Surgery, Recovery & a break

I haven't been posting much this year because I've been a wee bit under the weather for the last few months and it has finally all caught up with me.  I'll be having some surgery and will be taking a break to recover and get back into the swing of things.  Hope y'all will come on back in March for some new content.

-Heather

One Photography Goal Down!

One of my photography goals that I've had in the back of my head for a while now is that I wanted to shoot my first wedding.  Successfully.  Where the bride didn't want to sue and I didn't want to cry.  Though I've been shooting professionally for about a year and a half, I've really only done about 30 shoots because I just shoot here and there when I can fit it into my schedule.  So shooting a wedding is, well, rather ambitious.  Or completely insane.  Whichever one it is, I'm pleased to say I accomplished my goal on Friday and I got to do it for some dear friends.  In some ways this made things much easier.  And I think in some ways that made it harder.  Scarier.  If I messed up, I had to see these people, as forgiving as I know they would have been, for pretty much the rest of my life.  You never want to let your friends down.  I decided that I didn't want to take this challenge alone.  So I had the help of a great second shooter, who just happens to be my boss...you know for my day job that pays the bills.

It was a sweaty, hard, scary, exhausting, happy, exciting, challenging, LONG day.  And even though, every bone and muscle in my body ached the next day, I'm so glad I did it because I learned a lot about my skills as a photographer and what I neeeeeeeed to work on before I would shoot another wedding.   It's amazing how, those things you think you do well, turn out to be not quite as second nature as you'd like!  Even though, I fumbled around and was slightly indecisive at times, I ended up with a few about a thousand images...many of them not too shabby for my first attempt.  I'm thankful for the lovely bride and handsome groom and the entire wedding party who were as gracious as can be with my inexperience!

Though I've just barely started to edit, I want to share with you some images that I shot. (click on the image for better quality).

I'm sure I'll be back to my regular DIY tricks soon.  But for now, I think another epsom salt bath is required!

Wanting Some Blog Feedback?

Heather over at Inspire Me Heather is hosting a GENIUS linky party that I just had to tell you all about.  She's having a blogging critique over at her site.  Go to her site, link up yours and you'll get anonymous feedback from two bloggers and you'll give feedback to two bloggers.  What a fantastic idea!   Don't worry it will be anonymous, only you and Heather will know what was said and she seems like a pretty cool chick, and she won't tell anyone :-).  It's really a great idea.  I linked up lickety-split.  I have so many ideas for my blog but I don't have time to do them all right away.  I mean let's face it, this stuff is time consuming and we have to choose our battles so this might help me to prioritize the things that need to be done.

So head on over and sign up!

The Best Laid Plans...

The best laid plans of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!


Hmmm...I don't know about you, but my new year isn't starting exactly how I'd hoped.  But that's ok.  I'm starting it with some kind of stomach bug.  But I guess the silver lining for that is it'll kick start my diet?? :-).  But it's left me with the house a mess and Christmas still partly up.  That said,  we also made the last car payment on our second car so now they are both free and clear!  That was awesome start to the year.  So all in all the start of this year is a little give and take, but I'm thinking this will be the year of some big stuff...I just know it!   I've got lots of projects I want to do but am not sure how many I'll be getting done anytime soon.  One of my photography goals is to shoot a wedding.  Well, in just a couple days, I'll be doing just that.  I'm way more nervous than the bride!  LOL.  I know it will be just fine, but a wee bit nerve wracking it is nonetheless.  But it will be quite a bit of processing work that will take me away from crafting time.  


A big thing on the docket for me is to re-do my craft room into a legit craft room and office.  Currently my husband and I share an office and my craft room is little more than a junk room with a plastic folding table in it.  While on vacation this last week from my day job, I went to Ikea.  Don't you just love Ikea?  So many possibilities.   I definitely want a craft table in my craft room, but it's a small room and I'll be needing a proper desk in the room too.  I had a preconceived notion as to how I wanted to create one but as I was walking around, I stumbled across this table - the Norden Gateleg table.  

It was about $40 more than I had budgeted for a craft table but,  I LOVE that I can have it completely folded up, have half of it open or all of it open.  And how amazing is it that it has drawers??  On EACH SIDE.  It's not quite counter height - only 29 inches high - but that should be easy enough to remedy.  For the flexibility that this would give I think the extra $40 would be well spent.   

What do you think?