dear Mikki and Katie…

so much of my life has been defined by a pair of thong flip flops and the mistakes i have made. at 21 years young, i walked into the post office in downtown bangor on a rainy afternoon, in my dark gray american eagle flip flops and too big for my head hoop earrings and signed up for a private post office box. this seemingly meaningless, mundane task to the clerk who handed me the keys (box #361) was perhaps the single most exciting, horrifying, and liberating moments in my adult life. i signed my name, amanda young, to the user agreement form. it seemed almost disingenuous to write it…as if i was signing away….a mistake. and as liberating as this one identifying millisecond of time was at my fingertips, it felt as though i was simultaneously penning three years of my life away.

my parents had pleaded with me, begged me, and even tried to bribe me to not get married. their fountain of marital mistakes, and a rather disheveled divorce later on, did not deter me on my walk down the isle. while they never embraced my obsession with wedded bliss in the sunset of my teen years, they did eventually surrender, and supported, if nothing else, my stubborn persistence to tie the knot with my high school boyfriend. i can say, with all honesty and the comfort of almost a decade of personal growth and arduous personal reflection since,  i knew that day in july 2000  that i was making a huge, life altering mistake. a little over a year later, i was in the middle of my own divorce…something i vowed i would never, ever, let happen to me.

and people will tell you that there are no mistakes in this journey of life. but there are. there are mistakes where you hurt people…not really on purpose, but because of single mindedness on your part that wasn’t really an accident because you knew, consciously, that you were doing it. there are definitely mistakes… minuscule ones, little ones, big ones, huge ones, gigantic ones….unforgettable ones. and while these typographical errors in your life story cannot be rewritten with white out and a fresh Sharpie Pen, they most often help you transcribe the next chapter, a better chapter, when the page turns.

and that day in the post office, in my $7.99 flip flops and torn in the right, back pocket jeans, was the first day i ever truly walked on my own. and it felt really….bitter sweet with a side of tornado.

all my love darlings,

p.s. no matter what mistakes…however big or however small…that you make in your life, you can always come home….

p.p.s…daily mantra: “and i don’t want the world to see me, ’cause i don’t think that they’d understand, when everything’s made to be broken, i just want you to know who i am.” {the.goo.goo.dolls}

dear Mikki and Katie….

for a long time, i thought that the coast of Maine is where i was born to live…there is something about the water that pulls me under and it always made me feel a profound sense of peace and comfort. now that i have been gone from my little home town over 10 years, when i go back, it feels like a pair of jeans that i have gotten to fat for. {that wasn’t pretty…but it is exactly how i feel} while i love it with all my heart, and love going back, it isn’t my definition of “home” any longer. i first came to this realization about three years ago. i was walking down the Main Street, Katie propped on my hip, Mikki at my side, and i kept trying to feel the sense of belonging that i had all those years ago. i tried to force the memories i had, some good and some bad, to bring me back to the idealized perception of belonging that i had wanted to rush over me. it didn’t happen. i remember feeling a void driving back to Rumford; an empty sadness.

when i unloaded you two from the car, Daddy was already home and greeted us in the driveway with kisses and hugs and smiles. inside the house, i set down my bags on the kitchen table and released a long breath of relief {partly because no one had gotten car sick on the way home….a rarity}.  in that moment of gratification, i realized that i was ‘home’…in Rumford…with you guys. somehow, inbetween leaving the coast in my adolescence and my late 20’s, i had built home up to be some physical place where i thought i fit in. but really, my ultimate feeling of comfort and ‘home’ came from our little family and the love we share together.

all my love darlings,

p.s….i know its Thursday…and this is the wednesday whistle, but it still counts, right?

p.p.s: daily mantra: “i have no special talents…i am only passionately curious.” {albert.einstein}

so this topic probably isn’t totally “life affirming” and won’t give you the warm fuzzies or anything. sorry about that. sometimes i just need to bang away at these computer keys about something not so soul serious. and the not-so-serious topic today is PixOs! {for those mothers/fathers/caretakers who have not been ever so blessed with the arrival of PixOs! please click HERE to find out what they heck they are…all the while noting my sarcasm surrounding the word “blessed”}.

alright, as you can see from the website this toy has some major awesomeness potential. i believe infomercials on NICK JR may have somehow perpetuated {and slightly or more than slightly exaggerated} the awesomeness potential, but you can make cool designs and it looks like a fun craft to do as a family, and it’s colorful and it’s relatively painless in the overall execution of said ‘fun’. {umm girls… remember Moon Sand??? don’t even go there with that eye rolling of yours…get that stuff in your contacts and you might as well buy a new set of eyeballs…}. well….while these little pixels of PixOs look completely harmless and full of refreshing gaiety….they are, in fact, devilish mini balls of horror to homemakers and vacuums alike. because, while yes, it comes with this adorable little dispenser to color coordinate your PixOs!, they must have forgotten to add the PixO maid that is required to then pick them up off the floor/carpet/bookcases/counter/top of the fridge {seriously girls…TOP OF THE FRIDGE???!!!} for HOURS after this crafty merrymaking event has ended. and yes, you CAN make lovely little designs and somewhat sweet replicas of cute, cuddly animals. however, it is apparently SO much more fun to flick them at each other from opposite ends of the table to see who could hit who first , as you two were doing this morning while i was in your room….cleaning. and while i was in there {did i mention i was cleaning?}  my mommy intuition {aka…experience}  told me that it was MUCH too quiet for any admirable play to actually be going on in the living room, but unfortunately i didn’t come out until i saw the cat in the hallway rolling around in 46 assorted PixOs with an almost inebriated, uninhibited joy. therefore, i was somewhat shocked to find that my handmade, wool rug had been almost completely covered with these delightful {not} dots, as well as the tv stand, the kitchen table, the coffee table, the book case, and, as i found when i was passionately {somewhat angrily} collecting each of the 1,456,231 PixOs in an airtight container that shall never be opened again as long as i live, the top of the fridge. i am destined to step on and vacuum these things up for as long as we live in this house.

the moral of this story????

hmmmm……how about…i still love you so much, and i even laughed a little when i found them on the fridge {a little bit…not a lot}, and you guys keep it interesting that is for sure, and lastly, that i should never buy these again….yes, this pain was self inflicted as it almost always is.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: people always say that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters. but that’s not true, is it? you know, and i know, that when you love someone, everything in the world matters a little bit more….Jodi.Picoult

p.p.s: and no, i don’t belive you, Katie. Penelope {the cat} did not make ALL this mess.

daily.manta: our task is to say a holy yes to the real things in our life….{natalie.goldberg}

dear Mikki and Katie…

today i started out the post with a daily mantra instead of putting it at the end. that means it’s REALLLY important.

all my love darlings,

i am a wife first, a mom second, and a photographer third. to the everyday client, or  a top of their field business pro, this would seem like a bad thing to admit. luckily, all of my clients are extraordinary, and they get it. reality is….well, it just is. and lately, maybe i have been missing that. my career is certainly important, but most days i wake up every day to the pitter patter of tiny feet against my hardwood floors, and i am nothing more than your run of the mill, traditional, stay at home mom and wife.

i have done a lot of “jobs” in my search for the divine epiphany of life long fulfillment and satisfaction when it comes to a career. i worked as a bagger at supermarket (who hasn’t right?), i have worked in a convenient store/pizza place/ place to get beer at 11:00am on the way home from clamming the flats, i have landscaped and tended plants, i have raked blueberries and trimmed trees, i have telemarketted for a once fortune 500 company (i was shockingly good at this), i have been a jeweler, i have been an internet support technician, i have sold cell phone plans…i have sold just about everything but houses actually,  and when my husband became a computer technician for a small town, i found myself, for the very first time since i was 15 years old, without an actual “job”….and i became a stay at home mom.

now…as you might imagine, being a mom is riveting, edge of your seat excitement on a moment to moment basis. right. actually…not so much. excuse my honesty for a moment, but the every day monotony of housework and child conversation can swallow you until you find yourself, one fine day, talking to the postman in 3 year old jargon when asking for a stamp to mail  your electric bill. (luckily, my postman understands baby talk, but you get the point).  i get up every day, not as a photographer, but as a mom. and its not glamorous, and my house isn’t always clean like i wish it was, and some days, i don’t wash the floor on my hands and knees (okay, i never do this….but in case my grandma was listening from heaven…i had to say that i DO), and sometimes giving the kids a bath can only be compared to running a marathon when you haven’t carb loaded, and you stayed up too late the day before.

but the truth is…the every day…is good. it’s REALLLLY good. ridiculously delicious even. and when the pitter patter of little feet run by my bedroom door WAY too early in the morning (helloooo, when do kids start sleeping in???), i should be nothing but thankful and full of…well, pure, uninhibitted joy. because i have it all…great little girls, a super sweet hubby, amazing friends near and far, a somewhat (cough) clean house, and i have the ‘every day’ life…the clothes hanging on the line outside, the cookouts, the flu seasons, the car pool to school, the pick up the dry cleaning, the drama free and relaxing nights at home…a completely thrilling every day life….

and a dishwasher. i also have that.

Daily Mantra: “joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are….” {marianne williamson}

I decided that today we would spend most of the day in. What is a girl to do in Maine when its snowy, and cold, and just…late February?

Welllll…this….

and then the “spa lunch”…peanut butter and jelly..perfect day..

Daily Mantra: “love of beauty is taste, the creation of beauty is art…{ralph.waldo.emerson}

dear Mikki and Katie…

this morning we were sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. katie, you were there…don’t worry…you were drawing spiders. {might i digress for a moment and say that you mentioned that you would like to have a pet spider, to which i said no, and for future reference, i will always say no about this pet choice of yours so please find something semi cuddly to ask for next time} anyways, we were doing homework…homework, by the way, has not gotten any more fun since i stopped doing it. but Mikki, you were completing it joyfully, and seamlessly. as we were wrapping it up, Mikki, you said something unexpectedly prfound…”mom, i want to be a teacher when i grow up because i LLLUUUVVVE to help people realize that they can do stuff.” at the time i think i said something  ridiculously unenthusiastic like “awesome”…but in my own defense i had not had my cup of coffee yet and i was still sleeping even though it looked like i was awake. {yes this is an bad excuse for not paying attention to your epiphany, Mikki, but when you are a mom you will understand} later in the day, after you had gone to school, it did dawn on me {finally} how brilliant and amazing your statement truly was. i stood in the middle of the kitchen and all the times people told me i couldn’t POSSIBLY do something flashed in front me. sometimes, i listened, and gave up. sometimes, i moved on and did it anyway. somtimes, i failed. most times, i didn’t.

girls, don’t let anyone tell you can’t do something {unless its me…haha…joke}. when it comes to going after what you love in life {whether it be teaching, or being a mom, or anything really…or loving a person even}, don’t let a single, minute thing stand in your way. ever. not even me.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be….abraham.lincoln

i’ve seen a rich man beg
i’ve seen a good man sin
i’ve seen a tough man cry
i’ve seen a loser win
and a sad man grin
i heard an honest man lie
i’ve seen the good side of bad
and the down side of up
and everything between….

{everlast}

Daily Mantra:

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine

{the.indigo.girls}