Get In the Frame

I'm 41. So if you're 61 or even 51 and reading this you just might roll your eyes. To you I look young.
  (music because I just have to have optional music and this has been my soundtrack lately)

I've never really been that into my appearance. Sure, I wear makeup. I have to 'put my face on' (my grandma used to say that when I slept over her house when I was like 8) every morning. A bit of concealer, a powder, some blush and I'm not happy without pink lipstick. But I've never put make up on to cover up my age, my wrinkles. I just like putting it on, and I like the way it looks when it is on. So I was never hung up on wrinkles, or questions to myself like am I looking older.  I never really cared.

Actually I never really noticed anything. Maybe it's because Scott and I have always looked younger than our age. People would say when we were in our first married years, "you're married?" with a look like we should still be in high school. But anyway, I never really ever noticed anything. Until very, very recently. I'm not sure if I saw a photo of Scott and I when we were 20. Everything was tight, in it's place, just where it should be. (insert really cool photo of Scott and I looking young in your head) Or maybe it's this awesome blog because Caitlin and her husband remind me of Scott and I years a and years ago. There's just something in that sweet couple. First years married, so young, loving their Catholic faith, finding their way and on that beginning journey together.

But whatever the reason I looked recently for the first time and I have aged. My hands, my face, just a bit. Any ya know what? It's all okay with me. I don't want to look like I did when Anna was put into my arms. That was almost ten years ago. That would be strange to still look 30 right now.

So along comes this assignment for a photography class I'm taking. Get in the Frame. That's right. It's time for me to be behind the camera.  I wanted to do something different. At first I thought I'd set up the camera on a tripod and get the girls in the photo with me.  But they took one look at the weather outside and thought back probably to the cupid session when it was soooo cold in sleeveless dresses.  So I was solo on this shoot.



And it was fun!  I got all the settings right, plopped a chair in the snow and Scott snapped the photos.  Authentic, real, pearls, pink, me.  (okay, so having tea in the snow outside in a chair is not exactly realistic) but the whole look of it... that's me... with signs of aging and all.