Bedtime Stories

I love my job.  Really. I love helping women see their beauty. I love creating unique images that stir the imagination. I love capturing the emotion and romance of a wedding day. I even love the editing process that leaves me waist deep in pixels with a stylus in my hand, rings around my eyes and in desperate need of sugar... I would say Red Bull or a huge coffee, but I don't really do caffeine so a doughnut will have to do it for me.

Sometimes, I get so caught up in everything that running my new business entails, that I forget the other things I love. Like baking bread, playing board games with my kids, or reading to them at night; shoot even having clean clothes feels like a distant memory some days. When I stop to think about the list of things that need to be done in a day, from getting my kiddos ready for school, taking care of our home, my 18 month old, editing, marketing, creating templates, managing finances, home work and boy scouts and the LIST GOES ON...I think I might just like to drown myself in a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

I have a backlog of work to take care of, a HUGE (seriously huge, like, takes up an entire corner of the room and looks like it might eat my bed) pile of laundry to sort, wash, dry, fold and put away, an oven that is desperate for a good cleaning, floors that are longing for the gentle caress of a mop, and a myriad of other things that I *could/should* be doing.

Instead, I read to my boys.

It's been way too long since I read a book to my guys at bedtime. That used to be a nightly ritual for us. I love to read, always have, and I want to foster that love in my boys. It's a quiet time for us to let go of the day, be in each others presence, get lost in a story, and for my most precious pieces of art to listen to the sound of my voice.
For a while now, I have let work the take priority. Starting a new business and managing it and a home and kids on your own is HARD. So I sent the kids to bed with a distracted hug and kiss and mumbled reminder to say their prayers while I sorted and culled images.
There was too much I just _had_to do.

But not tonight.

Tonight I read to my boys, and damn but it was nice.

That was the most relaxed I have felt in weeks. The list will still be there in the morning, but my boys will be another day older and another day closer to not even wanting their mom around at bed time. I might have been gaining an extra 30 minutes to work by sending my boys off to bed, but how much does that really matter?
Evening rituals like bedtime stories will be fondly remembered for the rest of our lives.

I do love my job and will never cease to be honored that people are willing to trust me with their memories.

But tonight was a good reminder to myself and to my boys that I love them MORE.