Living the Dream

In the last month of working at the book store there was this guy who would come in and every time someone greeted him or said "hi, how's it going?" his response was always a very loud and enthusiastic "livin' the dream! I'm living the dream." and he had a huge grin on his face. I could never figure out if he was being serious, sarcastic, or just plain silly. Whichever one it was he appeared happy about it. And then I wondered what was his dream, what did "living the dream" actually mean for him.

A few nights ago I was on the verge of falling asleep and those very words "I'm living the dream" came into my mind and I smiled. And I thought about that guy in the book store. And I thought about how maybe I am living the dream....I think sometimes I'm rather optimistic when I'm on the brink of falling asleep and all those things I tend to worry about disappear. And yesterday in the comments of my January post I was told that if I'm booking appointments and making money and enjoying myself then I am living the dream.

Maybe that guy in the book store was so hard to read because he really was living the dream but the dream wasn't exactly what he envisioned. And realizing that is kind of funny in a way. We can't have everything.... or can we? I don't really know. I think it comes in bits and pieces and one day it may all fall together. But I am living the dream right now. I'm making appointments, I'm doing photography, and I'm enjoying myself when I do it. Am I making as much money as I would like to right now? No, that's a big fat No. Am I still drowning in student loan debt? Yes and I will be for awhile even when I do get back on track with it. But like Chelsea said, I can't undervalue my accomplishments. 

I'll get there, I know I will. I will find myself where I want to be. Maybe not exactly how I envision it but it will happen and I have to believe that as long as I keep trying. No one ever said living the dream would be easy, and I've always known that. But understanding that is completely different.

Today is a shoot day! I'm always nervous a little bit on shoot days with new clients but I'm always happy to know I'm going to be doing what I love.

♥

I need to go to bed!

Here's what I did today:

I blogged.
I pinned.
I thought about all the things I needed to do.
I practiced curling my hair. Believe it or not, I'm practically 30 and I've never really been known to curl my own hair. And the only time it's ever curled is when I'm going to prom or standing in a wedding or something and it gets thrown up into a super curly updo.
I also practiced putting on some make up. Because I never do that either...wear makeup except for eye liner and mascara. But I'm going out tomorrow night and I want more than that on, which means I'll just be adding eye shadow to the mix...so daring, I know. And I want to do something different with my hair. I tried to get some pics most of them didn't turn out. I tried again just using photo booth and it doesn't really show my hair and stuff but I like it anyway.

You can see the shelf I hung up the other day! I put some stuff on it, right now it's just all of my Alice in Wonderland type stuff. The picture frames on the wall are empty I just hung them up for now.

After the hair and make up. I paced around the house feeling extremely bored and brainstorming what I'm going to do for tomorrow's shoot.

My niece came by and we watched some Spongebob, Mickey Mouse, Max & Ruby, and Wonderpets together.

I made the stuff for tomorrow's shoot. I'm taking pictures of a 3yr old girl. She likes Minnie and she'll be wearing something black and red with white polka dots. I love the classic Minnie with her yellow shoes, so I chose yellow for a couple of the props. I love a good paper crown. I think every kid should have one for their birthday. If I ever get around to it I'll scan and upload a picture of myself from my 7th bday party. I had an awesome red construction paper crown that my mom made and I was wearing a blue dress with yellow ducks on it and white stockings. So cute, I know! :o)

The little girl's name begins with the letter B so I made this B out of floral wire and yarn. I originally wrapped it in this fluffy gray yarn. I struggled with the color choice because of what she was going to be wearing and I really like the way the gray looked but then I thought of Minnie and thought yellow would be perfect. So I just covered the gray with the yellow which made it super thick and soft, which is good because I was worried the wire would be a problem but don't worry it's all completely covered with no sharp points. I was inspired by some things I saw on pinterest. I originally wanted to spell her name out like they did with the word love but I didn't want to use script and I had trouble with using regular print. So I just decided to make a capital B out of some of the floral wire I had lying around. I really like the way it turned out. I want to make some more! It would be cute in a kids room or something, I might give it to Bailee for her room or something when I'm done.

Source: bkids.typepad.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: re-nest.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Ok I probably spent way too much time today looking at tutorials about hair and make up. I can watch every make up tutorial in the world and I'll still think I'm doing it wrong. But hair I can understand. I came across this video for a no heat curl and I've been dying to try it all day. As soon as I finished with work stuff I got to it. The only thing I didn't do was make sure my hair was damp... I washed my hair this afternoon, it really needed it and I didn't feel like waiting any longer to wash it.  And the headband thing probably won't stay on my head all night, but we'll see how it goes. Here's the video:



I really want to check out the rest of her blog but I haven't had the time or the patience to sit down for very long today to do it. But here's her site: the paper mama

Here's what the back of my hair looks like right now:

Oh and here's a picture I took yesterday I thought you might like.

In case you don't see it, it's a fruit loop and the hole is shaped like a heart!

Ok Ok I'm going to bed! ♥

January

Ok, so... February is less than a week away. I can't believe it. It's safe to say that I didn't accomplish any of my goals for January. I'm just not dedicated enough. I know it's not February yet but I may as well get this post out of the way.

I'm going to list my goals along with the excuses I've come up with to "justify" why they haven't been done yet. Get ready for a really long post. I'll understand if you get bored and don't finish reading it.

1. Make new business cards: New business cards cost money. I had some money in the budget for this until I remembered an oh so lovely fact about the gym I go to and how they take out an additional payment in the month of January. I think I've mentioned this. Aside from that I'm horrible at making final decisions. I was thinking about going with Moo for the printing because I kind of like the idea of having a photo on one side and contact info on the other side. And it's done in a way that doesn't look super cheesy. But then I worried about whether or not it really is cheesy. Then I considered using the business cards I used when I graduated from AIS, I just have to change the contact info because it has all changed since then. But I don't know if those cards still represent who I am. And really who am I anyway? Sometimes I wonder. And all of this stuff gets me stumped. It's true, I'm one of those people who stand in their own way. I'm aware and it's something I need to work on.

2. Create a business plan: I guess really there's still time for this. Or time to at least get a rough draft down. I should do it today. My reasons for not doing it.... well I just get overwhelmed because I think about where I want to be in the long run like years from now. I think about where I want to end up instead of thinking about what I can or need to do now in order to get me there. And then it all seems hopeless. Because if you think about where you are now and then where you want to be there are all these steps missing and you have no idea how to get where you think you're supposed to be. When really I should be thinking about right now or where I want to be in a few months or by the end of the year. And I have to remember that just because I'm choosing to do portraits right now doesn't mean it's the kind of photography I'll be doing forever. It's like when you run and they tell you not to look too far ahead of yourself or you'll want to stop. You're only supposed to look a step or two in front of you and take one step at a time.  Yes I relate a lot of things to running and working out for some reason.

3. Move my photography blog: It's hard. All this website and blog stuff is hard if you're trying to be serious about it and a professional about it. I was going to put my photography blog over on wordpress but I don't even know if that's the right route to go. Why do all these people seem to have a custom built website with a blog inside of it? How do they even do that? Or does someone do that for them? I'm having trouble understanding wordpress and how to use it anyway. But I'm still reading and trying things out and trying to find videos that could make it easier to understand. But I think to get the cool stuff I'm gonna have to pay for it, which is fine. I just can't do it today. So this goal isn't one I've completely ignored and put off, I've been working on it pretty consistently actually.

4. Be as proactive as I can be in making appointments: I really have no words for this one.

5. Make it to the 170s: I want to cry....but only a little. Ok so I did good going to the gym for like a week or two and then Jill wanted me to check out her gym to see if I would consider switching so we could workout together. During the week that I was a guest at her gym I only ran once and then did yoga like 4 times. Yoga is still a workout, believe me. But I don't think it's enough for me. I have to be doing something else with it. And the fact that I come out of yoga feeling so relaxed makes me feel like it doesn't really count even though when I'm in there I have moments when I feel like I'm dying. So I think after a week of yoga I got lazy. So I didn't work out at all this week or last week really. A part of me feels guilty for even having a gym membership, just because I could be saving that money. And if I can't eat properly then I feel like working out isn't going to work for me. I'm getting too old for that. When I was like in my early 20s I could eat whatever I wanted and work out and still be fine but not anymore. We never have any decent food in the house. I've been eating more chips than I should lately...and sweets. I've been eating out of stress. I'm an emotional eater and I don't think that can be fixed by going to the gym. It could maybe be helped if I had better foods to choose from when I decide I'm so sad I need to eat something or whatever. I haven't been drinking enough water and I can feel it in my skin...yuck. Yesterday I quietly told myself and no one else that I was going to do better. I was going to make sure I had plenty of water to drink. I was going to make the best choices I could with what we have to eat and for the most part I did. I would eat every 3 hours. I did pretty well until the afternoon came around. For some crazy reason I was craving chips. I tried really hard not to eat them but I ate them anyway. And at that point I decided if it were the only "bad" thing I ate it would be ok. And I was fine after I ate them except for the fact that they didn't really taste as good as I thought they would. Then later I went out for coffee but I got a small nonfat hot chocolate. And if you've ever worked at a starbucks you know how much chocolate syrup gets pumped into a tall hot chocolate..... more than necessary, believe me. But I wasn't really feeling guilty about that. But what I should be feeling bad about is how I went almost an entire day being really good and really conscious of what I was eating and then when I got home from coffee I was informed of the cadbury eggs my dad bought and I had some more chips.... what is wrong with me!!! Anyway I'm not really allowed to complain about not losing weight, because I know what I've done and haven't done. And I'm not going to say next month will be better because I don't know that.

6. Cut out some of the sugar: This obviously didn't happen. I made birthday cakes and I ate birthday cakes. I also ate two cadbury eggs last night. No excuses. I'm addicted to sugar that's all there is to it. That and I'm an emotional eater. These aren't excuses they're just problems.

7. Run 3 miles: Oh I ran 3 miles.... but not all in one day. I don't think I need to say much more about this if you've already read the rest of this post.

I know all of this probably sounds pathetic. Maybe you think I'm lazy and maybe to a certain degree I am. Or maybe you're thinking if I didn't spend all this time blogging I could have been doing something productive. But for me writing is productive because usually when I'm done posting something I get up and go do something that needs to be done. Writing has and always will make me feel better. I don't do it often enough. I have issues I know. But you just have to know that I'm not just hanging around my house feeling free to do whatever I want. I'm constantly getting in my own way because I over think everything and because the things that scare me sometimes paralyze me. And I spend a lot of time worrying about my family and helping them out with their problems, this stresses me out to the max and it's exhausting. I don't know why being unhappy with my situation isn't motivation enough to get me out of it. I'm not sure I will ever understand myself.

I may not have accomplished the goals I set out for myself this month but here is a list of what I have done this month:

• I booked 2 photo sessions. 1 of which is a full priced session, not a promo price.
• I've been meeting with a friend who is helping with the business side of things for my business. She's been helping me a lot and it makes me feel productive and hopeful for the future. (This is what I didn't want to jinx myself about. I like feeling hopeful and I don't really want it to disappear anytime soon.)
• Because of my friend's help I'm in the process of booking a senior portrait session at full price.
• I did a practice shoot for cap and gown photos using my new background stand. It was fun to do a studio type set up. And since the seniors around here need those pictures for their yearbooks, it's nice to know I'm capable of doing it.
• I'm slowly but surely getting organized.
• I made a lemon cake from scratch for the first time.
• I made a king cake from scratch for the first time. (I love to bake, it's a stress reliever for me)
• I pulled a bunch of images so I can make a new portfolio.
• When my monthly wave of depression came over me, I acknowledged the fact that it was happening and reminded myself it would go away soon. So there was no need for me to fall down the rabbit hole and cry myself to sleep about it. And there was no need to let it take over and control my life. So I didn't let it completely control my life for the week that it was here. (Trust me, this is an accomplishment)

That's all I've got for now. My accomplishments may not seem like much to most people but I have to stop thinking about what most people believe is acceptable. I have a lot of stuff to work on and I do feel like I'm making improvements in life in general. I'm not sure if I'll make goals for February, but if I do I have to make sure they're simplified and doable so I don't get overwhelmed. I have to look at my goals from a completely different point of view.

♥

Chocolate Cake!

I'm getting ready to meet up with Jill for some coffee, even though it's almost 7pm. But I have nothing to do in the mean time so I decided I would post about this chocolate cake I made last weekend. I'm not going to post the recipe because it's not really mine to post that and I'm kind of lazy. It's actually this lady's recipe. And it was delicious. Usually for a chocolate cake I use a recipe from Martha Stewart but after reading Chelsea's recipe I decided to give hers a shot instead. Chelsea is, after all, the next Martha you know. haha Anyway! When I was a kid I never would have told you my favorite cake was chocolate, and even now I don't know if I could say it's my favorite. But it's definitely my favorite kind to bake. And with the right kind of chocolate frosting, it's just AMAZING!!!! 

In the oven.

Out of the oven.

Out of the pan.

Frosted.

 I do love chocolate frosting. This time around I used store bought frosting, I don't see any harm in that. But there's a part of me that's just asking why didn't. I mean it's like running a race and deciding to walk across the finish line. Oh well, it was still delicious.

Chipped.

 Chelsea's recipe didn't call for chocolate chips. But since I was stacking the two layers I thought the chips would be a good way to keep the strawberry frosting kind of away from the chocolate frosting. The reason for this was that the cake was for the twins' 7th birthday. Originally they wanted two different cakes. Chocolate with chocolate frosting and strawberry with strawberry frosting. I considered making two different cakes from scratch and then asked them to compromise. They had trouble with this. But the final decision was chocolate cake with half strawberry frosting and half chocolate frosting.

Delicious close up.

Strawberry frosted.

 Can I just say that I love love love strawberry frosting. I can smell it's loveliness just by looking at the pictures.

Stacked.

Sooo Good.

The cake was really really really good. And it made sooo much. Each layer of this cake could have been just a single cake on it's own because it was so thick, but I wanted to stack them. The only part of Chelsea's directions I didn't follow was the part where she says to transfer the ingredients to a larger bowl because you may end up with cake batter all over the kitchen. I'm a daredevil. My bowl did come close to overflowing, I just had to make sure it was mixing on the slowest speed possible or I would have been covered in chocolate. The other problem with not using the big bowl was that when the time came for me to pour the batter into the pans I was too afraid to pour it out so I used a measuring cup to scoop it out and then put it in the pans. Oh and one more thing I didn't follow was the cake pans. She used 3 and I used 2 and I have no idea what size mine were lol. Unfortunately, the twins didn't like the cake. And I have no idea why. To be honest I was kind of annoyed about it...but they're 7 what can ya do? I think they're just used to box mix cakes. *eye roll*. I mean seriously, if you've never made a cake from scratch you NEED to! It's really easy and at least this way you know everything that's going into your body. That doesn't mean everything in the cake is good for you.....it just means it's not a bunch of overly processed stuff coming from a box. But whatever, it's easy and it's tasty. And you'll never want to use a box mix again. The thought of it makes me cringe.

♥

Old Room

I don't know, maybe I'm just in the mood to embarrass myself. But I thought I would show you some pictures of what my room used to look like. What it looked like before I moved to Seattle... which was like 6 years ago. (wow, that's crazy to think about) But I can't even tell you how long it really did look the way it looks in these pictures. Please don't judge me. Just know that when I did move back here about 3 years ago I hated walking into the room I had left behind. It just wasn't me anymore. It was a younger version of myself. 3 years later I'm still trying to get rid of some of my old things, but it hasn't been easy. So at some point in 2010 I decided I had the money to buy some paint and repainted my room. I don't have any proper after pictures but if you're lucky and I'm not being lazy I'll take some new pictures when I'm done doing all this other stuff I've been trying to do. Like hanging up shelves and empty picture frames.

So here ya go..... one giant green wall with blue squares and rectangles. It's so gross whenever I think about it now. But when my sister and I were kids we shared this room, it's the second biggest bedroom in the house. When our oldest brother moved out my sister and I moved into the smaller rooms that our brothers used and my brother who was still living at home moved into this big room. The walls were blue and pink. I wanted blue my sister wanted pink blah blah blah. When my brother moved into the room he painted the walls green. All of the walls were this crazy green color. For some reason back then he thought it was so cool and when he moved out of the house I moved back into this room and he said I had to promise to keep at least one wall green. I don't know why I felt the need to agree to this, but I did. But I had to change it up a little by taping out all these squares and rectangles and then painting them blue. It took a lot of time.  I painted another wall all white. Then you can see the white wall with these purplish blue swirls and "clouds". It's embarrassing because I was in college at this point. I mean yeah I was still young but this is the kind of stuff you want to do to your room when you're in high school isn't it? Whatever I've always been young for my age. Even now I feel young for my age....  Notice how on the swirly wall above the mirror I tried to hang up one of my prints from school. When I got back here I just started taping up all these prints from AIS to maybe help me cope with being back home and having to stay in this hideous room.

You can get a little glimpse of the carpet there down in the corner. I hate this carpet and there's nothing I can do about it.

This was taken not even halfway through the painting process. Please ignore my reflection :)

This must be after the final coat... for this wall anyway.

So this wall was painted with the color I used for swirls on the other wall. Another place where I just hung up a bunch of pictures. This spot was mostly pictures of myself lol. That's not the color it is now. But if you saw the post earlier with the shelf, that's what color this wall is now. And then the other two walls are that dark purple you see above. Yes my room is two different colors, but I like it that way.

That's all you really get for now. Apparently I didn't take any pictures of the wall that has the closet in it. Except for what you see in the window. You don't want to see that mess anyway. I don't have a door on the closet so it's a constant point of chaos for me. And for some reason I didn't paint the inside part of the frame on the closet. You'll notice that on a later post I'm sure. I think my plan was to hang a curtain or something there. Anyway I hope my interior design savvy friends approve of what the final product is or will be once they see it. I'm starting to have second thoughts about actually posting this.... but I guess I'll do it anyway. I did just spend all the time typing it out :)

♥

holes in the wall

In my efforts to get more organized and what not I've finally decided to hang up some things that have been collecting dust. I don't really like hanging things up because I'm terrible at it. Measuring in a straight line without the keen eye of someone else.... someone a little more handy, you know like my friend over at little red chair  ;) is rather difficult and annoying.

I think I mentioned that I found a million empty picture frames in my closet. And I'm tired of them being in my way on the floor since I've removed them from the closet. Yesterday I hung 4 empty frames on the wall. And, no. They aren't perfectly straight which drives me a little bit nuts but they aren't so crooked that I'm going to obsess over it.... Or maybe I will obsess over it once I put some photos in them. I still have another million frames to hang I just don't know where yet.

I was given a shelf at some point....I think it was last year or maybe it's been longer. And since I loathe hanging things I never hung the shelf on the wall. I know I know, I have issues. Last night I decided where I was going to hang it and this morning I decided to attack the wall with a screw driver. The shelf came with the screws and those little plastic screws that you're supposed to put in the wall first if you're just hanging onto straight drywall. I have weird walls. I got one plastic screw to go in and it made me feel like hanging this shelf was going to be easy.  Then I had to measure where the next hole would go, which wasn't easy. I'm always off by like a millimeter or something ridiculous. But then I couldn't get the plastic thingy in first which frustrated me. Stubborn as I am (yeah, I'm a Taurus) I kept trying to make it work. Then I decided maybe I could just put the screw in the wall because maybe there was a stud there. That didn't work either and now I have a giant hole in the wall. Don't worry, it's not the first time I've attacked this particular wall in my life time. My sister and I shared this room and these walls when we were kids. So anyway, the shelf has multiple hanging things on the back of it and they're in weird places. But it made my life feel a little bit easier when I realized I could just use one of the other spots instead of the one that wasn't working. This didn't go well either. The plastic screw didn't work, of course. So I finally got the electric screw driver from my dad....and by the way, this may be a stupid question but...what's the difference between a drill and an electric screwdriver? I've definitely used a drill to screw things into a wall or a fence post before...  Anyway I finally got the electric screwdriver to work only to find out my measurements were slightly off. Ugh!!!!! I wish I would have taken note of when I started this because it seemed like it took me forever. But maybe it only took an hour and in my mind an hour is still too long to hang something up. I put so many holes in the wall trying to readjust things. I finally got it though...

Well almost. It's crooked and it's driving me insane because it's only slightly crooked. I kept trying to fix it without having to just decide on a completely different area for the shelf. My dad decided to come in and ask me how the electric screwdriver worked and I was all grumbly about it and how my shelf was crooked. So he told me, "you know, I do have a level you could have used"  Does he not understand that a level doesn't do me any good. I mean the holes on the back of the shelf are in weird places. They aren't just flush with the edge of the shelf. I can't just draw a line along the edge of the shelf and end up with perfect placement. I mean maybe I just really don't know how to do anything. Anyway now there are more than enough holes in the wall. Pencil marks that won't come off and a slightly crooked shelf that I'm going to pretend isn't crooked. (This makes me want to cry a little)

Here I took a couple of pictures to show you, it doesn't look that bad in the photos for some reason. But trust me, I'm not completely crazy. It's crooked. Unless my ceiling is crooked or something and all the lines are tricking my eye. But then again that reasoning doesn't work if I place a marble on the shelf and it rolls a little. I didn't really try that, but I'm sure it would roll. And seeing that would only upset me even more. Just ignore all the crap I have sitting in and on my bookshelf. Thanks. You can actually see holes from years ago still in the wall. I know that would drive some people nuts. But I usually found ways to cover them. haha..

♥ ~ I'm not as handy as I would like to be...boooo

Weigh in Wednesday

Last Week: 184

This Week: 185

I'm obviously doing something wrong. And I know it. I have a lot to say about this but I'll say it later. I just have to make sure that what I want to say isn't a bunch of excuses.