"If you loved your job, I doubt you'd be investing this kind of time degrading mine"

A friend sent me an amazing post yesterday written by a fellow art teacher, Brandi Martin in Illinois concerning the recent rise in animosity towards teachers. I cannot urge you enough to read it, it is quite on mark with the rage a growing number of teachers have come to feel. I'm including just one sample from the post to make you click here and go read it personally.

"So do it. Reduce my pension. Make me poor, since I don't qualify for Social Security. Make my medicine unaffordable. Make my raise contingent upon proof that my art lessons somehow improved state math scores. Continue firing at my feet to see how long you can make me dance. It still won't change the fact that life did not work out as you planned and you're now a bitter little turd. AND I will STILL f******love my job, because I am rocking this for all the right reasons. After you take every tool and incentive and support away from me, and millions like me, you won't suddenly have anything great that you don't already have. And then you will be terribly disappointed to find out that this isn't a scam after all. Whether decorated or destroyed, inside every school we run on something you can't legislate, isolate, measure or destroy. Much to your inarticulate all caps despair.

It's love, dumbass. If you'd bother to volunteer at the little school down the street you could have a sample. I won't even tell the kids what you wrote about their teacher."

Apparently I'm Into Leather...Why didn't someone tell me?

One thing I have learned from reading every one of Katie Byron's books is that what other people think of me is THEIR business not mine. This is a HUGE improvement from where I use to be. I use to painfully care what others thought of me where it would consume all my time and energy trying to change their minds. Trying to control other's thoughts you know is a truly exhausting task; a full time job indeed. Luckily, I am cured from such a distortion of the mind and am free to be me without a care in the world.

I was happy to return to one fo the MOST valuable Katie Byron's lesson today when an acquaintance from work approached me and professed to know that I was somehow into "leather" or that I must had some exotic private life based on the fact that I wear a 1/4" width leather bracelet. His boldness and intrusive conversation both caught me totally off guard and made me chuckle at the same time. When I stupidly erred and continued the conversation, I briefly tried to correct him and make him aware of the plain nature of my life these days, he simply retorted with a smirk, "I've been around, I know". I then made a very conscious and Buddhist choice to just let it go and allow him think whatever he wanted of me and that his thoughts really were none of my business anyway, even if they were about me, his thought were none of my business. If he wanted to think of me as having a more exotic private life, more power to him...enjoy your fantasy buddy! If he only knew that most weeks I hardly even get a chance to put on lipstick, and even less pluck my eyebrows. Exotic is not part of my life....my priorities these days are so far from trying to be a deva...(LOL)

When I got home I shared with my husband this guy's assumptions based on my tiny leather bracelet that my son gave me a year ago. I had even forgotten this bracelet was even on my wrist and we both had a good laugh. It also made me realize that I too have lots of unproven assumptions swimming around my head; mostly about people I hardly know. In light of my experience, I made conscious effort to purge them out of my mind.

Life is quite funny if you have the right outlook.

Have a great day!

Got THREE Wedding Photo Contracts this Weekend!!!

I feel bad that I have not been posting this whole weekend. But I have been meeting with potential event photography clients all weekend. I was able to successfully book THREE wedding photography jobs for the coming year this weekend and I could not be happier! 

You can view my event photography site, 

Mir's Magic Moments Photography 

at 

www.MirsMagicMoments.com. 

To view enlarge-able samples of my work 

go to my 

shutterfly album. 

Before and After Work

           On the days I go to work (Tuesday and Wednesdays) I try my best to settle Nora before I leave. Luke is older and more independent, and beside, he is more attached to "dad" (my husband) than I. There is nothing worse for a mom or parent than to leave the kids crying on the way to work; I would rather she not are that I left than to see her crying for me.  Reminds me of how I use to do daycare before I had kids and I would shush the parents out the door and totally not fully understand why they had such a hard time leaving.  Now I know.  And it's not like I am leaving them in daycare even....they stay at home with dad.  My husband is wonderful at watching them, I never have to worry at all.....so it's just me having an illogically hard time departing. 

          After nursing her I laid her on her couch and she was very quiet.  Here is her picture.  I had to take it for she did not move for a long time. 

          Also, on days I go to work I try my best to do something creative with the kids when I get home.  Luke had come up with this idea of making a birthday cake for our parrot, Nugget. I agreed and we decided we would make an ice cream cake. We make a box of brownies, cut them up, defrosted 1/2 gallon chocolate ice cream and mixed the two into a cake-shapped bowl.  When I got back from work, we all had a slice.  This is a picture of Nora taking control and drinking the last few drops of melted ice cream.  Both of them had a blast!