Art.

I love art.  I love art that inspires me.  I love art that makes me think.  I love art that makes me question myself.  I love art that makes me question my ideals and expectations.  I love art that challenges what I am.  I love art.

I have always seen and been able to appreciate art that does these things to me, and I've always wanted to be able to create art that does the same for others.  I think that I've finally accomplished such a feat!  It took a moment of inner conflict in my own life to be able to create something that might challenge others to think and question themselves.

Here is that work.

The rest of this portfolio can be seen on my Artists Wanted profile, which can be found here.  If this work challenges you, makes you think, or causes you to question your own life, click "Collect Me" to give this portfolio a chance to be seen by the world.

Help my vision be seen.

Serena McRae

Serena McRae

Click this, then vote for me by "Collecting" me, then maybe I'll have a chance for my beloved artwork to be seen in Times Square!  I was inspired with this vision of the idea of identity and race, and I would love for the world to see it!

This is what I wrote about my images:

"Who are we on the inside? Who are we on the outside? Where do we come from, and how does that define us? How could our perceptions of race change, when our inner identity is shifted by new knowledge? These are the questions I asked myself when my family history revealed that I was not genetically made by the culture I had always identified myself with. I was suddenly physically comparing myself to a whole different ethnic group of women. I found myself wondering if I wanted to continue to cling to the culture I knew, or if I wanted to learn more about where my family originally came from.

This portfolio is my expression of the inner search that I experienced at this time in my life. Who we are is who we are, but perceptions and ideas are painted onto us, sometimes by others, and sometimes by ourselves. Sometimes this causes individuals to feel separate from others, and sometimes it allows us to embrace each other. Race and culture cause a beautiful intermingling of people, beliefs and ways of life. Who are you?"

Oldies!

So there's these times in my photographic life where I would say, "Hey peeps! Let me take your pictures, so I can have a blast, and practice my skillz and be awl awesome and stuff fo' realz!"  And then I take their pictures, and never ever ever ever ever ever ever do anything else.  I sit on an emotional treasure trove for someone else, and totally forget about it!  Sometimes I forget about it for a whole year!!!!!!!  And it's pretty much guaranteed that they'll never ever see those images, until they use my greatest weakness against me, free baby stuff!!!  My good, good friend (in fact, one of my favorite friends) recently told me, "I have three bags and a box of baby stuff for you, and I am holding them ransom until I get my pictures!"  So what did I do?  The easiest thing ever, and dug into my archive (there was some serious sifting, due to a whole YEARS worth of pictures), and now she finally has the pictures she's been waiting waayyy too long to have.  Not to mention they were her pregnancy pictures, and she should have gotten them like a week after I took them...  At least before the baby was a year old!  So there's my rant to myself.  And here's my favorite image of the big sister:

Color.

Today was a very big day for this pregnant nester.  Today we painted the accent wall in the nursery!!!
It took a while to choose colors, but eventually we made up our minds.... sort of.  We just decided to pick ALL of our favorites!

Colors are just so delicious.  We looked around the room and picked our favorite items, my dandelion wall art I created some time ago, some picture frames, and the blankets I've been crocheting for the baby (on my morning sick days), and then we used those items to pick matching shades.

Of course, before we did anything, I had to come up with a plan!  That's where my love of Prismacolor came into play.  We looked up the paint samples from Lowe's and figured out how much paint we would need.  Each sample is only $3, so this was proving to be a plan to fit our budget!  Hooray!

From the sketch we figured out how many squares we wanted.  I left my number-savvy husband to figure out the measurements, and then we taped off the squares!  This went super fast with two people.

These paint colors were so delicious I could just eat them!

Indiana kept us company during the whole painting party.

After the proper amounts of coat, the wall was almost finished!

And here's the final product!  We spent $28.00 at Lowe's, 45 minutes of prep, and just about two hours painting, and now we have a SUPER fun accent wall.  We can't help but smile every time we go into this room now!  A little bit of time and COLOR can do SO MUCH for a room!  My strongest word of advice to ANYONE wanting to bring some life into a room: DO NOT BE AFRAID OF COLOR!

Cake.

Wasn't General Conference today wonderful?  I convinced my husband that we just needed to stay home and watch the broadcast, and take it easy.  I convinced him that this was the proper decision, by inviting over a couple of our friends, and promising to bake something.  In a toss-up between from-scratch cinnamon rolls and a rainbow cake, my girlfriend chose rainbow cake!  (Of course, had we asked the husbands I think cinnamon rolls would have won, but of course the girls chose rainbows!)

So we were enlightened by the wonderful words of the prophets, and then we dug into the cake mix, food coloring and of course, the fudge frosting and sprinkles!!!  And this is what came out!

This cake was so fun to make! We did however, only have ONE 6 inch cake round, so we had to do each layer at a time, one at a time, pour it, bake it, cool it, wash it, then start over.  It took forever, but the boys were at the Priesthood session, and we made burritos and then baked and baked and baked.  It was cool.

The first most exciting part was seeing the beautiful, puffy cakes popping out of the oven.  Then when we carved off the tops and got to actually see the pretty colors that was exciting too!

Anyway, last best part, was eating it.

However, the whole, long exciting process was great.  And then after the whole cake was made, we sat down and waited for the men to come home, and while we were waiting, we found my husband's puppy standing up against the counter licking, or rather, slurping the chocolate fudge frosting right off the side.  So we had an excuse to cut open the cake early and see the magic.  A.MAZE.ING!

Pregnant.

So I just sat and flipped (scrolled?) through my blog, and realized that I started it two years ago!  Then I wondered, "Why haven't I written in so long," and I started looking at dates.  That's when I discovered that the last time I blogged (a photo blog) was likely within the week that I conceived.  So I have evidence here, that almost to the week, pregnancy has changed my life, and my priorities, even before I realized it.

I can look back at that time and know that I had something going on.  I remember a couple of wonky periods, raised hopes and negative pregnancy tests.  Then I remember throwing a fit about having gained 30 pounds from giving up the Pill.  I remember stating with conviction that I was giving up, and that the hardships of the reality of womanhood were too much.  I was going to restart the Pill the next morning, no argument from my husband, that was that, and my mind was made.  Somehow he convinced me to take a pregnancy test, "Just to be sure."  So the next day we threw a four-pack into the grocery basket, and that night I took a tinkle, which ended up being the most life changing tinkle I have ever made.

Within seconds the second line appeared, and my heart stopped (they should put a warning about that on the box, I think).  The last thing I expected was to see two lines!  I was taking this test purely to show my husband that now wasn't the time, babies were not in our near future and we needed to give up, and get my waistline back.  That was the purpose of this test.

I stared, shocked, at the test, and he stared, terrified, at me.  We sat there, frozen, for a minute, and then I smiled, probably the biggest smile that's ever graced my face.  I think our conversation followed something like this:

Michael: "What?"
Me: *smile
Michael: *shocked face
Me: *smile
Michael: "Really?!"
Me: *smile

Then we hugged, yelled, ran around, made a few phone calls, assured my mother that it was actually my own pee, promised to use the entire four-pack within the next week "Just to be sure," and somehow, somehow fell asleep that night.  I kept that stinky old test on my counter for the first two weeks, before it occurred to me it probably ought to be thrown away.  I still have a picture of it on my phone.

Movement.

Wow. I began this blog to let my satirical writer-ego out, and discuss the hardships of being a woman.  Now here I am, 21 weeks and 6 days pregnant, and a total sap.  My love for satire is long gone, and my love for this little person inside of me is over-flowing.  All I can think about is how grateful I am to be a healthy woman, with a healthy baby growing inside me, and to have a wonderful man who totally forgives me for spending all day napping and eating, instead of cooking and cleaning.

But let me just get one thing out.  Everyone keeps asking me if I have yet to have felt my baby move.  I ask them what it's supposed to feel like, and I get answers like "Butterflies!" "Fluttering wings!" and "It's so magical, you'll just know!"  Well let me just go out and say that I have definitely been feeling something, and it feels nothing like magic.  What it actually feels like is that my child has a mace and an axe, and a vendetta against me.  Several times a day my breath is ripped from me when I feel a stabbing pain in my cervix, and little pings all around.  I think back to the ultra sound, when I got to watch my precious little one flexing and stretching her arms and legs, and it was so exciting, and now three weeks later those incredible little limbs are taking the breath out of me!  I have yet to feel the "magical flutter."

The first time I felt little Juliet head-butting my cervix I absolutely terrified my husband.  We were driving in the car, perhaps in search of food (like usual, these days) when I gasped for breath and grabbed my crotch, with what I imagine was a terrified look on my face.  My husband, driving, asks me what is wrong, and if I'm okay.  I instantly start to laugh, with pained gasps in-between my girly giggles.  I knew exactly what I was feeling, and was thrilled, despite the incredible discomfort.  For the first time feeling my baby move, when all I had been told up to this point was how magical the feeling would be, it definitely was enough to shock me, and scare the heck out of him.

Oh dear, the satirical writer still lives in me!  Perhaps little Juliet is doing these things to me on purpose, so that I may continue my love of... complaining?  I'm not sure.  Lets hope that this little girl will grow up to enjoy her mommy's sense of humor.  She is definitely giving me plenty to work with.  Right now, actually. Please, dear child, if you decide at any moment to give me the magical flutter instead, I promise to write nice things!