That is one excited groom.

(Posted late, but taken on day 85.)

A Sanrio store in the mall?

My childhood has come back to revisit me.

(Posted late, but taken on day 84.)

Last night I drove to Chattanooga to have dinner with a former roommate of mine, Katie.  When I got home, I decided to take a shower and as I reached for my bottle of conditioner, I realized that the near-empty bottle was the one I had bought at a convenience store outside the children’s hospital where Olivia was treated last year.  Suddenly, I was flooded with memories of those evenings in the hospital.

I remembered how I would arrive on the PICU floor and go directly to the shower outside the ward.  I left my office at 5 p.m. each day, drove 1.5 hours to the hospital, showered (to help prevent any germs from getting to Olivia) and then dressed in pajamas for my night in her room.

I would walk into her room and, as I’d put my purse in the closet of her room, I would begin asking the nurse my usual questions about her heart rate and oxygen levels and fevers.  I would go over to the bed and lay my hand beside Olivia’s little leg while I talked to the nurse, getting my information before I started “talking” to Olivia.

Olivia was sedated, but her doctor told us that she might be able to hear and recognize our voices so we tried to talk as much as possible.  During the evening hours before I slept, I would sit beside her bed and tell her stories about Snuggles and Cuddles, my two little puppies.  I made up all kinds of stories, ones I knew she’d love if she could hear them — their trips to Paris and to Disney World and how Cuddles ate one of my socks.  You’ve never heard so many pretend stories about a couple of cute puppies.

When I would run out of stories, I’d tell Olivia about all of the things we were going to do when she was out of the hospital.  At that point, I didn’t really know if Olivia would be coming home from the hospital or not.  I had just been given a very serious diagnosis of my own and to say that my faith was low would be an understatement.  I wanted Olivia to be healed and well, but my rational brain continually reminded me that we may not have the outcome I hoped for.  She had spent several minutes underwater.

She had spent several minutes underwater.

At the very beginning of Olivia’s hospitalization, there were some visitors who were very vocal in their proclamations that Olivia would be healed.  They would inform the doctors or nurses, as they entered the room to check on Olivia, that Olivia was going to be released the very next day because God was going to miraculously heal her.  When this would happen, I would step into the hallway so I wouldn’t be tempted to voice my opinion on those proclamations.  We didn’t need me starting any drama with my mouth.

One night, while I was alone in Olivia’s room, I watched the nurses run to the room beside us where a child was dying.  They brought the mother out of the room and she laid down in the hallway outside her daughter’s room, face touching the laminated floor as she begged God to stop her child from dying.  I sat frozen beside Olivia’s bed, knowing that I should go help console the woman but being unable to move because I was paralyzed with fear.

The child died.  While her mother laid on the floor praying she wouldn’t.

I shut Olivia’s door and stood at the foot of her hospital bed, watching her hooked to monitors that showed me how a machine was breathing for her.  In that moment, I truly did not believe Olivia’s story was going to have a happy ending.  I had faith, but maybe just not enough.

I believe God heals, because the Bible says He does.  But I think we walk a very dangerous line when we proclaim exactly when and how He will do anything.  God heals, yes.  Does God heal while we’re on earth?  Sometimes.  Does God heal when we go to heaven?  Sometimes.   So, do our prayers affect His “decision” of when to heal, whether the healing will take place on earth or in heaven?  Or is it predetermined?  Were my prayers different than the prayers of the mother in the ICU room next to me?  I heard her praying in those long nights and it sounded an awful lot like my own quiet sobs begging God to keep Olivia alive.

But she buried her baby.

I have a graduate degree in religion, but I don’t feel like I really know half of what I want to know when it comes to God.  I’ve found that my mid to upper twenties are really rocking the boat when it comes to making sure I’m on a firm foundation with my beliefs.  Things that I never questioned before suddenly seem questionable now; things that I thought I knew, I’m now uncertain on.  I don’t write a lot publicly about Christianity simply because I’m kind of just trying to “work out my salvation” without being one of those 20-somethings that leaves their faith behind as they enter adulthood.  Best I can tell, your twenties are about figuring out who you are and part of that is figuring out what you believe.

I don’t have any definitive, finite conclusions except for this, maybe:  I don’t think our faith is meant to be based on our circumstances.   I think God cares about our circumstances, but I don’t think He means for us to base our belief and trust in Him based on what is happening in our lives at that very moment.  Those are easy words for me to type, but much harder to really believe.  I can’t tell you how many times how I feel or what I’m going through affects my relationship with God.  I don’t want it to be that way, so I’m trying to change my mindset to where whatever happens in my daily life doesn’t send me on a roller coaster with God.

I’m not certain, but I think I’m going to like who I’m becoming.

He is obsessed with this toy.  OBSESSED.

(Posted late, but taken on day 83.)

For several years now, I’ve kept a quote near my desk so that I could constantly remind myself of its truth:

“It is wonderful what miracles God works in wills

that are utterly surrendered to Him.

He turns hard things into easy,

and bitter things into sweet.

It is not that He puts the easy things

in the place of the hard, but He actually

changes the hard thing into an easy one.”

Hannah Whitall Smith

Last year, I had the experience of finding out that the only two guys I ever seriously dated asked other girls to marry them.  The proposals happened within days of each other and it stung as fiercely as if a wasp itself had come in through my bedroom window.  I wasn’t in love with either of them by that time, of course, but my emotions snapped to attention the moment I realized that they had, rather happily, gotten what I wanted: a mate.

It’s been months since I learned of their news and I can still remember how hard I wept the night that I realized both of them had proposed.  It hurt, for a variety of reasons, none of which were necessarily good.  I knew I had to walk through it.  And so that’s what I did.  I couldn’t snap my fingers and make my feelings change, so I made myself take a step each day through the experience.  I made a lot of mistakes in the process, some publicly and some privately.  I was just trying to walk through it.  I make mistakes.  I am young and I make mistakes when I try to walk through life.

Time has gone past and I’m a bit amazed at how differently I feel now.

Now I am happy for them, genuinely happy for them.  I’m grateful that both of them are with someone that they can love for the rest of their lives, someone who they can build a family with, etc.  I regret the time I spent feeling hurt and wish that I could trade it in, that I could have wished them well from the very beginning.  Change is so odd, how we can go from feeling one thing to feeling another in a span of seasons.  The bitter really does become sweet, sometimes.  Not all the time, I think, but sometimes.  I don’t think it’s always in God changing the situations, though I can think of plenty of situations I have wished He would change.

I think sometimes He just has to change me.

Someone didn’t want to get out of bed…

(Posted late, but taken on day 82.)

1. Creating the content for my photography website.  Thus, sorting through hundreds of pictures.  I’ll probably get to show you the website next week.

2. Working my tail off at my “real” job.  I never mention it, but I do work hard at the real job.  And photography.  And taking care of Snuggles y Cuddles.

3. Getting approved as a TN therapeutic foster parent.  The “therapeutic” part means that I signed up to take care of the kids who have various problems above and beyond being taken from their parents’ homes.  I don’t know why I signed up for the therapeutic part.  But those kids need someone to sign up for the therapeutic part, so here I am.

4. I am, as of Monday, a licensed foster parent.  No kiddies in my care yet, but I still wanted to tell you the good news.  It’s official.

5. I didn’t tell you on Monday because it didn’t seem like good news then.  Foster care scares me.

6. Other things that scare me: rats, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and cauliflower.

7.  I can’t stand cauliflower.  It is ugly and it tastes bad.  I think I might have some unresolved internal issues about the existence of cauliflower.

8. I have been watching every season of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix.  Keep in mind that I’ve never really watched tv before, so watching a full series is kind of weird for me.

9. I’m not proud that I am watching Grey’s Anatomy.  However, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve watched something on one of the episodes and been all “I could totally write a deep blog post about that.”  If you start seeing various Grey’s Anatomy-themed blog posts appear, I need you to just be patient and walk through this season of life with me while I relate my life to fictional characters on a tv show.

10. If you ever go through a season of your life where you have three little girls in your house five days a week and you fall in love with them and then you have to set very hard boundaries to protect yourself but those boundaries mean you’re not getting to feed them and bathe them and read bedtime stories to them, I would recommend spending your lonely evenings praying and fasting.  Not watching Grey’s Anatomy.

11. If you do end up watching Grey’s Anatomy instead, however, I’ll understand even if others won’t.  There are only so many nights you can look at the pictures of them on your desk and want to crawl into bed at 6:12 p.m.  You want to pray and fast, but maybe you’re not strong enough for that.  Maybe the best you can do is Netflix.

12. I’ve only cried once about them being gone; it was Monday night.  It hit me so fast and so sudden that I didn’t see it coming.  I do not claim to have been their mother, but I think I now understand better what it feels like when a mother grieves.  I’ve never heard myself cry like that before.  I love those three little girls with a love I have never understood before now.

13. I am not doing foster care to replace them.  I actually began the process before there was any problems with the girls.  I just thought I should publicly say that so people can stop thinking that’s what I’m trying to do.  (I would think that, too, if I was reading my blog, so don’t feel bad about thinking it.  I just wanted you to know that it isn’t the case.)

14. This is way deeper than I expected.  I was planning to just talk about cauliflower.  Oops.

Crackers, sunglasses and an iPhone.

Good things come in threes.

(Posted late, but taken on day 81.)

This past weekend, I did a private bridal shoot at a gorgeous bridal store downtown.  Putting me in a room filled with wedding dresses and birdcage veils is basically bliss for me.  What can I say?  I like wedding dresses and I cannot lie.

This bridal store has two employees who are getting married soon and I’m honored that both of them hired me to be their wedding photographer.  Talk about pressure; these girls work in a sea of wedding dresses and I’m going to be the one capturing them on their wedding days?  I’m bringing my A-game.

One of the brides is getting married this coming weekend, so we’ve been working on scheduling a bridal session for her.  The alterations were only finished a few days ago, so we jumped on the chance to do her bridal portraits this past weekend.  We went into the store early Saturday morning before it opened and basically pretended like we were a couple of kids in a candy store.

For one of her portraits, I took various sample wedding dresses, laid them on the floor and then placed the bride laying in the middle of them in her wedding dress.  I can’t show you the results yet, but I love the look we got from those photos.  Here’s a picture of when I was setting the scene up; I added about five more dresses to what you see below.

While I was waiting for the bride to have her make-up finished, I took my camera and did a little sight-seeing around the store.  I love this mannequin all dressed for spring.

And this — gorgeous white high heels covered in a white birdcage veil.  I love birdcage veils.  My cousin Marisa wore one for her wedding and it was as glorious as I had always imagined it would be.

Wedding jewelry and more birdcage veils.  Do I have an obsession with birdcage veils?  Tell the truth, I can handle it.

More dresses in my quest to set the perfect scene for one of our portraits.  I added a few more dresses, placed the bride in the middle of them and then climbed up a ladder and started taking pictures.

I did not wear a birdcage veil whilst doing so.  I thought it might be kind of weird.

My carbon monoxide detector.

Becoming a foster parent is so glamorous!

(Posted late, but taken on day 80.)