Brooke Tucker Photography Blog

Hi everyone~!  I first have to apologize for my absence around here!  Monday’s are usually reserved for our weekend re-caps whether they be adventurous, fun, silly or boring… I love to share how our family spent the weekend because it feels like an actual real conversation!

Today… this monday right here, will probably be the re-caps of all re-caps as I try my best to honestly and openly (and slightly within appropriate non TMI boundaries hahah) explain why we have been hunkering down here in our house!

I took a little hiatus, if you will, so that I could refocus.. or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!  I needed some time, we all needed some time, to understand and adjust to Tuck’s new job and his crazy schedule or lack there of~

It’s been a HUGE transition for us and some of our days over here have been cloudy and rough.  Other days we have been in true survival mode just trying to get from one day to the other as we learn each other in this new “structure”.

If I’m going to be completely honest though… most of it has been ME doing what I always do…  refuse the change if it’s somewhat scary!

I am a planner friends!  I LOVE schedules and plans and calendars!  I love to highlight things and go over the plans and make more plans FOR those plans!  So when something happens to disrupt what I have in my mind is our “plan” or “schedule”… I FREAK OUT!

I know I’m not alone here!  Sometimes though, doesn’t it just feel like it?!

Tuck’s new schedule isn’t quite what we planned for when we both excitedly jumped on this new opportunity!  It’s more time away from the family than we would like right now and for me… someone that is HUGE into family and spending time together.. this small adjustment FLIPPED ME THE F*** OUT (excuse my language!  haha)

We’ve done deployments over here and we’ve done travel, but you know how it goes friends:  your mind and heart is set on something and then when that changes sometimes we just PUSH BACK… and that’s what I’ve been doing!

I’m not the only one over here… the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and our little man has a personality that is exactly like me~!

So I’ve been away for a while just “being a mom” which is honestly the most important job in the world!

I realized recently (just this past week in fact) that once I let go of all the things that I felt like “I should be…”  or that “I needed to be doing…”  to keep up in this crazy race of all my many worlds (photography, les mills, small business owner, mom, wife, etc) and started to just actually ENJOY the seconds as they ticked by with some grace and forgiveness… adjustment and acceptance just began to happen!

I am constantly learning new things about myself all the time but over the past two years the biggest things I’ve learned about myself is that I have a tendency to knee jerk react and it takes me a few weeks to come down and let go of whatever control I thought that I might have.  I also learned that I hold some pretty high expectations for myself and sometimes the juggling of all my amazing roles that I am blessed to have combined with the pressure and expectation I put on myself can just be overwhelming.  I am learning that I need to practice some patience with myself and learn that some days it’s OK to just let go, give in, take a break and BREATHE!

Real is Better Than Perfect is something that means more to me than just my business mantra and more than just words typed on the screen or printed on a page.  It’s the breath I take in and the exhale I let out constantly reminding MYSELF that I don’t have to do it all or be “it” all.  That each day is perfect for what it is whether we do something amazing or we just breathe in the seconds with our little ones hunkered down!

This past weekend, the three of us spent time together as a family and we spent as much time together packing in FUN!  Fun doesn’t mean that we had crazy adventures and lived wildly and boldly.  Fun for us meant that we laughed together, had many tickle fights, watched many duck dives from Linc and splashed away at our hearts desire!  We ate pizza and went to target JUST for the walk around and the pretzel and coke!

I have also learned that I need a few things for my heart and my soul and my sanity!

• Time to myself!  This is hard to come by when it’s you and your three year old.  The bathroom isn’t even a sacred space so time alone is a hefty request!  I used to feel selfish for needing this and honestly I still do!  I also know that if I don’t carve some time out for myself to just “be” or decompress then my patience is the first thing to go!  Luckily teaching Body Flow has been a saving grace for me.  A girlfriend of mine made a joke to her kids one day that they needed to go find a place to chill or “namaste out”.  This is exactly what I get to do when I teach Body Flow.  My class isn’t my own… it’s not FOR me, it’s for my participants and for my members but when we get to the relaxation and meditation portion that is my chance to “namaste out” folks!  And I adore that time I get to teach, connect and be with other people!
• MUSIC:  Music is something that I have always connected with deeply.  As a former dancer music and movement lives in you and it never goes away!  I forgot how meaningful background music can be.  I lost that somehow when I had Linc which is CRAZY because this kid loves to move and dance!    Every Monday morning I have the same routine that helps me out of my morning monday “funk”.  I play the music as loudly as possible once I am alone in the house and I clean.  I know it sounds mundane and boring… but what you don’t realize is that the music fills me up and I find myself (former ballerina and all) jumping and dancing all over the house just moving and getting lost!  It’s such a simple thing but it makes such a huge difference!
• To keep my camera up and clicking!  Sometimes it’s easy for me to say photography is the one thing that I can put on hold right now for my family, but I know when I do that I lose my space to create something.  That need to create something I truly believe is in all of us and we can’t just shut that down.  I always have to remember that whether I’m documenting moments for my clients or for my own family… I have to keep myself behind that lens!

I know and embrace that I AM the mad hatter in this house and sometimes I feel like the hatter at Alice’s tea party with all the tea cups trying to keep them all from smashing as others sing and dance and parade around me.  I worry about everything and anything and I’m always trying to pick up everyone’s pieces and put them back together fitting ever so perfectly!  This used to bother me before even though I would make a joke about it and laugh it off.  Now I realize that the Mad Hatter is truly someone I can relate to and actually love to be.  In this crazy Alice in Wonderland world that I live in… I need to be a fun slightly crazy/mad character in order to keep up with it all and if I can do it singing and dancing…. all the better!

Here are a few pictures from our weekend together!