Category: BlahBlahBabble

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BlahBlahBabble

Things I’m Good At… (30 Days of Lists: Day 2)

Today’s list is Things I’m Good At. I don’t know about you, but sometimes writing about things I’m good at is hard. I seem to be conditioned to find my faults so much easier than I find my own strengths. I’m working on that though! Definitely a perk of doing these lists!

I’m Good at…
– Photography
– Being crafty
– Loving
– Writing
– Being a friend
– Knitting
– Using a map (totally snagged from Campfire Chic)
– Blogging
– Making pretty graphics
– Procrastiworking
– Laughing
– Crying
– Baking
– Spotting Typos
– Giving Directions
– Twittering (Because that takes skillzzz!)
– Random trivia
– Remembering small details years later
– Singing loudly while alone in my car
– Dancing like no one is watching

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BlahBlahBabble

A Little Bit About Me… (30 Days of Lists: Day 1)

I was inspired by 30 Days of Lists and decided to participate. Today is day 1. I may take some of these offline, but for now writing them here seemed just as easy, and I’d rather share.

List 1: A few things about yourself

  • Wife to Mike
  • Mom to Jason
  • Owner or owned by 4 cats: Mona, Maggie, Lincoln & Graham
  • I have the most wonderful and supportive family & friends and I’m grateful for them daily
  • I love being a Boudoir Photographer
  • I believe all women are beautiful
  • I passionately want to help women feel beautiful in their own skin, and I use my camera to help me do that, I also recommend the best acne scar treatment for those who feel intimidated by their skin
  • I like photographing weddings too, especially when we get to go to cool destinations
  • I’m still working to define my dreams and decide what I want to be when I grow up
  • Blogger of over 10 years here
  • I named WordPress, my only geek claim to fame
  • I’m an only child
  • I tend to overshare
  • I’m learning on a daily basis to love myself more
  • I love to knit with wool and I’m a fiber snob
  • My Mini Cooper (Horizon blue with a white top and white bonnet stripes) makes me smile every time I see it
  • I loved living in Germany in my early 20s and I hope to live in Europe again someday
  • I had a hysterectomy in 2007, and sometimes I still wish I could have a baby
  • Sometimes I’m glad I can’t have a baby because I love my life just like it is today
  • I taught myself to code HTML by hand in 1996 when I had nothing to do over the holiday season at work
  • While I’m better at it, CSS still makes my eyes bleed a little bit
  • I have decided I don’t want to edit this list to make it go in any sort of order that makes sense
  • I’ve learned to just do brain dumps lately and then just move on to my next task so I can get things done
  • I’m a piler, not a filer
  • I dream of living a minimalist lifestyle
  • I find it hard to get rid of things away because I spent money on the item or I have an emotional attachment
  • I want to move into a small bungalow style house with a porch in a neighborhood where I can walk or ride my bike to get places
  • Making lists is fun
  • I want to buy my studio building but I question whether or not I should or can
  • I love Houston but wish it wasn’t so blazing hot all the time
  • I miss living somewhere with seasons because I love fall, winter & spring so much
  • I’ve decided to accept that I’ll be living in Houston for many more years but I’m not always happy about it
  • I never finished college
  • When people say I’m successful I have a hard time agreeing with them – but I’m working on it
  • I want to find a BIG WAY to help women learn to be comfortable with their bodies, but admitting that I have this big dream scares me so I’m putting it at the bottom of my list
  • I want to learn how to dream BIG and then BIGGER THAN BIG and then make those dreams come true
  • I’m still learning to put words to my dreams
  • I am happy.

Hmm… seems I don’t follow instructions well since that is more than a few. Eh, whatever. I don’t want to edit it. I might even add to it someday.

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BlahBlahBabble Picture Time

Let Your Beauty Shine…

There is nothing more incredibly beautiful than a strong, confident mother. I’m so glad I get to work with them, capturing their sexiness with my camera. Being a Hot Mama Boudoir Photographer might just be the best thing in the world, because I get to share with them how I see their beauty. Almost every woman comes in for a session as a gift for her sweetie, and leaves with an even bigger gift for herself, feeling fantastic. It is incredible to watch the transformation.

Every Mama is beautiful, both inside & out.

It breaks my heart a little bit when I hear people say that they just have to lose 5 more pounds, or even 50 more pounds. Why can’t we accept how beautiful we are, as we are? Why do we hide behind a mask? Myself included here – I do it too. Our view of perfection has become so skewed. Just looking back at movies or magazines from 20 years ago makes it obvious. We’re living in a plastic world when it comes to our perception of beauty.

It needs to stop.

Today, I’m going to take off the mask. I’m going to let my beauty shine for the world. I know I’m not physically perfect, but I’m still beautiful. I hope you’ll do the same!

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BlahBlahBabble

Community – Reverb10, Day 7…

Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I felt like Community surrounded me in 2010. I made it a goal early in the year to be more active in my local community here in Houston, and thanks to the always awesome JR Cohen and his brilliant brainchild of Support Local, Grow Together, what seemed like countless opportunities opened up to me to mingle more. It was so wonderful the people I met thanks to the SLGT movement!

I’m so glad that Houston has an active and vibrant community on Twitter and Facebook as well. Somehow, without it all, I just wouldn’t feel as connected as I am, and I wouldn’t have met so many cool people!

In addition to all of that, I’ve gotten to watch the Fast Track Photographer group that we started in August of 2009 grow even more this year. We celebrated our one year birthday in August and we’ve had a whole bunch of great people come and share their knowledge with the group – specifically cool people that I met thanks to SLGT. Love it when things come full circle like that!

In 2011, I want to continue to spend even more time out and about. It is so easy for me to hole up at the house when I’m not working. I’m an introverted extrovert. Once I get out, I’m fine and have a great time, but sometimes I get so freaked out about going out and mingling. I’m working to get over it, and I’ve improved a lot from where I was at. Living 30+ minutes from the center of Houston doesn’t help though, because there are times I just don’t want to drive. I’ve learned this year to be better about stacking appointments to be on the same day as activities that evening so that I’m already out and don’t have the distance issue.

I also want to work on building up the Houston Fast Track Photographer community even more. There are so many great photographers here in Houston, and we all have so much to offer one another. The same goes for the SLGT community. I just see so many great opportunities, and I love connecting people with one another.

I can’t wait to see what 2011 holds!

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BlahBlahBabble Reverb10

Make – Reverb10, Day 6…

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

I’m exempting photography from this. Not that it isn’t significant, but it is something I make all the time. So instead I’d rather talk about something else, my knitting!

I love to knit, but I don’t make enough time for it. That really needs to change, and I’m working on it. The last thing I made and completed was a sock. I finished the first of the pair while I was on the road in Mexico that I mentioned the other day, the crazy highway with all the curves, and I’ve been working on sock #2 to complete the pair. They are Trekking XXL yarn, a fantastic wool. I love Trekking!

There are SO many other things I want to make! While I was in London last month, Pixeldiva Ann gifted me with the most amazing bag full of awesome wool yarn from The Yarn Yard. Natalie, the owner of The Yarn Yard, took one dye and made one skein of everything she carried in that same color of dye. Absolutely fascinating to see how each individual type of yarn picked up the color differently. It is just stunning! It ranges from maroon to plum to nearly black, and as light as a dusty rose. Oh goodness. I love it so much! I’m planning out my projects for it, and every time I look at it it makes me smile & think of Ann & Karl, since it matches the color of Ann’s wedding dress. Just brilliant! Natalie was so wonderful to deliver this bag of delicious fiber to London and hand it off to me personally! After snuggling with it for a bit, I shared it with the other knitters too, and we all ooh’d and ahh’d over it.

Now begins the hard part – matching up the perfect project with each of the yarns. I’ve been researching on Ravelry (I’m Christine over there) and gathering up ideas. Have any suggestions? Most is lace to sock weight, and I have enough to make shawls or a pair of socks out of all of them. Or gloves, mittens, etc. – similar yardage options. What would you make if you had a lot of yummy yarn?

I need to make some photographs of that yarn as well – it is really too beautiful not to share! Hopefully this weekend!