friday i'm in love...

in point form:

  • a coffee date tomorrow
  • less-than-freezing temps
  • the idea of slow cooker apple cinnamon oatmeal
  • both kids home for supper tonight
  • the dog sleeping tucked in behind me on the computer chair
  • mom phoned and said she liked the vine i made for her birthday "your father laughed and laughed and laughed"
  • blackberries and sunflower seeds in my salad
  • sunshine
  • this blog post...especially the advice from her father
  • a shirt dress that has been in my closet for months cause i never knew what to wear with it...paired with leggings and boots today...made me feel happy...
  • amazing...so amazing...breathtaking
  • finding tons and tons of yoga inspiration on Pinterest
  • and speaking of Pinterest...oh...i NEEEEEED these.
  • a sweet, sweet comment left by one of my favorite bloggers....thank you bridget!  xo

    and i am really not sure what is going on in these photos...except that i think they are funny...:)
Happy last day of January...we're getting there!

sunday best...

I just watched a video by one of my favorite bloggers and artists...
the video was about her favorite blogging tips.

It made me start to think about my own little corner of the internet,
about this little blog that I have called home
for the past 8 or so years.
I have evolved a lot during the time I have been blogging
and I attribute a LOT of that
to the blog.

I doubt that I would have ever, ever gotten into photography,
especially to the degree that I have,
if not for this blog.

I started this blog in april of 2005...
i didn't even know what a blog was, really...
i had just wanted to comment on another blog
and had to have a blog account to do it 
(or so i thought, heh)

and so i wrote my first post...

initially the blog was called bloody hell.
obviously i was feeling some frustration in my life at that point, heehee.
we were trying to buy a house
while living in a house that had virtually no heat
and it was incredibly frustrating...
my kids were young,
i was running a home daycare,
i was without adult company for most of the time
and i was at my wits end.

so i wrote rants to collection agents 
and funny anecdotes about the kids...
but as i read other blogs,
i found that there was a WHOLE other world out there,
a world of other people LIKE me!
who liked to read what I liked to read,
who liked to make things and create things
and 
it was like a bolt of lightning
went off in my head
and exploded into pretty fireworks...

so I started doing new things...
card making, doodling, knitting, painting.
but my photos were HORRENDOUS.
embarrassing really when I look back on them now...
and then
i was back to being frustrated again.

so i bought a new camera
and started playing with it...
and eventually,
it no longer had anything to do with the 
knitting, the baking, the painting...
it was all about the photos.

and then i shot my first family session...
and then i shot my first wedding (both in 2009)
I had 6 weddings that first summer and last summer,
I shot 19 weddings and a number of family/engagement/commercial sessions
while working full time.
it has been busy.
like crazy busy.
but I feel like the little thing that brought me to this point,
this little blog,
has been neglected...
passed over for the instant gratification of my facebook photography page,
of instagram, of twitter feed that I am just learning how to navigate
(i had to google what MT meant today...i thought it might mean "me too", heehee)
so 
i want to get back to the blog.

and Alisa Burke talked about scheduling 
(which I used to do...haphazardly...remember poetry thursday?)
and, because I also struggle with the fact that I am not really sure how to 
tie the two things I love together (shooting weddings and my blog)
as I feel like they are two different areas of my life in one sense
but...not really...I am proud of what I do in a wedding
but I don't necessarily want to use my blog as a tool for creating more
photography business.  
I want my blog...this blog anyway...to remain a creative outlet for myself...
I am worried that if I am using it for the photo business, I will begin to censor myself.
There are other things I want to do beside photography...
I would like to write...{but I am terrified...that is a different story}

SOOOOO.
if you have stuck with me this far,
my long winded point is that i am going to try to get here more often,
for myself if nothing else...
and that maybe Sundays will become 
Sunday Best
where I can share some of my wedding photography...
and a place where I can look back and see how that is evolving as well.
it's all about moving forward.
one foot in front of the other...

And so...today's Sunday Best :)












#ThisLife

I have been taking a photo-a-day
since Jan 1
with no expectations on myself.

They do not have to be perfect,
they do not even have to be pretty...
they just have to be a quick snapshot of my day,
a moment where i stop
and notice what is going on around me.

It has been a good exercise for me so far...
here are some of the recent snaps...


 i like that i have been using my phone
(which is always on me)
and using instagram
but i kind of regret that i started putting them on facebook
from the start.
because...i censor myself on facebook a little more than i do
on instagram and much more than i do here.
i feel like if you are on instagram,
you get it.
i feel more...judged...on facebook...
i am not sure why that it is,
but...
it is.
it is what it is.
and maybe because i know that this little blog is not overly read
and not by many that i actually "know"...
maybe that's the difference.

either way, i am enjoying the project so far...
:)