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Filtering by Category: through the lens

through the lens

liz lamoreux

 

weekend 

be right here

 

bakery goodness 

weekend 

weekend 

weekend 

weekend

weekend

 

weekend 

weekend

 

in the midst of the grumps and the oh my gosh please use your words and the what do you mean the internet is out all over the city and the grumps again and the other things that make up pieces of any given day, there was a remembering that getting out of the house gets us back into our hearts.

every. single. time.

(jonny turned one year older this weekend and i got him an iphone [i kind of want the photos he's going to take with it so i had a bit of an agenda]. you can follow him on instagram @joncharles.)

witnessing the story (the gift of this moment)

liz lamoreux

 

gosh I love living here

overlooking puget sound . may 17

Life around here feels like a daily journey of holding the beauty in one hand and the intensity that is life...that is parenting and marriage and health stuff and running my own business in limited hours and product launches and collaborations...that is navigating the energy of the Internet...that is remembering self-care and kindness in the midst of it all...that is doing the best I can...in the other.

As I thought about what to post here today, I headed over to Flickr to see if there was a photo that would inspire me to write something in this space. As I looked through the Instagram photos I posted last week, I realized that almost every day, I used what I call my "In This Moment" practice to keep myself grounded through it all.

This practice is about taking a photo to capture a moment + writing down a few words to pair with the photo. But it really is about using your camera and a few words as a meditation to be more present to the simple (and sometimes profound) moments that make up your daily life. It's about letting the camera get you out of your head and into your awareness of the beauty and realness and joy and sometimes even sadness that punctuates your life. It's about writing down field notes that tell the stories so you will remember. It's about being your own witness.

The words I wrote down a couple of days after taking the photo of Puget Sound at the top of this post:

I sat in the car with the windows rolled down while she softly snored in the backseat. The birds were chattering, the waves were lapping far below me as two boats sailed by. This moment was so excruciatingly simple + beautiful that my only option was to take out my notebook and write a poem. Poetry + getting out of my head saves me every time.

Sometimes I write a little paragraph like this, but most of the time, I write simple thoughts and short sentences.

 

this bringing me flowers stage is awesome

What I know: This bringing me flowers stage is awesome.

 

I am 100% as tired as I look (hairstyle by EJ)

I am 100% as tired as I look, yet here I am soaking up the sun and doing my best.
(hairstyle by EJ)

 

soaking up the rich deep real beauty that is a handwritten letter

In this moment, I am soaking up the rich deep real beauty that is a handwritten letter.

 

long day. just being right here.

truth = long day. just being right here. leaning into trust.

 

today was a softer day because the iPhone stayed in my purse

today was a softer day because the iPhone stayed in my purse.

Looking through these photos today, this is what I know: This practice isn't about the perfect photo. It's about taking a moment to capture your world (yourself) and then writing down a piece of the story. The photo above of Ellie and me isn't the best photo ever, but I love it for lots of reasons. Of course, it looks very sweet...this mother and daughter with flowers in their hair cuddled up together. And the moment was very sweet. But the moments surrounding it were full of the intensity of Ellie wearing a heart monitor for 24 hours and the reality of her heart issues right in my face every time I looked at it paired with the awesome yet exhausting always on the move insistent teething toddler that she is right now. I wanted to capture pieces of all of this realness in the short words I paired with this photo.

Before I decided to write this post, when I was looking through these photos + words, I began to feel the space inside me expand with each breath. Honestly, I began to feel gentler with myself, which is why I decided to write this post today. I was experiencing a shift from listing the ways I am not enough (which was what I was beginning to do this morning) to seeing myself and knowing I am...I am...I am...

*****

In "The Gift of This Moment," I dive deeper into this practice. I share stories and prompts and other good things to guide you into developing your own "In This Moment" practice so that you will begin to integrate it into your daily creative self-care. 

One reason I do this practice is because I want to remember. Because I would love to look through an album of photos from the everyday moments of my own childhood and read my mother's words about the beautiful, real, hard, joyful days we experienced as a family. I would love to spend an evening with a friend and be given the gift of sitting together sifting through pages of her photos + words to get to know her even more. These days, so many of our photos stay on our computers, and I want to hold them in my hands and read pieces of the stories that make up this crazy life.

This leads me to one of my favorite parts of this kit: You will print out your photos and put them into the In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album and pair them with your field notes so that you can hold in your hands the evidence of the ways you tell story. I imagine you out there in your corner of the world carrying your Field Journal with you and capturing a photo and then jotting down a few lines in your journal because you don't want to forget how you found the space to be a witness to your own story.

The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit is available for pre-order and will ship in June. Each week leading up to its release, I will be sharing a bit more about the pieces you will find inside; you can read all the posts about it here

a girl and a remote

liz lamoreux

Sunday evening was one of those nothing is going right because i am almost two sort of evenings for Ellie Jane.

Until she befriended mama's camera remote.

Somewhere in in the midst of figuring out how to stand right in front of the camera and hit the button and "what is mama doing?" and "up up!," she found her giggle again.

(a big thank you to meredith and kristin and their now you workshop, which inspired me to take these photos today.)

a week in the life

liz lamoreux

 

a week in the life

 

Ali's Week in the Life project makes me so happy every year. Last year was the first year I participated, and I did it by taking photos each day and sharing them on the blog. I think I am actually going to make a little book of them soon since I love all that was captured in that week last year (and how it represents so much of last summer).

This week, I thought I was going to be traveling home in the middle of the week, so I didn't plan to participate because I knew I would put too much pressure on myself to take photos during a time that would be stressful enough (i.e. traveling with a toddler). But then we stayed another week here at my mom's. But I spent most of the week working and didn't take too many photos that weren't self-portraits. BUT somewhere along the way I realized that what I was sharing on Instagram really was representative of our time here and it really made me happy. (Of course you will see that Ellie's grandparents are not in the photos above as I am respecting their privacy.)

So this is going to be the Week in the Life mosaic I add to Project Life when I catch up when we get home. Makes me smile so much.

And can I just tell you yet again how much I love Instagram? Seriously. It is beyond (BEYOND) my favorite social media site. I love seeing the photos that other's share, and I so appreciate the kind words and hearts people share with my glimpses from here. I love it. Like big. And it is an awesome way to keep up with my friends and kindreds and with people in the ecourses I am taking and teaching. (You can find me @lizelayne.)

I also really love sending postcards (to family and to myself) of my Instagram photos using Postagram. Are you using it yet? The quality is fantastic. And it is an easy quick way to send photos off to grandparents AND a fun size photo to add to Project Life or other journaling projects (as in they are finding there way into my Smash journals!). Just learned about their credits program because Sincerely (the parent company) sent me an email letting me know since I am buying so many. Love that kind of customer service.

Hope the sun is shining in your corner of the world...

Blessings,

Liz