To my rock star, double-rooted tooth #10 I wish you a fond farewell. It was my one claim to fame in any dentist's office, as hygenists and technicians would crowd around my x-ray and exclaim over the rare tooth with two roots. Tooth #10, you've been a bit high maintenance in your life span, a root canal, two apicoectomies and now a complete extraction and implant. Hope your replacement proves a less worrisome component, though it does feel a bit weird to have lost a body part - no matter how tiny!

And no, the tooth fairy did not leave anything glitzy under my pillow. Guess she know the surgeon threw poor old #10 in the trash!! I did get a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Dr. Ryan and Dr. Goedecke - MUCH APPRECIATED!!

Thanks so much to Charleston Magazine for the opportunity and to Louis Yuhasz, Karen Coste and James Ferguson for sharing this part of their lives.

Yay! My first piece for Charleston Magazine is in the March fashion issue, and I'm so excited! I interviewed super talented fiber artist Kristy Bishop, whose silky threads and canvases I covet. The image above is "Traveling Song," which I really, really, really want. Read the full article here.

So, I'm waiting in the doctor's office, flipping through dog-eared back issues of Vogue (a magazine most definitely not written for simple moi), when I stumble across what looks like a short quip about packing for a trip. This is a story about how Jemma Kidd packs for a trip. Who? A Google search turns up that she's some fancy-pants, and I mean FANCY PANTS, countess in England that spends her free time as a make-up artist. You know, when she's not lacing up her $1,550 platforms or downing a rice-milk vegan cocktail made by the German detox expert that's glued to her side. She also has a make-up line at Target that I've completely missed. One of the photos shows her holding her six-month-old while parading on a beach in a bikini with her rock-solid abs. I hate her already, obviously. 

As I skim a little more, I figure out that this is literally a story about how this woman packs for a jaunt to her family's plantation in Barbados. She changes clothes, sorry, outfits, 5 times a day! And not because her baby spit up on her, or she got a little too sweaty. But because, "she likes to wear white to breakfast" and "a fresh bikini and caftan to lunch" and on and on. The article wraps up with a laundry list of the exotic locales she'll travel to later in the year, and how she sends all her clothes out to be cleaned and pressed and repacked, yes, repacked. Every single ensemble that lady put on cost more than my mortgage payment. (She probably doesn't know what a mortgage payment is, let alone why someone in their right mind would even think about spreading out such paltry sums of money for so long...) 

I probably sound a little bitter right about now. But I'm actually not. Well, honestly, for a fleeting five seconds I did feel a little pang of envy over such an exotic lifestyle. I'm actually quite glad that I'm not Jemma Kidd though. I'm glad that I like to dig in the dirt, get sweaty and dirty at the gym, and wear clothes that I'm not afraid of ruining. I've always felt a little like a grown-up version of Ramona Quimby, which is as far from glamorous as you can get. But I'm ok with that.

For all I know, Jemma Kidd could be a total hack with a worthless British title and so far in debt she had to create a cosmetics line for Target to hopefully bail her ass out. Either way, it's still impressive that someone has that kind of energy and patience to put so much thought into appearances. People are so fascinating.

Click here to download:

pc_4studios611.pdf (408 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

pc_4studios611.pdf (408 KB)

I had a ton of fun writing this home studio article for the current issue of Professional Photographer magazine. Not only did I talk to some really creative photogs who are making it work in their homes, but I also nabbed a few ideas for my own home office! Thanks so much to Jen Thompson, Monica Burby, Katelyn James, and Sarah Ulrich for sharing their design ideas with me!

Don't miss Kelly Munce and Daniele Rose, who unfortunately didn't make it into the printed magazine for space reasons, but were featured online nonetheless. Thanks Kelly and Daniele!!

As is often the case with parenting, I had one particularly wretched day of cleaning poopy underwear not once, but twice, bickering children, a bad dog who wouldn't stop digging out the irrigation system (really?!?), and a whole caseload of domestic and parental troubles just annoying enough that if this was a job, I would quit. All of this was followed this morning by the foolproof kid comeback of homemade mother's day presents and breakfast in bed, followed by mimosas on a quiet front porch. Waking up to big toothy grins, my 7-year-old's honest good intentions to do all of my laundry (so far, the one load is patiently awaiting its dryer time about an hour later...), a boisterous 4-year-old boy dive-bombing the bed...that's what makes it mother's day.

So, no matter how tired I get of mercurial temperaments, stomping feet, bursts of inconsolable crying over trifling matters, and the seemingly incessant "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" (even after I've said "What?" about a thousand times), I know that this time is fleeting and precious, an inextricable whirl of emotions too complex to fully analyze or comprehend. 

So happy mother's day to all of my friends and family. And here's to enjoying it all. Cheers!