name: Katie

age: 26

current city: Brandon, MS

living situation: In mi casa are my husband (Clayton), seven-year-old football card extraordinaire (Caedon), two-year-old little Dora the Explorer (Addie Kate), and two little pups, Bax and Mack. We live on a golf course in Brandon, MS and love it! We moved here in 2009 so that I could do my photography at home with the fabulous trees and greenery in the background. We are also now  closer to my husband’s work, which offers after school care for my son.

occupation: natural light portrait photographer for Mary Moment Photography

how do you structure your time and space? Structure is my dear old friend who tries to run far away from me despite my best efforts to keep him close at all times! Because I am a natural light photographer, there is no need for me to have a studio outside of the home. However, having an in-home studio makes it difficult to separate family from work. I have created a strict portrait schedule in order to balance my family life with my work life. I used to work every Saturday of the year, and sometimes I would work four to five shoots a day. I had to quickly take hold of my sanity and realize that I was missing a whole lot by shooting so much. I now schedule my sessions so that I shoot Mondays, Fridays, and one Saturday a month. This gives me time for soccer games and birthday parties, and energy for my family when I return from working. My husband also made a very important rule: I cannot shoot and edit in the same day. I used to tend to shoot all day and then edit until midnight. This practice left no time for me to see the fam. I love my husband’s rule! Speaking of my husband, I have an amazing one. He works in pharmacy at a local mental health clinic and is wonderful when it comes to watching the kiddos on the weekends while I am shooting. We put everything on a calendar so we can make sure that he has his free time, I have my shooting time, and we all have family time.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? Right now my season is winter. I am in my busiest season and am busier than a bee in a flower garden. My son just started first grade, and I am a room mom and an active PTO member at his school. My son also has soccer, which my husband coaches, so we have practice twice a week along with games every Saturday morning. My daughter is only two, and though she has nothing recreational on the calendar, she still keeps me on my toes! My photography is growing super duper big, and my mom is in her last stages of research with her lung cancer. Right now, I may not be seeing sunshine all the time, but soon comes spring and everything will be bright as daises.

-what season(s) preceded this one? Let’s say I just emerged from fall. This past season wasn’t the best since it is when I found out that my mother has stage three lung cancer. For a little while last season, I had to put a halt on everything that didn’t involve my mother so we could deal with the news and pray and pray for guidance for the future. Also during the time, I shot seven weddings back-to-back. After a season like that, I would say that I felt like falling… so fall it is.

-what season(s) might your future hold?  Never will I EVER say that my future holds a cold season. I believe we will have sunny skies from here on out. From now on, we are going to only allow seasons like the Mississippi summer — bright, sunshiny, and happy! I believe my mom will hopefully have surgery to remove the tumor, my little ones will continue to grow and learn and be amazing people, and my husband and I will keep enjoying our children and loving each other. As for my photography, I leave that up to my clients. I love my clients, and I believe that the harder I work, the more they will come back and bring their friends. My future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades!

favorite family activities: We love taking spontaneous family trips! We love our annual trip to the beach. I have gone every year since I was 12, and my entire family goes, including my siblings, nieces, and nephews. Unfortunately, this past summer was the first time we did not go due to my mother’s illness, but we made a camping trip out of it and enjoyed each other so much! Family is my favorite. I love spending time with my family and seeing my children play with their cousins. It is honestly the best thing ever.

favorite solo activities: I love being an activist. I love raising awareness and funds for Heather’s T.R.E.E., which was founded when I lost my best friend due to domestic violence. I love speaking with young men and women regarding issues that they are facing and how they can get out of harm’s way. My friend was a beautiful, smart, college graduate who had her whole life ahead of her. She was surrounded by the best family and friends. We never dreamed this could happen to her. I believe that if I knew then the warning signs of domestic violence, I could have done something different. If others can know what I know now about the warning signs of domestic violence, maybe they can be saved or save a friend.

katie and heather

Heather also is the reason I am now a photographer. Her name was Mary Heather Spencer, and I created Mary Moment Photography a couple months after her death and several conversations I had with her family. Even before I became a professional photographer, I always had a camera around and took photographs of friends. Thankfully, I have many photographs of Heather and me together. I took one of the photographs at a friend’s wedding, and she said, “You really need to start charging people for this. You’re kind of good at this picture taking thing”. 

After Heather’s death, which was when I was eight months pregnant with my daughter, I realized that life is short, and we must do everything we can to be happy and help our loved-ones to be happy. I am now taking her advice as well making sure that her life and her death are not forgotten. I miss her every day.

source(s) of inspiration: My Mother. My mother is the reason I am who I am. She is the one that started my photography infatuation. She has taken pictures since I was born, and I remember growing up with a camera in my face. Her love for photography and great advice have made me the photographer I am today. Her outlook on life has made me the mother and women I am today. She is currently being treated at MD Anderson in Texas for a possible Lung Cancer removal. She was diagnosed in May of 2010 with stage three lung cancer and  has endured chemo and radiation, pneumonia, and blood transfusions. She has fought this cancer for her children and grandchildren, since we need her so much.  She inspires me to fully live and love life. I want to be the best mom in the world to my children, and it’s all because my mom is the best to me.

best MakeShift moment: This probably… Wait. Let me rephrase. This IS the craziest thing I have ever done, and I hope to never do it again! I had a bride switch her wedding date to a day when I already had another wedding scheduled. I shot both weddings in one day! I had enough time to get from one to the other since one was in the early morning and the other was in the late evening, but I was pushing it! I literally ran from the reception of the morning wedding to get ready for the evening wedding, and I made it just in time! Needless to say I will never do that again but I am proud to say that I pulled it off, and that I loved and enjoyed both weddings. Also, for both weddings, I had amazing second shooting assistants who saved my life. Phew, makes me sweat just remembering it!

find katie on the web:

• photography business: www.marymomentphotography.com
• photography blog: www.marymomentphotoblog.com
• heather’s T.R.E.E.: www.heathersree.org

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

when i was in divinity school, i was surrounded by people who had very specific callings. some knew they would be working as chaplains in prisons. others  were going on to work in public policy. one of my favorite colleagues was dead set (pun intended) on entering the field of thanatology.

because my husband’s job ties us to memphis, my vocational narrative has always been a bit different. out of necessity, my calling has always been to find meaningful work in ways that  fit well within the parameters of meaningful family life. luckily, i don’t have the slightest predisposition toward teaching snow skiing in colorado or studying the chestnut blight in appalachia. the field of ministry is, itself, a vast city with major thoroughfares and meandering back roads. somehow, i have always known that the backroads are my place.

after the monkey was born, i gave up the traveling supply preaching gigs and the late-night college chaplaincy commitments. i traded these things for a regular preaching gig in a nearby church and the chance to lead several weekday morning study groups. when the bird was born, i cut back on the preaching even more but started this blog and increased the number of other commitments such as weddings, funerals and baptisms. all the while, i have been thankful for a vocation that can take on so many forms.

but somewhere along the way, in trading the risky thrill of writing on a sunday morning deadline for the even pace of study-group-prep, i have sacrificed some things that i am good at. and, in so doing, i have sacrificed some of the meaning. but i don’t know how to restore meaning to my vocation without taking away from the meaning of family life.

so i’m trying something new. i have removed myself from some major, long-standing work commitments, AND i am not going to fill this time immediately with other work commitments.  i am uncomfortable with empty space, and saying no, and the long rambling answer i give people when they ask if i work outside of the home. but for the first time in a long time, i’m beginning to get that old divinity school feeling back — that blind sort of trust that meaningful work will present itself if i am open and patient.

i guess, in a sense, i am returning to my place in the world: the indirect but infinitely interesting back roads.

name: Betty

age: 56

current city: Atlanta

living situation: I live with my husband Larry. My daughter Lulu (19) lives with us when she’s not at college. My stepson Tyler (19) just moved back to PA with his mom, and my stepdaughter Lindsay (23) just moved out into her own apartment with her boyfriend.

occupation: I am a writer. I currently run a blog called What Gives 365. Every day for 365 days, I give $100 to causes, people, and organizations that I believe are doing good work and are worthy of support. And every day, I write about why I chose to give– which hopefully will inspire other people to give a few bucks of their hard-earned money, too. I’ve also written two tragi-comic books on motherhood: I’m Too Sexy For My Volvo: A Mom’s Guide to Staying Fabulous! and The Agony and The Agony: Raising Your Teenager without Losing Your Mind.

how do you structure your time and space? I work at home. I’ve converted the third floor bedroom into my writing lair. I love it because it’s far from the kitchen, and I can’t find anything to clean, eat or distract myself with up here – plus I have a great view of the trees. I generally come up here with coffee at about seven or eight a.m. I stay up here writing until I post my blog  (about noon). Then, I’ll go to tennis or just eat something. I return to work during the afternoon and sometimes at night as well. When my kids are home, I’m much less of a workaholic. When they’re not, I’m working pretty much all the time, at least for now.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? I guess I’m in autumn. I am winding down in the parental role, having to figure out the next scenario with my husband, figuring out what to do with my talents and abilities in the next stage, wanting to earn money without being a slave to it, and negotiating my independence versus my need for intimacy. I spend time wondering who I am when I’m not a day-to-day mom anymore, and wondering if the best part of life is behind me. As I try to get okay with being older, I wonder if this is the stage of life when everybody starts to die on you. I am happy and often even exhilarated, but I also kind of wait for the ax to fall or the frost to come. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? Summer. It was the end of having the kids living at home. It was a time of a lot of activity, the frenzy of coming changes, sweetness, ripeness, and the sense of things ending. I wanted to hold on and not let go because I knew that things would soon be colder and emptier. I had the feeling of impending loneliness, but with this came a greater appreciation of the beauty of the moment. And there were a lot of episodes of feeling very hot. 

-what season(s) might your future hold? Winter, death, the end. The only good news is grandchildren! But, there is always the possibility of rebirth!!!

favorite family activities: traveling, entertaining, going to movies and college events, watching television, playing board games, going to church, getting together with friends, going shopping or to the movies with my daughter, visiting with my step-kids and seeing them grow, cooking, and talking, and laughing

favorite solo activities: gardening, tennis, reading, visiting with girlfriends and family, writing, traveling, and taking courses at the college where my husband works.

source(s) of inspiration: The New Yorker, the Bible, music, poetry, books, movies, the Internet, nature, my church, other people

best MakeShift moment: For some reason, a couple of years back, my home got chosen to be on the Tour of Homes in Brookhaven  in the “garden” category. Given all the ultra fancy backyards in this area with gobs of landscaping, ours is pathetic – no pool, no grand sculptures, no mazes or topiaries, nada. So my friend and I decided we were just going to go with the kitschy look – and since it was late October, I created a scary haunted house thing with hanging spiders; cobwebs; lots of skeletons; a sitting Freddy Krueger; a dried ice fire pit; creepy lighting; and tons of flowers, haystacks, and pumpkins. It ended up looking really cute and fun — not glam, for sure — but definitely creative, and entertaining, and cool. I was kind of proud of that.

find betty on the web:

• blog: http://whatgives365.wordpress.com/
• the agony and the agony: http://www.amazon.com/Agony-Raising-Teenager-without-Losing/dp/1600940749/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282134454&sr=1-1 
• i’m too sexy for my volvo: http://www.amazon.com/Im-Too-Sexy-My-Volvo/dp/1593375026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282135806&sr=1-1

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

most people mistakenly think that because i am a minister and a mother, i must have some special, handed-down-from-god, ability to explain matters of the ultimate to children. i’ll never forget walking with the monkey into his school last december. the preschool director had proudly installed a life-sized nativity scene:

she greeted us with a smile and a wink and said, “monkey, i know that YOU of all people must know who all of these characters are!”

she quizzed him on everyone from the animals, to mary and joseph, to jesus, himself. i am here to tell you that apart from the slight recognition of a sheep, my little guy had no earthly idea what the director was talking about.

“we’ll work on this,” i said.

yesterday, i had another opportunity to display my deficits in the area of early childhood religious education when i did the children’s sermon at church. i learned later from the monkey that my explanation of the word “perseverance” had not been clear (as found in the hebrews text, “let us run with perseverance the race set before us”). the monkey informed me confidently, as he was attempting to dismount his new trampoline, that i had nothing to worry about. he was “not going to have perseverance.” when i flashed a puzzled look he said, “that means that i am not going to get too tired or fall down.” hmmn…

finally, the monkey and i had the following interaction before bedtime last night. i was singing, and he was to fill in the gaps in the song with rhyming phrases:

mommy: (singing) “the ants go marching 12 by 12 hurrah, hurrah; the ants go marching 12 by 12, the little one stops to…”

monkey: “…go to hell!”

mommy: “what? what is hell?”

monkey: “it’s just a place you go.”

mommy: (dumbfounded) “well, where in the world have you heard of this place?”

monkey: “all the time, mommy. you know… when i go up a hill…”

mommy: “so you are saying HILL?”

monkey: “yes!”

mommy: “oh, thank god.”

so, to all the moms out there who know how to talk to children about divnity and mystery, i have a proposition to make. you give my children a foundation of stories — a framework upon which they might hang their questions later. you give them an overwhelming sense that god is love, and you inspire them to give love in return.

then, when your children get to college, you can send them to me. i will happily return to my old college chaplaincy roots. we’ll talk about our questions, our doubts, and the notion that there’s wisdom in recognizing the vast expanse of what we don’t know. we’ll work on integrating head and heart, thinking and being. 

i hope this plan works for you because if it doesn’t, my children are clearly going to hill in a hand basket.

hello, and welcome to my home tour. i think i’ll start by giving your a glance at my sewing room:

oh yeah, i keep forgetting that you’ve already seen my kitchen and my office. we’ve passed that point in our relationship where i can blithely lie and change the subject to cover up my shortcomings. let’s just say that while i dream of the above displayed organization, my reality looks more like this:

it’s not that i don’t have an organizational system. i do actually have shelves and scrap bins, and i even returned everything to their places right before i left for the mountains. it’s just that everything lives within reach of the monkey and the bird, who love nothing more than to float around in vast seas of fabric. the up side is that this meticulous project of dumping, gathering, and arranging occupies the kids for hours. 

i am still plugging away at the re[frame] productivity system for creative people  . my “to do”  list still resides in a cute little box of note cards, my files are still in order, and my office hasn’t been a disaster area in quite some time. clearly the sewing room project is next. i’m thinking pegboards (out of the children’s reach) securing scissors, rotary cutters, and the like. i’m thinking colorful displays of bobbins and thread, elevated just beyond the monkey’s grasp. i’m thinking off-the-floor shelving for the fabric and scraps. this is going to be huge, people.

if any of you crafty types have any tips, pictures, or inspiration to share, bring it on.

the result is going to be sew fantastic.

the nice orderly fabric picture was borrowed from thread on 6th street in tuscumbia, AL.

four years ago today, all of the mystery in the universe cried and stretched, moved from darkness into light, and conceded the bliss of the world beyond for our clamorous symphony of love. he, our little monkey, was baptized into a community of gracious souls — the bold village entrusted, along with us, to help him become his truest self. we, andy and i, were baptized into a re-orienting sort of love – unconditional, fearful, wonderful.

happy birthday, big boy! you are my wild, empathetic, curly, defiant, inquisitive, exuberent, heart.

photo by carol reach.

name: Elise McKinnon

age: 36 for a few more weeks

current city: Memphis, TN

living situation: I live with my husband, Leonard; daughter, Audrey (age nine); son, Edward (age eight); needy Border Collie/Beagle mix, Dash; perfect cat, Anna; and foster puppy, Sammie.

how do you structure your time and space? Hah! I don’t. Any sense of organization I ever had went right out the window after my children were born. My house is a mess – everyday. Dinner is a surprise every night. Until recently, the only constants in our home were bedtimes, school times (for the kids), and morning exercise for me. In April I returned to work part-time, and I’ve tried to create some structure since then but I have found that the more I try to create a sense of order, the more the cosmos conspire to put a wrench in everything. In general, I do my very best each day to subvert society by refusing to multi-task.  This includes talking on the phone while I drive, doing anything while I eat, ironing clothes while I brush the dog with one foot, or anything else that sacrifices quality for quantity. 

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? I don’t think I was born to be a mother as some women were – or believe they were. I am an only child, so the sibling dynamic is something for which I have no frame of reference. The bickering, posturing and bartering can make for exasperating background noise, at times. But when they giggle together, and they don’t know I’m listening – that’s music. I love my children, and they surprise and delight me each and every day but my nurturing instincts aren’t always particularly strong. I spend a lot of time lost in the forest and, on the off-chance that I do happen to notice an individual tree, I usually go after it with an axe. So, I spend a lot of time saying, “I’m sorry.” I always said I’d never be one of those mothers who over-schedules her children, but I do love watching Audrey and Edward try new things and discover new talents. Even more than that, I enjoy watching them work hard for things that don’t come easily for them and being there when they succeed. The biggest challenge, and it seems to be getting bigger, is carving out time for Leonard and me to be alone. The best time of my life was when we were dating, and I miss the ability to spontaneously take off for the weekend or just lie around the house doing nothing.

-what season(s) preceded this one? Probably springtime. I loved being single and living alone with everything in front of me. Right after college, I moved to DC and worked on Capitol Hill for several years. It was electric! Most of my circle here in Memphis got married right out of college – something I can’t even imagine having done. I don’t know who I would be if I hadn’t had the opportunity to be just me– not someone’s daughter, wife, mother, et cetera.  When I was single, I felt strong – in bloom – just like spring’s promise.

-what season(s) might your future hold? Today the heat index is 117 degrees, so I can’t think of anything more pleasing than winter. BUT, if we remove the metaphor, what I hope the future holds is a chance to live someplace else. I miss being an easy drive from the beach or the mountains. I would love for my family to live in another country and experience another world-view. 

favorite family activities: going to the beach, hiking, riding bikes, going to the movies, eating out together

favorite solo activities: running, reading, traveling, playing the piano

source(s) of inspiration: good writing, dry humor, and waves crashing on a shore

best MakeShift moment: My life is one gi-normous makeshift moment. I couldn’t possibly narrow it down to one.

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

back in my pre-kid days, i remember feeling completely baffled by some of the time-saving measures taken by a friend, who was working outside of the home, parenting, and pursuing her masters degree. every sunday, for example, she would pour her preschool son’s milk into 14 little containers so as to shave milliseconds from her weekday lunch and dinner prep time. this struck me as the same mentality employed by olympic swimmers, who shave their whole bodies for a swifter glide through the water. i wondered why my friend was making parenting into an olympic sport.

but now that i am a parent, i have a new perspective. i find myself strategizing about how to cut corners. i have yet to fill my fridge with tiny little milk containers but i no longer question my friend’s time-saving practices. as a mom, an employee, and a student, she was triathlete. her life was necessarily one of high stakes and high structure, and if i saw her again, i’d give her a gold medal.

i have been training for my own event over here, and the good news is that my personal record times will not be adversely affected by my ambivalence toward shaving. i’ve been trying to streamline the meal planning and grocery shopping processes that have historically usurped much of my valuable weekend family time.

my friend sarah mentioned in passing several years ago that she has a weekly grocery list on her computer with all of the staples her family needs for a week. i have recently borrowed this idea, and now i simply print up my own such list (diapers, applesauce, milk, detergent, et cetera) before heading to the grocery.

i am also now following my friend tiffany’s lead, and i have compiled several weekly meal plans that work well for our family. so, for example, if sunday morning rolls around and i would rather watch paint dry than spend time planing our meals for the week (which is often the case), i can simply pull out a previously compiled list of tried-and-true dinners complete with its corresponding pre-compiled list of needed grocery items, and i’m good to go. tiffany’s weekly meal plans are seasonal and make use of many fresh ingredients. i guess this is what makes her an olympian and myself just an olympic hopeful.

i would love to hear about the tactics you use to simplify your life. if you are interested in my weekly meal plans, i’ll be posting them soon. just click on the “weekly meal plans” heading located on the sidebar to your right.

[thanks to http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35584821/ns/today-today_in_vancouver/ for the olympic curling image.]

i began talking about child number three when i was pregnant with child number two. this was a pretty bold move for someone who spent nearly four years under the impression that she might not be able to have children at all. but two in vitro attempts led to two successful pregnancies, and for the first time i allowed myself to envision myself with a house full of children.

but the second pregnancy was a tropical storm of emotions. for almost six months we reacted to quad-screen test results by preparing ourselves to welcome a special-needs child. we searched (unsuccessfully) at the offices of specialists and in the many alcoves of the internet for definitive predictions regarding our little bird’s number of chromosomes. if we could have checked out for a while, filled our car with plenty of gas and taken an evacuation route to sunnier pastures, we would have.

but this pregnancy was not like that. it was the constant, embodied awareness of darkness and light, fear and joy, reluctance and exuberance. there was no way out but through.

it’s funny how the female memory works. i can recall and describe the experience of my second pregnancy, but i am no longer capable of conjuring up and experiencing its particular level of agony. likewise, the pain of childbirth and the sleeplessness of the newborn phase are wrapped up and obscured in my head by a spectacular sense of wonder and awe.

saved from the monkey's first haircut

apparently, the male memory does not work this way. when the subject of child number three comes up, my husband, who has become the official keeper of the more base realities of pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn parenting, reminds me of the tropical storm we just barely survived in 2009. “why,” he pleads, “why and HOW could we ever survive that again?”

nevertheless, i have baby lust. ayelet waldmen reminds me that i am not alone:

“other women in the park are having these same internal debates, i think. when a newborn shows up, there’s a pause, a hiccup in the general hubbub. we all stare, misty-eyed. we coo; we ooh. and then someone’s kid whacks someone else’s on the head with a shovel, or a toddler gets stuck on the top of the slide and gives a wrenching shriek, and we all briskly shake off that gentle longing” (bad mother, 182). 

maybe baby lust is merely the biological pull that ensures that the human species will persist. it doesn’t feel like this though. it feels more like standing at the edge of the creative center of the universe. staying outside of it takes almost as much of an emotional toll as bravely venturing in.