"Home"

There are many sights and sounds of my "Home" where I grew up, including the sound of football games, wind in palm trees, the feeling of concrete beneath my feet as I walk shamelessly down the road and around the block barefoot, the sound of the multitude of children playing in P.E. around the corner.  Also, there are the familiar habits and ways of life that the people who have been living in the home I grew up in for the past 30 years:  The sound of the iron at about 2:30 as father irons his blue shirt, the soaking of coffee mugs with two inches of hardened sugar because "someone" didn't stir it properly, the row of cheap hair conditioners on the shower window and the fact that I always look for shampoo and only find many half-empty bottles of conditioner, or now that my sister wants black hair for some reason, I find bottles of weird hair-dye stuff, that you shouldn't be using to wash your hair, and probably not to dye your hair either.  Anyway, this is the home I grew up in.  Where I took my first steps, and now my little guy (at the bottom) has had the opportunity to visit this beautiful, wonderful place I call "Home."  P.S.  My mother makes it a beautiful place, lovely to take pictures of.

Childhood Books

God is America's King, She thought: Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their conscience. No king bosses Pa , he has to boss himself. Why (she thought) when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone ele who has the right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lit up by that thought. This is what it means to be free: It means you have to be good. "Our father's God, author of liberty-" The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and libterty. Then you have the right to be free."

-Laura Ingals Wilder, Little Town on the Prarie (My most beloved and treasured books of all time)

Lauging with Lauren

I just got off the phone with Lauren, a friend from Tallahassee that I have not spoken to in quite sometime. I do not have a beautiful, flattering photograph of this beautiful, flattering young woman, but I must say we had some beautiful, flattering times together back in the hick, redneck bible-belt and sorority girl filled land of Tallahassee, Florida. (I mean no offense by any of these terms by the way)

We had a deep and meaningful discussion together about the atrocities of facebook. I asked her if she prayed for hours by candle light for my feelings on facebook. She responded with an "Oh, Jo Anna I miss you. I don't even know what to respond to that but I miss you."

These conversations are what makes Laughing with Lauren so great. I miss that too:(

A typical conversation with my spouse

Isaiah and I had been driving already for a number of hours. I was being lulled to sleep by the droning of our car on the pavement and the faint sound of the radio, when the song: "Raindrops keep falling on my head" began to play. I smiled, because logically, that particular song makes me smile. I sort of rolled over, just enough to hear Isaiah casually say "The man who wrote this song tried to kill my father." I looked at him with my eyes half shut. "oh" I said, then I turned and went to sleep. He kept on driving, and that was the end of our conversation.

(This photograph was taken on a rainy day in Glacier National Park, Montana, on top of a trash can.)

Let the fun begin

Isaiah and I have had an interesting and exciting past month or so. It all began with this:



I made this cheeseburger for Isaiah and Benjamin James, who came gladly to my rescue after I was exhausted from photographing Luke and Lori Hamilton's wedding on July something or other 2008. They had a pot-luck Barb-q and I was oh so hungry but oh so busy to eat.

But, in all, boys are usually hungrier than girls and they seem to forget to eat if girls don't tell them too or if they aren't having food made for them. So, I gladly made them these cheeseburgers and they both devoured it, and I took a couple of meager bites.

Photographing weddings can be fun but it also leads to potential exhaustion and hunger, and sincere and incredible business after the event is over.

None the less, this event (the wedding) marked for Isaiah and I the beginning of a month long wild adventure. Most of which involved no sleeping, high volumes of interactions with other people, 104 degree heat and lots of fun and good times.

I can't wait to share more about this adventure, but I must wait for now. I have saved that project for a later period in time.