When I grow up...

Now I am not trying to contradict my previous post about Contentment, Magazines and Psalms...but this is what I am thinking about this afternoon.

When I was little when I grew up I wanted to be a wife and Mom.

I wanted to be a teacher...

and now that I have done those things, and am still doing them (by the grace of God) I am adding one more.

I want to be a Photographer.  You see ever since I was a little girl I have LOVED to take photos, those of you who have known me since then are not shocked by this.  I WAS the elementary student who brought their disc camera to school on the last day of school and to ALL of the class parties.  I WAS the teenager who took pictures at every weekend gathering,  took them to the mall to be developed and scrapbooked them.  I WAS the high school girl who took MORE pictures than anyone else, made copies for everyone, blew up 5 x 7's and 8 x 10's and covered my walls in lucite frames to display them.  Oh Lord bless my parents for the LARGE amounts of money this must have cost them, somehow I didn't have a "budget" for photos and I am most certain I spent more than they would ever want to remember on photos.  I was the one who scrapbooked every dance, every trip, every summer...I WAS that girl.  And I am also old enough that scrapbooking wasn't "in" when I did it.  Just me, my metallic paint pens, and scrapbooks.  So why didn't it dawn on me in college to learn more about photography? I probably, no I DID, have more pictures on my dorm walls than ANY other friend I knew.  Well it didn't....Of course when we had each of the boys the pictures got to be more and MORE and more....it is to the point that when I go into the apple store for one on one's and I tell them I have a lot of photos they kind of laugh at me until they open my iPhoto then they tell me, "you are right, I have never seen anyone, who is not doing photography for a living, with THIS many photos".  See...told you this was a favorite thing of mine.

Fast forward to today, I continue to LOVE photography.  I LOVE to take pictures, I LOVE to see pictures, I LOVE to figure out where to put them in our house without it looking too obnoxious.  Luckily I have outgrown the lucite frames, although the price is right for those.  :)  I have paid MANY many photographers to capture our family and I do not regret that ever.  I love how they have captured us.  But I want to learn HOW they do what they do, with settings, editing etc.  

SO now my goal is to learn MORE about photography...I have spent the past year trying to master using the Manual setting on my camera. My friend Mariah, who is a self taught photographer has helped me SO much over the internet with learning this...she lives in Texas and is moving back to Hawaii...we are working on getting her to come to Iowa for a few days to hang out and talk photography.  My friend Makila, who is a local photographer,  has helped me with settings, cameras and has sent me many many MANY links of "how to's"....oh friends the time it takes to master these skills.  I so want to learn more, I LOVE reading the Pioneer Woman and seeing the BEAUTIFUL photos she takes daily of her family.  It's the editing that is probably MY very favorite.  I LOVE editing, I love what it can do for a picture.  I have learned that photos that I take can be SO much more when edited right.  SO I want to learn MORE about how to do those things.  

So be patient friends...but this is my new goal for me these next years.  My new "what I want to be when I grow up".  Is it okay to do that?  Keep adding to what we want to be?  Oh well...I am doing it regardless.  :)