Is my blog a lost cause?

It's after midnight. I told Duck I would be in bed shortly, two hours ago.  I got sucked into organizing pictures.  See, it's been awhile.  A long while since I've been able to keep up.  Whenever I beat myself up about it, I remember one time being at my Aunt's house and her commenting about the 40 years of pictures that are sitting in boxes and will sit in boxes till someone else goes through them, cause she sure aint!  Then I feel better. I feel better that I'm only 8 months overdue in posting on the blog and only 4 months behind on going through my photo's and sharing them on facebook.  The best part of all though? That I've started regularly writing in a journal.  I have pictures, and a Journal. So if I never blog again, my life is still documented.

But, that doesn't mean that it's easy to access, read about, learn from etc.  I want my kids to be able to look at the pictures regularly, to read and re-read about our adventures that we take every day.  I want ME to be able to remind myself of all those fun adventures, of the efforts I make, have made, and succeeded in being there for my kids, at being slow, mindful, and a good parent.  That's why I recently posted on Facebook that I will no longer be taking photography jobs.  At least for a while.  This year I will homeschool 4 kids in different grades (5 if you count preschool!).  I was starting to feel the stress of being able to do that.  Where else could I simplify in my life to make room for this new challenge?  It wasn't really a stressful challenge so much as it was stressful in trying to figure out how I was going to fit it all in.  Eliminate something, I told myself.  But what? 

Although it was a hard decision, I feel good about it. At peace.  I have the rest of my life to be a photographer, but I will only have my precious children with me a short time.  

So tonight, I started again to work on my own photo's.  Organizing, editing, choosing the favorites that  I might blog or scrapbook one day.  Remembering some fun days that we had this last spring.  I love looking back at my photo's. Even the bad ones. I love the memories, feelings, smells and emotions that they evoke.  

So, I figured since I was already up 3 hours past my bedtime, what better time to write a blog post?  Ha!  My first in 8 months, but if we are lucky, maybe the first of many over the next 8 months?  We'll see ;)

Here's a bit of what's been going on over the last 8 months

Fun Friday (When the kids complete all their school work Monday through Thursday, then we get to play on Friday!)

Savannah, my little reader

Keeping up our Sunday Best

Attending our First General Women's Meeting!

Sunday Best with my Girl

We became chicken owners!

Took a huge trip to the East to see this precious baby enter the world!

Free Slurpee Day

One of my favorite place, The Oregon Coast

A collection of images I have had the privilege of taking this year.