Happy New Year!

Happy New Year friends!!!  I hope that you all had a wonderful relaxing Christmas and rang in the new year with your favorite people!  We had such a fun, relaxing holiday, and I’d be lying if I said I was ready to get back to normal!!  I made the wonderful decision this year to take the majority of my son’s Christmas break off from shooting.  I only shot 2 days over the break, and it was wonderful!  I got to go to bed at normal hours and sleep until I woke up, spend precious time with my kiddos and ate way more food than one person should ever even think about eating!  Now, I’ve thrown all of the desserts away, and I’m at least thinking I need to get on taking my Christmas decorations down!  School starts back tomorrow, which means back to normal bedtime routines and the dreaded morning routine!

I’ve never been much of the resolution type, but I am definitely planning on making some changes for 2013, both personally and professionally!!  I’m hoping that if I type them at least some of them out for all of you to read, that I’ll hold myself a little more accountable :)!!  First off, I have to get organized!!  We moved into a new home last December, and my office is still a major wreck!  I’m so thankful to finally have a space for all of my “stuff,” however, I need more furniture to hold said “stuff,” and get it all off the floor so I’m actually not embarassed for people to see it!  Second, I am going to be changing the way I schedule my weeks.  I will be scheduling days for editing, the lack of this has almost killed me in the past, so I’m hoping it will help!  I’ll also be scheduling a day “off” from the computer to spend with my little girl!  She starts kindergarten in the fall, which means these are my last months of having her at home, and I want to plan some fun things that she’ll actually remember, instead of staring at the back of my head!  I also plan to keep my turnaround more in check for 2013!  Last year was an AMAZING year business wise!  I met SO many new people, and also photographed lots of families I already knew!  I shot 14 weddings of my own and helped out on a handful of others!  This led to a bit of craziness personally and more than a few weeks of feeling like I’d never be caught up!  As of now, I am caught up minus a couple of album designs that will be done by next week, and it feels SO good!!!  I don’t feel weighted down by my computer, and I’m committed to keeping it that way!  For you, that means you don’t have to wait as long to see images, and hopefully means I can blog more often!!! It still won’t be every session…I gave up on that long ago.  It just isn’t a reality for my business, but blogging more is better than almost none at all :)!!!  I am still working on finalizing my new pricing schedule, but things will be changing for 2013.  Don’t worry if you already have a session booked, you’re locked in at 2012 prices :)!  I will be putting the info in the Investment section once it’s complete.

The biggest change that everyone will be able to see first is the new logo / branding!  I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to change things up, but thinking about what I actually wanted almost drove me crazy!  I mean there are WAY too many colors and designs out there!  You can get so caught up in the pinterest world that you forget what you even like!  I hired a graphic designer early in 2012, and after a few chats with her realized that I had no clue what I wanted!  Like, literally no idea.  I would tell her something and she would come back with designs that in no way represented what I had in mind.  Though to her credit, were exactly what I described!  I told her around June that I needed a few months and we scheduled a time to chat in September.  In that time, I was able to clarify what it is that I wanted, what colors represent me best and the rest is history!  The old logo…well, I’m not so much of a pink kind of girl.  I would describe my style, both personally and what I hope to convey in my images as clean and fresh, but classic.  I knew I wanted navy from the beginning, but went back and forth on the other color, as well as whether I wanted a bold font or some fancy scripted one.  I am really happy with how it finally turned out!  I am still in the process of updating all of my materials, but hope to be completely switched over in the next week or so!  I hope no one was too attached to the pink flower :)!  Out with the old, in with the new, and it’s all for the good!!

Because I’m a one girl business, I feel like my business goals ARE my personal goals!  However, I do have some goals that don’t really relate to my business, but definitely make me a better business owner!  Around June of 2012, I started running again..and not just 1-2 times per month!  I completed the Couch to 5k program, and then did the 5k-10k program.  I also started tracking my food in the myfitnesspal app…and became kind of addicted to it!! These things together led to a 25 lb weight loss, and that’s definitely something I want to maintain (or even increase) in 2013!  I’m considering training for a 1/2 marathon just because I do so much better when I follow a training plan, but I’m not sure that my horrible knee can tolerate the mileage :)!  I will definitely update with my progress if I do!  The holidays have been TOUGH on me, and while I’d love to sit home in my pj’s for a few more days, it will be great to get back into my routine, without a huge dinner planned with family every 4 days!!  I also want to commit to being more disciplined about my Bible study and daily devotionals!  My soul is craving this so badly, and it’s awful that it seems to be pushed aside way too easily!  One more personal goal is to unplug and be fully present in the present!  Why does my iphone need to be on the couch with me??  It doesn’t!!  This is so tough these days with the feeling that we always need to be connected, but I am committed to letting things wait until tomorrow and paying attention to the now!!  These kiddos need my 100% attention, and why wouldn’t I want to give it to them?!

sidenote..I also plan to blog these images from our session with Sara Rose soon :)!