A New Challenge...In the Works

I have come to a realization, I am not spending as much time as I would like/need to on my photography! This realization came when Aaron and I were rearranging our office and he found a hard cover portfolio he bought me about three Christmases ago to put print outs of some of my best shots in, and it was empty. And not just empty, but collecting dust, cob webs hanging from corners empty! I felt awful!!! It was with this incident and me submitting some pictures to a website, www.dreamstime.com, that allows one to sell their pictures and my pictures were rejected, that I realized I want and need to spend more time on my photography. I decided, then and there, starting the beginning of the year I am setting a new challenge for myself and my photography. The details are still a bit sketchy in my mind, but it will consist of forcing myself to wake up earlier, Keurig coffee and post processing my pictures. The sketchy details also include of submitting a certain number of pictures per week/month to dreamstime.com and having a higher number of pictures accepted; it also includes printing out the pictures that were accepted and placing them in my hard cover portfolio my wonderful husband bought me. If anyone has ideas on how to fill in these sketchy details I'm all ears!!

Here is a sample of pictures that are accepted to the website and is my inspiration!

A Little, Little More...

For those of you who read my previous "A Little More..." blog you would've read I grew up playing softball as a catcher, playing college ball, etc. The part I left out in that information is, while playing ball, I HATED running! Being the catcher, I wasn't one who A) ran fast or B) liked long distance running. The times our coach would make us run two miles after practice or the mornings we would go to early trainings only to hear we were being timed on our miles invoked wishes and prayers that God would temporarily break my ankle or send me a really bad ankle sprain or pulled muscle, only for that particular point in time, nothing permanent cause I still wanted to play the games I just didn't want to run!!!!!
Well, being out of college for about six years, and done with softball for about five years, I have come full circle and am excited to say I really enjoy running now! Can you believe it?!?! The girl who wished temporary pain upon herself to get out of running actually enjoys it now! I've come to find out running really allows me to open my mind to anything I want to think about. Anything from: "What am I gonna cook for dinner?" "Man, this hill is long!" Singing to my favorite band from my high school year...*NSYNC, etc. Running has become one of my challenges I love to tackle, much like softball was all those years ago!

My new concrete companions!!!

A Little More...

I wanted to post something, sans pictures or "advertisements" about my pictures, more about myself, who I am, what I'm about. As this blog makes perfectly obvious, I love photography, I love everything about it, from seeing something special, capturing it and then post editing to try and make it the best shot it can be. But, besides photography, I'm a person who loves life, loves my Lord and Savior and next to Him, nothing is more important to me than my husband and little boy. I'm an avid athlete, I played softball for 13 years of my life, and am an incredibly competitive person. I would rather be outside than anywhere else. I love movies, any movies!!! I have a goal of one day owing a MASSIVE movie collection, like the one in "The Holiday" with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet, and a room specifically for watching movies with a movie theater setting. My all time favorite movies are The Lord of the Ting trilogies, sometimes you can catch me quoting the "go get em" speeches being made before the big battle scenes! I think I have an unhealthy relationship with shoes...I can walk into Shoes on a Shoestring, or any shoe store for that matter, and hear the Hallelujah Chorus singing. I thrive on challenges and overcoming those challenges through hard work, and sometimes sheer stubbornness. There's quite a bit more about me, but that's all I can think of divulging at this time. Stay tuned for more...

This past week my wonderful dad bought me a set of macro tubes I've been wanting for a couple of months now...aren't dad's great?! These tubes are simple extensions I can add to any lense I want to shoot with and it, in turn, makes that lense a macro lense. I've always been interested in macro photography and love some of the pictures I've seen this type of photography produce, so when I saw these tubes I HAD to have them! I spent the majority of my Saturday this weekend squated down really low near flowers or hunched over desks with very small objects placed on them. All in all, I had a great time with my new accessories and can't wait to use them more! The pics below are a small sample of what I shot...enjoy!

Enlightenment!!!!

Today was an excellent day! Not only did my husband and I have a great day of worship and heard an wonderful message from our pastor at church, but I had the opportunity to shoot the baptisms of seven members of our church! I saw the opportunity about one month ago, when there was an email sent out asking for anyone with photography experience who wanted to serve in taking pictures of special events that happen at our church campus. I responded to the email and, to make a long story short, with a couple of back and forth emails sent I was able to shadow the baptisms today. I think I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my photography. God has given me the desire to shoot and capture special moments in peoples' lives and what better way to do it than to help further His kingdom?! I will still love to shoot pictures for friends and family, but my primary focus will be this new ministry I have been called to take part in. I will write a post after every special event and share the special moments that were captured. I'm not sure if I will be able to post the pictures because I haven't gotten the word if those pics will belong to our church or if they will be considered mine and I can do with them what I want.
In the mean time, here's a picture I captured of my eight year old cousin walking down the road at the Fourth of July Campground in the Manzano mountains. The colors of the leaves were beautiful and I felt like I was in a completely different world!!

To Newly Painted Bedrooms and Incredible In-Laws...CHEERS!!!

Two years ago, when Aaron and I first bought our house, every single wall in the house was white; I felt like I was living in a very large hospital room! It didn't take long, maybe half a second, for me to decide I wanted to paint the house, make it more home like. Now, when Aaron and I bought our house I was about three months pregnant with our son and once we were in the house my first concern was to paint the living/dining room, the hallways and our son's nursery. It took a while to get all that done and when it came time for us to  our bedroom I was way too pregnant, fat in other words, to expel the energy to get the job done. Because of my lack of energy, and size, our room went unpainted for over a year. Jump ahead about another half a year when Aaron and I got a Christmas gift from my in-laws of a free day of painting our bedroom. The reason this gift came from my in-laws is because I love the way they have their living room painted and have told them ever since we bought our house that's what I wanted our room to look like. Now, jump ahead another half a year and I came home from work one Friday afternoon to find this...

Aaron had planned for my mother and father-in-law to come to our house earlier that Friday morning to paint our room and I absolutely love it! I now feel our home is complete and feel so comfy and cozy in our new room.

Good Coffee+Good People=A Great Morning!

Whilst I was making my morning drive to work this morning I got a very large craving for a Starbucks coffee. Now, I try to stay away from Starbucks for two main reasons...to increase the thickness of my wallet and to decrease the thickness of my waist! Their coffee is absolutely incredible but extremely pricey and calorie laden! But, today I thought, "Hey, it's Friday...throw all caution to the wind!" Once I ordered my Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte and pulled to the drive through window, check card in hand, I received some surprisingly great news...the gentleman in the truck in front of me had paid for my coffee! It's so great to know there are people in this world who will sacrifice something of their own for the happiness of a complete stranger, even if it is a $5 latte on a Friday morning!
Happy Friday!



I thought it appropriate to post a pic, all be it a cell phone pic, of the small cup of joy I received! :-)