"In Her Shoes" a conversation with Amanda of The Habit of Being

Today I welcome Amanda from {The Habit Of Being}. I found about about her blog through her weekly photo series Weekending. Her writings are full of humor and honesty. Plus she's from New Mexico like me, so we had a lot in common.


They say it takes 21 days to create a habit; have you ever purposely tried to start a habit?

Yes, many times! When I moved to New Orleans from Albuquerque, I found that I wasn't as active and didn't have as many opportunities to be active so I tried to become a runner. I hated it. Instead I picked up my yoga practice again. It's been a constant in my life since my undergrad days, one I welcome. Currently, I'm trying to get in the habit of writing every day. Not terribly easy with five kids but I'm trying, even if it's a measly ten minutes while I'm waiting for water to boil.

The very first thing I noticed about your blog is that you write all the posts in lower case. Why is that?
It started out of practicality. When I first started my knitting blog years ago, I was very pregnant and soon had a wee babe in my arms at all times (I take attachment parenting to an extreme) and pecking around the keyboard with one hand was much easier if I didn't fool around with capital letters. I am very well versed in grammar and The Elements of Style so it isn't as though I don't know better. I still do it because it is a personal preference and one of aesthetics. I find lowercase letters to be delightful.

As a mama to five kids I’m sure food is always on your mind. What are your family's favorite go to snacks?

Excellent question and one I seem to be struggling with lately. We've been following a Traditional Foods diet for many years and are currently deep in the throes of changing our diet to be more in line with a Paleo diet. Previously I would have said, muffins made from soaked grains, kefir-based smoothies, homemade granola on homemade yogurt. Right now, snack is up in the air! We do have tree nut allergies in our family so that makes it a bit more challenging for me. While trying to make this transition a bit easier on the kids, I'm keeping fruit as a snack option. So they can snack on fruit, olives, hard boiled eggs, pumpkin seeds, fresh veggies with hummus or homemade salsa. I'd like to make some of the raw energy bars with tahini rather than almond butter as well and see how the kids like those. If anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

I saw in a picture, from a blog post you did about things that inspire you, the book The Habit of Being by Flannery O’Connor. Is this where you took your blog name from? What three things do you love about this book?

Yes! I am a huge fan of the book and the writings of Flannery O'Connor. You can see an explanation of why I chose The Habit of Being for my blog name here. As far as three things I love about the book...Flannery is fierce and honest with a wicked sense of humor. I've read this book many, many times, and with each reading I find myself laughing out loud at something she has written in one of her letters. I love that through this collection of letters, she has let us know who she is, who she was, what she believed; reading these letters, there is an immediate connection to her and to her thoughts on her writing.  Lastly, one of my favorite quotes comes from a 1953 letter she penned to poet Robert Lowell after she knew how matters truly stood in regards to her health and subsequent isolation, "I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing. What you have to measure out, you come to observe more closely, or so I tell myself." Every time I read that quote, I marvel at how much grace and strength she must have had.

As I am delving through all your back posts I see you are a list maker. A very creative and poetic one at that.  Do you find that list making in creative way helps you to find a rhythm to your daily life? Do you find it therapeutic?

I am an avid list maker. I usually have several lists working: grocery list, to do list, list of books to read, list of places to visit, etc. I grew up in a very rigid home environment and lists were one of those things I was trained to do as a very young child (assignments, chores, etc.). So this list making thing has always been a part of me. I tried many, many times to abandon it, to shed the negative associations of lists and a rigid upbringing. Try as I might, I couldn't so I determined to take this habit and put my own spin on it. Now as a mama to five, I sit down every morning with my coffee and write the day's to-do list in my journal. I don't usually get to everything on the list but I do enjoy the loose structure it brings to my days. Also, there is a certain satisfaction with marking things as done.

I originally found your blog through your Weekending posts while I was reading a Weekending post of someone else and clicked through. I love that you have created such a meaningful internet meme. Was that your intention? What gave you the idea to start the Weekending theme?

I think the Weekending thing is much like my list making in my journal. It's a loose record of days, a way to remember. Someone sent me an email once asking what the point was since we "don't seem to do much." I think they missed the point. I'm a homeschooling mama with five littles. My first two years as a mother, I lived in this city where I had no friends or family so I was always on the go: bookstore, park, walk around the neighborhood, library for reading circle. I was unsatisfied, unfulfilled as I had always had a full life with friends and work. I began to make it a point to stay at home more, to be quiet, to be still. This has been one of my best decisions as a mama. We run all of our errands two days a week. The other three days we are home and my kids have learned to be still and enjoy the quiet. They have a tremendous amount of free time for reading, creating, and for creative play since we're not running here and there. They don't need to be entertained as they've learned to entertain themselves and each other.

The Weekending thing was initially a challenge for me. We don't do a whole lot on the weekend because my husband is home. He works all week and we all look forward to spending time with him. I wondered if I could find beauty or magic in the whole lot of nothingness that was our weekends. I started posted Weekending. It just grew from there. It wasn't my intention to start a Weekending thing but as I cruised around blogland, I saw that it was happening naturally, that it had grown organically, and had a life of its own.

Having read your very first blog post I see that you are a working photographer/artist. Before having kids I too was a working artist. Since having my daughters that part of me has transformed into daily documentation of our lives rather than fully formed bodies of work. What is your method for keeping your work going with kids in the picture?

This is something I struggle with. Without family around to help, I was working around my husband's schedule so he could watch the kids. I'd shoot on the weekends, in the early mornings, late afternoons, and after the kids were in bed in the evening, I'd download the sessions and begin editing. When I found out I was pregnant with our wee lass, I made a conscious choice to step back from work and still haven't fully returned. I have a few clients I still shoot for but for the most part, I am thoroughly enjoying being home. That said, I do get the itch to pick up the camera and do something other than photograph our days. I'd like to find a project to sink into for a while. I have a few ideas I've been kicking around for some solo projects but I'm also very interested in some sort of collaboration - a conversation between two photographers, or maybe photographer and writer.



Thank you so much for being here today! You can read more from Amanda at The Habit of Being, twitter, or her new blog Facebook page.