We are enjoying the warm weather! Hope you are too!

Since this is so much of my daily life right now, I thought this self portrait was appropriate.

I’ve recently revamped my web site. I’d love for you to check it out!

Happy birthday Oliver! I love you!

This is going to be hard, as I really don’t like photos of myself. But I realize now (after taking January’s pic) that me being camera shy will not be the hardest part. Technically it is not super easy to take pictures of yourself. It’s hard to focus and look natural, and I ended up tripping over the tripod a few times. But I’m hoping it’ll be worth it and at the end of the year I can look back on all the photos and remember what a great year it was.

For January’s image, I wanted to take a picture of myself breast feeding Oliver. In fact, this photo was taken one of the very last times I breast fed him (a few weeks ago). He is 11 months old now, and I had gone down to one feeding a day. It was time to wean him, we were both ready. He wasn’t getting that much out of them, it was really more for comfort. But I wanted to document it, since I will never be doing this again.

So here is my portrait, on the rocking chair in his room….

Also, I want to give a shout out to a couple photographers that have inspired me to take on this project. Gail Werner and Betsy King have been creating beautiful monthly  self portraits for a few years. Their pictures document where they are in their lives right now, and I want my images to do the same. Thanks for the inspiration girls!

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I have a yearly calendar in my head. It’s reminiscent of a Monopoly board, with the months arranged counter clock-wise. It is not symmetrical. Each month is a different size, with May and part of June running across the top and December stretching across the bottom. I am like the Monopoly piece, in that I see the rest of the year from where I am “standing” on the calendar right now.

I’ve always envisioned it this way. But the funny thing is, I thought everyone viewed the calendar year like this. But many years ago when I mentioned it to my younger sister, Kristin, she IMMEDIATELY let me know it was just me (and I was a little crazy). She said it was a condition similar to synesthesia, where people relate colors to smells, or associate letters with colors. A few Thanksgivings ago,  I learned I am not the only one in my family to have this. My brother sees numbers a certain way, and one of my uncles also has a calendar in his head, although his is oval shaped.

So, here is my “mental calendar”, as best I could draw it.

You can make fun of me now. It’s OK I can take it. If you want to see more examples of other people’s mental calendars, I found this article online that has some great examples.