My Learner’s Manifesto

I appreciated the mantras and principles in our weekly manifesto in my English course. I have learned so much more than the concepts taught in each class during this past year of secondary education. Here is my own manifesto, my challenge to myself and others as we move forward trying to become better people, better employees, better family members, and better citizens of the world…

Be patient. Nothing good comes quickly. My favorite pastime is climbing mountains to see the views of other mountains. There is no quick way to the top, and it is often grueling work to get there. Education is the same. We are in for a long haul. It will be worth the view at the top.

Be interested. There is a life lesson in every class we take. Go into it with curiosity and wonder. It makes the whole experience different.

Be positive. Attitude is everything, isn’t it? Our brains are powerful. If we tell ourselves we can do something, we can! Also no one likes a whiner. I need to apologize to my running friends, my husband and children, anyone within a mile of my voice that first semester. My bad.

Be strategic. We all have lives outside of school. I thought I could do it all. The shopping, the dinner making, the organized house. It lasted about two weeks into this adventure. The dinners and grocery shopping are mostly done by my kids and husband now. The house is often messy but I have become better at ignoring it. I triage my life right now and school has priority.

Be integrative. I love to see how one class often bleeds into another. I can make connections and the learning settles deep into my soul. Universal truths are easy to spot if you are open. Make those connections.

Be resourceful. I have reached out to so many helpers. I have a Math tutor once a week who I rely on in this online environment to fill the space of a teacher. Online school requires you to teach yourself. We interpret the material we read. It’s both empowering and terrifying. I don’t think it works for every class so I have been through my mental Rolodex to reach out for extra help.

Be engaged. Dive in headfirst and be excited about this opportunity. You will get as much or as little as you want out of a course. I remember a ballet teacher telling me that I should put the same effort into a beginner’s class as that of an advanced class. That concept left an imprint on my mind. I knew that engagement was the key to have a good take-away from whatever I embarked in.

Be self-aware. Along with resourcefulness, listen to your needs. Sometimes I need a quick nap. I don’t deny myself, if at all possible. I set an alarm and take a power nap and wake up refreshed and ready to try again. Some days it’s harder to start the work than other days. Evaluate why your motivation is low and seek help to get started. Understanding your needs helps fill them.

Be persistent. This is my word of the year. Persistence is key to quality work. Try, try, try again. Sometimes you need to sleep on it but try again in the morning. Your brain might need time to process. I can’t say all my projects have come out exactly as I wanted, but they were turned in. I will keep trying to do quality work.

And finally, Be Confident!

Believe in yourself! You were meant for greatness, and have potential far beyond your imagination. Count your small wins on the hard days and go forward with love for yourself.

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Behind the Scenes…

I miss writing here, but school, the new job, momming, and wifing…I literally have to plan my toilet and food breaks. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

This is a unit that always has me nervous, while I love the IDEA of video creation, I have no know how.

Here are my behind the scenes photos, I have a very simple set-up. I film during the day when the beautiful sunshine is filtered through the window, which saves a lot of time and creativity in setting up my own lighting. I need all that creativity for my video. I also added a lamp for a little extra lighting on my face.

The prep for this very short video has been a lot of work, not the script but the story boarding. I am not someone that likes repetitive work, and the top ten video format is a lot of creating the same types of story board, over and over. Someone, who shall not be named (ME) gave up at the halfway point and turned in a storyboard that was mostly done, but then jammed together like sardines in a tin can. I was docked points. It may have been worth it.

Today I filmed each section of my talking head, I have to admit, when using my computer to film, I don’t know exactly where the camera is. As I watched each clip back I found I was looking all over the place but never at the audience. I’m a good is enough type of person so as long as my audio sounded right, I saved the videos and moved on.

I also found a free site to download short movie clips. They are under 5 seconds each so should be legal to upload onto my video project. It took some time to find clips that fit, and there was one video that I could not track down so will have to use a poster.

My final process will be creating the count down numbers, I have another site that I like to use for that called Canva, I even pay for their premium membership, I use them so often for school and work projects.

I hope to deliver a project I can be proud of. The editing will be the final hurdle and I have dabbled in video editing, it’s not easy. I want to be able to layer my audio over the videos and create some fun graphics to make it exciting.

Side note, one of my classes had me taking a learning style quiz, and it was eye opening. I am an intuitive learner, in a major way, every other learning style was at 3 and Intuition was at 9. This means I like to think of the big picture, theory, or concept, but I tend to miss the steps leading up to making it happen. I have found in many of my classes I miss points here and there for little supporting roles in a project. Over time, missing these points can really add up.

I hope that I nail all the steps it takes to make a great video this week and turn in a project I can be proud of. Wish me luck!

The one where I had to use my husband as my back-up interviewee…

Content Creation class is TOO MUCH FUN. I highly recommend it. I can’t say the same for my other two classes but one rhymes with Bath and the other one is sometimes fun but sometimes drudgery. I am finding interesting points in it all though, even the (Math class.)

For our audio unit in Content Creation I interviewed my new boss. It was really fascinating and I wish you could have listened to it. Unfortunately technology was not on my side, and the interview did not record.

Thankfully my husband is a fascinating person and was a willing victim of my experiment. Sadly the audio isn’t great. Did I mention I’m a newbie? Be kind.

In this episode of Hometown Heroes I interview my favorite firefighter. Hope you enjoy it!

Due to the cheap nature of myself, I did not upgrade to upload audio and it was a whole mess trying to put that audio on YouTube. Here is 5 minutes of our podcast. (If there was a laughing/crying emoji I would insert here.)

What we do for a buck…and also a real job!

When I was a little girl I had two goals: become a rock star, and a mom.

When I was a teenager I had two goals, become a Broadway star, and a mom. (Do you see a through-line?)

When dreams of fame and fortune made way for reality, momming was still a goal and I started to shape my education in a way that would be “Mom-friendly.” I asked myself when picking majors, what could I learn that would allow me to be with my future children and still contribute to the family in a monetary way?

Children came before I figured it all out. I’m a dreamer and not very practical, I married someone similar to me. Thus, children came before we could ensure my professional future or his.

It is hard to be a one income family in this day and age. Many times as we struggled through hardships, and recessions, I wished that I could take the burden off my partner’s shoulders. I took it upon myself to be frugal and decided that was what I could do at the time.

Now that the children are grown and I threw myself back into school I have been combing through the job market, the need for more income is real. Kids actually get MORE expensive the older they get. There is auto-insurance, a need for extra vehicles, missions, school, camps, and future weddings. I want to be able to help contribute to these events. I certainly expect my children to pay for some or most, but would love to help with part.

Then there are the vacations we’ve never been able to take. If there is one thing that makes me gag on Social Media it is the people that take the exotic vacations constantly. Every year they’re in Mexico or Hawaii, or Europe. I have dreamed for years of being able to take the children somewhere besides a place that is drivable in our 11 passenger van. Now they are older and time is slipping through my fingers. I am almost desperate to afford a real vacation with the kids.

Enter plasma donation…and where have you been my whole life?

I admit that I have never, not once, donated blood. My elbows are extremely sensitive and I really have to focus whenever I have blood tests. I get freaked out at the idea of a tube in my arm letting blood freely leave my body.

That is how desperate I am to take my kids on a real vacation. Did I mention I have four? Have you added the cost of six people and plane tickets, car rental, house rental, food, and sundries? It is a lot.

I gave plasma last week and I pictured our vacation the whole time. It worked. I didn’t even mind having to squeeze the blood out of my arm at intervals.

I also got a job. I am a contractor for a publishing company that is doing amazing things in the middle-grade book world. It is very part-time but also fulfilling.

As the funds slowly trickle in, I am slowly putting together an epic vacation. All while trying to pass my Math class and striving to sound organized in my English papers, and putting forth my best work for Content Creation.

The hardest part is ignoring the house falling apart around me. The kids have chores, but you know how that goes. I can’t stop and clean a room anymore, there’s no time! I don’t have time to make dinner and I rarely grocery shop. The house plants I cherish need love and care but I feel like I can only stare at them and ask them to hold on a little longer.

I know balance is elusive but I look for ways to maintain facetime with my children. I keep snacks in my room/office so they will come in and talk to me when they feel peckish. At 9pm we huddle on my bed for the “quote of the day,” and discuss what the next day holds for us.

I do miss being a full-time mom and feeling so useful in that way, but my brain loves the new challenges that come up with school and work.

Update: I went for a second time to the plasma bank, today actually, and almost fainted. It was one of the most humiliating situations to date…having the phlebotomists flock towards me, ice packs thrown around my neck, saline solution administered…anyhoo…here’s to hanging out at the nurse’s station with Powerade and a bag of Goldfish. I did sign up for another go just to see if today was a fluke. I sure hope so! My plasma donation days might be over.

Graphic Design Consideration…

There is much perfectionism that goes into graphic design, my problem is I am not picky. I have always been the type of person to see something that looks good and move forward.

For this assignment we could use a photo of ours and post a meme or topic over it that we were interested in. Since I am still in a Gift From the Sea mode I picked another beautiful quote from that book.

This quote means a lot to me in these middle age years of my life. I am a hopeless romantic and dreamed of the life I would have by now. While life looks very different than how my young mind envisioned, it is still very beautiful.

I have seen much beauty in struggle, the strength that comes from surviving trials that teach us lessons in ways an easy journey cannot.

I am grateful for the sense of humor I have, for courage that comes from hope, and for the strength I draw from those that I admire that have experienced hardships as well.

I wish for courage, strength, and a sense of humor for you too, my friends.

E

Adjustments and Retouching

• For this photo I cleaned up her skin a little so it was smooth and not distracting.
• I saturated the color to show the greens and browns of the area.
• I didn’t need to crop it as I felt the space around her was interesting.

• I touched up her skin here so it was smooth and her natural color could shine.
• I clarified it more, due to the color coming through the bridge the color bled a little bit so this helped.
• That’s all, I like how this photo was framed in camera.

• I touched up her skin here once again.
• I touched up the clarity because the color seemed to bleed through in this area.
• I saturated the color to bring out the greens and browns.
• I added a filter to give it a little warmth and make it different than her other poses.

• I cropped this one to focus on the lines of the bridge.
• I saturated the color so that the moss and the greens behind the subject stood out.
• I added a vignette so that the eye was drawn towards the subject and followed the lines.
• I added a filter so that the colors were warm.

• I cropped the photo to fill the space with the subject.
• I retouched her skin so that it was smoother.
• I added more light to help balance the shadows.
• I saturated the color to help balance the shadows as well. This spot was overly bright but we liked the bench.
• I added a vignette to focus on the subject a little more.

This was a fun activity. I would love to get my hands on a real photo-editing program for more in-depth editing but I appreciate how far technology has come on our devices.

Behind the Scenes…

In Content Creation class we are working through a photography unit. I spent two years in the late 90s in photography school in Seattle. I should be more excited for photography assignments…but if you noticed I said 90s, and in the 90s we used manual cameras with manual F-stops and apertures, we had to set and control how the light hit our film (yes I said film) at all times. Post taking the picture we entered these things called “dark rooms” where we had to develop our film in a small closet and hope that our exposures worked out. If our film processed like it was supposed to then we created contact sheets and picked out the pictures we liked, then we put them in these big machines where we exposed photo paper to light through the film, and then developed the photo paper through a series of chemicals laid out in containers on a table. Red lights were all we had to guide our way. Those were good times.

Is it more convenient now to take pictures? Yes. Everyone and their mother is a photographer. Gone are the days where we are hoping the wedding photos we took turn out, because we cannot go back and recreate the day. Maybe it’s the stress of it all and the tedium that I miss? Maybe it’s the boomer in me that is technology hesitant? I don’t love digital photography. I like looking at it, but the performance of it all has no magic.

So here is my candid photo for this latest assignment. My daughter took a photo of me taking a photo of her.

We needed to create a photoshoot, we were to scout out locations before hand. I love our local park, it’s gorgeous, but I had to be choosy about what day we went out. We get a lot of rain during this season. It was a bright day out and very cold. I wasn’t dressed properly. I should have brought a warm jacket. I also missed reflective discs that we used to bring on site for photo shoots in college. The brightness of the day leads to sharp shadows on the face and that is flattering to no one.

I am glad we are doing this photography unit. It’s introducing me to more that I can do with my camera phone than I knew before.

Visual Storytelling…what could go wrong?

Only if one drops one’s phone into the cats’ water bowl… my goodness, friends. Today has been one of those days where all the plans you made fell into the cats’ water bowl and then even though you are a lifetime fan of the Android phone, the free one that you have at home is the other kind; the one that most of the world uses and you are clueless. So the day was spent transferring everything, one app at a time, to this new system. Creature comforts. I used to say that I didn’t use my cell phone for very much and now I use it for everything. Help me Rhonda! On to another Content Creation class exercise. This one was a lot of fun!

Motion Blur…Flashlight movement.

My guitar reflects my money tree.

Listening to her song recorded in the studio.

Dog Park in the Morning

Dog Park after Dark

Gift from the Sea…

I never read a book that was an anthem for motherhood until I read Gift of the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her husband was the decorated aviator pioneer, Charles Lindbergh. She was a graduate of Smith College, and she raised six children. Anne is a controversial historical figure and a book about her life would be fascinating. This book is an ode to motherhood, it’s triumphs and trials. Anne loved her annual get-away to the sea, and used it as a time to write and recharge.

“I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.”

Thanks for the idea, Anne.

Two years ago I decided I would take an annual trip by myself. It has been all the things Anne describes, but I knew this year would be a little different.

Studies have taken a toll.

I try to get all of my work done by the weekend and take a nice two day break to recharge, reconnect with my family, clean the paths of clutter that have collected in my room, and generally pretend I’m care-free.

Sadly with my class load I’ve been running into Saturdays where I am still working through assignments all day.

Two weeks ago I worked through Saturday and my son was gone to Prom, my husband was on shift at the fire department and my daughters were out with friends. I turned in my last assignment at 6 pm and cried.

Tears are old friends. There’s a feeling I get when I cross a literal finish line of a literal race. It’s elation, relief, and pride all rolled up in a nice package that includes salty tears streaming down my face.

“That was really hard…” I said to the walls of my living room, “but I did it!”

This weekend I had my annual “Me” trip scheduled and looming.

There is something really magical about having an agenda for one. I eat, sleep, run, walk, shop, all when I want too. After 23 years of marriage and 22 years of motherhood, I can’t describe how delightful the feeling of being untethered is.

With all this in mind I tried my very best to get my homework done early this week. It would not do to spend my untethered weekend tethered to my computer.

Le sigh.

You know what’s coming. I found myself heading to the coast with so much left to do, including a proctored Math test that I was terrified of. There were so many little bumps along the way. I had a photoshoot to squeeze in for my Content Creation class, I had two other photography assignments yet to be finished. My math test was glaring at me and those darn pre-tests in Excel were taunting me. Maps took me a weird and unfamiliar way across the pass to the coast and I found myself on sketchy roads with polite signs that said “slide” to warn me that the ground was crumbling beneath my vehicle. By the time I found my Shangri-la it was dark and moody out. The sky was the color of my soul. All hope of a relaxing weekend was gone.

My first priority was my Math test. Our professor had warned us not to wait till the last day it was due to take it. “Wifi goes out, things happen. Take your test Friday,” he said. I sat there at my cute little desk and did indeed have technical difficulties. I won’t bore you with the details but during the height of my frustration, the people occupying the unit above me thought 7 pm at night was a good time to re-arrange the furniture. Usually I’m not that person that wants to pull out my broomstick and knock on the ceiling above me, but with my nerves completely frazzled, the vision of ending this “me” vacation with a drive back home to take this stupid test, I was about to explode.

I’ll end the suspense and say I hacked my way through the glitch.

My test went better than well. I can’t tell you how worried I was about conversion units. I was terrified. I spent three different sessions with tutors. They must have helped me because I received a 92%. Thank you Josh, Rachel, and Will for your patience with me. I will never forget you and will probably be back for rounds two and three, possibly four and five as well.

I woke up this morning, the second day of my self-exile, with those Excel pre-tests on my mind. I dreaded them but I wanted them done and no longer taking space in my head.

“How long can it take?” I wondered, reassuring myself.

Six hours.

That’s how long it took.

About three hours each pre-test.

All the while I could hear the ocean outside. It was calling me like an old friend.

I felt nauseous with the need to get out, but time was not my friend today. I had deadlines and the ocean would have to wait.

I did get them done just in time for a headache to kick in but with ibuprofen, and caffeine flowing through my veins I drove to the beautiful Ecola State Park.

The PNW is green all year round. I love it here so much.

This was my payoff for the un-fun tasks I had to do this weekend.

I ran a very intense 42 minutes but it was glorious. I came to my home for the weekend and figured out my last two photography assignments, hit submit, and felt the bliss of finishing another week.

This weekend was not the picture perfect escape I had planned, but these days I’ll take what I can get. As I write this I am watching all the shows my family doesn’t enjoy. I’m spread out on the couch with no one fighting for space. My belly is full of pasta I made for just me. I will soak up the last hours of this time until I drift off into sleep by myself. I will wake up and walk on the beach, I’ll find a bakery and stock up on goods to bribe my kids with. I will drive back through the beautiful misty mountains of the Tillamook Forest.

I wonder if my family has had time to miss me. Perhaps next year’s foray to the coast will need to be longer?

Monday morning comes all too soon and it all starts again. I will join the ranks of all the mothers as we try to balance parenting with pursuing our dreams. I can only approach it with patience.

Anne says it best in the book when she says;

” The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasure shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach-waiting for a gift from the sea.”

The One About Photo-Recreation…

I mentioned I enjoy my Content Creation class, this week we start our photography unit and my how it has changed since photography school in the late 90’s. While we were plugging in digital backings to our 4×5 cameras, now we have cameras with us constantly and can share and edit to our heart’s content.

I chose this particular photograph to recreate because my daughter is obsessed and it is hard to stay relevant to your teens. For real. I use words like “cap” and “fit” and there is not response. There was a response to this since my 14 yo was our photographer. She coached us to channel our inner Jake and Taylor. She made us play “All to Well” the 10 minute version, in the car on the way to our location. She took her job very seriously.

Sadly, I have been losing points here and there in this class due to overlooking the specifics…something I plan to be better at. I need to answer a few questions for the sake of grading.

I think the original photograph is famous not only because of the celebs in it, but because there are some songs by Miss Taylor sealing their coupledom in infamy forever. It’s a whole rabbit trail that I have heard all about. From that teen I mentioned. (Not that I turn away from celeb gossip. It’s fascinating.)

As I prepared the photo I had to take framing into account. I had to find somewhere in the PNW that would simulate a New York street. Costuming was also considered. The lighting worked for us today and is very similar to the original.

Something I learned to make my own work better is to make sure I have a few optional days to shoot. This week has been unusually nice in the PNW but we had rain today and I was afraid that would ruin our shoot. I need to make sure we have time in case of inclement weather.

Our kids will now have this photo to remember always. I appreciate my husband being a good sport about it. I can tell you it wasn’t his favorite.