’t want to play with her, we told her to go home.

This didn’t go over very well. At all.

Ain’t nine fine?

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As you can see from the strap around her neck, shutterbug-ism runs in my family. 🙂
Photo courtesy of Martha DeGroote

Well, no, actually.  At least, not for me.  If you thought my seventh year was bad, hold onto your hats.

When I was eight, my mom went back to school to become a medical transcriptionist.  She finished her program a year later and was offered a job at a local hospital where she had interned while studying.  But within a month, it was clear that all was not well.  A visit to the doctor, followed by a mammogram, confirmed the truth.

She had cancer.

A mastectomy was scheduled and chemo was ordered.  But with a diagnosis of advanced breast cancer, a cure was a longshot.  She did everything she could to beat it.  Prayer after prayer was said by more people than I can count.

We spent a lot of time together that year, visiting places like the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend.  But we also spent much time apart, as she traveled to the Mayo Clinic and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for treatment.  She even got on an airplane for the first time in her life and flew to Texas to visit a childhood friend.  The time apart was hard on me, as I was very close to my mother.  But it was not as hard as what was to come.

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Eight is great! Well, sort of…

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Ah, eight.  Eight is great!  Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?

Okay, that was kind of random.

First Communion cake – my decorating skills are improving!
Photo by Kay Kauffman

For my kids, eight was a pretty great year.  Both of them participated in the ritual of First Communion at our church and were surrounded by family and friends as they celebrated the holy sacrament for the first time.  Tomcat was privileged to gain two new baby brothers within a month of each other during his eighth year, while Miss Tadpole spent her very first night away at Girl Scout camp.

Such a pretty smile!
Photo by Kay Kauffman

Miss Tadpole attended Camp Tahigwa, the very same camp that I attended myself as an eight-year-old.  I was so excited; I had never been that far away from home before and the brochure made everything look super fun.  With Puppy by my side, I could face anything that camp threw my way. Or could I?

Kindergarten envy

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When I was five years old, my mother cut my hair.  Well, she didn’t do it, she took me downtown to the Hair Clinic and had Angie cut my hair.  The point is, prior to the age of five, I looked like a girl.  When I started kindergarten, though, I looked like a boy.  The pictures of me on my very first day of school are about the only pictures of me in existence that look like pictures of my kids.  Several of my old teachers are still teaching at my old elementary school, where Tadpole and Tomcat now attend classes, and they’ve said more than once how much Tomcat resembles me.  I vehemently disagree with this, as he is the spittin’ image of his father and the older he gets, the more he looks like him.  But, at the age of five, with hair so short I couldn’t even put barrettes in it, we looked a little bit a like.

My first day of school. I was so excited!

There were two girls in my class who had hair long enough that it reached their waist.  Oh, how I envied their hair!  One girl’s was dark blonde; the other girl’s was red.  Every day they came to school with their hair in barrettes or ponytails or braids and every day I envied their ability to change their hairdo at a moment’s notice.

Troublesome Threes

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My grown-up guy
Photo by Kay Kauffman

When I was growing up, my aunt used to babysit.  She watched a little boy who had the same name as my cousin, right down to the middle name, so my cousin became Big D. and the boy my aunt watched became Little D.  That kid is now in his early twenties and, last I saw him, taller than me, but he’ll always be Little D. to me.

Anyway, my aunt watched this kid when he was a toddler, and I remember her talking about the terrible twos and the troublesome threes.  I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time and since I was a kid myself, I didn’t really care, either.  Now, though, I know exactly what she meant and boy, do I care!  As I recall, Tomcat’s twos weren’t overly terrible, though Cricket’s twos have thus far fit that bill, but boy, were his threes ever troublesome!  I suspect Cricket’s may be the same way, but I’m hoping they won’t.

When Tomcat was three, our lives were in a state of upheaval.

October Blog Challenge

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About a week ago or so, I ran across an interesting blog challenge.  Officially, it’s called the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge.  That’s a bit of a mouthful, so I shortened it up a bit for my post title.  Anyway, you can find out more about it here on Jane Ann McLachlan’s blog and sign up for it, should you so desire, here.  I thought it sounded like fun, so I signed right up.

On the off chance that you haven’t clicked through to find out what it’s all about, here’s the gist of it: Write 25 posts in 31 days.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Ah, but there’s a theme: Each post should be a memory or reflection for each of the first 25 years of life.  From the original post:

It can be a personal memoir from your life, a reflection on turning a certain age, a recollection of someone else at that age, a poem or a photo, on the ages 1 to 25.

For example…

Lost in a moment

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So I’m a little late with my Photo Friday post today.  But hey – it’s still Friday, and look, I’ve even got a photo!

Photograph by Minson Photography

This is one of my favorite wedding pictures and in honor of my third wedding anniversary Wednesday, I thought I’d share it.  It’s not quite candid, not quite posed.  We took pictures both before and after the ceremony because we didn’t want to see each other beforehand and also because that way we wouldn’t keep our guests waiting at the reception hall quite as long.  This shot was captured between posed photos, when Seymour and I clearly weren’t paying attention to anyone or anything but each other.

I’ve got the song “Lost in This Moment” by Big and Rich stuck in my head right now and I think it fits this photo perfectly.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, a great big hunk of man is calling my name.  ¡Hasta luego, mis amigos! 🙂

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.