Too much time

I thought too much time had passed since my last blog entry.   Life, as I am sure you can attest to, is busy.  Crazy busy.   I'm a wife.  I'm a Mom.  I'm a friend.  I'm a photographer.  I'm busy.  We all are so much time has passed since I last blogged.  For some blogging is like an extension of themselves and kudos to those that (a) have the time to do it regularly and (b) have the courage to share what they feel.

I guess for some if they have too much time on their hands either they become lazy or productive.   I bet we all wish we had more time to do what makes us truly happy.   We need more time to spend with our friends and family and doing a hobby or something that brings us true passion.   I haven't had time to do a lot of what I have wanted to do lately.  Weather on the "West Coast" of British Columbia has impeded a lot, life with a teenager and her schedule, family time and then of course doing what makes me truly happy, photography.   I'm glad I fill my time with keeping busy.   I don't watch soap operas but admit that cooking shows are my guilty pleasures.  When I'm editing, just ask my husband, I'm gulity of watching reality shows and he has been subjected to many hours watching cooking reality shows to make me happy (thanks hon).   I'm as guilty as the next person in taking the easy route out and buying a chicken pot pie from Costco but I like to make sure that after working every day that there is a fresh cooked meal on the table - no processed foods, no pre-packaged foods and low sodium - and my hubby still has his gall bladder which is a huge feat!   I fit in baking in between laundry and editing and being a soccer Mom.   I go to bed tired but satisfied that I have filled my day with productivity and knowing that the ones I love have been taken care of....from a talk about school, to talks with my hubby about the day's happenings, to trying to catch up with my best friend....whom after all these years still puts up with me.  

The ones that I love inspire me.  Inspire me to be a better person.  To be less bitter.  To be less angry.  To appreciate what I have.   My daughter is my world.  She is my soccer star.   She is my basketball guru.   She is the most loving and kindest kid you will ever meet.  She has her "moments" and hey we all do.   She can be a typical teenager one moment then the next needing a hug from Momma or some laughs with Dad.   My husband.......how he puts up with me I don't know.   He has always been there.  He understands me like no one else does.  He believes in me.  He trusts me.   He loves me.   My best friend.........no words can describe her.   She has been around me through all my changes...from our teenage years to our ups and downs as adults.   There are others that make us and shape us.   Some who come into our lives and make a huge impact on our lives.   There are the ones that are with us for a short time and then are taken from this earth way too quick.   They make a huge impact on your life.  If you don't surround yourself with love and laughter and those that truly make you smile is life worth living?

I am blessed to be surrounded by people who love me.   No matter what.   I love to watch cooking shows.....I love a great bargain (I am cheap beyond belief), I love to go for a walk, I love a good book and I love trying out a new recipe but I love photography.   For me thats my passion.  We all need one.  We shouldn't and can't depend on anyone else to complete us to make us whole.   Photography has given me the outlet to express emotions - tears or laughter .... to capture memories.   For some its painting.  For some its mechanics.  For some its wine tasting.  Whatever it is find it for yourself.  You will find that you will make yourself truly happy by doing something that makes you....well you!

Thank you to the ones who love me.   Thank you to my clients who inspire me and thanks to me for loving myself enough to know that I my passion makes me happy and productive....and if memories are made in the meantime even better!

It's been a year..............

Life gets busy.  Life gets crazy.  Here I thought I would be a "regular" blogger.  Wanting to share what is going on in my life.   Share my passion of photography.  Share little stories.  It has been almost a year since I last blogged.  January 2011.   Here we are our noses touching December 2011 and I haven't shared anything.  Not that what I have to share is of any importance......to me or anyone.

Life is so full of changes.  My life seems like a roller coaster.  More downs than ups.  I want it to even out.  I want to tell the world my secrets.  I want to ask questions and get the answers I need.  I want to be loved completely and fully.   I don't want fights.  I don't want confrontations.  I want laughter and happiness.

I have been so very lucky to have taken some "me" time this past summer and have gone and done some things I have always wanted to.  Things in my "back yard".   Sites I wanted to see.  Overcoming fears of heights and kicking ass doing it.   Taking my camera and capturing the laughs of those I am with or just the beauty of what is around me.  Just for fun.  I have then been even more fortunate to have had the opportunity to shoots some weddings, capture those special moments between the bride and the groom, to capture the fun of children at a family shoot in a park.  Its magical.  I love it.

2011 was about finding out what I want.  I haven't had the nerve to jump yet and fully commit to what I want or take the leap and risk falling going for what I may think I want.  I think I may fall but I have learned in 2011 you need to get up, shake yourself off and keep on going.  The only person that can make you happy is yourself.   The rest is like icing on the cake.   The shoots for fun, the shoots for money and memories for the clients who pay and the time I take to find out who I am.

I am wishing to you all a very Happy Holiday Season.  This Christmas will be very different indeed but different can be good.  Change can be scary and yet good.  Its all in what you make it.  I am looking forward to 2012 and to what it brings and for me learning even more about myself and what I want.

Happy Holidays

What does the New Year hold for you?

Another Christmas Season is over.  The trees have been put away, the lights taken down and the credit cards are taking a well deserved rest.  2011 is upon us. 

While taking my teenage daughter to basketball practice early this morning we heard a radio commentary on New Years Resolutions.  I told her I don't believe in them.  I believe you should do the best you can do, be the best you can be and live life to the fullest every day of the year and not just because its New Years.   But that is me.  

Are New Years resolutions important to you?  Do they mean anything to you?  Have you set any?  What does 2011 hold for you?

I plan to laugh more  Stress less.  2010 has been a horrible year for loss.  I lost a friend that meant the world to me lost my dear sweet nearly 21 year old cat and found out that the dreaded "C" word (cancer) has struck yet again someone close to my heart. 

May 2011 bring you love, happiness and laughter.  Make it the best you can.  Life is short.  Live it.

If you had an extra 60 minutes a day......

With less than one month until Christmas comes the time where we are pulled into various directions.  Of course we have the normal committments - work, kids, our partners and friends but then throw in Christmas.  For some it is a wonderful magical time but for others it just adds onto the already large "to do" list.

I read an interesting magazine article that had a survey.  It was what would you do if you had an extra hour a day.   You could do WHATEVER you wanted.  Not what you think you should do but you would want to do.  The answers were so interesting.   So what would you do?

I think as a full time working mother, wife and then having a Photography business as well, I do not have enough time in the day for them, for my friends, for anyone.   I'm not alone in the boat where you feel that you are stretched from one edge to the other and the simpliest thing, that one added task, makes you feel like your walls will fall?

An extra hour....well I do have a best friend that I don't get to spend nearly enough time with.  It doesn't help that she lives an hour away.  Would be nice to "bank"those hours and spend a bit more time with her.   An hour to be with my teenager without the teenage angst would be heavenly.   An hour with my husband without the remote, without me being so busy that I have no time for him, would hopefully help bring back that spark of years ago.  An hour to spend with my friend and our cameras....never enough time with that but always so fun. Maybe an hour to spend actually hearing instead of just listening.  An hour to learn something new about a co-worker or a neighbour.    An hour.....doesn't seem much but then again seems like so much. 

Maybe my goal this weekend I am going to try and hour in amongst the million and ten things I need to do, the shoots I need to do, the edits I have, the deadlines, the grocery shopping and the ever ending helps of laundry.  I may blast my stereo and dance like a mad woman.  I may just sit and cry for the ones I have lost.  I may go to the my favourite store or I may just sleep.....that extra hour would be nice.

Our other babies....our "fur babies

It's been a while since my last post.  Not like I have a problem talking.  I love to talk.  Perhaps my down fall.  I have been busy with shoots which is not that hard to understand due to the time of the year.  Everyone wants their family pictures and some pics to send with Christmas cards.

It has been a rough year for me and my family.   On Decembetr 20th 2009 we lost our beloved dog Lucky.  For us pets aren't just "pets".   Something just to feed and water and let in and out of the house.  Pets are our "fur babies".  Part of the family.   It hasn't been the same since our 130 pound big wonderful loving "Woobie"as we liked to call him left us.  The house was quiet and of course it was if you don't have a 130 pound "lap dog".   He loved to think he was small and could fit in your lap and trust me he tried any chance he could.  He had to have his "bickie"aka dog bone at 8:00 every night and would literally huff it was late.  No the house wasn't the same.   Unfortunately either was our cat K.C.  

K.C. stopped sleeping with me.   She was a few years shy of 20 when Lucky died and had Lucky around for nearly a decade.  She would torment him and chase him (please note K.C. was only 7 pounds maybe at her heaviest) but they were buds.   She never got over his death.  No one did.

We expected K.C. to leave us sooner considering her age.   Yes indoor cats live longer but nearly 20 was a pretty amazing amount of years.   Part of her died that December 20th.  She lost her beloved Lucky.  We all did.

I worried about her every day when I would come home from work.  My worst fear that I would come home and find her dead.   She plugged along.   She got skinnier, a feat we didn't think was possible, and was still active.  Her hearing went, her kidneys started to go but she was still our pain in the butt, lap snuggling, purring monster.

On Thursday, November 18th 2010 I had to put my sweet K.C. down.   She was 20 years old....on Valentine's Day she would have been 21.   I had her since she was 6 weeks old.  She knew all my secrets.  She was there with me when I had no one.   I loved her so much.   She went blind Thursday night suddenly.  When I got home she could not walk.  She was dying in front of me.   We took her to the emergency clinic to give her dignity.   She was freaking out as she could not hear and could now not see.  She could only smell me.  She knew I was there as I held her the 30 minute car ride to the vet.  She knew it was me when I held her in my arms as they gave her needles.  She died in my arms.  My heart is broken."

The house was not the same with Lucky gone.  Now with my sweet K.C. gone the house is so quiet.  The grumblings and complaints of a teenager cannot even make up for the silence.  The only sound I hear is my heart breaking.

So for some pets are just that....pets.  For some our pets are our babies.   They make you laugh, they make you cry, they comfort you, they love you and they break your heart when they leave.

I will never forget my sweet boy Lucky or my little K.C.   Thank goodness for memories....and my photographs.  I can look back at her when she was healthy and active......I will always have my memories.

The dreaded "C" word

I wish I had more photographs of a lot of things.  I wish I had more of some certain people who unfortunately have succumbed to the dreaded "c" word....cancer.  Some can beat it - I know a sweet little girl just starting school who has.  A dear friend has managed to drop kick cancer right on its butt.    Met someone last night at the coffee shop I frequent who had cancer when she was 12 and now is going school to be a Child Oncologist.  I have lost a woman that was like a mother to me to cancer, another friend I had known for years to breast cancer and most recently my sweet amazing friend in May.   Why this topic?  Why so down at the beginning of a long weekend?  A weekend to be spent celebrating Thanksgiving?   Don't get me wrong.  I am thankful.  I have a  wonderful family - which includes my daughter and husband, parents, sister and also my friends who are also my "family".   I have the privilege of owning my own home, health, love and laughter.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Someone I know is expecting his first baby.  He is excited.  Next month he will be a new Daddy!  His partner is fighting for her life.  She has cancer.  The cancer was under control - or so they thought.  It is back with a vengence.  As they bring their new baby into the world she will have to start aggressive forms of cancer treatments in order to survive to see her child's firsts.  Every child should grow into an adult.  Every adult should have the chance to be a parent.   I don't understand why this has to happen?   I can only hope there are enough memories to be shared and photographs to show....just in case.   I am thankful.  I have lots.  I am heartbroken.  Some don't have so much to be thankful for.   Hug the ones you are thankful for.  Tell people you love them.  Make yourself some memories to last a lifetime....because we don't know how long that lifetime will be.

Concert memories

Ever been to a concert that will forever stay in your mind?   I think we have all been to a few that were the "best ever".   I think with all that I have seen - from my teenage "crush" Bon Jovi, to the Beach Boys (okay dating myself), to Rod Stewart, Def Leppard.....and now to my fav new genre country.  Johnny Reid...melts me.   Keith Urban amazing.  I could go on but my best memory was Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.  Made the journey to Seattle.  My best friend managed to get tickets at the last minute and there was no time for built up pent up excitement it was you're leaving work early and going to Seattle.  No cameras allowed (hmmm people sure did bring them) so I was stuck with my cell phone and as this was a few years ago now, the cell phones weren't as good as they are now.   The pictures aren't great but the memories are.   Gotta love those memories.   So thanks to my best friend for the tickets.  Thanks to Tim and Faith for putting on a never to forget show and thanks for that cell phone with the crappy camera....because at least I have something.