Mayorial Times

I wouldn’t consider myself a political photographer, or even a photojournalist, so photographing the Mayor is a little out of my comfort zone but I had a great time today anyway, and I learned a little bit about Phoenix + entrepreneurialship!

I’ll be posting these plus the mayor shots on Arrow & Apple soon, but for now, here’s some detail shots I took around Co+Hoots, the co-working space for entrepreneurs where Josh is interning! It’s such an awesome space and great idea for start-ups that need a space to work in. And besides that, it’s pretty inspiring being around so many different business that are making it happen with fresh ideas and a passion for small business and seeing Phoenix grow! It’s seriously such an awesome idea.

Behind the Scenes

I love behind the scenes shots. I raided Josh’s phone earlier of some of his snapshots from shoots and weddings we’ve done together. Here’s a couple of behind the scenes phone pics, and then the photos that I was taking as well! It’s fun piecing these together.

In this first shot, notice the kids behind Amber + Jeff! We had to do their pre-wedding session while the museum was still open which was kind of a challenge, but luckily we managed to work around the people at the museum.

Guest Wing!

Ok so it’s just a room and not a wing. we’re still so excited to be able to have a decent place for guests to stay! It’s the first time we’ve had a guest room that wasn’t also a storage room, so it feels pretty special. 🙂

Josh made this sweet end table.

A thrifted blanket that I fell in love with.

Just a couple peeks… You’ll have to come visit to see the rest!

Favorites Lately

A few things I love about life lately.

I love the way the sun streams inside in the afternoon.

I love the plant life here, all of the pretty succulents. They’re so beautiful!

I love coffee spots that are new to us, and delicious. This came from a new fave, Lola. And that whipped cream on top is homemade espresso vanilla whipped cream… YUP.

I love when Sadie bathes in the sun in the mornings.

I love when Josh gets inspired to paint. I love that he said that these swirls get stick in his head like a song. I love him!

I love new friends. Sadie does too 🙂

There’s a lot in this life we have to enjoy and be grateful for! I was so heartbroken today to hear of someone who took his own life early this morning. I never want to forget these beautiful blessings that make life so lovely and rich. Things that even in our darkest moments we have to be grateful for, and we have so much to live for. We have so much hope for the future!! My heart is heavy for them today. Join me in sending prayers and love back to Nashville.

Birthday birthday birthday!!!

Yesterday was Josh’s birthday!! Big deal!!!!!

Josh’s absolute favorite cake is angel food cake. It’s devilishly (see what I did there?) hard to make. After a couple of birthdays of total failures at making it from scratch I decided to just try the boxed mix this year and see how it went. The boxed mix ended up being perfect. I’m okay with that. 🙂

So I dropped Josh off for work yesterday and got crackin’ on birthday surprises!!

The birthday boy!

Made these candy pretzel rods. I’m kind of obsessed with chocolate covered things since I made those cake pops.

And there’s that angel food cake I told you about! It really was delicious, thank you Betty Crocker. Topped it in strawberries and whipped cream. oh my!

I made a couple of luminaries printing photos and text onto vellum and wrapping them around jars. Unfortunately our printer ran out of ink and I only got a couple done in time, but I still like the way they turned out. 32!

You can’t have a party without balloons right? Anyway… here’s the birthday boy before friends arrived. 🙂

Happy birthday to JOSH!!!! He’s the very best part of my life, my best friend, and someone who inspires me daily. I’m so thankful he was born!! I’m crazy in love with you deary!! Happy 32 years on earth. 🙂

On it Like A Bonnet

“I’m on it like a bonnet” is something I say probably too much. I think it’s hilarious but no body ever laughs. Oh well! Inside joke with me!

I haven’t really felt on it like a bonnet lately! I resent the computer for stealing my life away. My creativity feels like it’s been stolen away somehow. I’m not going to lament about how lacking I feel, but I’m going to talk about my plan for crawling out of this hole. This kind of drain happens maybe twice a year. I think it’s the curse of the creative. I don’t know why but it certainly is a real struggle to stay inspired in these seasons, especially with the wise words “You’re only as good as the last thing you did” echoing in my head from photography school. At a time when business is slow this is probably the very worst reminder!

I spent the past two days NOT ON THE COMPUTER. I had to call a break. I went out! I talked to people! I ran errands! I planned! I shopped! I picked out paint colors and made lists! I walked through the garden center at Lowe’s and soaked in the sunshine! It was marvelous. It was perfect. Oh it was PERFECT. It was totally what I’ve needed. And I’m realizing that my problem is that I don’t allow myself more creative breaks than I do, and that goes hand in hand with self-control. Self-control has a lot to do with work discipline, yes, but I think to know and control yourself, you need to know and control your limitations as well.

The end!

Tomorrow is Josh’s birthday!!! I’m so glad he is alive. I’m thankful so much for that man. 🙂

Matt’s Big Breakfast!

Last week, our good friends Chelsea and Scott introduced us to some SERIOUSLY AMAZING breakfast – Matt’s Big Breakfast. I’m realizing now that I was TOO EXCITED about the breakfast to remember to take photos of it! And as delicious as their breakfast was… I think my favorite thing was their homemade toast and strawberry jam. Lord have mercy. I could go there and just eat that toast and jam… every day. But this is truly one of the best spots in Phoenix we’ve been to so far that celebrates all of our very favorite meal – breakfast. 🙂 Here’s a few quick snapshots of our breakfast date! Photo of us was kindly taken by the lovely Chelsea (whose blog Tea Talk you should definitely be reading on the regular!). I am so excited to start documenting more spots around Phoenix. As much as I love taking easy little phone photos, I’m proud to say I only used the big gun on this particular breakfast date, which is something I’d also like to start doing more – using the Mark II for more fun photos!

Aren’t Chelsea and Scott the cutest? I love them. I also love that they too had their cameras to snap a few shots. Friends after my own heart!! 🙂

Photo Free

This is an update with zero photos. Just a fair warning. 🙂

Today felt like summer. 80 degrees and sunny. So lovely. I hope we can get our pool in working order before the heat hits.

Surgery recovery… it’s going ok. It’s pretty gross and not my favorite thing, doing the saline rinse twice a day. It’s terribly nauseating. And gross… as I mentioned. But it helps. The human body is so weird, how it works.

I’m going through total fatigue now and also a little feverish. My brain is borderline batty. I think it’s all of the laying down and staying indoors that drives the battyness. All I wanted to do today was go out and THRIFT. I stayed in and browsed craigslist like a sick troll. It wasn’t the same.

Being confined to laying down pretty much I’ve perused Netflix trying to fill my Downton-Abbey-shaped hole in my heart. I tried Friday Night Lights. I watched several episodes of Say Yes to the Dress today. Nothing loves me the way that DA loves me. That makes me feel so sad. Season 3 doesn’t start until the fall, and 30 Rock has made me so confused lately. I’m trying not to make my life about TV shows but for this season of recovery, TV is the only variable I have. Also… I make a lot of lists. About goals and stuff I can’t do right now.

Oh man, I am seriously out of it. I probably shouldn’t be blogging or have access to any social outlets of any kind. oopsies! tootaloo!

Open, Empty, and a note on being a Business Woman

There are some spaces in our house / life that are totally clean slates. It’s exciting and pretty scary. Sometimes I don’t know where to start.

This morning Josh and I were sitting on the couch, looking around the room, and Josh just said, “We need more stuff.” I never though I’d hear him say it… he’s a self-proclaimed minimalist! But it’s so true. Our big house feels so empty sometimes. I like the open space but I’m so ready to NEST it up. Bigtime. That top picture? That’s the view from our couch of the living room / dining room.

My mom and sister are coming to visit in a little over a week! I am THRILLED. I’ve been scouring Craigslist all night for furniture / nestings for the Guest room – another clean slate! Right now we joke that it’s our gift wrapping room…. since the only thing in there is wrapping paper. We’re so fancy we have a gift wrapping room. I guess the joke is a lot better in person. 😉 Besides the bedroom it’s been fun doing meal planning and activity planning for showing my mom and sis this city that I’ve come to love already! But most of all I just can’t wait to see them.

Although my body is recovering from surgery, my brain is in high gear (most of the time). It’s hard to sit on a couch for hours and make yourself rest when you have so many ideas so I’ve been trying to direct my ideas to things that don’t require a lot of action… particularly branding and designing and portfolio-ing! I have to admit something – I’ve never actually had an Arrow & Apple business card. HAH. I carry Josh’s cards around with me. There’s only been a few instances where I’ve given them out instead and laughed and said I must have grabbed my husbands’ cards by mistake (lies. Sorry, airplane business guy who looked like Ben Folds). But truly it’s something I should have. I’m the very worst businesswoman! It’s hard for me to actually consider myself a business woman though. I think of business women as  having to wear heels and blazers and knowing how to build quarterly reports, and for lunch, they can only have Zone bars and Diet Cokes. But you know what, I AM a business woman. I wear jeans and shirts and the same black flats I’ve worn for like 10 years. I don’t know how to build quarterly reports but I can format a blog. I don’t send faxes and I put a lot of smiley faces in my emails! I will hopefully NEVER DRINK A DIET COKE, EVER. But I like who I am, I love what I do, and I love our clients SO MUCH!! We have the very best couples in the world that have found us to work with us. I am every day so grateful for people who are so awesome that they don’t really care if we have power suits or jeans, but they trust us regardless! (Although for real, I’d never show up to a wedding in Jeans… EVER.).

Wow, this is a lot of rambling. This is what happens when you are in recovery and the pain killers are working! 😉 I kid.

I’m so antsy. I haven’t shot anything in too long! I just want to take more photos. I just want to be healed now! Thanks everyone for the love and kind words. Hopefully I’ll be back out taking photographs soon!!

 

Thin mints

Our day started off with the ring of the doorbell! No one was there, but these surprises were: