What Could Go Wrong Usually Does-Family Photo Album With Texas Twins Events/Pawning Planners Team

Organizing my family and coordinating their clothing options for are photo shoot was an “all day affair” that began with hair and makeup for my twin sister, Cindy Daniel and I along with my nieces, Leigh Ann Blais and Stephaney Mahaney, my son and his wife, Robert and Stephanie Hafele and our darling Little Pawners, Maryssa and Makenna Mahaney. 

  As usual, I made numerous lists and timelines to pull everyone they get and get them to the same place at the same time.  Every event requires planning and preparation for me and family photos are no exception.

I’m often called “bossy” by my team due to my lists and quest for perfect execution.  However, “lining up” the clothing everyone planned to wear began a week ago with me taking the clothes to the cleaners and making appointments for everyone to “look their best!” 

 Some of you may be wondering “what went wrong?”  Well, my foot is still broken from an accident trying to get a photo for a wedding couple that had me falling backwards in my driveway, you see it’s still “difficult” for me to get around but, the suit I had taken to the cleaners for my son along with what I thought was his dress shirt didn’t belong to him and, his tie was missing which had me running around (or, limping) attempting to find a suitable match.  My niece Leigh Ann had made the appointment for photos which was not on file and as my twin sister
watched this fiasco- she decides to periscope to our friends on Twitter everything that could go wrong Wendy Wortham and Cindy Daniel- What Could go wrong? Is a video of me having a meltdown because (as usual) my family are all running around, arguing and pretty much “doing their own thing.” Leigh Ann lost her phone somewhere and was running around trying to find it, I was feeling sick after lunch which would later send me to the minor emergency clinic with food poisoning.  Trying to “slap a smile” on my face proved difficult but, after twenty years of modeling- I’m well trained to “look happy” whether I am or not.  Today I’m still not well but have a Skype conference call with a Los Angeles based production company that will expect me to be “on.”  As I attempt to fix myself up after two days of misery and my continued fight to recover from “eating the wrong thing at the wrong time,” I’m still not myself. 

While I would love to tell you that everything we do flows smoothly or melts like butter on a hot biscuit- the truth is that it doesn’t and never has around here. 

Our “older children” often get into arguments with each other since all of them think they know “a better way” of doing this or that with my daughter in law, Stephanie Hafele usually being the one who argues with me regarding her “views.”  While I’m fairly open opinions and ideas- hitting me up while trying to get everything done for the photo spread in Women of Distinction Magazine was like pulling teeth with fishing line. 

 

 My twin sister thinks it’s hilarious when I’m having a meltdown trying to get everything perfect- because she realizes that things are never perfect and although I do too, I try to control or change the situation to my “Norman Rockwell” view of things. Did I think everyone would get along?  Maybe.  Did I think that their clothes would fit? Yes.  Did I anticipate having someone else’s clothes cleaned? No.  But, there is a reason I make lists and notes and attempt to get everything right and the reason is I may be the only one who cares about “perfect execution.”

Families everywhere “muddle through” the family photo moment with a screaming baby or squabbling siblings, remember friend that you aren’t the only one struggling to find a “picture perfect pose.”  We are all “in this” together…. 

 As I watch my son wearing a suit without a shirt and his wife shrugging her shoulders about not realizing she had handed me someone else’s shirt to take to the cleaners, I realize that it’s a good thing someone cares that my son has a complete outfit to wear!  Finally finding him a dress shirt that fit with a coordinating tie wasn’t easy but as mothers everywhere know- we don’t always “get along” with our inlaws and outlaws but we do jump in and correct a problem when we see one. I still don’t know who that shirt I took to the cleaners belonged to but like I said, I can’t “make these things up,” in fact it’s the things that I couldn’t imagine happening that always do around here.  At least I can count on my twin sister to look at the cup “as half full rather than half empty.”  She does keep me laughing! 

 As I get everything  together to send to New York for the magazine, I realize that there’s a good reason folks don’t do family photos often- they are stressful not just for us but for everyone else too!

Wendy M Wortham