Rachel Callahan

All The Answers: Staring at my Innards.

October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, I embarrass myself just for your amusement.

You guys have so many questions. Good questions. Piercing questions. Fun questions. Thank God not a single political question. Let’s continue where we left off yesterday, and be sure to hang around until the end of the post to see visual evidence of my shortcomings.

Aadrw (Darcy) asked,

Are blog conferences worth attending?

It totally depends on your personality and what you want out of it. I never got too much out of the sessions, so was really going for the relationships. I attended BlogHer for four years in a row and struggled to interact, but did gain a handful of new friends. I went to a local conference, Y’all Connect, for the next two years and highly enjoyed interacting. Turns out, I’m more outgoing when engaging with local people than I am with national people that I’m not connected to on an ongoing basis. At the national conference, there were just too many people, and of those people, very few that I was already connected to. At the local one, we all knew who each other were so it was like a big party.

But if you’re the rare unicorn that is an Extroverted Blogger, by all means go to a national conference – you’ll have the time of your life.

You’ve done wonderful work with your local ministry via photography – any updates on how all that’s going in Birmingham?

Thanks! It’s going well. Picture Birmingham has been able to donate over $8,000 to The WellHouse, along with another $1,200 to Mission Birmingham through our joint calendar project (2016 calendars are newly available, by the way.) I would LOVE to be able to donate more and am working on different angles and products so that I can raise more money to rescue victims of human trafficking.

The WellHouse is growing tremendously and can now house more women than ever. They have rescued over 40 young ladies this year, and have assisted law enforcement officials in arresting at least three of the traffickers. They have helped these women regain their identification, get health care, spiritual and emotional healing, GED and college educations, and job and life skills training. They also rescue women nationally – not just locally. They have a hotline 800 number that they spread far and wide, and have rescued as far away as Washington.

The trafficking industry is a 32 BILLION dollar industry, and is staggering in its reach and deceptiveness – especially to our children and teens. There is so much more fighting that needs to be done. But every woman that The WellHouse rescues is one person’s horror story that is finally over.

The current products I’m offering are Prints, Calendars, Note Cards, Postcards, curated collections, a black and white collection, and gallery wrap canvases. I can also do privately labeled note cards or postcards for businesses (or individuals), and am always willing to get by-request photographs of specific places, along with helping to create advertising products for corporations. My products are for sale online at my website, along with several stores in town – Naked Art Gallery, Urban Standard, Smith’s Variety, and Alabama Goods. I would also love to get my products into more stores to continue spreading the opportunities to provide hope for the women that The WellHouse rescues. As always, 100% of Picture Birmingham profits go to The WellHouse.

Jen asked,

What does your average day look like? Seriously, how do you get so much done? (Please don’t answer that parenting/wifing (I’m pretty sure that’s a word), running crazy mileage, blogging, photography, and homeschooling are so effortless for you, you wish you had more accounting clients to fill the gaps.)

Uh, NO. I typically exist in a panic because of all of the things I’m not getting done that desperately need to get done. I also ignore many things that shouldn’t be ignored, like cooking regularly and dishes and decluttering and not letting my children leave crap all over the house and the car and the front yard. My life is a mess. I promise. Sometimes I clean up that mess, sometimes I don’t. Most of the time I don’t.

But, my typical day, on a school day:

– Ali wakes me up at 8am, then wakes up her brother (I am blessed with children that sleep late and I never squander that blessing by rising early.)

– Ali helps me get breakfast together (maybe my secret is that Ali does all the work. SHE’S the efficient one. She typically has already read two books and written in her diary before she wakes me up.)

– At about 9am, we start school. And surprise, Ali is efficient and gets her school done very quickly. We’re usually done by noon. I do school with Noah intermittently while Ali is doing independent work.

– After lunch, we sometimes go on a hike or errands, depending on if we’re feeling like it and what we need to get done.We also have several neighbors that we’re close to and often play with.

– Historically, we’ve started nap and quiet time around 2pm, and it lasts till 4:30 or 5. Noah is newly no longer napping and isn’t great at quiet time (Ali adores her quiet time, being the truest introvert), so I’m looking into possibly restructuring this, but it hurts me to think about. Between 2-5 is my time to blog, answer emails (also terrible at that lately), get Chris’ company’s accounting done (there’s really not much), and update Picture Birmingham. I prefer these activities to be quiet and uninterrupted. Noah does not.

– Chris comes home around 5:30-6pm, and we eat at home or go out to eat. He also often sends me to run or catch a sunset before dinner.

– The kids go to bed around 8:30.

– Chris and I sit together like slugs, talking, watching TV, listening to podcasts, and looking at our phones until nearly midnight. Unless Chris has work to do, we rarely do anything industrious after the children are in bed.

(Notice there’s really just no time for chores.)

aroe02 asked,

What does your husband do for work? I need to send mine back to school, eventually, and it appears (through blog-land eyes) that it was a good career choice. Not his company/salary, but more like what was his degree in, and did he stay in that field kind of info. Thanks :)

He has a degree in Civil Engineering and does Structural Steel Detailing. But for the record, Birmingham is one of the top most affordable cities to live in (and most beautiful and wonderful all the way around), and we live in the county (outside of “good” school districts), so we’re able to be efficient with our resources.

Kyla asked,

How do you find the time to blog? I recently had my 3rd kid and can’t imagine a day when the laundry and dishes were all done and I had time to sit and write. I am not efficient apparently.

It has become much, much harder over the past couple of years. My brain doesn’t work as efficiently or creatively as it used to (thanks, Dysautonomia), and life is just busier. The best moments of blogging for me is when I have a great story to tell and it just flows. I am able to write and edit very quickly. But other times it’s like pulling glue out of my brain to type a single word. And also, as stated before, laundry and dishes get the boot so that I have time to write.

While I’m on the subject of my housekeeping failures, Sarah asked as a follow-up question on the first questions post for a house tour. After chuckling to myself how my house tour would look compared to most blogger’s house tours, I snapped a couple pictures for her – #nofilter, y’all.

Here’s my office. Epicenter of blogging, Picture Birmingham, random kid’s art projects, and voluminous amounts of crap.

My kitchen table has the remains of some random craft project Ali embarked on and either didn’t finish or clean up after herself or both.

The “catch-all” counter in my kitchen – a stack of magazines I’ll probably never read, a few butt-ends of bread loaves, apples, finger paints my kids have been begging me to let them use, and iPhone chargers – of course. Oh and a completely well-placed beach shovel. Because why not.

And the dining room table is the school table. Sometimes I clean it off for the weekend. But definitely not during the week.

So now you know from where I steal all my time. From being a responsible, neat adult.

I have one more day of questions left to answer, so if you want anything added to the last post of ever-unimportant opinions, ask quickly.

All the Answers: Planes, Texting, Guilt, and Harry.

September 30, 2015September 29, 2015 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel

Here we go again. I’m really enjoying writing daily again – it’s been a while. Don’t get used to it. Unless y’all just keep asking questions endlessly, which I suppose I’ll find myself writing daily for the rest of time.

Sheri asked,

Have you ever travelled outside of the U.S.? Where?

Yes, twice – once when I was nine years old – my Dad and I went to Toronto together (which I mentioned briefly here), and once when I was 16 years old – I went on a six week missions trip to Cyprus where I administratively helped a missionary (that had formerly been my pastor) set up his new office. Flying to Cyprus was my first time to ever be in an airplane. I flew there with the missionary, and our plane to New York had such an equipment failure scare that they had at least 50 ambulances, lights flashing, lining our runway. My dad later called Delta to ask what had happened, and they denied the whole thing (because 1998 was before Twitter or smart phones – Delta can’t deny anything anymore.)

Ironically, I still love flying.

For my second time to fly, I flew home by myself, and had an overnight layover in Athens. My dad had a Greek friend that had agreed many weeks earlier to pick me up from the airport, but he wasn’t returning calls or emails when it was time for my return flight. So when I left Cyprus, I thought I would be getting off the plane in a foreign country and trying to figure out how to find transportation and a hotel room as a minor who didn’t speak the language (despite going to Greek School as a kid.) But, when I arrived, my dad’s friend (whom I had never met and had no idea what he looked like) was waiting for me. Later, he and his wife took me to dinner at midnight (as one does in Athens) and fed me raw Octopus (as one does in Athens) and took me back to their flat full of marble floors and busts (as one has in Athens.) The next day, I continued my journey home alone.

Which of the following book series have you read? Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Hunger Games.

Harry Potter – Yes and it’s my favorite book series ever written. I get violently ranty when someone tells me that they’ve seen the movies but haven’t read the books. READ THE BOOKS, people. The movies don’t even fully make sense without the books. <Deep Breaths> I currently spend way more time than is necessary trying to figure out the perfect age to start letting Ali read them. She insists that the age has not arrived yet – they sound way too scary to her.

Lord of the Rings – No. I tried reading The Hobbit when I was a kid but couldn’t get into it. I did go to the midnight showing of the first LOTR movie with my LOTR-obsessed friends and brand new husband. I got very angry at the end when there was zero closure, and didn’t sleep all night because you shouldn’t watch movies with unfamiliar monsters at midnight. After that I swore I’d never watch or read any of them, although I did catch the last ten minutes of the last movie once while Chris was watching it, which gave me the closure I needed. Feel free to get violently ranty on me. I know I deserve it.

Twilight – Nope. Just nope.

Hunger Games – Yes – I was late to the Hunger Games party and read them last summer. I really enjoyed it, and the movies are good as well, although I’m waiting on the fourth one to come out before I watch the third because as we’ve already established, I’m not a fan of movies with no closure.

If you could have dinner with anyone throughout history, who would it be?

I’m really terrible at questions like this. They freak me out because if I pick someone, then everyone will be all like “THAT’S the person you’d pick in all of history??” – but also because I have no idea. And I don’t love eating in front of strangers. What if I get something stuck in my teeth? Or a bit of butter on my chin? No thank you.

I’d rather text with people throughout history.

I like texting with sarcastic, witty people who don’t mind a biting comeback in an all-in-fun spat. So I’d pick Mark Twain, Paul The Apostle, Shakespeare, Marie Antoinette (I didn’t say I had to like the people, but tell me she wouldn’t have a delightfully sarcastic text stream), Jane Austen, a group text with Buttercup and Westley (I get fictional characters too, right?), Anthony Bourdain (history includes people who are still alive, obviously), Tim Gunn, and the creators of VeggieTales Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki (I’ve actually met Mr. Gunn and Mike , but sadly, we don’t have a textual relationship.)

I’m sure I’m leaving out at least a person or two that would be absolutely delightful to text with, so go ahead and say “THOSE are the people you would pick in all of history?!”

What’s your favorite book of the Bible?

Psalms. I find it encouraging, exhorting, and applicable to my life all the time. I also enjoy James because he was a super blunt guy. There’s really no need to soften the blows.

What’s your favorite verse or verses?

Psalm 37:3-8

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.

I really like the ending – worrying only leads to evil, people. It’s good to remember.

Aadrw asked,

Which blogs are you reading? What blogs are no longer active but you wish were still around?

So you’ve hit on one of the most guilt-filled facets of the internet for me. When I started blogging, I vowed to be the nicest, most interactive, most relationally in tune blogger out there. I loved blogging because I enjoyed the relationships, and I wanted to fully get to know all of my readers. I’ve met readers along the way on vacations and have even driven to both Mississippi and Georgia for the sole purpose of meeting readers. (Besides the fact that I’ve had a reader and her kid come from another continent and stay in my house for five days.) So for the first four years of blogging, literally read every one of my reader’s blogs (that I knew about) – and commented on them regularly.

(I did not, however, read any other blogs or “famous” blogs – only people I had relationships with. I’ve never been a blog consumer – always a writer and relationship-builder.)

Then a bunch of stuff happened that took great amounts of my time – in 2012, we started homeschooling for real and my jeans posts went viral and increased my readership by a multiple of ten; in 2013 I got dysautonomia; and in 2014 I started Picture Birmingham. I literally could no longer find or make the time for reading everyone’s blogs. And for the past four years, I’ve felt great guilt over not reading my internet friend’s blogs anymore. GREAT, HEAPING, SEARING GUILT. Because I really do love you all and consider you real live friends and enjoy getting to know you better (and still try to do so via comment replies, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), and I hate that I don’t have a few (hundred) more hours every week to read about your lives.

But when I do read, I read some of my closest internet/IRL friend’s blogs (who are incredible writers because I have impeccable taste in friends) – Katherine at Grass Stains, Lora Lynn at Vitafamiliae, and Carla Jean at Inkstained Life (and formerly Jamie at Jamie’s Rabbits but now she’s moved over to podcasting which is the next question), and a few other friend’s blogs who probably wouldn’t want them publicized.

But yes. Guilt. I told you I had great angst. I wasn’t lying.

What are your favorite podcasts?

I don’t listen to many, but running has allowed me to start listening to more than I used to. I’ve listened to This American Life for years with Chris, adored Serial last year (I need to know if Adnan is innocent!), and I religiously listen to my friend Jamie’s now-famous and absolutely fantastic podcast, The Popcast (PLEASE go listen to their Urban Dictionary episodes right now. Your life will never be the same. In both fantastic and horrific ways. Then come back and let’s talk about what we’ve learned. Or not, if you’re my Dad.) I’ve also dabbled in Off Camera with Sam Jones and Invisibilia.

More answers…tomorrow. Who would you text with in all of history?

All the Answers: Notes on Choosing a Camera.

September 29, 2015September 28, 2015 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, I Play at Photography, Picture Birmingham

In my recent round of Ask Me Anything, Sheri asked what kind of camera I use. Since I was planning on blogging about this soon anyway, I decided to give this question its own post.

So you remember a couple of months ago at the beach, I broke my camera. Or rather, the most evil humidity broke my camera.

And since I run a ministry based on my photography, I had to replace said camera as soon as possible.

I spent several days angsting over what camera to buy, and how much it was going to cost, and the fact that I’d need all new lenses if I bought certain cameras, and HOW MUCH IT WAS GOING TO COST.

But. It had to be done. And I’d been wanting an upgrade anyway, and now was clearly the time to swat the Accountant Conscience off of my shoulder and just do it.

So then it was down to which one. I’m a Canon girl, so that narrowed it down. I wanted to move to the professional line and I didn’t want a used camera, so that narrowed it down to three. The 7D Mark ii, the 6D, or the 5D Mark iii (In cost order from least to most expensive.)

I then marked the 7D Mark ii off the list because it wasn’t full frame, and if I’m moving up I might as well do it right. Even though that meant (whimper) buying all new lenses (slowly. Over time.)

So then it was between the 6D and the 5D Mark iii, of which there was a $1,000 price difference. I didn’t want to pay more, but at the same time, again, if I was buying, I wanted to buy what I needed. The deciding factor came down to actually holding the cameras. Thankfully, that made it really easy: the 5D Mark iii was FREAKISHLY heavy and so wide that it was very uncomfortable to grip in my dainty lady hands. I did not need a camera that would knock me off the hill I was shooting from.

This was quite relieving, because it saved me $1,000.

So ultimately, I went with the 6D with an L lens – my first in Canon’s upper echelon series of lenses. I also used some credit card points and a buyback of my broken camera to also get a wide angle L lens, which is the most necessary extra lens for the kind of shooting I do.

(For reference, my old camera was the Canon T4i, which was in the upper end of their consumer DSLR line.)

I was pretty excited to try out my new camera, but also very, very scared.

Because you know what all the people say…`

“It’s not about the camera – it’s about the photographer. A good photographer can take great pictures with any camera.”

What if I’d just paid a ridiculous sum of money to take the same quality of photos that I’ve always taken? It was a fear worth fearing.

I put it up to my face with much fear and trembling. I shot. And shot some more. And realized that I was going to have to relearn all my normal settings for this new full frame deal. And I shot some more.

And from the second I zoomed in on my first picture, I knew.

All those people who say “The camera doesn’t matter”? THEY ARE LYING.

OH MY GOODNESS AT THE DIFFERENCE.

My old test of “is this picture clear or not” was “can I read Wells Fargo?”. With the new camera, not only could I read Wells Fargo, but now I could see the individual panes of glass behind Wells Fargo, which stunned me, considering how greatly I had to zoom in to see it.

For perspective, here’s a shot from my normal perch,

And here’s the Wells Fargo building zoomed all the way in:

And the new photos print crisp and gorgeously.

I was now able to get night shots like I’d never dreamed of getting (without a tripod),

I also managed to grab my first ever lightning picture on the first attempt (I have taken thousands of pictures in the past trying to capture lightning),

And the level of detail I could get was just thrilling.

Everything about the new camera has made me very, very happy.

And of course I love how I can capture the children with it, as well (whether they love it or not is not important.)

The best new feature of the 6D, though, was a feature that was a complete surprise to me, as it wasn’t explained very well in the specs. The 6D can create its own wi-fi network, meaning that I can easily download pictures from my camera to my phone. This is game-changing for me, since I’m usually taking sunset pictures and sharing them immediately. My previous strategy had been to share my iPhone pictures immediately, then edit my real pictures and post them later on my website. Now I can post my real pictures immediately, and I’ve found myself not even taking iPhone pictures when I’m shooting for Picture Birmingham.

Also cool, the app that connects the camera with my phone allows me to see the screen of my camera, adjust all the settings, and remote shoot from my camera using my phone.

In this family shot, I’m holding my phone behind Ali’s head to remote adjust and shoot the photo with my 6D.

If I had realized the 6D had this feature, it would have been hands down the obvious choice for me (the 5D mark iii does not have it, as it is an older model of camera). The ability to download instantaneously from my camera to my phone is infinitely valuable, besides the remote shooting capabilities (which is just added fun.)

Needless to say, I am beyond thrilled with the 6D, and I’m excited to see what all I can do with it through Picture Birmingham to further support The WellHouse.

More answers coming tomorrow…feel free to ask follow-up or completely random questions!

All The Answers: Part One.

September 28, 2015September 27, 2015 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Actually Possibly Informational, Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice

My eyes have finally recovered! They got worse before they got better, and then I went to the beach and exposed them to the Florida sun for four days straight. So yeah. I take care of myself like that.

But your questions.

THANK YOU for your questions.

Seriously.

They’ve been extremely therapeutic for me to ponder, because one of the reasons I’ve been blogging less lately is that I’m overthinking everything – I feel like all of my posts should be creative, yet I also feel like I’m significantly less creative than I used to be (or I am out of ideas after over 2,000 posts.) So I end up finding a reason why nearly every post idea I have would be boring or offensive or both.

Guys, you have NO IDEA how much angst I put myself through on a daily basis. Just ask my friends and husband. I’m The Worst in my head.

But your questions have reminded me that non-creative topics can be interesting, too – I usually talk myself out of writing about many of these things because I wonder why you would care what I think about everyday stuff. I’m still not really sure why you do, but the fact that you care enough to ask is strangely relieving…I can just talk about normal things sometimes and at least one person won’t be bored. I don’t have to wait until we get overrun by bats or I’m inspired to write about Uranus to blog.

So. I’ll be answering your questions all week in the order in which they were received (just like my Gynecologist’s nurse’s voice mail message states), and feel free to add any new or follow-up questions in the comments.

Without further ado, you guys.

Kim asked,

Have you read any good books lately? (Or listened to?)

Not super lately, but I went through a phase last year where I seemed to find more time to read. My favorite during that time was The Rosie Project – it was a delightful book about a character very akin to Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. However – the sequel, The Rosie Effect, was a total train wreck that I couldn’t even finish. I kept hoping it’d get better but then I heard from others that it didn’t so I quit reading it because I was getting seriously stressed out. But the first one is my favorite book in quite a while.

Also fun was Where’d You Go, Bernadette? It was exquisitely crafted in a creative format, and was highly enjoyable with the exception of one glaring continuity issue toward the end of the book. I don’t understand how you can end up with such a gaping plot hole in a published work. But it was still lovely to read, and fun to get all indignant about at the end.

Chris and I have been listening to the audiobook Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on and off starting on the way home from our anniversary trip to Savannah. We have watched the movie a couple of times (as should anyone before visiting Savannah), and are enjoying the longer, more meandering format of the book.

(All three of the above books come with a language warning.)

On my nightstand currently is Andrew Peterson’s series, The Wingfeather Saga. I’ve heard fantastic ravings about it and can’t decide whether I want to read them to myself first or read them aloud to the kids. Based on the minimal amount of time I currently have for reading, I’ll probably read them to the kids.

As for what I’ve read aloud to the kids in the past year, we finished the Narnia series (which should be every kid’s first read-aloud series) (but they must be read in the PROPER order as C.S. Lewis intended, not the horrible no-good oh-so-wrong order they now package them in. The ONLY correct order is The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, The Last Battle. If you read The Magician’s Nephew first, I’m likely to yell and scream at you repeatedly, as I regularly do (in my head) to the publishers.) After that, we read my favorite childhood book, The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – which was completely magical for me and a tiny bit magical for Ali. We have also been reading James Herriot stories, Aesop’s Fables, and I have tried to start reading them some poetry for the first time ever. And, of course, I’m still reading Ali my blog from the beginning – she calls it her personal history book.

And, to address the Most Important Alabama Literary Question of the Year, I have not read Go Set a Watchman yet, but did start the other highly controversial Harper-Lee-Related book, The Mockingbird Next Door. I might at some point read Go Set a Watchman, but I’ve read enough about it not to be excited about the prospect.

How’s homeschooling going?

I’ve got an entire post in the works about this, but needless to say, Noah is not quite the delightful, attentive, eager-to-learn student that his sister has always been. That’s why God made him so adorably cute. So that he can get by in life on his looks.

I jest, I jest. He’s a very smart kid. (Noah, when I read you this post one day, I promise you’re brilliant.) (And also brilliantly contrary.)

On Medical Leave. {And Ask Me Anything}

September 21, 2015September 21, 2015 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life

My eyes hurt. A lot.

I’m sure it has nothing to do with posing for this picture.

No really. They’ve been hurting longer than that but that picture certainly wasn’t the cure. They have been bothering me for a week and a half, and I finally forced myself to go to the eye doctor to find out why.

(The last time I went to the eye doctor, Noah traumatized me with his insistence that the chairs in the waiting room were the absolute best thing he’d ever climbed over and jumped off.)

(He especially liked the ones right next to little old ladies.)

Anyway. I went to the doctor.

It turns out I have an allergic reaction and an eye infection in both eyes, so that would explain why my eyes have made me want to do nothing but sleep for nine days.

And as such, they certainly don’t want me writing. Or thinking. Or staring at this screen.

So I’m going to take a few days off and try not to look at screens (which I will fully fail at I’m sure), and I’ll be back to writing after this tiny vial of drops heals me of all ocular ails.

In the meantime, give me something to think about for the next few days: it’s time for you to ask me anything. What burning questions do you have about the universe that I can answer for you?

Wait. I said I wasn’t going to look at screens.

Maybe I’ll figure out how to get Siri to read your comments to me.

Anyway, ask away. I’ll be back to answer soon.

The Fruits of Laziness.

September 17, 2015September 17, 2015 Rachel Callahan I embarrass myself just for your amusement., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Weird Strange and True

I am not the best at adulting.

My office looks like The Room of Requirement, my dishes are never completely done, and the other day I looked up from bed and saw a pile of clean diapers on our dresser – and Noah has been potty-trained for at least two years.

Chris joins me in admitting to not being the best adulter.

Light bulbs take weeks to get changed, we shove garbage down into the bag with greater pressure than a car crusher, and yard work is right out.

(My Mother, who is an actual Master Gardener by certification, often drops by and plants things out of pity – but only things that she has researched and ensured cannot be killed.)

We manage to cover over segments of our bad adulting by paying for lawn service and having a cleaning crew of angels come every other week. But they know all of our secrets of bad adulting. If my cleaning ladies weren’t so adorable and understanding, I’m sure they’d have conversations like,

“I wonder if she ever plans on moving that pile of diapers. Isn’t Noah almost five?”

“I know right?? And how about this junk mail that’s been on her end table for six months? You think she even sees it anymore?”

“I’m sure she doesn’t. Ew! I just found another moldy sippy cup! I wonder how long this one’s been here…”

So yeah. Don’t look for me to be featured in Better Homes and Gardens anytime soon.

One area of our general life maintenance that we often let slip is the back of our backyard. We play in our front yard, and the back-backyard desperately desires to be a natural area, boasting weeds that can grow faster than those old ladies in the grocery store claim children grow (“Enjoy every second because in a blink they’ll be married!” <BLINK BLINK BLINK> “YOU ARE A LIAR, Old Lady!!”), and a natural ecosystem that begs us to let it be. For instance, if we didn’t let our back-backyard go wild the summer of 2011, where would Yard Bunny have raised her beautiful babies? We provided a home for a family AND the perfect observational Science lesson for Ali. All by not doing yard work.

So, although some years we’ve fought it back better than others, 2015 was not one of those years. Between sickness and surgery and house flooding and all the other blessings this year has brought us, the back-backyard was not high on the priority list, so it reverted back into natural ecosystem mode – perhaps thicker than it has ever been.

For reference, this Dandelion-like plant in comparison to my 5’5” self – make sure you note the top of the plant by its white fronds:

I told you it can GROW SOME SERIOUS STUFF, y’all.

But the other day, as I was driving into the garage, I caught sight of something out of place in the back-backyard. I walked out there, thinking that SURELY it wasn’t what I thought it was, then eagerly yelled for the children to come see.

We. Had our own pumpkin patch.

Growing around and encircling a large tree branch that had fallen during our mini-tornado (that we’d never bothered to remove because ADULTING) was a giant Pumpkin vine, sprawling in every direction.

It boasted of one perfect, medium-sized white pumpkin on the outside, two more equally-sized white pumpkins behind the branch, many large flowers giving the hope of future pumpkins, and Fred the Cat as a guard for our Secret Garden.

My first thought was one of Great Relief…

We are growing our own pumpkin patch this year so there is NO WAY I will find myself in another Pumpkin Patch Disaster! When we are ready for pumpkining there will be no lines, no hot hay ride, and no interminable waiting. We will walk out to our backyard and pluck a pumpkin! Maybe we should offer a pumpkin patch field trip for our equally-traumatized friends…

My second thought was one of curiosity. How exactly had we ended up with a pumpkin patch? They’re not exactly a common weed indigenous to these parts…

I discussed this mystery with Chris the evening after our discovery, and slowly, we were both able to piece together how this little yard miracle had occurred.

Last year, we had bought some pumpkins. Said pumpkins got moldy (much like these 2010 pumpkins) and for some reason, instead of throwing them in the trash like normal people, we threw them out into our natural area…

(Because ADULTING.)

And those said pumpkins made babies like bunnies. Because clearly, our natural area is an aphrodisiac for pumpkins and rabbits alike.

So the moral of this story is: when you let things go, fantastically surprising things come back to you. So quit adulting and let life grow how it wants.

The Washing.

September 15, 2015September 14, 2015 Rachel Callahan I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Picture Birmingham, Storytime

Yesterday, I took a three hour nap.

I cannot recall the last time I took a nap at all – but it came with reason.

Last weekend was Birmingham ArtWalk.

Besides the frantic preparation all week, Artwalk itself consisted of Friday night from 6-10pm (and setup starting at noon), followed by Saturday from 10am-6pm – of constantly chatting with other humans.

I adore other humans. And I adore meeting humans from the internet. But an entire weekend of it takes a year off of the end of my life from pure exhaustion.

Last year, I did not sleep a single second between those two time periods because I could not de-extrovert to shut my brain down. This year, I got approximately three hours of sleep.

But the adventure of the weekend…that was the real story.

Let me count the ways.

First, the children and I got sick early last week. What this meant was that I was incapacitated just a couple days beforehand when I would normally be scrambling to finish everything, and that I was trying to cover up a lingering cough all weekend so that no booth visitors suspected me of having The Bubonic Plague.

(I didn’t. I swear. Coughs just won’t go away.)

But the greater impact of our illness was that the children couldn’t go to a friend’s house Friday so that Chris could help me set up, or later that night so that Chris could sit with me at Artwalk. This wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if there hadn’t been The Monsoon.

But first. The children went downtown with me at noon when it was time to set up my booth. I put Ali to work de-linting my tablecloth, and Noah put himself to work whining about how hot it was.

Chris came from work and did the tall-people-needed setup for me, then took the kids back to work with him and left me to finish setting up my booth for that evening.

Except that, by the time I got everything like I liked it, I was also getting extraordinarily nervous about a line of storms that were currently in North Alabama.

Artwalk was supposed to start at 6pm. Those red spots looked bad – and I didn’t want everything to get ruined. I had tent sides, but I’d never used them, it looked like I probably had leaky spots in my tent ceiling, and I realized that perhaps I should have an insurance rider on my Picture Birmingham inventory – because since all the profits go to a ministry, I personally buy it all up front then pay myself back for the cost as they sell – which meant a lot of my money was potentially about to get very, very wet.

I watched the sky and I prayed.

I prayed that the rain would break up – that there would be a hole in the storms – that Artwalk would somehow escape the storm’s grip.

But the rising wind was not giving me much confidence – I was already having to use bubble-gum-like putty to unsuccessfully hold my canvas stands in place.

Chris left work at 4pm and went to Lowe’s to buy me Cinder blocks and bungee cords in the attempt to hold my tent to the earth. He and the exceedingly antsy children arrived around 5pm to help me prepare for the storm.

Perhaps this wasn’t the best plan, but it was the plan we had.

The crowds were super light at the beginning of the show – the ominous clouds and weather reports kept people away. I tried to be attentive to the few visitors I had while scrambling in my mind exactly how I was going to keep my inventory dry and praying that it would all somehow miss me.

But it did not.

In retrospect, we should have all packed up and called Friday a wash. But it had originally looked like a thin line of storms, and Friday night was always the best night of the show, so no one wanted to miss it.

A little before 7pm, the rain began to fall, and just minutes after the first drops, the worst of it hit. Lightning, whistling winds, and a river through the alley I was calling home.

I found myself fighting with the zipper on my last side wall as the wind whipped me and my tent about. My prints were sealed but not waterproof, and the dripping tent was splattering on them and the custom print racks my Dad had made me.

When I finally got the zipper un-jammed and zipped up, the inside of my tent was soaked and getting more splattered with rain every second.

The walls, which I had ordered from Amazon to the exact specifications of my tent, were clearly the wrong size. They had gaping holes at the top and were blowing around like curtains. They kept 80% of the rain out by the sheer fact that they were there, but they were not even close to being waterproof.

I walked to the back of my tent where all of the electrical plugs were located, and they were now in an inch-deep stream of running water. I quickly turned off all my lights, leaving myself in the dark but hopefully a little less likely to get electrocuted, then gingerly picked up all of the surge protectors and sat them out of the water on the cinder blocks.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t die immediately. Then I stepped out of the puddle to go back to the front of the booth and quickly get my prints under the table to try and protect them.

About 20 of my 8x10s fell out, bending their corners. I yelped in frustration, then realized that there had been a chorus of similar yelps and screams in all of the booths near me since the storms started.

This was not the ArtWalk we’d signed up for.

I was completely soaked through at this point, so I sat down on the wet ground, found a dry corner of one of my tablecloths, and began frantically drying the print sleeves.

To forever record this catastrophic night, I even attempted a selfie – with a flash, since I was in the dark – something you should never do.

The storm was bad, y’all.

I sat there, dodging raindrops, wondering why I’d not just packed everything up before the storms.

After over an hour of attempting not to float away, there was finally a dry pocket in the storm. I crawled out of my puddle and peeked under the tent into the dark downtown alley.

I was alone. Very alone. It was only 8:30pm, but all of the other artists had left. The show was supposed to last until 10pm, but the chances of people re-emerging after/if this storm ended were nonexistent.

I took advantage of the break in the storms and carried all of my prints to the car – no small undertaking, but I wanted them to be home and in the air conditioning overnight to help with dehumidification.

I got in the car and said “Okay, God.”

The accountant inside of me was screaming in agony – here I’d invested all of this money into buying prints for ArtWalk so that I could help The WellHouse, and yet I sold nearly nothing on the first night. I was nervous for my inventory, nervous for the weekend, and wondering why God had me agree to do this show.

As I got on the interstate, I found myself praying “Just assure me that I’m in Your will. If I’m in Your will, then the circumstances don’t matter.”

God immediately flooded my mind with all of the confirmations He gave me when I started Picture Birmingham, and the ones that had come in the year and a half since. He reminded me the burden he had put on my heart for those trapped in sex trafficking, and how He had specifically given me a new passion and talent for photography for this very purpose. I was able to breathe again and quit worrying.

When I got home, I was better able to assess my situation. My tablecloths (which I had also grabbed) needed drying, but most of the prints were perfectly fine, by what was surely a miracle.

I spent an hour that night drying the print sleeves, and only ended up with a pile of my 20 “Storm Damage Items” that I marked down the next day.

And the next day.

It was gorgeous.

The storm was followed by a cold front, which made Saturday the most delightfully comfortable day of the year. There was a nice breeze but not too harsh, the sun was out but it wasn’t too blazing, and they opened the show two hours early to make up for the catastrophe of Friday night.

I got there early enough to completely reset my booth, and the day was delightful. People came out in droves, and I had a shocking number of Instagram, Twitter, and blog friends come visit me.

Despite Friday night being a total wash, I ended up selling 60% more than last year. God protected me, God reassured me at my most uncertain moments, and God provided for the mission He had me there to help.

Thank you to all of you who came to see me. You were a blessing to me, and an infinitely bigger blessing to the women rescued by The WellHouse.

Epic Camping: The Downs.

September 10, 2015September 9, 2015 Rachel Callahan I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience.

Read Part One and Part Two here.

Yesterday, I showed you the beautiful moments of our camping trip. Today, I unweave the rest of the story.

As I mentioned in my first post, Chris and I have never tent-camped with children – we used to do it pre-kids, but not since – the whole waking up with the sun, bad dreams, hearing every sound and moan that the little cherubs make – it’s not for wusses. And we’re wusses. If we can stay in a cabin and not sleep with our kids, why would we all sleep crammed in a piece of fabric?

Because camping is awesome, that’s why. And Chris wasn’t coming along and I was up for double the adventure. Because adventure is awesome, too.

We had a last minute state park reroute the day before we left (stupid Labor Day crowds), so I woke up at 6:45am on Thursday to get out the door and get our spots before they were all gone.

I was ready to leave a 7:45, which is pretty commendable for all that must be packed for a camping trip. I called the state park to make sure they still had three spots together. They did, but they would go fast. Oh – and by the way – the only way you can rent spots is if you have tents to set up on each spot IMMEDIATELY – your car there, your money, and even your placard that they insist you post on your site – those proofs are not enough. Tents must be assembled. Immediately.

I knew my parents would not be ready anytime soon (Mom had just started packing), and I suspected that Lindsay was not ready to leave at 7:45 am. So I called them and concocted the plan: I drove to Lindsay’s, picked up her tent, then drove to my parents and picked up their tent AND my Dad.

We arrived around 10:30am – not as early as I planned, but we had three tents. Which was good, because the park ranger asked us at the front entrance: DO YOU HAVE YOUR THREE TENTS.

This particular State Park will go down in history as the most OCD State Park Ever.

But it’s pretty.

And so began The Great Tent Assembly – something I hadn’t taken part in at least nine years.

Dad and I put together the first two tents, then took a lunch break, during which Lindsay arrived, so she and I put together her tent while Dad supervised.

The kids, meanwhile, were all asking to go to the playground. Every two seconds.

We delayed the hot walk, and instead put them in swimsuits to wade in the lake (which we later found out was against the rules – swimming at the beach only. It doesn’t matter if you got up at 6:45am to get a lakeside spot.)

When Ali got out, she went in our tent to get something. Then called out, “Mommy!!! Will you come get this earthworm out of the tent?”

I went to save her from certain death, and scooped up what I thought was an inchworm onto a piece of paper.

Then I looked at it. And its circular sucker for a mouth.

It stood on its backside and silently screamed at me through that large, round opening.

OH. My gosh.

This ancient creature was no inchworm. She was a leech. And she was leaving circular bloody spots on the paper as she crawled along on her mouth, clearly having lunched off of my daughter.

Ali said, “There must have been at least two, because Eli pulled one off of me, too!”

I didn’t get a picture of The Leech Attack because we passed him around to study her. And when Lindsay took her kids up to the bath house to get cleaned up, I had finally caved and taken my kids to the playground that had been there since the extraordinarily creepy 1950s,

so I missed seeing the much bigger leech she pulled off of Andi – the one that decisively made a popping feeling when she de-suctioned it.

(For the rest of the weekend I tried to get someone to lure a leech out for a photo, but no one else was interested in getting in the water after that. No idea why.)

When we got back from the playground, my Dad told all the kids to get all the firewood out of his truck and bring it to the fire pit.

There were 18 stairs down from our cars to the camping spot, so this was no small task. There was much moaning and sweating of children, but they obliged.

Until Noah started screaming manically from the truck – so much so that I didn’t even look because I just assumed it was not my kid. I’d never heard him scream like that. Mom ran up there to see what was wrong. He was the lucky kid who had picked up a log that was covered in fire ants. His arms sprung up with dozens of bites, and he even got a couple on the palms of his hands.

(Meanwhile, Chris was enjoying a nice, quiet, direct flight to Dallas. But no matter.)

Moving on.

Eli had jettisoned his shoes early into the trip, despite the ground being made up of approximately 47.8% duck poo. Of course, he managed to also gash that extra soft piece of skin between his big toe and foot. I found him sitting by my tent in a dirt pile, foot gushing blood, and he had it twisted up so that he could…no he wasn’t. Oh yes. Yes he was.

He was licking – nay sucking the fountain of blood off of his foot.

“STOP IT!! Your foot is covered in duck poo and dirt!!!”

“But it won’t stop bleeding!! <lick lick> And this is the only way to get it to quit hurting!!” <slurp>

For the rest of the trip, anytime there wasn’t an adult around to forcibly stop him, he chewed the skin off around the gash, widening it further by the hour, and creating a five-star hotel for every piece of duck poo bacterium in the campground.

Naturally, on night one, the children had trouble falling asleep (“The creatures are too loud and I miss my noisemaker!!” /// THEY ARE YOUR NOISEMAKER GO TO SLEEP), and woke up at near-sunrise.

Around lunchtime on Friday, Noah told me that his ankle hurt, and held it up to show me.

I grabbed it to try and see what he was pointing to, and he had another complete meltdown. MUCH screaming.

Which is when I realized that his ankle was quite swollen – all stemming from a bite – that definitely looked like it had fang marks.

It didn’t look spider biteish at all – I should know. The fang holes were bigger, and the swelling was not at all red and was not around the bite, but extending from the bite.

He seemed okay, though, so I didn’t do anything about it right away. Then then we walked to the playground again – half a mile of heat and sweat and misery.

I had just said how great it was that the kids had figured out the antique seesaws when Noah started screaming. Again.

Because the rusty, rickety seesaw had come down on his mysteriously bitten ankle.

It took long moments of withstanding cacophony to get him calmed down, and then a carrying him back to the picnic table in the sweaty sweaty 91 degree sun.

But even after he calmed down, he couldn’t walk. At all. And we needed to get back to the campsite to treat his foot.

So I hefted and toted my 46 pound child half a mile in the 91 degree direct sun, all while mentally awarding myself 2,300 calories of exercise for the excruciating effort.

I cleaned and medicated and pondered what it could be. Weird spider bite? Mild snake bite? I had no idea. Noah started walking again not too long after all the doctoring – at first he was hopping on one foot, then limping, then just barely limping.

So again, I let it go.

That night, I dreamed of running all night. I hadn’t gotten to run since Wednesday night, nor had I been alone for a single second. I was craving those miles and miles of quiet, child-free trails, and my subconscious knew it. I awoke wide awake at 6:15am – quite unusual for me.

Both kids were still racked out – this was my chance.

I ever-so-quietly got dressed in my running clothes, put on my shoes, and started writing Ali a note to tell her I’d be back, and that they could get out of the tent when they heard Gramamma or Pop or cousins. Our tent was in the middle campsite and my parents were nearby – what could go wrong? I wouldn’t go far. I was so desperate for a run. I needed this to survive.

As I was finishing my note, Ali rolled over and asked what I was doing. I whispered that I was writing her a note and to go back to sleep. Then Noah lifted his head. I told them both to go back to sleep. They closed their eyes. I snuck out and walked up to the bath house, guzzling a Five Hour Energy and nearly skipping at the glee of my future run. I walked back to the campsite to grab my phone and start running.

Except that Ali was looking out the tent window, crying pitifully.

There were ants in our tent – TWENTY maybe – and she was afraid they would eat her and all her stuffed animals while I was gone.

I knew she was exhausted, hence her reaction, so I got in the tent, killed the twenty tiny black non-biting ants, and laid down with her to try and get her back to sleep.

Noah was wide awake and was physically unable to whisper. Or be quiet in any way.

I knew, sadly, that my run would not be happening.

So instead, I walked my kids half a mile and rented a pedal boat, at 7am, and spent the next two hours pedaling all the cousins around the lake – again in the direct sunlight.

Then it was time to start breaking up camp – the much dreaded breaking up of camp. Oh my gosh so much carrying. So much sweating. So much de-tenting. So many stairs to our cars. SO MUCH HEAT AND MISERY.

It took a couple hours of pouring sweat and folding and stair-climbing, but we finally got packed up.

Except that my car battery was dead – not too surprising since I’d been electronically locking, unlocking, and raising the back for days without driving it. Dad jumped me off, I left it running for a while. But when it was time to go, my battery was dead again.

Which meant that my battery was probably bad, which meant that I could not under any circumstances stop on the way home. Oh – and my cooler had also slowly dripped all night and soaked my third row seats. So yay for the smell of mildew.

I got home and I found my Wonder Woman inner being again. I unpacked that car with Hulk-like strength and grand amounts of longsuffering. I put EVERYTHING up. I unpacked all our bags, our coolers, and even our miscellaneous crap. I started a load of laundry. I bathed the filthy urchins. I checked everyone for ticks.

I WAS A SUPERHERO.

I had camped, DAMMIT, by myself, in a tent, with my kids.

I WAS AMAZING.

…Except that in the process of the tick check, I found one extremely embedded in…guess who?? Noah.

Oh –and there was still the small issue of his mysteriously bitten foot, which was now purple and red and even more swollen.

This was the first time I had found an embedded tick since being a parent, so I called my parents to inquire as to what was the latest way to get ticks out.

Dad said he’d heard that if you put cooking oil on a q-tip and twisted it, you could literally unscrew the tick. This sounded easier to do than putting a burnt match on the tick’s back as my parents had done to me as a child, so I retrieved the oil.

The tick did not unscrew.

So then I tried the burning thing, and Noah completely flipped his lid. More screaming than ever, and wouldn’t let me get near him.

I talked him down off the ledge by asking him 565 times if he trusted me (he trusted me on the 566th ask), and then I burnt the tick.

Except that the tick was dead. So getting burned didn’t exactly make him jump out of his cave in Noah’s back.

Then I did what I should have done first and Googled “How to get a tick out” and found the CDC site. SO MUCH EASIER.

“Grasp the tick close to the skin with tweezers and pull steadily” – something my parents always told me NEVER to do.

(Sorry Mom and Dad.)

I tweezed out the tick, including his mouth parts, and then alcoholed Noah’s back.

Then I turned my attention to his purple foot.

It hadn’t seemed to bother him hardly at all all day today – except that he had a slight limp. But it looked so much more infected I felt like I needed to check. I texted a few medical friends and followed their advice – I medicated him again and outlined the swelling with a Sharpie and decided to wait until morning.

Oh…and all while I was pulling a tick out of my hyperventilating and screaming child and trying to figure out if I needed to go to an after hours clinic about his ankle……

Chris was riding to the football game. In this.

And all of this occurred because one fateful evening in July I took two Benadryl before dinner.

Epilogue: Thankfully, the next day, Noah’s ankle had improved drastically. Not as thankfully, the next night, Noah came down with croup. The children remember the trip as magical, and I actually enjoyed it too and never lost my cool – until Chris’ flight got delayed three hours. God’s grace was sufficient for me to camp on my own, but it was not at all sufficient for those last three unplanned hours of no Daddy.

Epic Camping: The Ups.

September 9, 2015September 9, 2015 Rachel Callahan I Play at Photography, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, The Blissfulness of Life

Everyone should go tent camping.

Everyone.

Unless you have children under four or you are pregnant or live in north Canada or have an aversion to bugs or can’t sleep to the sound of crickets or are addicted to your Sleep Number bed or don’t like peeing in bath houses while large spiders watch you or can’t handle your kids waking up at sunrise.

As I said, EVERYONE should go tent camping.

It really is a lovely experience, and an investment in getting to know nature.

But more about that in the next post.

Our camping trip consisted of myself, my two children, my sister-in-law, her three children, and my parents.

(Don’t ever go camping without grandparents.)

Chris was in Dallas at the season opener football game, and my brother had to work, so the lack of Daddies just made it all the more adventurous.

The five cousins in attendance were:

Ali, 8:

Eli, 7:

Tessa, 6:

Noah, 4:

And Andi, 4:

Clearly, one of the benefits of the trip for me was getting to play with my new camera.

It was even better to have kids around that weren’t my own, because mine might be a little tired of posing for photographs.

But other people’s kids! They’re like fresh meat for my photographical needs!

…Until you try to get them all in a group shot. Because that will never ever ever be successful.

But this is about camping, not photography.

The trip was full of playing in hammocks,

Sword fights,

Glow sticks day and night,

Feeding, chasing, and yelling at the ducks,

Tents accidentally and ridiculously too big,

Pedal Boating,

Perfect reflections,

And a long hike.

The five mile hike, only for myself and the two oldest kids, included nature counts and a very intricate points system that kept changing in an endless string of excited conversation.

Butterflies are worth one point. Butterflies are worth two points. Frogs are worth two points. Frogs are worth 300 points! I see three frogs so that’s 5,000 points! If you see an Alligator it’s worth 500 points but only if he doesn’t eat you. If he eats you then you get zero points. Because you’re dead.

But points aside, we did find 22 frogs.

At least 10 of which Eli picked up,

And exactly three of which peed on him – including this shirt-soaking gusher.

I apologized for the frog’s bad manners, but he told me “Oh it’s okay. I get peed on by frogs all the time.”

Our hike led us to the dam,

Where Ali placed her own form of rebellious graffiti – she wrote her name on a large leaf and left it behind, with the explanation “I’ll be famous now! Because people will see this and know my name!”

So that’s how you get famous, people. In case you were wondering.

And then there was the sunset. THE sunset. One of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen.

The reflections were perfect, and the ducks were amenable to make beautiful synchronized swimming patterns.

The skies morphed so many times over that 43 minutes that I could only capture all of its beauty by making a video. If you’ve never quite understood my obsession with sunsets, this should explain it.

So clearly, it was a beautiful trip. And everyone should go camping. EVERYONE.

Be sure and remember I said that when you read tomorrow’s post. Because we’ll both need the reminder.

Protected: The Jewels of ArtWalk.

September 8, 2015September 18, 2016 Rachel Callahan Weird Strange and True