Bed of Roses | North Vancouver Storytelling Photographer

Sometimes I get comments like these: how do you always find the perfect outfits for your girls? how do you keep those clips in their hair? how do you keep your house tidy? how do find time to do all that you do for photography? Your girls are so sweet. Life is a bed of roses. It just depends on what kind.

Almost every few months I feel so overwhelmed that I need to have a good cry. I was telling my friend, Nicole, that it's my quarterly. Then I don't feel so bogged down anymore. It's catharsis. When I think about it, there is nothing big that is wrong in my life. No one is ill, no one is hurt. There is much to be grateful for. And yet every few months, I just can hardly breathe. The little things are getting to me - the house work, the yard, running a business, my role as a mom. My mind is a constant rolodex of to-dos.

Am I doing enough to engage with my girls? What activities should I register them in? what should I make for dinner?

The dishes are piling up. It's easier to drive somewhere for food.

Am I marketing my business the way I want to in order to make it sustainable for family life AND keep me passionate about what I'm photographing?

kona is pawing at his empty food and water bowl, panting.

Is it nap time yet? I need one but I also need to get to that editing and blogging.

The clock strikes 10am.

I'm exhausted. I just had a coffee. I need another. Bedtime cannot get here soon enough.

This is late afternoon. The girls are having a 45 minute meltdown, simultaneously. I escape by doing something productive. I cannot engage, I cannot comfort - they are too far gone down the road to recover from it, we just need to ride it out.

After dinner, I rush the girls to sleep and then sit down to work until the wee hours. Close my eyes, wake up, and repeat.

If anyone asked me if I would be this person a few years ago, I would have said no. I still maintain that I'm not cut from the same cloth of happy, dedicated, balanced stay at home mothers who take time to slow down and drink life in with their children.

It is hard, hard work and I'd always rather be working where someone would give me comments like: thank you for getting that done, that was a good presentation, those targets you generated look promising for drilling, your sample got the best gold results.

Yet something about this stay at home role I cannot shake. I cannot bring myself to apply for a job again, in this economic market where I am likely at the bottom of the pecking order because I have been out of it for three years. I convince myself that if I dedicate anytime I have outside of my family time to this business, it's a win-win. I get to stay at home AND have something I love to do for work.

The truth is, it's not all peaches and cream and roses around here. I've made my bed, and now I lie in it. Roses or not, it's mine and I live for the days when the sun does shine and we have impromptu dance parties and sunset picnics and lots of: you're the best mommy in the world.