IT’S GOING TO BE UP TO YOU FROM NOW ON

           

            Ever since Roland was called to the bishopric, he has asked our brother-in-law Bill to photographs various parties – namely Halloween and Christmas.  And every year there has been a line and a lot of names and email addresses and descriptions of those in the photo.  Roland has made it my responsibility to email each of those and every year I get frustrated with email addresses that don’t work or have been written down incorrectly and every year I have been stuck with pictures of people I don’t even know and have sent oodles over to our Relief Society president asking for assistance.  But she hasn’t always known either.

            So this year I decided to make it the responsibly of those having their pictures – though I sensed a problem in the beginning as there were children and no parents accompanying them.  I knew the first four children, but then there was a child I had never seen.  I handed him a card but had my doubts that it would make it to his parents.

            The instructions were/are simple.  Email provided number to provided email address. Perhaps a brief description of how the child was dressed, hair color, etc.  I told those I knew by sight that all I would need is their names, but for those I don’t know, a description is definitely needed.

Bill suggested I do it the way he does – facebook everybody on ward page.  But not everybody’s on facebook.  Not everybody is on the ward page. And not all those who sat on Santa’s lap are even members of the Church.

I hope it all goes smoother this time around.  I suppose we’ll learn in time. 

Finding Time for Family Portraits

          My mom had always made arrangements for family portraits each year – not that big of a deal when we were living at home.  But after my first brother got married and started having children of his own, and mom’s grown children all had jobs – the portrait scheduling thing became more of a challenge while trying to work it around everybody’s personal schedule.

          It’s funny – because I don’t recall any family photos with mom or dad’s siblings and their posterity – though we attempted at least a few times on my dad’s side.  I think there are at least two photographs – but I have no idea whose possession they ended up being in.  I haven’t actually seen them since the years they were taken. 

          I don’t know when it was that I took over the scheduling of trying to get everybody at the same location at the same time.  Not that I did a terribly great job.  The last time that we did a family picture with my sibs and our posterity was a week before Jenna turned one. 

          I used to keep the photo by the door of our old house.  Everytime Bill (my brother-in-law/photographer that I mention here) would say that we were long overdue for an updated portrait.  Well yeah.

          That’s just my side of the family.  Six weeks after the family photo with my sibs and posterity, we went back east to see Roland’s brother get married.  Roland and all three sisters were there, and we did get a shot of mom and her five children – but that was the extent of it.  We hadn’t tried posing the entire family clan – not that the entire clan was present.

          We did get pictures of a bunch of us when we went to Tucson for his mother’s birthday mentioned in this post but still not the entire gang was there.  I haven’t actually met all of his family.

          Most of the family photos we have are of my family.  They are the ones in all the wedding photos and any additional family portraits we may have taken.

          The last intermediate family picture we had taken was when Jenna was four.  It was taken less than a week before Tony left for Brazil.  The following year Randy left for Portugal.  And now I have a nephew serving in Canada (all LDS missions by the way)

          So this week I have all three of the boys  in Utah and still found myself working around schedules in order to get some pictures done and asked Bill if he’d be able to take family pictures this morning before my first granddaughter (first grandchild) was blessed.  We were still missing three from my extended family.  My nephew (though his family had a large cut out of Mitt Romney with my nephew’s face glued over Mitt’s), my brother Corey and his spouse.  (Wish I would have thought of getting cut outs for them).

          I realized that not only is it harder to schedule, but to actually position everybody and keep them laughing though the position is causing them pain or the baby is getting heavy or running out of shot or what have you.  I am so grateful for my brother-in-law’s willingness to take the time to take our photos – unfortunately he was not in many of them because of trying to get the perfect expressions from our rather large group. There were eighteen of us plus the cut out plus the two that may be photo shopped in with us.  That would be awesome. 

          That’s still not as large as mom’sneighbors (our second family)  who have roughly 35 individuals to work with.  That’s a lot of people.  A lot more schedules to work around.  I don’t know how long it’s been since their last family portrait.  I don’t think they actually are able to get their entire clan together each year – but I could be wrong. 

          I’m grateful to be able to preserve memories through photographs and for the love and support my family has shown one another and working with me to make it possible.  Thank you all.  And thank you Bill!

No use crying over spilt milk; Time to Move on

          The wedding is now behind us, but still my plate seems full.  I am exhausted both mentally and physically.  And I am certain that I am also experiencing a hormonal imbalance.

         

          I vegetated all day yesterday.  Literally.  I had the boob tube on, but never saw a complete program as I would fade in and out of my slumber.  I hadn’t slept well the prior night.  I often have problems sleeping when I am overly tired.  My subconscious mind always seems to dwell on situations that I can’t change.  It drives me nuts – especially when I am so exhausted.

          Given that and the fact that I had taken a Zyrtec before going to the wedding reception and then again before going to bed.  It must have taken all day before it finally wore off.  At least I hope it’s worn off.

          My brother Corey had tried to be supportive – to both the family (as I had a son getting married) and his partner who was auditioning.  Both had scheduled event for the exact same time.  And he managed to do both.

          When Corey’s partner had finished his audition, both got dressed up and entered the temple grounds to be in family pictures.  They were in a few.  The one with everybody.  The one with bride and groom in front with uncles, aunts, nieces, cousins, friends, just whoever . . .

 Then our photographer asked which family should be photographed first.  I opted for the bride’s family with a lot more people – at least four were under the age of twelve.  I thought it would be easier to keep them there rather than move them around and back again.

          But my family got left on the back burner.  They left and I wasn’t even aware.  So the only photos that they were in were the ones with everybody – though the photographer had taken some of me with Corey and his partner before the bride and groom came out. But we did not get any photos of five that were there on the groom’s side in pics with just the nine of us.

 I felt bad.  And I know it is wrong to be upset about it or dwell on it, but I did get teary- eyed about it.  And when Roland asked if I was catching cold, I just couldn’t hold back anymore.  And I knew it was stupid for me to be crying over something I couldn’t change.  I should have said something sooner.

          It’s over and done with.  But Corey’s partner was tired having had only two hours of sleep.  Mom was antsy – because she just seems overwhelmed with crowds as she’s gotten older.  So they left.  And Corey said they had said good-bye to me.  But my head has been so full this month and I can’t think straight and I didn’t hear them or see them leave.

          There were two photographers – one from each family.  I think Bill was getting annoyed with the other photographer who obviously doesn’t have his years of experience.  She was sweet enough – but definitely not Bill.  He was probably more flustered than I was.

          There weren’t near as many pictures taken of Randy’s wedding as there had been with Tony’s – when Bill was working by himself.  Especially at the reception – where Bill had arrived on time (which doesn’t seem normal for him) but the bride’s side of the family didn’t seem to care or wanted to be bothered with being photographed again.  And the bride and groom themselves didn’t arrive until the time when the reception was scheduled to start.

          Jenna’s dress had gotten dirty – and she wasn’t in the greatest mood.  I don’t even know if she’s aware that Corey’s partner is in town right now, but I plan to take her out to my mom’s house and take pictures myself as he’ll be leaving tomorrow.  And since the dress Jenna wore the other night is not clean, I will be dressing her in another.

          It’s Mother’s Day.  I won’t have to be assisting in the nursery today as the priesthood will be giving all the women a break.

          Last night Jenna gave me an apron she had made – so excited about her gift that she just couldn’t hold it in.

          Now she would like to work on making a gift for Biff – who has his 25^th birthday tomorrow.  It’s been put on the back burner – again.  I so often feel like Biff’s birthday has been lost in the sauce for so many years.  For the most part I don’t think he even cares.  But it would be nice to receive some acknowledgement.

          Mother’s Day has often been put on the back burner, too.  But I think Jenna plans on changing that.

Fading Photographs

Today I was looking through some old albums and boxes of photographs.  I remember getting on my mom’s case for having so many pictures in a box and not in an album.  I have come to learn that the box is actually better – or was rather.

Remember the magnetic albums that came out in the 70’s?  All that was required was lifting the plastic and setting the photo on page and presto – it was there for life.  Who knew that just twenty years later we would be scolded for ever having considered ruining our photographs by placing them on pages chalk full of acid.  We might as well have put our photos through a shredder.

I would say that at least 70% of the pictures could be thrown away.  If not ruined by acid, they just really had no business making it to the album in the first place.  But mom could never bring herself to throw such items away, no matter how blurred or butchered the picture itself turned out. 

And by butchered, I mean like the photographer was really meaning to take a picture of the background but somebody’s head got in the way, or others where the entire head didn’t quite make it into the photograph.  And if she couldn’t completely identify them then, why the heck is she hanging onto them over 40 years later?

If nothing else, it is important to write down the name(s) and date of the picture.

I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, but I would love the opportunity to organize and to scan some of the better photographs to help preserve their lives for a little bit longer. 

Across from my mom's house live our good friends Peggy and George Bird.  Our families have been friends for generations.  We were surprised to learn it had gone back even further than Peggy and mom

One day (this example is from quite a while ago; before the magnetic albums perhaps) while my mom had gone across the street to visit Peggy, she noticed several photographs strewn all over the kitchen table.  Peggy had wanted to make a special gift for George which would include pictures of his lineage (George and Peggy's mother are heavy into genealogy.  Peggy shares the same exact passion as I do - which makes it hard among family history enthusiasts)

My mom said she had picked up one of the photographs and made a comment (referring to the background) that we had one similar to it - except with different people. Peggy said the man in the photograph was George's father, but they had no idea who the little boy was.  Turns out that he was my dad's uncle.

George's father had a best friend named James.  The photograph we had was of my great uncle James and my grandmother, Helen.  My mom had been told that the little girl in the photo was my grandma Helen - but didn't know who the man was that held her. 

George seems to know more about that side of my family than I do.  So my non-biological neighbor (who I do view as a second father) became a source of information for me, and has actually given me photographs.  Isn't that interesting?