Low-Cal Renewal

****I am so excited to share this guest post I wrote for my friend and photographer, Jane Ammon’s, blog. You know the gal – she’s the one who’s Naturally Devoted to Childish Delight. She’s wonderfully childish and unabashedly authentic – two qualities I can’t live without. Stop by her blog or Facebook page and see for yourself.

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It’s quittin’ time. Punch your card, pour a glass of wine and spend a leisurely evening reflecting on all the spare time you have after the kids have gone to bed…

After you make the lunches for school tomorrow, respond to the 24 work e-mails that invaded your inbox during the commute home, and fold the pile of laundry that has been giving you the stink-eye since last weekend. Oh, and don’t forget to clean up the kitchen from dinner, pay bills and go to the store to procure 24 cupcakes for the school bake sale tomorrow (at this point, even Martha would accept a helping hand from her nemesis, Betty Crocker). Looks like Cinderella isn’t going to make it to the ball tonight…again.

You don’t need a Paula Deen look-a-like fairy godmother to whip up nonsensical spells at this point. You’re actually pretty good at working magic of your own. Those human-genome-mapping-scientist-type-people haven’t figured it out yet, but there’s a mutation of the multi-tasking gene that occurs during childbirth. You’ve got the parenthood insanity covered.

What you need is renewal. I’m not talking about a 20 minute bubble bath where the kids start banging on the door 8 minutes into it. You need to cook up something that sticks to your ribs…or at least your frayed, multi-tasking nerves. This weekend, try this:

You don’t have to be a photographer to experience the gifts that are inherent in the art. You also don’t have to “cook up” my recipe with the aim of taking of great photographs. You just need to commit to spending time away from your family in the pursuit of something that has no purpose other than to renew yourself.

For me, as a family photographer, that renewal is found in shooting without purpose and I try to do it almost every Saturday morning. Sometimes I go with friends, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the only time I can squeeze it in is at the crack of dawn. The point is that for two hours, I wander in a world that doesn’t include work, piles of laundry or to-do lists. It usually includes some piece of the world I was too busy to notice during the week.

Cook up a single serving of renewal for yourself this weekend. In doing so, you end up feeding your entire family.

~Ali