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While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Christmas contest winner :: Ali’s story

December 25, 2013 by heidi 8 Comments

At the beginning of the month I set out to see past the commercialization of Christmas, past the insanity of Christmas shopping, the bombardment of Christmas advertisements, the glut of Duck Dynasty merchandise, the $30 Elf on the somebody else’s shelf and the siege of angry holiday traffic.

I didn’t have to look too far to see beyond the racket. Everything I needed to see was “invisible to the eye,” as my favorite children’s book author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry so eloquently articulated in The Little Prince.

{“Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.” In English this means, “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”}

At the start of the month when I posted a storytelling contest I had no idea this one would come my way. As the author of this wacky blog, I expected to receive wacky stories ripe with sarcasm. I expected at least one reference to the Griswold family and one reference to the frozen flag pole in A Christmas Story.

Instead I got a story that began with a phone call at the end of November from a young woman in Kentucky named Ali. She wanted to know if I was available the week after Thanksgiving to take photos of she and her 20-month-old son. They would be on vacation for a week on Longboat Key. She wanted beach photos of just the two of them.

“Nothing extravagant,” she said. “Just an hour or so of me and him doing our thing.”

She seemed a little scattered, a little distant. As a journalist, I wanted to know more. As a photographer, it was none of my business. Were these Christmas portraits? Your basic mom/son portraits? She didn’t say.

I penciled her in for a Saturday just before sunset, which was how we got on the subject of lighting sky lanterns.

[Read more…]

Mount Rushmore closed, Thomas Jefferson hangs his granite head in shame

October 3, 2013 by heidi 1 Comment

Last week my Oma left Buffalo with a group of senior citizens on a trip to Mount Rushmore.

She has been more excited about this adventure than for anything in the last umpteen years. It was her first big getaway since my Opa died in January. She had to fight to secure a seat on the bus because the trip sold out within weeks of being announced.

One of her friends fell ill and turned her spot over to Oma. It was a bittersweet turn of events, but Oma was grateful for her friend’s ticket. (This woman had also recently lost her husband,  so she knew how important the trip was to Oma, who for the last seven years cared for my grandfather 24 HOURS A DAY.)

This Mount Rushmore journey was a BIG DEAL.

[Read more…]

:: The Pier in 10 pictures ::

May 20, 2013 by heidi 2 Comments

The Claw

The top

[Read more…]

Friday in 15 pictures

February 1, 2013 by heidi 3 Comments

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We dressed in warm clothes. We went on a picnic. We picked up our Hot Mama’s of St. Pete Co-op basket. We played kickball. We made a sweet organic salad using fixin’s from our basket. We tried to set up a trampoline, but ended up bouncing around the yard instead. We got excited when Joe came home. We played with a strange, creepy baby doll from the 1960s. We fell asleep happy.

Wedded bliss, old Florida style

October 21, 2012 by heidi 1 Comment

Been meaning to post these shots from a wedding I photographed a few months ago in San Antonio, Fla. It was a simple, beautifully understated gathering of friends and family.

(Wait. What? Where’s San Antonio, Fla.? It’s a tiny town outside of Tampa.)

Here are my three favorite things from the day:

1. I discovered an old red barn in the field behind the venue. (Score! Nothing says I love you like an old red barn.)

2. The bride was lit from within … and several months pregnant.

3. The groom was so calm, cool and collected. He radiated with a genuine unhurried joy that can’t be feigned. The bride too. They were both so at ease. It was as if they were already married.

[Read more…]

Beach Shoot :: Hayden Reis

August 30, 2012 by heidi 8 Comments

Thought I’d share some images from last month’s Hayden Reis beach shoot.

Hayden Reis is a line of mega bright sailcloth bags. The company was hatched by a former pharmaceutical sales rep from Sarasota, whom I profiled for the paper shortly before packing up my bags to pursue freelance magazine and photography work.

It was one of my biggest shoots yet: six beautiful women + four adorable kids + a gorgeous location (Hyatt Siesta Key Beach) = so many pictures I maxed out an eight-gig card.

Special thanks to the designer for letting me borrow her camera card. I never expected to fill mine in two hours. I guess I got carried away — as usual.

[Read more…]

:: fun with self timer ::

August 26, 2012 by heidi 1 Comment

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A friend and mother to a three-year-old boy recently brought to my attention the fact that moms are usually the ones taking photos of their kids. This can create some holes in the baby scrapbook. Sure, there are some photos of Mom and Baby, but often they feel too posed or forced.

Whenever I hand my camera to Joe and ask him to snap one of me and Hank, the picture never feels candid … well … because, it’s not. So I grabbed a tripod and set my camera to self timer.

Lettin it all hang out: St. Pete Pride 2012

June 30, 2012 by heidi 2 Comments

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I live in a city that’s home to the largest Pride Parade in Florida. So sweet, right?

80,000 people turned out for today’s parade and street festival. Henry and I were among the masses. It’s the one place where I don’t have to worry about him making a scene.

We ate frozen yogurt that tasted like vanilla cake batter and Italian ice that tasted like mangoes. Joe ran a carnival booth for Creative Loafing Tampa. I tried (and failed) to win Clown Hole. Henry went home with a string of green beads, a lollipop and something so naughty my mother suggested I not mention it online.

I find it difficult to schlep my Nikon when I’m schlepping Henry, so I took pictures with Joe’s iPhone instead. I’m still too stubborn lazy to do the Instagram thing, so for those of you who only like your pics retro-filtered and super hip, I apologize.

  St. Pete Pride is best left unfiltered anyway.

On 30

April 20, 2012 by heidi 2 Comments

I wanted to write something relevant about turning 30, but I kept coming up short

So I turned to Facebook instead. (Oh c’mon. Mark Twain would have done the same thing.)

I spent the day before my birthday feeling old and sullen, so I asked my typically responsive FB friends what words came to mind when they thought of turning 30.

I was so pleased with what I got I decided to create a video using their words and my photography.

I learned two things while making this project:

1. Age is a state of mind. (Duh.)

2. I’ve got way too many photos of amazing people clogging up my computer. Most of these pics were taken for the newspaper over the course of the last three years. The shelf life of a newspaper photo is short. Unless a story is about you, and thus you’ve stuck it to your fridge (or your ex-wife has pinned it to her dart board) it usually gets lost in the ether of JPEG files on some photographer’s hard drive.

I was happy to give these photos some love before they get deleted or forgotten about.

Regarding getting older — it’s a fact of life. You can either meet it with lightness and a positive attitude, or get tangled up in negativity. Lately, I’ve been falling into the second category for reasons I’m sure I’ll write about some day.

Having said that, I’m not a fan of internalizing shit. When something sucks, I admit it. On a whole, however, I strive to spend my 30s as I spent my 20s: upbeat, inspired and looking  for the next adventure.

Wish me luck. I know it’s not going to be a picnic. (Or maybe it will be. See. I’m actually a cynic.)

Oh, and in four days I’ll have written this blog for four years. I never thought I’d stick it out. Maybe it’s my cynicism that drives me. Now that’s a positive attitude.

{photo shoot} maternity pix

April 4, 2012 by heidi Leave a Comment

What to expect when you’re expecting … me to take your picture.

[Read more…]

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Oddities

Reading material

Wild by Cheryl Strayed Travels with Charley Home Game bossypants just kids the time travelers wife Boys Life The-Liars-Club My Uncle Oswald Stephen King On Writing

Me.

Heidi K

Joe.

Joe on guitar

Henry.

henry as werewolf

Chip.

Chippy in a cupboard

Buzzy.

Buzzy

Why Lance?

This blog is named after my old friend Sarah's manifestation of a dreamy Wyoming cowboy named Lance, because the word blog sounds like something that comes out of a person's nose.

About me

I'm a journalist who spends my Mondays through Fridays writing other people's stories, a chronic procrastinator who needs structure. I once quit my job to write a book and like most writers, I made up excuses why I couldn't keep at it.

My boyfriend fiancé husband Joe likes to sleep in late on the weekends, but since we have a kid now that happens less than he'd like.

Before Henry and Chip, I used to spend my mornings browsing celebrity tabloid websites while our dog snored under the covers. Now I hide my computer in spots my feral children can't reach because everything I own is now broken, stained or peed on.

I created Lance in an attempt to better spend my free time. I thought it might jump start a second attempt at writing a novel.

It hasn't. And my free time is gone.

But I'm still here writing.

I'm 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 and I've yet to get caught up in something else, which is kind of a big deal for a chronic procrastinator.

How I met Joe

If you're new here and looking for nirvana, read this post.

And if that’s not enough…

heidikurpiela.com

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