Finding The Happy

Came across a blog post last night where someone took a photo an hour for about 12 hours. She’d joked that she was too “boring” a subject to make her day seem exciting through photos, but I thought, What a fabulous idea!

I’ve had Paula Spencer’s Momfidence! as my bathroom reader and it has been such a great pick-me-up because she’s such a funny writer and an even greater encourager. Anyhoo, one of the things she wished aloud in her book was that she documented more of the Everyday through photos and video. That it was one thing to take happy snaps of memorable events, but they’re usually staged and everyone is trying to smile in the camera.

That isn’t real life, though.

REAL life is spending a lot of collective family time wondering what’s in the fridge. Having slightly chaotic 17-way conversations around the dinner table. Dealing with mess in the sink. Receiving impromptu kisses from your toddler. Doing the laundry together.

These are scenes I may not think of documenting right now, but I’ll bet that one day, I’ll look out my front door to the hills and struggle to remember what that had looked like 5, 10, 15 years ago. What my everyday had been like 5, 10, 15 years ago.

So here’s my effort to document the mundane in my camera phone. I’m aiming to take and post a photo every waking hour today – mostly through my phone, so excuse photo sizes.

Ready?

7:16am – Little girl is up. Me, not so much

8:07am – Arddun decides that not having bubbles Right This Minute is dreadfully unfair

9:21am – Getting dressed to do some Christmas shopping. It’s going to be hot today!

9:53am – Postman brings some Peter’s of Kensington goodness

11:00am – Scored a $29-blackboard for Arddun

12:05pm – Sushi lunch

1:10pm – Owing to time spent lost in carpark trying to locate teeny tiny door to Kmart’s customer collection centre (which turned out to be the same colour as the surrounding walls, BTW), we didn’t get home quite in time before Arddun fell asleep. Decided to embark on part 2 of Christmas shopping.

2:20pm – Arddun and I enter a store to secure Tony’s Christmas present! And then we stood outside and took a picture of the store, and OH WHAT A SHAME. My finger got in the way. I guess Tony will have to wait till Christmas.

3:14pm – Connect Cafe, cooling down from the searing heat with an ice-cold

4:13pm – Last-minute grocery shopping for church thanksgiving potluck, and Arddun scores a helium balloon while sussing out the new hair shop opposite. Very special gift.

4:57pm – Puttering around the courtyard with a small bucket of water while I prepare her dinner.

6:08pm – Cooking a chicken curry for tonight’s Thanksgiving with the church that starts at 6:30pm. Unfortunately, Tony isn’t home yet. Oh well. Better late than never, eh?

7:13pm – Church and food! When many gather in His name here, somehow there’s always food.

8:00pm – Right on 8 o’clock, this little guy thanks God for me! (Might have been a sympathy vote because I had been blubbering during my thanksgiving, but I’m pretty chuffed.)

9:34pm – Got home to find that someone had tried to wash her daddy’s clothes, but probably lost interest by the time she got to the door.

10:02pm – Continue freelance work

11:22pm – Start preparing for bed

Reflections

Well, it’s been interesting. I’ve always wondered how people found the time to microblog 8 times a day and thought I could never be one of them. That my most immediate problem would be the lack of content, a close second being the lack of time.

And yet, looky what I’ve done here!

Content-wise, this is chicken feed. I’ve just uploaded a picture of my night face cream, for crying out loud. Not many brain cells were fried in the makings of this post, but it took commitment and time anyhow. I was also surprised by how many moments I couldn’t catch through photos, but that I wished I had.

For instance:

• 11:53am – Pushing stroller with heavy 17½-month-old and shopping up a loooong stalled travellator – while wearing cute open-toe sandals with almost zero-grip. Got to a point halfway up (after I’d lost momentum from my running start) where I needed to grip handrail and physically pull us all upward. Shoes actually started sliding backwards at 75% mark. Nice young fella saved the day by rocketing stroller (and Arddun) up to the top while I giggled after him like a nincompoop.
• 4:35pm – Physically getting Arddun into car and strapped into carseat as she hangs on to orange balloon for dear life while repeatedly kissing it. Orange balloon is still attached to shopping trolley.

I seriously doubt I’ll be microblogging my everyday moments from here on end. But this exercise has given me pause about what else I care passionately enough of to be able to write constantly.