New Year, New Home, New Goals

On the last business day of 2017, Zachary and I officially purchased our condo 13 miles from my childhood home. It's invigorating 1: Owning actual, valuable property 2: Having free range to be a Pinterest/IKEA addict. We are currently demolishing the crap out of the kitchen and have appointments set to get a new master bath shower & vanity. 

Funny story about that actually: I set an appointment with Bath Fitter to come quote me on the new shower, and he gave me a HUGE $ number, so he said he'll call me later and see what our final thought was. Well he called last night, and asked what we though, and I'm like "Yeah! We totally want everything we talked about!" And he was so caught off guard that we weren't denying him, that he wasn't ready to take our deposit. We were laughing about it. 

Anyway, I'm really excited for this phase in my life. I'm going to go crazy having so much room to be ME and for Zach and I to finally be US without roommates or mother (who has been so kind to house us for the last half-year.) 

I've taken tons of before pictures, and current demo pictures but I want to wait until I have a proper side-by-side before & after to post on here. 

I'm been on this internal hate-rampage for my photography business. Because I think pictures are valuable, and moments like pregnancy, birth, families and marriages and EVERYTHING should be documented in this way. I feel like we photographers all feel like this to the point of passion that we go crazy trying to get business, not for the money, but for the joy it brings us and the warmth we know it will bring as these day to day happenings become distant, cherished memories. I wish with everything in me that photography would be more than just a hobby that I get to take part of, but a life I completely want to immerse myself in. I'm in marketing groups and photographers groups and these women are complaining that they started out this year with only 10 weddings booked (they're used to more) and I'm over here like WHAT HOW WHEN WHERE HOW HOW HOW. Are they better than me? Are they just good at selling themselves? I've done 3 weddings, two of them were for my sisters and the other was my old best friend. 

So it isn't this "organic" experience that my "competitors" are having where they get to meet brides from Instagram and talk about details and shoot for 10 hours at a $10k venue with a bride wearing a $12k dress holding a $500 dollar bouquet, oh and don't forget that her groom is a picture perfect model who actively takes part in the wedding and is willing to pay over $1k for the photography. I would KILL to shoot a wedding like that, to show off what I can actually create; the Instagram algorithm is destroying my chances even more of getting seen. Rant not over, but I'll be done for now. 

I had this daydream where I had just finished hiking a gorgeous piece of mountain on Oahu, knelt down and lamented to God until all my tears had run dry. And for that reason alone, Zach and I are booking ourselves a Hawaiian getaway for the sole purpose of praying on a mountain. Sounds crazy. Sounds HEALING.