There have been a few scary moments in my life. I had a run in with a bear in the woods of
upstate New York, a health scare when Kenzie told me her water broke at 30
weeks with Callie, and that one time my mom and dad found out I took their new
Excursion 4 wheeling at the local school soccer field. None of that compares with an event last
month where my wife was on the floor in the toy room holding an exacto knife
asking me to help her measure a straight line so that she could get rid of the
carpet. Let me explain…
A few months ago,
It didn’t fizzle. It
exploded.
She approached a talented photographer in the area that she
was friends with and asked her if she would be interested in partnering with
her in the adventure. The photographer
had been thinking about doing the same thing for a long time and was completely
interested and wanted to do it as soon as possible. They started right away and began scouting
out locations in the area where they could open their studio. They were pretty discouraged when they
started seeing the prices and decided that they could just use the front room
of our house and set up a studio there.
Lots of plans were made and I tried to be supportive, but
Kenzie had me move out all of the furniture out of the toy room and then when
she was huddled over the carpet with the razor blade it all suddenly sank
in. This was happening. My wife was starting a photo studio. I didn’t say much of anything that day,
because I don’t think it would have been very nice if I did. I did roll up the carpet, take it out to the
car, and get rid of it. I helped pull
nails from old wood, re-do wiring, lay flooring, and take care of the rug rats
so that Kenzie could do the bulk of her work.
She worked hard. Very
hard. And she turned the front room into
something pretty cool. I learned a lot
the past month though. I learned that I
needed to actually trust and support my partner. I told her that I thought this was a good
idea and that I supported her, but when it actually came time for her to cut
the carpet I realized that it was just lip service at that point. I needed to actually trust and support her.
I have been married to Kenzie for 9 years. In those 9 years, I have seen her do
incredible things and consider myself very lucky to be married to such an
incredible person. She is very selfless,
giving, and she invests too much energy, time, and love into her kids. She has a very tender heart, a sharp mind,
and she is always supportive of me when I pursue something. She never nags me and only helps me to be a
better person. I did a lot of reflection
during my “quiet” time (when she first started on this project) and realized I
needed to reflect some of these qualities back to her. I have been working hard on it and I think
that she is going to do a phenomenal job on the photo studio.
I have no idea where we will be with this whole project in a
few months. We will either be living in
a van down by the river with expensive camera equipment in the back of the van
or we will be on our yacht living large.
Either way, I already learned a ton from this experience.
Kenzie – if you read your own blog (I hope you do) I think
you are fantastic and I will actually support you in the future no matter what
you want to do. Anytime you want to rip
up the carpet, I will roll it up for you and illegally dump it for you.
Her actual photos are at www.frontlightingphoto.com
