July 2014 Check-in

Prioritizing is hard.

I feel stretched, in the words of Bilbo Baggins. Working 30 ish hours in an office, running my own business, volunteering at Animal Allies, keeping up with friends and family, personal projects, traveling a lot this summer, and the constant pressure of moving hanging over my head.

But I recently gave one of those things up- fostering cats. Which is probably the most important item on that list to me.

I didn't really have too much of a choice- the townhouse in Old Town that I'll be living in already contains a cat who doesn't like other cats, and I kind of took it as a sign that I could give this one thing up and maybe feel sane again, even though I care so much about it. It's not like I'll never be able to foster again ever, and I can continue to photograph for their adoptions website.

But don't it just feel so backwards that I'm giving up what I'm most passionate about, even if it's temporary.

Some unrelated exciting news for July: I will be migrating from this blogger blog to one hosted by my website provider! Hurray ditching the .blogspot in my blog URL! Can't wait to make this happen soon.

April 2014 Check-in

It's April and I feel the cabin fever setting in.

As such, I have a good handful of personal and professional goals.

-Start running. Which is a terribly strange thing for me to want to do, because running hurts my joints like mad, and that generally means I hate it. I've had an itch to run recently, though, and instead of fighting it I think I will simply invest in a decent pair of shoes.
-Spring cleaning. I'm moving in a couple of months and will have less space for all the things, so I've got to start getting rid of what I don't need!
-Upgrade equipment. It's time to get ready for the shooting season, and that means getting my hands on some better glass. Super excited.
-Experiment. With photography. I want to start prisming and freelensing a bit more. I will also remember to set my damn white balance before every setup. I will, I promise.

And here's my favorite frame from this week's fun times with Robin, dressing up and playing ranger/elven swordmaiden, inspired by The Rangers, an independent film being made this summer.

More garbed shoots, please.

March 2014 Check-in

Happy March, everyone!

Yesterday, we had a snow day. My feelings on this matter are mixed. I like snow. We don't get it all that often around here. Wasn't it last winter that we got some sleet one day and then saw some flurries a different day and that was it for us for winter weather? I was kind of let down.

I like snow. But you know what? I am done now. No more, thanks very much.

However no matter the weather situation, I like to try and make the best of it, and for me that meant using that unusual (for here) wintery landscape to take some photos! And luckily for me my brother and sister-in-law live right across the parking lot from me and Laura LOVES getting pictures taken (and Andy's a pretty good sport too).

So I tried this thing called the Harris Shutter effect, and it's kind of cool, though I don't think this is a terribly creative use of it... I wanted to see if I could make it work! And look at that, I think I can.

More snowy photos to come. Drive safe, guys!

February 2014 Check-in

Good morning, one and all. It's been a weird February for me already.

I'm severely limiting my goals this month to DO ALL THE TAXES. Oh, and I need to complete my Carmen Sandiego costume for Katsucon. I was actually pretty surprised at what an easy costume it is- red coat, red hat, black boots, that's really all you need for people to get the idea. I cannot wait for Katsucon and Tournaments in two weeks!!

Let me be real for a moment, here. I'm currently feeling overwhelmed by many things. Or maybe just a couple things, but they're big. Sometimes I question why I am making life difficult for myself by being an entrepreneur when life could be so much safer if I worked some 9-5 job like I'd been doing for the past couple of years.

I've been in a personal battle for maybe the past year where I've been weighing safety and security against... happiness and freedom. And the choices I have made clearly illustrate my propensity towards the latter.

Do I have regrets? Sometimes. But I know how unhappy I would be if I hadn't made the decisions I did.

So here I am, looking at my first tax season as a business owner, with my car in the shop, uncertain as to where I'll be living in a few months, trying to get more bookings during the slowest season of the year, and yet I can't help but feel excited and hopeful for the future. Through all this uncertainty, there's been a candle of hope that has never gone out, and I don't think it ever will.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that if you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. Waiting won't do you any good whatsoever.

Sooo anyway, I wanted to share something awesome today. Over the past few months I've had the delight of being in the presence of a group of four generations- twice! One of which is part of my own family. How special is that?

I also held my cousin's baby, which I think is a first for me- I can't remember having held a tiny baby before! And I didn't even come close to dropping her or anything! I think that's a mega achievement.

Have a free and happy February.

January 2014 Check-in

It's going to be a busy year.

For January, I'm working on finalizing my client guides and pricing, and getting completely up-to-speed on my workflow. I've also got a couple personal projects under the radar for now that I can't wait to see come to fruition within the next year.

Here's a frame from my very last set of photos taken in 2013. I can't wait to post the whole shoot!

Bring it on, 2014!

December 2013 Check-in

Wow, it's December. When did that happen?
I feel like this happens at the beginning of every month, every year, every measurable interval of time. Whoa, when did it get to be November, October, Monday, Friday, 2014, 2013, spring, summer, autumn? Time is really flying by now, isn't it? Huh.
But time is always flying by. This is nothing new.
My biggest goal for December is to take it all one. Day. At. A. Time. For a change. Slow it down, go out and enjoy seeing new things, take more photos (the ones in this post are from a recent visit to Jones Point Park), appreciate life, not worry about the future even a little bit.
And then in January start freaking out about things again.

In the interest of actually getting things done for a change, I'm assigning myself days to accomplish certain tasks. We'll see if this actually helps.

-Tomorrow, Dec 6, I will actually sit down and examine all the budgeting spreadsheets my sister sent me and see if I want to implement them or not.
-Tomorrow, I am also going to order business cards, because it's about friggin' time.
-On Dec 12, I will sit down and wrestle with Quickbooks, and beat it into submission.
-On Dec 13, if not before, I will go and get a 30" TV screen for photo editing. Oh man, I'm stoked.
-On Dec 18, I'm going to power through everything I've drafted for my client guides and put them in some semblance or order. I may even start to design a final product!

I'm planning on spending the rest of December enjoying my family and friends, and so should you. Sometimes I feel like life is measured in people... and it's easy to forget that.
Gosh but that sounded cheesy. Sorry. I don't know what's come over me.. must be the spirit of the holidays.

Go hug someone.

November 2013 Goals and Whatnot

I say 'and whatnot' because I'm starting to think of this monthly blog post thing as my life update for anyone out there who may be interested, since I don't really blog all that much... but really mostly for me, to keep myself accountable and so on and so forth, etc.

Had an awesomely busy weekend full of both clients and friends. Oh, I was Professor Trelawney for Halloween; my hair has the ability to be super freaking epic, so it was pretty awesome. Sunday morning I had a lovely family shoot in Old Town Alexandria; more to come on that one later!

So my goals for November:
-Create monthly budget (yeah, I'll get to this someday, really...)
-Finish my NaNoWriMo novel (be my buddy!)
-Read Agyar
-Start up my Quickbooks stuff
-Make bourbon-bacon butter for Friendsgiving
-Redesign my website's home page a bit
-Write up first drafts of new client literature

I think that'll do it. Happy Tuesday, all.

October 2013 Goals

I feel like this is probably a pretty easy series of blog posts to keep up with. I just think about things I want to do, make them into a list, and BOOM, there's a blog post. The hard part is the actual carrying out of said things. Like, check out how much I failed my September list. I crossed off the things I completed:

-Figure out/compare health insurance plans. Pick one.
-Come up with monthly budget, to be implemented starting in October
-Book one wedding for spring 2014
-Download Quickbooks, learn how to use it
-Create a personal list of must-watch TED talks, and then maybe even watch them (I've sort of done this; I mean, I didn't make a list but we've watched and discussed a few interesting talks. Since it's an ongoing thing, it's coming off the list)
-Finish Life of Pi (Didn't finish, though I have made progress. I need to start reading while slugging again)
-Kill ONE officer at practice sometime, goddammit (dagorhir reference, if you don't get it)
-Begin to update GTG website
-Create amazing Genre Wars photo collage

So my October list is going to be more or less the same thing.

-Figure out/compare health insurance plans. Pick one.
-Come up with monthly budget, to be implemented starting in October sometime...
-Book another wedding for the 2014 year
-Learn how to use Quickbooks
-Finish Life of Pi 
-Begin to update GTG website
-Create amazing Genre Wars photo collage

And let's add a couple things:

-Go to an actual bookstore and pick up a guide about posing 
-Buy some shoes I can wear to weddings that won't cause my joints to burn by the end of the day

Also have some fun things planned for this month, like going to King's Dominion, a couple of day battles, Renaissance Festival, and perhaps the Via Ferrata! We shall see how the month goes!

September 2013 Goals

I need to make a list of goals for the month of September. Lots of other people do this, and therefore I should too, right? That's the way the world works, isn't it?

Well, truthfully, it's because I should. I made a list of goals, once. Ahh, memories. It was back in February of this past year. I looked back on it recently and chuckled at how adorably optimistic I'd been.

But seriously, if I don't list my goals out, I'll never, ever get things done. Even though that last list was terribly ambitious, I wouldn't have done half the things I did get done without it.

So. For September:

-Figure out/compare health insurance plans. Pick one.
-Come up with monthly budget, to be implemented starting in October
-Book one wedding for spring 2014
-Download Quickbooks, learn how to use it
-Create a personal list of must-watch TED talks, and then maybe even watch them
-Finish Life of Pi
-Kill ONE officer at practice sometime, goddammit (dagorhir reference, if you don't get it)
-Begin to update GTG website
-Create amazing Genre Wars photo collage

I have a few other things I'd like to do as well, but I should learn from my last experience of overly-optimistic goals and just stop there.

And because I haven't posted actual photos in a little while, here's our current foster cat, Fannie. She's more or less the best cat ever.

Happy Tuesday, everybody!