Gail Anne Photography – The Blog

My Harry Potter obsession landed much later then most of the world. I didn’t read the books till I watched the movies and I just managed to watch all but the last movie, over the last year. But from the moment Harry appeared from under the staircase, I was utterly in love. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not totally sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the bridge it built between my oldest son and I. We have shared several hours on the couch watching and reading. We’ve learned spells and talked about who would win, Darth Vador or Valdamort? We’re not totally convinced Darth would win honestly.

I love Harry Potter. I love what it does t my imagination. I love the colors and the feel and everything about it. It’ a beautiful and wonderful fantasy world I can get lost in.

I can count on a “mental vacation” with Harry and his friends. One I much needed yesterday.

And so I’ve started again, in the mangled papers and bindings of books that belonged to someone before me. I’ll get lost in Harry Potter again, with my sons. The ones on the outside and the one inside.

We’re approaching home stretch with D4. Saw the midwife yesterday and I think she saw in my face I was done. Of course I have 4 more weeks to go but after one week, he’ll be “baked” so to speak and welcomed at any time. It’s a weird reality of weekly appointments now. I washed baby clothes this morning for the rid home, thinking about what he will look like, be like. He’ll be small like his siblings I think and I a wondering if I should go get a premie outfit like I had to for Drew.

My husband said, “four weeks will fly by like four days”. Yeah right, lol, he isn’t the one who can’t bend.

We’ve still not totally nailed down a nail. I’m almost tempted to stray from the D’s. My husband disagrees.

Baby four, can’t wait to meet you. I hope you will love Harry as much as I do. Why don’t we start reading it together now.

Facebook is  funny thing. It’s this glimpse into everyone’s lives, one a think people love and hate all at the same time. I’ll be honest, I was a little too, well, free in my Facebooking in times past. Now I post very little, some photos here and there but I’ve managed to maintain a “status update filter” for a really long time. I actually haven’t had a status update in almost a year.

I use Facebook mostly for marketing. It’s a great way to share the beautiful little faces I am so lucky to capture. It’s also a slick way for me to watch those little people grow. I always, very much enjoy the photos of the children I’ve taken photographs of, on Facebook. No matter who takes them.

This last few weeks has been kind of well, tough. I’m not working much. My old body isn’t adjusting to this pregnancy as well as a younger self would of. I kind of chuckle to myself that I waited table with my oldest and now? It’s a workout to clean the bathroom. My 10 pound camera feels much heavier. But I’m missing it, the working and the interacting with people. I guess I’m the A-typical “artist” type, tortured and lonely, ha ha ha. Only really as I have shared before, I have some weird anxiety that I am comfortably able to curb when working but struggle with much more when I am not. At the risk of over-sharing on my blog, I will admit, I get lonely fast and the confinement of my own four walls sometimes becomes more then I can handle.

And then surprises show up at my door.

This photo makes me giggle every time. Marty, the hotty in black and I “met” via an online pregnancy forum when I was pregnant with Drew. I managed to carry to term and she lost her Cletus to a horrible miscarriage I still think about. She and I have been friends ever since. Meeting I think once in real life, but a close, closer, closest friend none the less. I sometimes, often think she’s a closer friend then any friend I have outside my “box”. I sometimes thinks she knows, somehow when I just need a friend, some attention, anything to keep the walls from closing in. She just knows when I need that Facebook message or the huge surprise of a fabulous diaper bag, nursing fun-ness and other baby goodies.

I’m thankful I can keep up with her on Facebook and beyond.

I’m thankful while she is going through a VERY emotional time in her life, she still has time to think of me. Marty is proof there are still selfless people  on this earth.

Adult relationships are strange eh? As I was writing this my other friend Jen, mentioned my Marty. If she was ok.. because in the tiny world of the internet, she knows of Marty, because of the emotional time and wondered about her. Marty that is. Another pretty awesome gal there… and our relationship started with a comment, on a blog, many moons ago.

The photo above is the only photo I have of us together. Thinking back, I wish I’d of taken a few more. Of her, of my dear friend Constance and I before she moved to Texas and me to Pennsylvania. It’s that constant hindsight of mothers, women and friends, wishing we’d done more together. Taken more photos together, taken more photos period.

Just my sappy, friendly reminder to take more photos. With your iPhone, with a pro. Doesn’t matter. Just do it because sometime, you’ll wish you had.

We owned a house in Colorado. Nothing fancy, not even a house, a condo to be perfectly honest. I hated it, the carpet was awful. Kitchen needed updating and there wasn’t nearly enough room for us all but it was ours and looking back, I could of done whatever I wanted with it. Grass isn’t always greener right?

When we moved here, Drew wasn’t even one. Man time flies. We couldn’t swing both our house payment in Colorado and rent here and ended up at my parents house, all five of us, for a really long time. We rented the place we’re in because it was what we could afford and I remember walking up thinking hey, this could be my home.

And I guess it kind of is.

I’ve spent the last week cursing the flat paint, wishing I could rip up the carpet, praying for some miracle space I am never gonna get. I’ll be honest, I still miss “home”. I miss Colorado snows and Hobby Lobby and I am wondering when the “home” feeling will come while we are here.

I spent yesterday evening listening to my “big boys” play football, one was the Denver Broncos, the other, the Steelers. It was the battles of the homes kind of. PA (even if we should probably be the Eagles, I think my husband would croak!). I hung pictures up the stairway I so badly want to paint. Pictures in my house, of my babies. Wondering where I will hang the fourth. I’ve started to get slim on wall space.

Thinking about hanging those photos, I guess maybe home isn’t a house I own or rent or dream about. Maybe it’s in wooden and glass frames, in little curly haired faces, in little straight haired clones. Maybe I’m looking for home in the wrong place. And maybe I can squeeze a little more home in….