February 23rd

Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

Our day started out with a delicious breakfast of French toast, homemade whipped cream, and berries…

and ended with burgers made with all locally sourced ingredients. (And clever signage!)

So good, so good, so good.

Even with the amazing food, the company is even better. I’m always amazed at who God places in my life at what time. I didn’t walk into Kya’s wedding thinking I’d leave with such a deep connection with new people. Lifelong friends.

But I did.

So much laughing, so much vulnerability, transparency, and great discussions. Feeling so built up, so connected.

So amazing!

 

February 22nd

Friday, February 22nd, 2019

Kya and I were up at the wee hours of the morning today, and left for a warmer climate…

Houston, Texas for Girls Weekend 2019!

If you follow my blog, you’ve “met” Kya, and know that we’ve been best friends since we were eight and we were each other’s Maid of Honor.

Well last summer as I was planning Kya’s bachelorette party, I was introduced (via email as they lived in Houston) to Theresa and Emily, the other two ladies in Kya’s bridal party. We officially met face to face in July, come Kya’s actual bachelorette party.

We all hit it off, and by the end of bachelorette party weekend I found myself even more excited for the wedding knowing we’d all be spending time together again.

So sure enough, come wedding weekend (late September) we all had a complete blast, and we vowed we’d try to all get together again soon.

Late December Kya texted asking about a girls trip to Houston, and the planning began!

We laid pretty low today, but that won’t last long. Sounds like Theresa has a lot planned for us this weekend!

Picture of the hallway leading to Jonathon and Theresa’s study because their house has pretty light.

February 17th

Sunday, February 17th, 2019

Simple serenades on a Sunday night.

January 18th

Friday, January 18th, 2019

I’ve gotten out of the habit of putting my camera in my car when I leave the house, and I’ve been relying on my phone a lot lately.

I apologize for that, as that’s me simply being lazy, and I’m going to work harder at staying motivated despite the cold weather and no snow.

So stick with me and I’ll bring my A game back.

I get frustrated with myself when I leave my camera at home, especially when I take pictures like this with my phone knowing it could’ve come out so much better with my actual camera. The distortion of my wide angle lens would’ve bubbled out the very center of the image, making Henna’s chest seem bigger, in turn making her look like a canine superhero.  Especially with me shooting this overly dramatic pose from below. 😉

As I’m writing about the distortion of my wide angle lens, I’m thinking of how seasoned photographers can spot different lens distortions, but to the untrained eye it’s not obvious. Maybe one day I’ll do a post with a side by side edited vs unedited to show the difference.

Anyone interested?

January 13th

Sunday, January 13th, 2019

This sweet babe has been attached at the hip to us ever since we got home.

While it’s endearing and sweet, it’s also gotten to be a bit annoying.

But he’s cute, so I’ll forgive him. 😉

January 1st, 2019

Tuesday, January 1st, 2019

Here we are my friends. Year three.

What does that mean for me here?

Not much really. We’ll just keep chugging along and see where life takes us.

Last year, I added in the challenge of self portraits (some with pets too), and while I don’t normally enjoy being in front of the camera I actually I really loved taking self portraits.

I gave myself really loose parameters – I believe I hoped to do one once a week – and I know there were some times that I went much longer than that, but I also enjoyed that side of it too. The idea that I kept myself accountable to completing them, but I didn’t hold myself to a strict timetable. I did them as they felt right and felt necessary, which was perfect.

And having self portraits with my animals? Treasures for sure. Especially after losing Burke this spring; I used the tool of self portraits to work through grief (the day he died), but also to bring comfort and joy back to my heart when missing him (seeing his interaction with me from the camera’s viewpoint). It makes looking back a little more bearable when I’m in the image with him.

So I believe that will be another project I bring with into 2019 as well.

One thing I may add to my self portrait venture is throwing Paul into the mix. I have some great images of the two of us that I took both last year and the year before, and I treasure them. There’s a place for selfies, but I always come back to the images of us from my actual camera. So maybe trying to do one of Paul and me once a month? Paul, what say you? 🙂

I’m not making any personal goals or resolutions this year, not sticking to any particular theme of growth. Perhaps just continuing on with this project is goal enough.

I guess you’ll just have to follow along, and we’ll find out together!

December 30th

Sunday, December 30th, 2018

Quiet moments.

December 28th

Friday, December 28th, 2018

I don’t normally title my images for this project, but today’s image begged for one:

”Life with Cats.”

If you live with indoor cats, you probably either just laughed out loud, or smiled fondly and nodded along. Why you may ask?

Because cats are weird.

That became very very evident to us within 24 hours of our boys coming to live with us. They sleep in weird positions in weird places, one minute they demand for you to pet them and the next it’s offensive that you even looked their direction, their hunting instinct can turn in and off in mere instants (like when they see toes under the covers), they have a very strange obsession with boxes, their idea of deep love is slow blinking at you from across the room, and their habits can be befuddling (like the way Colt gets offended when you shower or go to the bathroom without him).

Unlike most dogs, they’re independent. Which is what I love and appreciate about them. They never fail to make me smile with their goofiness, and they add so much light to our home.

Like this afternoon, when I went to make our bed after washing the sheets. I walked past the door of our master bathroom to Finn conked our on our bath mat. He has never slept there before, and giggled to myself and I shook my head at him because it’s always something.

After thinking about it, I realized that we have an air vent that comes out there, so he was laying on our memory foam mat in front of the warm air. Smarty pants.

I started photographing from the ground, but was unhappy with the results. That’s when I realized that I usually look down at him, so to get an accurate account of what was happening, that’s what I needed to do.

The clean, bright whites contrasting the dark mat and dark spots of Finn’s coat was perfect. Including the mirror in my composition was on purpose; the reflection makes you stop and think about what’s happening. It gives you pause and I liked that. Had I not included it, the image would’ve felt too “easy.”

Do you have cats? Where is their favorite napping spot?

December 25th

Tuesday, December 25th, 2018

Merry Christmas, my friends.

What a wonderful reason for a celebration we all wait months for. While I know this time of year can be one of conflicting feelings for those missing family, friends, or facing other challenges, I wish you a time of great joy, belonging, and good health as you go about your day.⠀

Today, Paul and I spent all day with family. The morning with my family, the afternoon with Paul’s.

Paul’s family loves games, so we that’s what we did all afternoon. We played two new ones this year (What Do You Meme? and Spotted), while we also played our usual go-to, SPOONS.

SPOONS always gets intense – chairs get knocked over, people end up wrestling for spoons, and this year since we played with plastic spoons, many got broken in the struggle for the win. After I got all of my letters, I grabbed my camera and played with a slow shutter to attempt to show the action on the table.

And then I turned around to see the calm on the other side of the room with those already out of the game.

I think out of everyone, Colt had the best day. So many hands to pet and love him, so many laps to snuggle on and with. He was more than a little sad when everyone went home.

 

December 20th

Thursday, December 20th, 2018

I’ve sat here, staring at the screen for over ten minutes now.

Just reflecting, not really sure what to share.

The latter half of this year was an emotionally charged one for me, and while it helped me grow a lot, confronting those feelings again as we’ll soon be wiping the slate clean with a new year has me in my head a lot. Praying a lot.

Growth with good, good friends, growth in my role as the “big sister,” as a wife, and as a business owner. Some really good, and some really hard and terrifying at times – much more so than in years past.

I’m not sure what God has planned for 2019, but I feel like he’s really been whipping me into shape in real quick order over the past few months.

Anyone else feeling that way heading into the new year?

October 29th

Monday, October 29th, 2018

It’s National Cat Day, so here’s a snapshot of the two felines that light up our lives!

October 26th

Friday, October 26th, 2018

The swans are a-movin’!

Flocks of 20+ birds have been flying around all day. Paul and I were outside all day working on a super fun personal project (more on that tomorrow…), and they kept flying over.

While this image isn’t overly pretty or technically great, it was at least not taken on my phone 😉

Can’t wait to share about our project tomorrow!!