About Citizen Way

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FAQ’s

What does your name mean?

As described by Ben Blascoe, “Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’ The book of Hebrews speaks of a ‘new and living way’ that Jesus opened up through His sacrifice on the cross. In the book of Acts, early Christians were called ‘followers of the Way.’ The name reminds believers that following Jesus grants us citizenship into something bigger – God’s kingdom – where true worth is found.”

How Long have you been together?

Since 2004

Were you The Least of These?

Yes, until February 2012.

Who’s who?

Lead singer and guitar:  Ben Calhoun (Ben C)
Keys, guitar, and vocals:  Joshua Calhoun
Bass guitar:  Ben Blascoe (Ben B)
Drums, percussion, omnichord:  David Blascoe

Who all do you work with?

Label:  Fair Trade Services
A&R Rep:  James Rueger
Producer:  Seth Mosely

Management:  Creative Trust
Manager:  Jim Houser

Booking:  Paradigm

About the Blog

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WELCOME TO MY BLOG!

I blog every weekday:

  • a Photo a Day (Monday)
  • Tuesday Tips
  • Wednesday Words
  • A day of Photography (Thursday)
  • Friday FUN or FACT

Sometimes I’ll even post on a Saturday and I will keep that unstructured to suit my need for spontaneity 😉

TWO KEYS

  1. My posting categories are important! Check them out below.
  2. This blog is devoted to storytelling and project sharing with a generous portion of photography.  I write and I create 🙂

POSTING CATEGORIES:  this blog is privy to…

I AM WRITER:  though I do photography as a profession I did minor in writing and journalism is a gigantic passion of mine.  I write everything from personal stories to children’s books to journalism on behalf of Citizen Way or other entities that beckon and one day I will publish a particular non-fiction book and perhaps some youth fiction.  But, one thing at a time 😉

Tuesday Tips:  This is where I will do stuff like “10 tips to a great marriage” or “20 ways to grow into a better photographer” and other educational material not reserved to number increments 😉

Storytelling:  this is an area specifically for stories about my personal life.  This includes everything that is written through my perspective and how the title Musings of a Musician’s Wife was born.  Key themes here will be daily anecdotes of a musician’s wife, mother to dogs, and professional photographer among others I’m sure.

Citizen Way:  seeing as my husband is in the band and I love to write and photograph it was only fitting for me to request permission to interview on occasion to post “inside scoops” to my blog for them, their fans, for me, and my fans 😉  Mostly for them and their fans though so I’m hoping the rest of you that find me interesting find those posts interesting as well too 🙂

Handmade and Homemade:  another one of my life goals is to get natural and self sustainable.  A lot of these projects will be about this.  Other categories include homemaking of all sorts, learning something new, DIY projects, or other things my hands happen upon.

More about Citizen way… CLICK HERE

Photography:  I have decided to stream my professional photography, a Sunshine Moment, posts through my blog as well because it is blogging I just have to do it on my website and it’s silly to not connect it to my “blog.”  These posts will most likely appear 1-2 times/wk.

When ordinary days become extraordinary

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I love when ordinary days become extraordinary.  Today it is a simply perfect combination of a sunny, blue skies, brisk day; a morning filled with doggy and husband snuggles; a physically freeing chiropractic appointment; Christmas gift “shopping” over coffee and a danish; a delicious grapefruit; and a trip to Caribou for an afternoon of writing over tea before a joyful small group time with some of my favorite ladies this evening.

Today I landed myself in the most perfect of situations.  My errand to the bank put this particular Caribou within closer reach than the much less interesting one I would have ended up at if I had not gone to the bank.  I drove along a road I’ve never taken past our home before and watched the neighborhoods grow more eclectic and spacious and the houses grow enticingly more unique. The end of my journey planted me in this niche of classy, brick buildings called a town square that house small businesses and this Caribou.  Out my window I can see the sun setting over the most monumental library I have ever seen.  And, yet, this place still belongs to the same Streamwood I call home.

And now I right here just before I get working on my children’s book because I was simply too thankful to withhold my joy from the world and to not work on sustaining the memory of another perfect day by writing it down.  Blessings to everyone who reads this and enjoy this beautiful day!

My friend Mr. Caterpillar

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I met a caterpillar in my tomatos a couple weeks back.  My first thought was… “I found her in my garden today! That’s a lot of babies…”

But them I came to understand a horrifying truth. The poor little bugger was being eaten from the inside out.  These “eggs” were actually the cocoons of braconid wasps.  They come to be through momma’s long, stingerlike ovipositor.  She simply uses this like a syringe and inserts her eggs into and unsuspecting host such as this caterpillar.  The reason why these eggs survive so easy:  she also deposits a hormone that screws with the hosts immune system, leaving the eggs undetected and unharmed until they hatch and start reeking havoc on the poor creatures body.  First target, the “non vital” organs.  They eat all of these up then make their way through the skin to form their cocoons.  By eating only the non vital organs the host is left perfectly alive and fresh until the cocoons are ready and then the hornets invade for the final feast. The host is literally eaten from the inside out because of a long, twisted course of reproduction.  I think I’m supposed to think that “it’s all a part of the circle of life,” but I hate meanies, especially when they’re attacking an innocent bystander, and I hate wasps.  So, when I realized this was not a reproductive display of caterpillar eggs, but, rather, a horrific reproductive method that makes way for more wasps my roommate, Jesse, and I took action. When I revisited the caterpillar it was in no better condition.  It appeared that some more larva were exiting and intending on creating their nest.

Our course of action:  to spray the whole parade with indoor insect killer.  The caterpillar sprung to life, we had assumed it was long gone, so we quickly switched gears after all the parasitoids were off… hose it off with water.

We drenched the little guy and even wiped him off with a paper towel.  We wanted to keep a close eye on him so we created an ice cream bucket home  and tossed in some leaves.  My evening got worse.  I watched him struggle through the night until he was no longer mobile at midnight.  I spent the evening performing a sort of surgery:  whenever a larva poked out, I grabbed it with some tweezers and flushed it down the sink.  However, the string was seemingly endless… until he died.

This small creature and incident of natural reproduction scarred me for several days.  I fell in love with that beautifully green and intriguing caterpillar.  I came to wonder how these hellish braconid wasps came to be.  I questioned God and his creativity.  Is it possible that he created them and put them on this earth to destroy these pretty caterpillars from the inside out?  Or is it possible that he created the wasps and then Satan dabbled into their make up to create the gruesome destroyer of life?  I suppose these are just more questions I have to leave be, maybe one day I’ll understand, in the mean time I guess I just have to trust that He knows what He’s doing up there.

California – “No Embarcadero!”

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– photos and text by Kaia Calhoun –

It seems against the rules to come all the way to San Francisco and not see the Golden Gate Bridge.

We were scheduled to leave for Los Angeles the next day and I hadn’t seen a spec of downtown San Francisco.  So, mom go to work on getting us our rental car sooner so we could drive into the city for the afternoon.

We spent the morning at my second cousin, Jensen’s, meet meet and making phone calls.  The festive throng of blue people cheered Jensen along with the rest of the team.  There were blue tents, blue chairs, blue blankets, blue lips, and blue Speedos.

  Our San Francisco adventure started just after that.  We were picked up by the car company and given a Chrysler Seabring.  We set our sails in the direction or San Francisco with the help of our Garmin.  Then she died.  Permanently.  She left us just as we got within the city limits.  We stumbled about the city center as I, the navigator, intuitively led us in the direction of the bridge, and through the now dreaded street called Embarcadero Dr swamped with tourists, concerts, and an art fair, as I  fumbled around for some other means of solid navigation.  I located and, after a few fails, got the VZ Navigator to work on mom’s phone.  But, by then, we reached the end of the two mile, one hour long Embarcadero Dr and my intuitiveness found us a parking spot right along a pier that would give us a view of the bridge.

We got out of the car and I put enough change in the parking meter to last us the precious 45 minutes we had in the city.  I saw the bridge, well the half that was not smothered in fog, and the Alcatraz building.

Alcatraz

A romantic moment:  staring out across the bay at Alcatraz 😉

The Golden Gate Bridge… it’s there, I promise

Back on the road, this time we were headed to my photo shoot with a father and son a couple towns over from where we were staying.  The VZ Navigator was slow to respond, so before we knew it we were being led back onto Embarcadero Dr rather than the alternative, more efficient route that we passed inadvertently due to her delayed behavior.  I miraculously got the Garmin to turn on long enough for me to scribble the directions to the place on my hand.  No Embarcadero!

The view at the retreat center

When we arrived at the location of the photo shoot I found my self at the top of a big hill taking in a breathtaking view.  It was some sort of Catholic retreat center and it was simply gorgeous.  When Christian, father, and Luke, son, arrived we set out to make some great pictures.  Now, these two were absolutely wonderful to work with because Christian was a former model and Luke seemed as though he was currently a model.  At times Christian and I would both laugh out loud at how perfectly Luke held himself for each picture.  His hands, feet, face, etc, were always placed perfectly as soon as he got into position.

After just over an hour of fun with Christian and Luke my mom and I packed up and headed home.  Fortunately, again, I could turn Garmin on long enough to get the directions written down.  However, we took a different turn than we were supposed to, not wrong, but different.  See, apparently, if we take Camino Sobrante when we see it rather than taking Miner and then Camino Sobrante we are led all the way around town.  Camino Sobrante is one giant loop and we took the wrong way.

Finally, when we made it home, we were hungry and spent.  So, we chowed down then snuggled in for the night.