Hello, I'm the New Guy

Confession time: I am a portrait photographer. I am sometimes a second shooting videographer. I took a volunteer position on the media team at church where I learned more about cameras. I found myself directing shots as a video switcher pretty quickly after. I have helped direct and produce the church services to stream on our website. It’s a low scale and fairly low budget. Everything I’ve done in media I’ve learned on the fly. YouTube is my best friend.

Our media director whom I might say was one of the best mentors in technology I’ve ever had, got an amazing opportunity to serve God and develop the media ministry many state lines away. In the weeks leading up to his ultimate move, I tried to absorb as much information as he was willing to throw at me. See, before this… I was his volunteer right-hand man. I say this just because the guy just let me help wherever. He carried the weight of the team on his shoulders...that is very clear now.

He’s gone, and here I am. FBC Sapulpa has some of the most amazing volunteers in the media department. Most of us are incredibly green. I am old, they are young, but we are all willing. I had an opportunity to meet with the pastor so that we could discuss the church’s vision for how we were going to reach the community. I felt like a mustard seed so incredibly tiny, so unassuming, so ordinary. I say I felt like a mustard seed because I was ready to grow I was ready to move mountains. How much was I capable of? I really don’t. But here I am, ready to find out. Ready to grow and fail along the way. I’m not afraid to fail I welcome failure in many ways because it means I’ve got places to improve and grow. You see, I am a principal and ex-schoolteacher. Growth-mindset is kind of my jam. Always learning new things keeps the creative in me happy. 

So what I’ve decided to do is blog and podcast and video this endeavor. I’m opening myself up to be vulnerable so that others might be able to learn from our experiences and help their church grow their social community for the glory of God. I am looking forward to being his incredible obedient servant in this way. I want my mission in this role to be to glorify God beyond the walls of our church. I pray that we reach people searching for God on Facebook, YouTube and wherever else we can share the message. 

Creativity and Lies

I am creative. I am creative, but not in a crafty let-me-art-all-over-the-place sort of way. I am “the ideas are a dime a dozen” sort of gal. I cannot paint. I do not bake OR cook (apparently those are NOT synonymous with each other). I love banners and beautiful digital displays, but I cannot just whip things up with multiple fonts and colors. I have no eye for what goes together. I do, however, love photography. I can capture those beautiful things. I can see an empty room or building and create 10-15 ways the space could be used. The businesses that could be run inside, and I can see the design style that should fill the space, but I am not the one to do it. I am an ideas person. I am your not so average thinker who cannot get the ideas out fast enough before they are fleeting. My iPhone is filled with “notes to self”. I have been collecting these digital scraps of nothing since 2015 when I first thought I might write a book. But, I am not a writer either. I could, however, offer you a million ideas of things that you could write about. Sigh.

So here it is, a list of lies we tell ourselves on why we can’t do or start the idea or thing that sits obsessively in our head. 

I don’t have the Time - There isn’t enough time in the day. The time for like anything let alone our idea. We are all so busy doing this and that. I am a wife, a mama of two in different sports with practices that leave me feeling more like a taxi driver with really crappy tippers. I have a full-time job as a principal in a virtual school. On the side, I have a photography hobby that is turning into more than I ever thought it would. I am also a volunteer/work at my church as the director of the media team. Time to write a book or even a blog post could easily be laughable when explaining to my friends why I don’t have time to write. Even you are probably thinking, “right!?!?!, Can she really squeeze anything else in?” The answer...we have heard it everywhere since the beginning of time. We have time for the things we make time for. I also find time to watch an episode of Downton Abbey or two. (I know right? Yes, this is a late 2019 post, yes I am just now jumping on board the watch train.) I also find time to watch an episode of Monk with my youngest. I can easily get rid of Downton, but Monk is a quality time thing and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. Jo falls asleep holding my hand every night while watching it. So do I have time? Yes. I can give up some of the time I am wasting. Hard question for you...what time are you wasting? Could you be doing your thing in place of that time-waster? 

There are a million others better or farther along than me - This is so true. I listen to a ton of podcasts and read a load of blog posts of people way better than me. So why should I do it? Do I even have anything to new to say? Of course, someone has thought this before and done that before. Why do I need to come along and do it or say it again? This is a lie I tell myself regularly. I don’t need to do this because it’s been done. However, one of my superpowers is seeing positivity in things and thinking outside of the box. I didn’t always think this was a superpower...and if I am being honest, I still don’t think they will write a movie about the positive overthinking woman or out of the box woman any time soon, but if I do think differently then maybe my take of all the things would be helpful. It’s like in the movie The Truman Show when Truman Burbank said that he wanted to be an explorer like the great Magellan. His teacher, in trying to keep the experiment going told him it was too late, that we have already explored everything. Well, that may be true, but you haven’t seen it through my eyes with my perspective. So I will write.

I’m not organized - This is no lie. I am not organized. I have thoughts written on scraps of paper, semi-categorized throughout my phone and in journals...so many journals. I am not organized. I suppose, however, that the lie that holds me back is that I cannot get organized. I am starting small. I have a newly created Google folder labeled with “just write”. That’s where this post resides. I also have folders that I have created that are3 titled with the chapters of the book I’ve been writing in my head. The plan over the next year is to write daily. Even if I don’t have anything to say, I have pinned many writing ideas, so when I have nothing to say, I will reach out to those. I will commit to merging my digital and analog worlds. Maybe I scan content in and publish the first half and half book. See that idea came from nowhere as I am writing. I suppose we will all stay tuned to see it that comes to fruition. I will commit to tagging and labeling my ideas and I will use my time to write about them. 

Is it even practical? - No. I think we have already pulled the rug out from under the rest of the ideas, so this one will be debunked as well. Writing a book means more time, no original thoughts being written down for literally millions of people NOT to read. I will have to learn to become organized, so it’s not practical at all. So why do it? I have ideas. They have to go somewhere. Maybe if nothing else, I write them and someone brainstorms an idea themselves and puts something together that IS an original thought. See, that is the positive overthinking I mentioned before. I am also the queen of getting bored with a thing or distracted by another. I have 30 tabs open on my computer most days because the I find it easier to work of a project for an hour or so and then diversify my efforts. For this reason, I have three working writing books/projects as well as the “just write” folder. I love education and thinking of new innovations for student learning. I adore working with the media at church, but I’m a new guy to the whole thing so learning on the job is something I could write about. Photography is a passion project, so writing about the process and the places it takes me sounds fun. I have so many things to say about marriage and ways to make it feel effortless. I cannot be tied to a single project so I will write about them all. 

We all have lies or half-truths we tell ourselves and these become our obstacles to the other things. In this day and age, we can learn anything. I have used Youtube to learn how to administer stitches so that I didn’t have to take my dog to the vet for a third time for wounds he ripped open...yada yada yada. The short story is we can really do most things we dream up in our heads. I may always need my husband to open my Gatorade bottle, but I can do this thing.

Road Trips and Resolutions

Long road trips always begin the same way in my family. We put on Willie Nelson’s “On the road again”, turn it up loud and sing along. The song and excitement usually help us get out of the neighborhood and started on our way. After this, we listen to our books or play our movies most of the way to our destination. Sometimes we will converse about “things”, but like a Seinfeld episode, it’s mostly about nothing. On the way home though...on the way home the long road trips always seem to be where dreams and plans are made. Today’s ride back home from visiting the parents and grandparents brought on conversations of tradition, tears of loss of tradition and plans for the future.

You never really think about tradition much until something comes along to break the cycle and all of a sudden its front and center. A few years ago we started a tradition of snow skiing over the Christmas break. The lodge is nestled in the mountains of northern Idaho. Mrs. Claus would make hot cocoa and warm iced sugar cookies and then read a book to the children. Christmas morning we would unwrap a few small gifts and then go snow skiing with Santa who also gave the kids toys. It was a semi-selfish tradition we began after the hustle and bustle of other traditions became too much to bear. We used to spend Christmas Eve eve with my mother (which always made her kinda mad that it wasn’t closer to Christmas), Christmas Eve with Trav’s grandmother, Christmas morning with Trav’s parents, Christmas lunch with his other grandparents, then we would make the 6-hour drive to my dad’s house for Christmas night, before unwrapping presents the day after Christmas with my grandparents. It was exhausting...selfishly exhausting. 

Several years have gone by since his grandparents passed. A couple of years back, Travis lost Travis’s dad. We did not go to Idaho that Christmas because the writing was all over the wall. We couldn’t leave. We are so glad we stayed because even though those days were some of the longest hardest days, we knew they were fleeting. The next year we left as soon as we could and had another amazing Christmas on the slopes. This year, we were sore to find out my brother was getting married on the 21st of December and the wedding was in the opposite direction of the slopes. We were bummed that it was going to interfere with our plans but honestly couldn’t miss the wedding because nobody EVER thought he would be married. We also knew we would be celebrating Christmas with the family while we were in town. It was great to see everyone. I am always reminded of what a blessing my life is when I go home. Typically there are emotions of hurt and feeling just on the outside of the circle. My parents were divorced and I was the only one of my brothers and sister who never lived full time up there. I remind myself of how much Trav and I love...and not just for print, truly adore each other. We never have to worry about sharing or splitting time with our kids. 

Travis had me tearing up on the way home when he talked about missing it. Missing the tradition of family, missing the team feeling. He pointed out that you don’t always get along with family, but there was always someone who genuinely wanted to know what you were up to and wanted to hear your stories. It made me wonder. It made me think hard about whether or not we were robbing our girls of a feeling like that by scooping them up and taking off away from those traditions. This thought brought me to something Im am sure every parent before us has thought...How do you start the traditions of your own family while maintaining and not breaking the links of the past? I wish we knew. 

Later in the drive, after many miles of silence, Travis mentioned that he thought he might print his book reviews. Trav loves to read. He also loves leaving book reviews. He just thinks about things in a way I never could or would. I told him it was a great idea, to which he followed up with I wish I knew more of what Papa Mutt and Dad thought. It lingered there. Trav loves these men so much, everyone did, that they are built to be larger than men. Popi is, was a living cornerstone to this family. These two conversations maybe forty mins apart were connected. Of course, I began to think they were probably just men. Sinners and as thoughtless as we all are most of the time, but something about them leaves this lasting longing for more. More time. More conversation. More wisdom. What will it be like when my grandfather is gone? I already know that my girls think their father hung the moon and I know he is the smartest man alive. What is it about us that turn others into larger than life infinite souls in our minds. 

Plans for the future include more. I joked to Trav that I want to be better than I was last year, but, in reality, I want to be kinder, more giving, a better mom, a better wife. I want to take more photos. I want to be more fit. I want to be the leader at my job that doesn’t care what others think, that doesn’t care about notoriety or kudos, that simply does what’s best for all in my charge. And I want to write more. I want to see the world hanging upside down.

The last hour was spent singing loudly to Garth Brooks Double Live album. Road trips are long and are oftentimes boring, but this one was one of my favorites.

“You may ask, how did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you, I don’t know”

• Tevye, Fiddler of the Roof