Adventures in California

March 6, 2014

welcome

Thanks for stopping by my blog- a place where I post some of my professional and personal photography. Happy browsing!

INSTA-Jammin'

Cheers to the weekend! But in the life of a parent, the weekend is not much different than a weekday. So more appropriate would be a few chocolate milk cups in this photo too! Here’s to parenting and spilled milk and doing good enough:) and a throwback to time in Brooklyn with @mattietiegreen 💃💃

october 11, 1982 this brunette mama gave birth to me. she made this romper among many others and i still like wearing rompers and overalls. and that very Volvo was the car i had until I gave birth to Ethan. RIP Victor the Volvo. happy birthday self and happy birthing day mama ❤️

Excited to be a part of @chosenforlifeministries Fine Art exhibit and auction this year with so many great artists i admire! It’s Thursday (tomorrow) night and I couldn’t love this ministry more and the work they do for precious kiddos. Check out @chosenforlifeministries for all the details! #ktbarchitectureseries

a much much needed break with the family at @greatwolflodge - where has this place been all my life???? A little piece of unexpected joy in Lagrange, Georgia. I just needed to see both my kids smile again. family life is complicated for so many reasons, some “normal” and some more specific, but i cherish any time that i can see my kids happy and carefree.

if i take a selfie, it has to be with my favorite sunglasses and red or pink lipstick. and bonus that i took this in my van. I got my hair cut and it’s not really official until you post a selfie, so here it is. and much thanks to my enneagram friend @molliebhair for the hair cut and making me feel fab.i love change and it was time to say goodbye to the locks.

probably one of my favorite groom photos of all time. i love laughing but i love photos of laughing even more!

Got my hair did, thanks to my friend @molliebhair, and got to stop at my favorite paper store EVER @archerpaper and remember my love for Athens... 18 years of living here and so glad to call it home. #my_athens

Parenting starts with this long waiting and growing and stretching time, and ironically once your baby is here it’s even more growing and being stretched for years. I feel so stretched this week, and sometimes you are just exhausted by it. So i’m taking my counselor’s words to heart - that there is such thing as “good enough parenting” and we could all benefit from giving ourselves a break in this school of hard knocks. So the focus will be on feeding them, keeping them safe, and giving them shelter and rest. boom. Good enough

cleaning up the kitchen and finally feeling like our house is settled from moving at the end of last year - they say it takes a year to feel at home, right? Also, I’m purging as always and started @ktbizzlesells as a way to sell stuff I’m not using. So if you like buying discounted and previously loved things 🙋🏻‍♀️check out it out!

Atlanta is such a good city, and for those of us who have grown up in the area we forget how much opportunity and fun things there are to do here. Photographing these two with the city as the backdrop made me appreciate what a great city it is and how i need to do more exploring here. And how gorgeous and classic is this couple?!?!!!

I took photos of chairs for awhile out of personal interest and still love them. But I had a thought while listening to the news today: we have a special seat watching important history in the making right now. Things are happening on a political level that history books will tell of, although I’m not sure all the stories they will tell. Politics sounds more like a soap opera or national enquirer article - and I seriously feel like we are living in the midst of major political landscape changes. I don’t comment (EVER) on politics but with a history degree and time as a government teacher I am a junkie for this stuff, more in the sense of observing culture shifts and wondering how it will all be recorded. So here’s a front row seat to something big our grandchildren will one day read about and we all would do well to pay attention to.

My first time catching a sunset on top of a building in downtown Atlanta did not disappoint! I have so many images to share from Christian and Christine’s rooftop wedding and might need a week devoted to them for it. special thanks to @sappjenn for making the day seamless and stress free and @ventanasatl for the amazing venue! #ngonguyentoholdem

“Pleasing everyone is a fool’s game. We are afraid someone won’t like our work or product or service, so we either hide and don’t show up for fear of criticism or we water it down to make it more generic.” These words from Seth Godin’s podcast are so good and need to be said over and over for anyone and everyone seeking to good work in our world. I’m learning it’s about serving someone specific in a meaningful way rather than garnering the attention of the masses that is the path of true success in business. The smallest viable audience that you can serve knowing that trying to meet everyone needs in a generic way is a race to the bottom. So whether it’s photography that meets the specific needs or interests of a few, or books meant for people on a path of growing deeper relationships, everything is about not watering down what you are passionate about and to keep showing up. #ktbarchitectureseries

I’m excited to shoot another rooftop wedding this weekend, partly for the view and partly because it’s happening at the same time as DRAGONCON in Atlanta! What does that mean? it means parades of people dressed up like super heros or favorite characters and so much more. I hear that people get photos of 100s of supermans together and i’m 100% going to attempt to get those photos. i seriously couldn’t be more excited. next year i want to dress up and go. by myself.

I am listening to a book that is paradigm shifting, changing my inner world and I wish I could buy for everyone. It's called "The Soul of Shame," written by Dr. Curt Thompson and bridges the research by Brene Brown and his background in neuroscience with the storyline of God and man. This paraphrased quote really resonates with our goal in @knownproject :
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
"To allow yourself to be known is very hard work; it is
both a gift and a terror. That is the unique path God forges in our lives, and the key to our healing.”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It's the honest entry into our own and other's lives that begins healing broken parts of us, restoring relationships. I have experienced this so so much, and sometimes its asking the hard and personal questions to ourselves first that begins the journey. go read or listen to this book- and thanks Meghan for convincing me to read it

Too many tabs open in my brain, difficult to manage and organize time and tasks, easy to forget something I just said i need to remember, overstimulated by noises and lose focus and words really easily, difficulty following steps. All of this makes me want to shut down, and for years I have patterns of shutting down and then trying to re-boot until the system gets overloaded and runs out of RAM, which happens pretty quickly. To my surprise through some work with medical pros, I realized there is a name for all this: ADHD. I thought that is what boys in school who can’t sit still have, not women who have sat still through a lot of life and made the grades but just felt smart but scattered. Of course I didn’t need to post it for the world on instagram, but it’s made a huge difference to me to have words for it and know I’m not just crazy or broken, and it’s only by reading other women’s experiences that I realized I wasn’t alone. So ADHD turns out to be a term that is helping me get more resources and books to help me not lose my phone or beat myself up when I get stuck or overwhelmed. This photo felt perfect for the topic and is a little bit of my story.

I now welcome my latest color into the living room: olive. Or hunter green? Husband told a friend recently when she was asking about paint colors: “I’m not sure you want to ask the person who paints most of her house black” It actually isn’t called black but caviar. And Gandalf keeps his stick on our wall for storage.

One really fun thing I like about photography is that I get to shoot a lot of work for website launches, and learn about new brands. This is from a recent shoot for @shopquoin - and i cant wait to show off more of the coin jewelry and buy one when it launches. also big thanks to @_emmiwalker_ and @maggie_aldin for modeling for us! also i love this denim jacket from @livefashionable 😎

It was an extra coffee kinda Monday, in a good way. This shot was taken while my friend Matt was getting ready to get married, all dressed up and getting his coffee before ceremony time. priorities.

saying good bye and good night to summer with school starting tomorrow for kiddos. It was a good and full summer and makes me so glad that i have it documented for my kids to remember good times and childhood memories, mostly on my iphone- thanks @apple 📱📸