I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz about Project 365. Where you take pictures every day for a year?

Every blogger who is any blogger is doing it. At least I think. I don’t know, Kelcey isn’t doing it, as far as I know. But that girl can keep a secret, seeing how she kept her pregnancy (with TWINS!) a secret from the blogosphere until she was 17 weeks along. Doesn’t she know most bloggers announce it as they are peeing on the stick?

So maybe not every blogger is doing it.

But Pauline is. Or she did. Last year. I can’t keep up with everyone, the blogosphere is a huge place. But she did, maybe still is, and it’s very inspiring.

I know Jennifer is doing it.

And Ali too.

Just to name three. It’s all so inspiring!

Except the every day part. For a year. 365 days. Gah!

Try as I might, I don’t always bathe every day. If I’m about to spend the entire day cleaning baseboards, what’s the point? I know myself and to do this picture thing every day is to set myself up to be disappointed in myself. Again.

See, Heather, yet another discipline you can’t master! Just like your love of nachos and pizza! And cleaning your kids plate for them! And putting your dirty jeans in the hamper!

I beat myself up over plenty of trivial things already without adding another whipping post.

But.

BUT.

I have a camera. And it’s a good camera. Just about as good of a camera you can get without going SLR, which I’m not ready for. And I’m feeling the itch to try something new.

Yet I can’t do this picture taking thing every day. For me, that would make the new feel old very quickly. (That’s sounds better than “I’m lazy.”) So instead, I’m making up my own project.

Project 52

For the lazier people with commitment issues. Instead of taking pictures every day, you do it once a week. More if you feel like it, but none of this “every day” pressure.

So I kicked this Project 52 off yesterday with a bang by taking my camera off auto and putting it on AV. I didn’t stop there, though. I actually opened the owner’s manual and finally understand the meaning of F stop and how to change it. Go me! And when I say I understand the meaning of F stop and how to change it, I mean I know how to spin my dial and when the number goes down, the background gets blurry, and when I go up, the background is crisp.

At least I *think* that’s how it goes, but honestly, I’m not entirely sure. Basically, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, I just started this yesterday. I don’t know if 3.5 would be better than 4.5. I just turn the dial and take the damn picture 15 different times with dozens of different F stops.

What’s really funny is that my husband used to be a photographer. Like, professionally. He knows all of this stuff and has tried to teach me, but that was the time we almost divorced. That’s how thick I am about camera mechanics. This stuff just refuses to stick in my brain.

It’s sort of like how laundry mechanics refuse to stick in my husband’s brain.

We all have our shortcomings.

But I’m working to overcome mine, alone. Maybe it’s better that way. With Wally standing over my shoulder, huffing and puffing over my slow uptake, and rolling his eyes behind my back, forgetting I am a mother and now have eyes in the back of my head and see these things, I get flustered. I can’t learn when I’m flustered.

When it’s just me, there is no one to around. Duh, Captain Obvious, of course there is no one around when it’s just you! Appearances do not need to be maintained. I can be just as photo stupid as I want, and it’s okay.

I’d like to share with you the pictures I took yesterday. Not that they are that good, but I want to show them to all the moms of preschoolers who have DSLR cameras.

I want to scare them shitless.

Once your kids are in elementary school, these will be your subjects.

I hope you don’t have nightmares tonight.

P.S. Is it okay to let your abusive mother play Granny to your kids? I gave my opinion (which includes homicide as a possible solution) and you can give yours too.