This is my daughter. We don't have the same color hair, we don't have the same color eyes. We like different music and we basically couldn't be more different but somehow we make the perfect match. When she was born my mother-n-law said, look at her eyes, she has a piece of you in her eyes!" Look close and you will see that little spot of me in her eyes. It's true. She has that piece of me in her eyes but mostly she looks so much like her daddy which is a very good thing;)
January is nearly over but this is our first mom and me post for 2017. It kind of came full circle in a sense. Last year this time we decided to do a mom and daughter photo project. We also picked our word for the year and I wrote down a few personal goals. One of those goals last year was to submit an article to my favorite publication Bella Grace.
I did submit and they accepted my story on “the ordinary” which was also a project I was working on in 2016. I was thrilled that my dream came true and my article would make the spring publication. It came out just before Abbie and I went on her 8th grade trip to Washington DC where we both saw NY for the very first time together.
If you have been following our story at all you will know that we were far too ambitious with our goal of one mom and daughter image a week. It was way too demanding and we kind of failed. We almost made it halfway through the year but we became very burnt out on ideas and time. It seemed a little too much to even find a little bit of time to get a picture in. Part of it has to do with “looking just right” heck half the time I would shoot after a day of work and half my make up warn off but for a teenaged girl that’s not going to fly. However our attempts caught the attention of the editor and she asked if we would submit for the winter publication on our project and before that she asked if I would submit on a blog post I had shared on Bella Grace Notes.
My dream more than came true when somehow I was published in 3 of the 4 quarterly magazines and I’m beyond honored and my dream has been more than fulfilled. And I thought what better way to begin our 2017 than by shooting our first image behind the image that made winters magazine. This will be a cherished gift to give to my daughter for years to come.
I’m excited at the possibilities we have in 2017. We have new words to hold close and practice and we also have another year of our project. This time making our goal much more attainable by being less ambitious. We will share a photo once a month instead of once a week. Seriously I’m 46 years old and still learning. Still growing. Life really is a journey. I’m learning how to slow down more and take things more moment to moment rather than looking far into the future.
My legacy to my only daughter will be that we can do hard things, we can fulfill the dreams we write down but we have to try in order to make them come true. That may mean several failures but the lesson here is to never give up.