Ready, Set, Snap: Take Care of "YOU"

This week's homework in Momtographie online is self-care. The assignment...Bake or buy something this week to celebrate my hard work as a Mom and, to take a picture of it of course.

Once you become a Mom your "me time" decreases. Between work and home demands it seems like I am always being pulled in so many directions, and there always seems like there is something that needs to be done. My house is not spotless, there is always laundry to do and put away and floors to sweep...the list goes on and on.

For the past five weeks Momtographie online has been my "ME" time but I usually don't get to it until after my daughter has gone to bed. This has made for some long days but it has been so good for me to be take this course. When I got married I taught my husband the mantra "Happy wife, Happy life". I think the same can be said about the Mommy. I think all Moms, myself, included suffer from time to time for Mommy guilt but we need to realize that it is not wrong to take care of "ourselves" too.

Once this course is over the challenge for me will be to carve out my "me time". It could be booking and going for a massage or a pedicure, going shopping (hello Retail therapy) or just treating myself to a treat.

I love to bake but I haven't done that much of it in recent years. About 1-1/2 years ago I traded in my hand held mixer for a Kitchen aid stand mixer...a grown up mixer. Sad to say but it hasn't seen a lot of use in the past 1-1/2 years. When I do bake I choose to bake muffins, squares or cakes...anything that I can whip up and throw in the oven for 25-30mins. I find baking cookies to be a tedious process as you can't just throw them in the oven and walk away; therefore, I only make cookies once a year, at Christmas time. This might change now that I have a daughter. I look forward to baking with her.

One of my favourite desserts is Strawberry Shortcake...like a lot of my favourite recipes I got this one from my Mom. I only make it in the Summer time. When I read about the theme for this week this dessert came to mind immediately. I had a lot of fun this week coming up with ideas on how I would photograph it.

This week in Momtographie we were introduced to Manual mode. I have played around with Manual mode before and my good pictures were the result of trial and error and I wouldn't be able to explain to anyone how I go the shot or to replicate it. But thanks, to Beryl, I now have the recipe for more successful photographs.

Today was my day to tackle this assignment. Although today was my day off...I sent Rachael to Daycare...insert Mommy guilt. But I knew I wouldn't be able to really play around with this and to spend time with her. I baked the cake last night so this morning all I had to do was whip up the whipping cream and decorate it. I had made a shot list days ago so I knew exactly what pictures I wanted to take.

I was very disappointed today to see that it was overcast and raining. I was hoping for beautiful sunlight to come through the window in my living room. I initially set things up so that my cake was facing the window with me standing with my back to the window. I wasn't happy with the pictures even when I did adjust the light meter. I then moved my cake to my coffee table so that it was now to the side of the window. I was pleasantly surprised that I did not have to accent with lighting. Here are the results.