Photographic Memories

In 1921, Fred R. Barnard published an ad in the trade journal, Printers' Ink, with the headline "One look is worth a thousand words" as a way to promote advertising on street cars. Six years later, in March of 1927, Barnard changed this phrase ever so slightly for a Royal Baking Powder advertisement featured in, none other than, the Printer’s Ink. However, he falsely claimed the revised version was an ancient Chinese proverb, so people would take it more seriously. Because of this, many people wrongly credited Confucius for these inspired words. One hundred years later, the popular maxim, "A picture is worth a thousand words", is still in use today. Our family, like countless others around the world, has its share of special moments captured through a lens. Yet, if I had to describe any of the photos on display in our home, I’m sure I would easily exceed one thousand words just trying to re-create that moment in time. 

While it’s become almost second nature for us to take photos of the moments and the milestones we want to remember, there are plenty of moments we may not want to remember. The fact is, life hits hard sometimes. That has certainly been the case for my family over the past several weeks. Even though our current circumstances aren’t exactly “picture perfect”, I have found inspiration in the family photos that adorn our home. From the photo of our children sitting side by side at the beach when they were children to our 5 generation photo of women, each photo holds a special place in my heart. As I reflected over these framed memories,  I was reminded of...  

the joy of living,

the strength of family

the thrill of conquering a challenge

and the promise that there will be more special moments to fill our home and our lives.

I’ve been attempting to capture such moments for as long as I can remember. I grew up long before the advent of smart phones. In fact, I remember getting a Kodak Pocket Instamatic Camera for my 6th birthday. I felt so grown up taking my camera on my 1st grade field trip, later that same year. After going through an entire roll of film on that one outing, I still had to wait more than a month to get my pictures back. When the photos arrived in the mail, several weeks later, I immediately tore open the envelope only to discover all 24 photos from that field trip were terrible! The images were blurry to the point of being unrecognizable and my finger or thumb was in nearly every shot. I kept 1 or 2 photos. The rest had to be thrown away. 

Today, I use my cell phone camera to capture most of our special moments. Unlike the Kodak Pocket Instamatic Camera of my childhood, I am now able to edit photos right on my phone. I love this feature! With a tap of my finger I can crop a photo to create more balance while focusing on the main object. With a simple swipe of my finger I can erase items from a photo that distract from the moment.

It would be great if these editing features applied to life, as well. I would love to crop the difficult days to create more balance in my life, so I could truly focus on the main objective - survival. It would be even better if I could simply swipe my finger to erase the chaos, stress and frustration that often work in tandem, distracting us from the things that matter most. Unfortunately, there’s no edit feature in life to crop or even erase our difficult moments. We just have to take it one day at a time while looking for...

the joy of living

the strength of family

the thrill of conquering our latest challenge

and the promise of knowing that there will be more special moments to fill our homes and our lives

Despite the challenges my family has been facing lately, we've also had moments worth celebrating. I am thrilled to announce that I just published my 2nd book, The Sneaky Braces! I have been working on this book for over a year. Each book is a labor of love. This one is certainly no different. This fun-loving story highlights our son’s journey with braces when he was a little boy. If you’d like to get your own copy of The Sneaky Braces, or my 1st book The Sneaky Freckle, both are available on Amazon. 

I hope you have a great rest of the week!