A Gathering

My cherished friend Danette dreamed up the idea for the centerpieces. Beautiful and simple. Perfect!

We had the exact amount of seats we needed: 16. Our living room was at full capacity.

Beautiful and delicious catering provided by Prepared Catering

Did I mention beautiful and delicious?

By the end of the night the tables were moved to create space in the living room for some seriously fun Xbox gaming.

I feel it would be enigmatic of me to post all of these photos above without telling the story but I cannot seem to piece together the right words to coherently describe the evening. I'm not sure if it is exhaustion or the giddy joy of feeling success in an evening filled with laughter and good food. So I will try my best.

My husband, Ken, works for a very large international company. The melting pot of employees and cultures is really a beautiful thing. There are always people traveling both in and out of the United States. So when I found out a group of his coworkers from Singapore were staying in the US for several months for training  I figured it would be the perfect time to finally have some of his colleges over for dinner. Then I remembered I could not possibly cook for anything over a group of 6 people. That is just my personal limit to maintaining sanity.

Luck or fate had it that an old childhood friend of mine, Kelli, was a chef and had time to squeeze us in on a very short notice. It was also luck or fate that we had exactly enough room to seat all our guests with the borrowed and pieced together tables and chairs we set out across our living room.

The absolute highlight of the evening was when I decided to bravely bring out the Rock Band guitars and fire up the Xbox. Which soon led to pushing all the tables aside for some Dance Central. Oh yes....dancing! In the end it didn't matter much if my table cloths all matched (they didn't) or that I stressed over buying the perfectly paired wine (they all came through the door bearing gifts of wine, food and beer). It most certainly did not matter that I felt the need to move the Wii and a TV upstairs for the kids to have their own space. They didn't even venture up there once. Just being ourselves and opening up our home was enough.

I hope they all had an evening worth remembering, I know I surely did.

Round and Round

I think writing out my Life List has really given it momentum. I cannot believe that I have crossed off yet another item. All in less than 4 months time I have checked off 4 things! That means I need to dig deeper and start adding some bigger dreams to the list. Maybe I'm making it too easy on myself. Or maybe writing down my intentions helped give them flight. Whatever it is, it seems to be working for me on getting them done.

Yesterday just happened to be my first ever Pole Dancing class. You'll remember I almost crossed it off my list a few months ago. Please overlook the grainy iPhone shots. They are just my proof that I was there. That I did it anyway. Even though I was extremely nervous about making a fool out of myself. My friend who was supposed to come with me canceled at the last minute which upped my anxiety just a bit more. For half a second I thought about bailing. I love to try new things just not so much when they involve coordination, dance steps and going it alone. But I did it anyway.

I'm feeling sore and little bruised today but I know this is something I can go back and learn more from. It can teach me how to unwind that tight protective rubber band of a ball I have wrapped around my facade. It can teach me to feel the music and move with it. It can teach me to laugh again. Plus there is absolutely no argument on how awesome of a workout it is! My arms tell me so.

I want to send out a special thank you to Allison from Ophidia Studio for hooking me up with a free session and teaching a kick-ass class! I hope to be back very, very soon!

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

I had the pleasure of working with Tamara from Tamara Kenyon Photography last month to shoot a Boudoir session as a birthday/Valentine's surprise for my husband. Finally today I got to reveal the photos to him, and believe me the anticipation was killing me! I think he was beyond pleased! The photos turned out gorgeous and I felt completely at ease the whole time. This coming from someone who would much rather be behind the camera instead of in front. This is another one of my favorites from the bunch and will be gracing the walls of our bedroom soon. Yes, I am actually quite comfortable linking photos of me in my underwear for the world to see because they are so beautifully and tastefully done. (Sorry Dad!)

All of this reminded me though of how much of a portrait photographer I am NOT. I don't enjoy shooting people and it is something that most definitely does not feel comfortable or second nature to me. It gives me that much more admiration to those who can. There is an art about it and an even bigger learning curve. For that I am grateful to those who have a passion for people and sharing their stories. If you want to see Tamara's behind the scenes commentary check out her blog, http://tkfotoblog.com. She wrote an awesome summary and posted some photos of her setup too.

If this entire experience wasn't enough, as a bonus I am officially checking another item off my Life List! I feel pretty confident in saying that these qualify for a glamorous photo session. Check!

I will always wander

I am so many things that anymore I find it difficult to categorize myself into profile subject lines. The word photographer no longer fits as comfortably as it once did and I realized why. I love to learn. I love the challenge of trying something new. The excitement and the shininess of it all. But then I learn as much as I feel I need to and the shininess wears off. What I need is purpose, projects and structure. If I don't have those things my photography falls into being an afterthought. I am allowing that to be okay. I am allowing myself the freedom to wander and to explore until I find that one thing that makes me so obsessively passionate that I cannot do anything else. Or maybe I am meant to be passionately obsessed with learning new arts. Maybe that is my path. Someday the answer will come.

As anyone who reads this regularly will know I have been doing my fair share of exploring other mediums lately. With this I am happy that I can cross yet another item off my Life List. I have always wanted to start painting again. I dabbled in it through High School art but that was as far as I went with it. I simply added: "start painting" to my life list. Not because I want to learn anything more with it, but simply because I just want to DO it. So last week I went to the store and picked up a small collection of acrylic paints and got to work on a chip board journal. I'm not worrying about form or vision or even technique. I'm just letting the paint flow and DOING it.

A Season to Share

When I was writing out my Life List earlier this year one thing I really wanted to add for this Holiday Season was to sponsor a family. It has been a work in progress this past month but finally today I can check it off the list! I wasn't even sure where to start when I was planning it out in November but after a quick web search I found two organizations in our area that take applications for sponsorships. I got in touch with a local representative who asked me a few questions about how we would like to help and we were set. A week later I received paperwork in the mail about the family we would be helping. The rest was up to me. I had to get in touch with the family and find out what we could do for them. I figured gift shopping would be the easy part. It wasn't. The mom either was being humble when telling me ideas or her kids just really didn't feel comfortable making lists this year. Either way, I was given only a few hints as to what they may like. In the end though we managed to come up with several ideas for each child. The best part was stuffing a stocking for each of them with all my little finds.

Today our family headed to the grocery store to get the final items to stuff in the car. Our daughter, Hailee, was not thrilled at first to be heading to her least favorite place but soon she understood the importance of what we were doing and starting asking what else she could pick out for them. We had a little shopping cart caravan going on while trying to multitask shopping for our family as well as theirs. I decided to purchase reusable grocery bags for them to keep and we filled every single one. I think what made it so easy is that it is 100 times more exciting to grocery shop for someone else than yourself. At least for me!

When we met the family in person today it truly was heartwarming. They were gracious and polite and so welcoming. It really was a treat for us to help them out and for Hailee to see the importance of giving to others this season. I definitely think we have started a new Christmas tradition for our family in the years to come. Giving to charities is great but being able to help someone and see the impact first hand is even that much better.

Happy Holidays to you all!

The Life List

Quietly on my own I have been working on my life list. THE Life List. My story. My hopes. My dreams. It isn't terribly long yet or far fetched and I think that is OK. I tried to keep most everything tangible and measurable and all are very much in my reach. I have been so inspired from reading other lists on peoples blogs I figured it was time to share mine. I believe we all have a list whether we know it or not. Everyone has those secret dreams that are kept inside pertaining to things we want to do, "someday." When my husband found out I was writing a list he even shared a few of his wishes with me. I think the act of writing out a list is the first step towards living a more fulfilling life. I also think it is important to think of a Life List as a set of hopes and dreams instead of another reason to look for disappointment if they all are not accomplished right away. Do I think I will get to every single one of these before I stop walking on this Earth? Maybe, maybe not. Even if I don't that is OK. I have something to look forward to and something to strive for, one small check mark at a time.

If you need a little nudge getting started with your own list here are a few great links to help:

• This article on Writing a Life List by Chris Guillebeau
• 43 Things
• Bucket List