If you are a mom (homeschooling, tired, have more than one kid, or have one kid that acts like three) and you need new eyes, this is the program for you. It’s a way to see the beauty all around you after one of your kids threw up all over you at 2 am and you are too exhausted to clean it up and pass out on your bed kind of eyes. It’s too easy to give in and say you want a Calgon take me away kind of moment. It’s a more FUN thing to look at your dirty, toys scattered all over, Mac n Cheese life with a brand new perspective; to be glad in the midst of turmoil. For those just coming on board, I am writing this in the midst of a divorce, so I more than anyone need to keep a positive perspective.
So if you are ready for a new perspective on your own life, then let’s go. Please remember that this does NOT come overnight, but through progressively looking for things that you don’t see.
In today’s activity, I want you to look for something that isn’t there ( but really is).
Today is National Camera Day.
I think this is PERFECT for looking at things a new way. With the invention of camera phones, you already have the tool to freshen your old perspective.
Look at the photo below, what do you see? Do you see the truck? the trees? the amazing sunshine from above?
Now tell me what you don’t see. Where is the life? the people? the animals? Are they there, but hidden? Do you see the guy taking a nap in the back of the truck with his cowboy hat on his face? Do you see the deer hiding in the trees off in the distance?
Today, I want you to take any camera you like and as you go about the day, encourage yourself and your kids to take a situation (at least 5 today) and look at it from a different perspective. Capture that on camera. Maybe get at a different angle. Up high, maybe down low. Watch how something watches something else. I am always fascinated at how our dog perceives the rabbits in the yard. It’s how HE sees them that makes me giggle.
This exercise yielded huge results for us one year. Several years ago, A. was running around snapping photos with an old camera of mine completely obsessed with our dog who was having nothing to do with her. He was a guard dog after all and all the paparazzi attention was boring to him. She clicked several hundred pictures of him and the cat, both really too busy with the chore of holding down the grass in the back yard so the bunnies didn’t haul it off in their stomachs.
Several weeks later, the annual fair rolled around and A. desperately wanted to enter a photo. We looked through the photos that she had taken that day and found one that caught our eye. Please remember, these are her photos, with her perspective of our lazy animals. The photo below is the one that she entered in the fair. She took home two trophies (Best Youth Photography & People’s Choice Award) and a blue ribbon. I love the perspective that she has of him, but to GET it, she had to get down on her hands and knees to see it.
Whatever you do, look at it from a different way and HAVE FUN!
A. Pumpkin Recommends…
This is one of my favorite perspective books and of course it is old enough, you might not be able to get it at your library. So today, I’m gonna let you slide and let it be read TO you. I found this cute little girl on Youtube doing a fantastic job of it.
Eggbert: The Slightly Cracked Egg
(cause really, we are all a little cracked, if you know what I mean)