Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Queen Mom
So I know that it has been a very long time since I have blogged. I’ve slapped my own hands so you don’t feel like you have to. Although I don’t like excuses, my priority for the past few months has been fulfilling the duties of Queen Mom. Now, I said it once before that I have been a queen myself (holding the exact same title at the exact same age as my daughter), a pageant photographer, a pageant director, and a pageant judge – but nothing is harder than being a queen mom.
This story of my Queen Brittany’s preparation for the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant and it didn’t start last summer, it started 20 years ago. In 1991, I was the Director of the Clinton County Fair Pageant and pregnant with my second child when I traveled to the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant with my first Queen, Miss Sharilyn Criley. So, I truly believe that she was being prepared for this event long before she was born. Up until the age of 9 or so she watched me plan and prepare girls for the county pageant and state pageant. You see, Brittany is the kind of kid who always observed and took everything in. She was a visual learner, we knew this from little on. She did, however, have a bit of a temper in her early years. I remember having to tell her “no crying, no whining, and no throwing fits” before we would go anywhere. As long as she knew the rules, she was fine, but she was certainly going to show her personality wherever she went. Her grandmother had a way to teach her lessons, she used to teach her patience by telling her that we were working on her shopping skills, and tell her to “suffer in silence for beauty sake” . Her grandfather taught her, and all of us, that “the impossible just takes a little longer”. Brittany always had her own sense of style, she loved to dress herself from a very young age. It didn’t really matter if it matched or if it were stylish, it just mattered if she liked it. One of her early loves was shoes, she dearly loved shoes, and she loved to dress up and she loved hats. What a wonderful, quirky, fun, humorous, creative kid she was. Now, I could go through the years of grade school and jr high school and tell you about all the normal “fitting in” trials and tribulations of growing up, but I’m sure that many of us have a carbon copy story of girls who had the “better than” attitude. Once she got to high school, Brittany was slowly becoming Queen Brittany. Her style began to show, she was definitely unique and became very organized. She never really cared about the drama of high school. She suffered with acne, sometimes very severe acne. She went through several doctors, medications and topical treatments and two courses of acutane. For anyone who knows the routine, knows that each treatment is 5 brutal months of medication and staying out of the sun and side affects. The first course gave her relief for about 2 years, the second, not even a year. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that any of this was in preparation for the pageant - I am certainly not one of those “toddlers in tiaras” moms, this had to do with the self- confidence and comfort of my daughter. Not much consideration had really been given to the pageant thing except, if it is something she wanted to do, she would definitely wait until she has had at least a year of college. As a senior in high school, my sister, Karen, my niece, Katie, Brittany and I traveled to Springfield, to the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant because it was the 50th Anniversary and past queens were invited to attend. This is the first time Brittany and Katie got a taste of what happened at the state level. Katie decided to run in the Clinton County Fair pageant that year and did a marvelous job. We got to be a part of “Team Katie” that year. Brittany loved everything about it but still hadn’t completely decided to run the following year. So she began the first year of college and living away from home in the dorms. College was a great experience for her. One class that helped her greatly was a speech class. After, finishing with that class, she had the confidence she needed to speak in front of an audience. In January of 2010 Brittany decided she definitely wanted to be in the pageant. And, so the 6 month preparation for the pageant began. The dress was the first obstacle, lots of on-line searching and a few shopping trips later, we found “The Dress” . Just like when she was little, I could tell exactly what dress was her favorite when she put it on. She had a great group of people to help her and I found my place as coach, mom, and paparazzi. We stayed up nights working on interview questions. We practiced modeling and talking on the microphone, rehearsing the speech till it was perfect. Brittany really loved every minute of the competition. She made lists and crossed off every task. She was determined, but very aware of the competition. Most of all she had fun and it showed. She was absolutely radiant on stage and nailed her speech, and she walked away with the title of Miss Clinton County Fair. She had no idea that this was just the beginning of the fun. She soon found out that the title is what you make it. She participated in every facet of the fair, from entering her artwork and taking blue ribbons to pulling a truck in the truck pull and taking 7th place. She would stop at every chance to have a picture taken or talk to a new friend. She attended every fair pageant that she possibly could, (one day she even went to two), to promote our fair. She has truly enjoyed every minute of being the Fair Queen from attending the State Fair to being a guest speaker at the Jr. High School for Red Ribbon Week to participating in parades around the county. She became a bargain shopper, finding just the right dress, shoes and accessories for every function. With help she put together the most amazing scrapbook of her reign, at it took top honors at the Southern Zone Meeting of the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs.
It was time to begin preparations for the big event. Shopping, working on a speech topic and practicing interviews. I remember telling her after Christmas that the pageant doctor called and prescribed 2 interviews a day and without hesitation she said – and the side effects are upset stomach and nausea. We had six months to prepare and all the sudden we were down to two weeks, how does that happen? There was something to do every day in order to be ready. Speech – check, gown – check, swim suit ( or as I refer to it- a costume for the beauty and physic portion of the competition, because a swim suit doesn’t cost that much) – check, production number dress – check, additional clothing for rehearsals – check, shoes and accessories – check, one nervous girl – check, one proud mom – check. As it turned out her Brother Andrew’s fiancé Andrea works at an amazing salon Dominic Michael in St. Louis. It is on a list of the 100 best salons in the nation by ELLE magazine. Brittany was able to have her make- up done professionally by a make- up artist. Sarah is absolutely brilliant at her work! It was the last piece of confidence that she needed. At that time we were still trying to figure out how 6 months turned into 2 weeks. Queen Sharilyn had promised to join us to do hair for the trip to Springfield, even though she had recently moved to South Carolina. I asked Brittany if she had heard about the pageant contestant who had her make-up done by one of the top salons in the U.S. and flew her hair stylist in from South Carolina just for the state pageant. Her response was: NO WAY, I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT, oh wait…..that’s me . It was just a funny circumstance.
We packed and packed and packed. We even had to send some stuff up in another vehicle, but we were convinced that we had everything. And so the trip begins.
To be continued
This story of my Queen Brittany’s preparation for the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant and it didn’t start last summer, it started 20 years ago. In 1991, I was the Director of the Clinton County Fair Pageant and pregnant with my second child when I traveled to the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant with my first Queen, Miss Sharilyn Criley. So, I truly believe that she was being prepared for this event long before she was born. Up until the age of 9 or so she watched me plan and prepare girls for the county pageant and state pageant. You see, Brittany is the kind of kid who always observed and took everything in. She was a visual learner, we knew this from little on. She did, however, have a bit of a temper in her early years. I remember having to tell her “no crying, no whining, and no throwing fits” before we would go anywhere. As long as she knew the rules, she was fine, but she was certainly going to show her personality wherever she went. Her grandmother had a way to teach her lessons, she used to teach her patience by telling her that we were working on her shopping skills, and tell her to “suffer in silence for beauty sake” . Her grandfather taught her, and all of us, that “the impossible just takes a little longer”. Brittany always had her own sense of style, she loved to dress herself from a very young age. It didn’t really matter if it matched or if it were stylish, it just mattered if she liked it. One of her early loves was shoes, she dearly loved shoes, and she loved to dress up and she loved hats. What a wonderful, quirky, fun, humorous, creative kid she was. Now, I could go through the years of grade school and jr high school and tell you about all the normal “fitting in” trials and tribulations of growing up, but I’m sure that many of us have a carbon copy story of girls who had the “better than” attitude. Once she got to high school, Brittany was slowly becoming Queen Brittany. Her style began to show, she was definitely unique and became very organized. She never really cared about the drama of high school. She suffered with acne, sometimes very severe acne. She went through several doctors, medications and topical treatments and two courses of acutane. For anyone who knows the routine, knows that each treatment is 5 brutal months of medication and staying out of the sun and side affects. The first course gave her relief for about 2 years, the second, not even a year. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that any of this was in preparation for the pageant - I am certainly not one of those “toddlers in tiaras” moms, this had to do with the self- confidence and comfort of my daughter. Not much consideration had really been given to the pageant thing except, if it is something she wanted to do, she would definitely wait until she has had at least a year of college. As a senior in high school, my sister, Karen, my niece, Katie, Brittany and I traveled to Springfield, to the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant because it was the 50th Anniversary and past queens were invited to attend. This is the first time Brittany and Katie got a taste of what happened at the state level. Katie decided to run in the Clinton County Fair pageant that year and did a marvelous job. We got to be a part of “Team Katie” that year. Brittany loved everything about it but still hadn’t completely decided to run the following year. So she began the first year of college and living away from home in the dorms. College was a great experience for her. One class that helped her greatly was a speech class. After, finishing with that class, she had the confidence she needed to speak in front of an audience. In January of 2010 Brittany decided she definitely wanted to be in the pageant. And, so the 6 month preparation for the pageant began. The dress was the first obstacle, lots of on-line searching and a few shopping trips later, we found “The Dress” . Just like when she was little, I could tell exactly what dress was her favorite when she put it on. She had a great group of people to help her and I found my place as coach, mom, and paparazzi. We stayed up nights working on interview questions. We practiced modeling and talking on the microphone, rehearsing the speech till it was perfect. Brittany really loved every minute of the competition. She made lists and crossed off every task. She was determined, but very aware of the competition. Most of all she had fun and it showed. She was absolutely radiant on stage and nailed her speech, and she walked away with the title of Miss Clinton County Fair. She had no idea that this was just the beginning of the fun. She soon found out that the title is what you make it. She participated in every facet of the fair, from entering her artwork and taking blue ribbons to pulling a truck in the truck pull and taking 7th place. She would stop at every chance to have a picture taken or talk to a new friend. She attended every fair pageant that she possibly could, (one day she even went to two), to promote our fair. She has truly enjoyed every minute of being the Fair Queen from attending the State Fair to being a guest speaker at the Jr. High School for Red Ribbon Week to participating in parades around the county. She became a bargain shopper, finding just the right dress, shoes and accessories for every function. With help she put together the most amazing scrapbook of her reign, at it took top honors at the Southern Zone Meeting of the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs.
It was time to begin preparations for the big event. Shopping, working on a speech topic and practicing interviews. I remember telling her after Christmas that the pageant doctor called and prescribed 2 interviews a day and without hesitation she said – and the side effects are upset stomach and nausea. We had six months to prepare and all the sudden we were down to two weeks, how does that happen? There was something to do every day in order to be ready. Speech – check, gown – check, swim suit ( or as I refer to it- a costume for the beauty and physic portion of the competition, because a swim suit doesn’t cost that much) – check, production number dress – check, additional clothing for rehearsals – check, shoes and accessories – check, one nervous girl – check, one proud mom – check. As it turned out her Brother Andrew’s fiancé Andrea works at an amazing salon Dominic Michael in St. Louis. It is on a list of the 100 best salons in the nation by ELLE magazine. Brittany was able to have her make- up done professionally by a make- up artist. Sarah is absolutely brilliant at her work! It was the last piece of confidence that she needed. At that time we were still trying to figure out how 6 months turned into 2 weeks. Queen Sharilyn had promised to join us to do hair for the trip to Springfield, even though she had recently moved to South Carolina. I asked Brittany if she had heard about the pageant contestant who had her make-up done by one of the top salons in the U.S. and flew her hair stylist in from South Carolina just for the state pageant. Her response was: NO WAY, I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT, oh wait…..that’s me . It was just a funny circumstance.
We packed and packed and packed. We even had to send some stuff up in another vehicle, but we were convinced that we had everything. And so the trip begins.
To be continued
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Do you know what the word photograph means? Basically, (Photo + graph) Photo ~ of or produced by light and graph ~something that writes or records. So photography means writing with light. But that definition just isn't really good enough for me. I think of photography as the only way of stopping time. Sometimes the only way I clearly remember a time in my life or a feeling is by looking at a photograph. How else would we remember what we looked like as a baby, or how would I know that my sone looks a lot like my grandfather when they were the same age. The old expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" is how I started a school report when I was in Mrs. O'Neils sixth grade english class. Yes, I was completely amazed by photography in the 6th grade. That's what 12 years old? But the first time I realized that I wanted to use a camera was in the 4th grade. At that time (and I'm not revealing my age) buying the camera or using mom's was not the expense, buying film, flash bulbs, and processing was the expensive part. I came from a family of 6 kids ( you do the math). It took me and my brother Jeff until we were in high school before we bought our first 35mm camera. So what is it that sucked me in to this passion? Have you ever looked at an old photo - i mean really, really, old photo. It's amazing! How did they do it? How did they figure it out? It blows my mind, but imagine any small part of this world without photography, or show me a profession, any profession that doesn't use photography, or imagine education without photography, or the internet or newspapers or books....i could go on and on. Photography can be a vacation for the mind. This was very evident to me when I was younger and we had a family friend buy the name of Ruby, Ruby was a lady that used to come to our house to have my mom do her hair. Ruby worked at Scott Air Force Base and brought us paper every time she got her hair cut or permed, I know right? paper doesn't seem like a big deal but this paper was special. This was tractor feed paper that was bout 11x17 inches (each piece). On one side it had reports of some kind. Truth be known if I had tried to figure out what was on the printed side - i may have been a aerospace engineer rather than a photographer (i'm still convinced that there were military secrets encoded into those lines of text) but I focused on the blank side of the paper. The possibilites were endless........one blank canvas after another that could go on and on. I think this is where my artistic side came out. As cool as the endless supply of paper was - there was one other thing. Ruby had a subscription to National Geographic Magazine and guess who got the mags when she was done reading them? We did! Talk about a vacation for the mind! I traveled all over the world through the pages of National Geographic. I imagined myself as a photo-journalist and I truely believe that my love of travel and photography was born in those pages. Ruby died before I realized how much these things affected me and I never really got to thank her for the gifts, well I mean, we thanked her - "Kids, what do you tell Ruby?" In unison "Thank you Ruby" Thank you Angel Ruby. I think I'm going to try to find her grave this week, just because.
I also need to give a shout out to my friends who recently graduated High School. Congratulations to all of you! I'm very proud! BTW the graduate show will be up and running tomorrow night - if it kills me.
I also got to work on a very rewarding project over the weekend. I helped a very good friend with a.. hmmmm what would you call it?, I guess a feng shui / remodel project. For anyone who deosn't know me - I love to do remodel projects. I'm always trying to fix or change something. I'm pretty good at carpentry and plumbing, and so-so at electrical work. I even have my own tools. I owe this facet of my personality to my parents and my willingness to try anything to my dad. "The impossible just takes a little longer." ~ Gene Kuhl
Thanks to Shelley who recently discovered my blog! Thanks for the kind words and thanks for letting me know that you read it. I love you!
So what's next?
Stay tuned, with me - you never know.
LoJ
I also need to give a shout out to my friends who recently graduated High School. Congratulations to all of you! I'm very proud! BTW the graduate show will be up and running tomorrow night - if it kills me.
I also got to work on a very rewarding project over the weekend. I helped a very good friend with a.. hmmmm what would you call it?, I guess a feng shui / remodel project. For anyone who deosn't know me - I love to do remodel projects. I'm always trying to fix or change something. I'm pretty good at carpentry and plumbing, and so-so at electrical work. I even have my own tools. I owe this facet of my personality to my parents and my willingness to try anything to my dad. "The impossible just takes a little longer." ~ Gene Kuhl
Thanks to Shelley who recently discovered my blog! Thanks for the kind words and thanks for letting me know that you read it. I love you!
So what's next?
Stay tuned, with me - you never know.
LoJ
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Inspiration comes in many forms and fashions. For instance, it could be
attending a graduation ceremony, not because you have to, but because you want to, or realizing how many truely amazing people you have in your life, or when a 13 year old friend releases her first CD and you just know there will be so much success in her life or it could be seeing an old friend for the first time in a long time, or it could be sharing meal with your BFF, or making someone smile or having a fun conversation with people you hardly know and end up doing crazy cheers and random clapping or doing something that just feels right or seeing an old photograph that brings back great memories.......I could go on and on. (Karen, i think i accomplished the longest run on sentence) I'm so inspired right now i feel like i'm in a dream. Where do you find your inspiration? Find the little things in life, find the positive, and be inspired.
Congratulations to the Albers Elementary graduates and the Carlyle Jr. High graduates. Nicely done! Shoot for the stars! I'm so excited for all of you on the new chapter in your lives. Thank you for letting me be a small part of your world.
All my best to Morgan Siever on the realease of her CD. Morgan, thank you for letting be a part of your project. I love your CD! Beautifully played.
Brian and Tracy, good fishing tomorrow.
Brooke, your smile brightened my day and last but certainly not least, Sharon, thanks for sharing dinner with me. It's always more fun to share.
It's forever now.
LoJ
attending a graduation ceremony, not because you have to, but because you want to, or realizing how many truely amazing people you have in your life, or when a 13 year old friend releases her first CD and you just know there will be so much success in her life or it could be seeing an old friend for the first time in a long time, or it could be sharing meal with your BFF, or making someone smile or having a fun conversation with people you hardly know and end up doing crazy cheers and random clapping or doing something that just feels right or seeing an old photograph that brings back great memories.......I could go on and on. (Karen, i think i accomplished the longest run on sentence) I'm so inspired right now i feel like i'm in a dream. Where do you find your inspiration? Find the little things in life, find the positive, and be inspired.
Congratulations to the Albers Elementary graduates and the Carlyle Jr. High graduates. Nicely done! Shoot for the stars! I'm so excited for all of you on the new chapter in your lives. Thank you for letting me be a small part of your world.
All my best to Morgan Siever on the realease of her CD. Morgan, thank you for letting be a part of your project. I love your CD! Beautifully played.
Brian and Tracy, good fishing tomorrow.
Brooke, your smile brightened my day and last but certainly not least, Sharon, thanks for sharing dinner with me. It's always more fun to share.
It's forever now.
LoJ
Thursday, May 20, 2010
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