Reviewing 2010... Counting Our Blessings

January: We began the year in a new home, healing from the abrupt departure from our beloved Mason Attic....

We started finding our niche in "Kate's House", the combination of cold winter and new surroundings keeping it easy for us to hunker down and hibernate a bit as we healed and prepared for a new year. A blog post from January I still cherish:  Everyday Magic.

In February, we enjoyed some snow:

We indulged in more quilt/couch time... We made morning art when we felt like it... And we celebrated Valentine's Day with the sweetest Cupid around.

I also embarked on the 12-week Artists' Way course, which led to a Wordless Week during February. A post at the end of that time that reflected on our relationship to the online world: "Invoking Amber Ludlow"...

By March, things started thawing out, and I posted about Five Other Lives... another Artists' Way exercise.

What Are My Five Lives? It was fun to explore what other futures I might have had, in another life....

By April, the need to hunker down and go inward was ending, and the itch to get out and be ALIVE in the world was coming back... The light outside was changing, the weather was improving, and we were thawing out.

I got a new lens and had a blast playing. The above photos are from this post: "These Boys." And I got around to sharing one of my favorite projects I've ever done, the Lamby ABC Book. (I still adore this idea, and think everyone should do one!!) April was the month I got to drive to Wisconsin to meet and photograph Stef's new little guy, and it was also the month Joe, Noah and I drove to Nashville to meet a bunch of Peas and bond over photography. A busy, delightful month!

May was even more of a whirlwind. I asked readers to tell me about their toddler routines, and I managed to find time to post a few photodsof Noah just being himself... like this:

Joe wrapped up his final semester as an undergraduate, a huge accomplishment and reason for celebration!!

After Joe's graduation, we packed up for a surprise, wonderful, amazing trip to Hawaii with his parents.The week was AMAZING-- a true break from the realities of life. Noah was a dream kiddo, and Joe's parents made it a picture-perfect vacation for all of us.

But  May wasn't done with me yet--- I got off the plane from Hawaii, only to hop back on another plane less than 24 hours later to head to Portland, Oregon for photo sessions. Another week away from home, more incredible memories... And by the end, a SERIOUS yearning to just be HOME for awhile!

I got that break for two weeks in the beginning of June... And relished my time with Noah.

Only to turn around and hop a plane yet again and head to New England for one last photography trip. Covering 5 states in 4 days, I had AMAZING families to photograph and had amazing food and fun. It was a perfect way to wrap up my busy season with photography.

After all the traveling, I took most of July/August off of work. I missed the slower rhythm of being mostly a mama, so Noah and worked on getting that back.

A favorite post from July:

"The Pictures I Should Take/The Pictures I Can Let Go."

 And another one--- this one a photo essay: "Summer Outing: The St. Louis Boathouse." 

July was also the month Beckie treated me to an INCREDIBLE weekend in Chicago to see "Billy Elliot". She also let me talk her brains out about some major dissatisfaction I was having with my life of late...And that weekend with her was the beginning of a massive personal philosophy shift in the form of a "Boot Camp" I set up for myself-- 28 days of hard core dietary, physical, and spiritual goals. I did this from the middle of July to the middle of August.

In August, still off work and still working hard on my Boot Camp, life was mostly good. We had a rhythm to our days...

 (From the post, "My Little World Right Now"). But it wasn't all good at the end of the summer---- Joe and I were stressing out about our future, since he hadn't gotten into grad schools and the potential job he thought he had with the University had been on indefinite hold. We had a bit of a scary month of unemployment, and the strain was not easy. At the time, it seemed unending.

Luckily, by September 1st, we heard back from the University of Missouri: STL, and Joe was officially offered a job as an academic advisor. I honored his accomplishments with my favorite photo shoot of the year:

(The Mime Session blogged HERE.)

More September goodness:

1. "Slowly, Slowly, Stop and Take it a Bit More Slowly"- a blog post about my month of rediscovering my center...

2. Noah playing, everyday moments:

3. Photos of Noah WITH me. (I need to try to step in front of the camera more often!)

October: We made a MAJOR announcement, in the form of a letter to our little, growing baby.

The month flew by in a flurry of photography work and fall fun. Noah's Halloween:

And time at the pumpkin patch:

But by the end of October, some unforeseen complications to my health became the unwanted focus of my energy. After avoiding the gravity of it for a bit, I finally blogged about Betty and the breast abscess: "Betty, You Weren't In the Plans."

And then in November, I blogged after the surgery.

 

Luckily, there were lots of bright spots amid the health frustrations

November disappeared in a blur-- mostly caught up in the recovery from the surgery and the subsequent reactive arthritis that debilitated me the rest of the month... But we managed to have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I somehow managed to wrap up my business year. 

 And we made sure to get our tree by the start of December, so that the entire month could be a celebration of the holidays:

We were graced with a lovely long visit from Joe's parents in the last part of December, and Mother Nature gave us a white Christmas. 

I wrapped up the year by taking a minute to remember the things I could be grateful for:

"Little Things That Make Me Smile"... 

And we let the year go... Ready for a new start. Some new adventures. More chances for growth. 

And here you are, 2011. 

And all I have is all I need. I want to hold to that thought for the year... even when things get tough again (as they always do)... Even when familiarity completely disappears (as it will when  Lucy arrives in April)... Even when I end up on month 4 of total sleep deprivation (as I anticipate in the summertime)... Even if jobs change, health changes, relationships alter (all things we were surprised with in 2010)... 

All I have is all I need. And I will be grateful.

G'night.... I'm headed back to REAL LIFE tomorrow. Most of you guys are, too. Good luck!

Reality:

**WARNING: Not-so-pretty stuff ahead...These are detail shots of my recent adventures.**

It's just a part of who I am--- the photographer. So as weird as it may be, I tend to document even the not-so-great stuff, including post-surgery madness. This post shares a few intimate images of the post-surgery fun, including two images that actually show the tube and stitches in my upper breast. I want to assure anyone who is curious/brave enough to scroll through the rest of these that there is no actual BREAST in full showing--- only the upper part of my chest/sternum region, at least 4" above the nipple, which is safely tucked away out of sight in these images. No need to get randy here. :)

But the tube itself is a bit graphic, so I understand if you stop here, move along, and forget this photographic chapter of my life.

The first shot, the one above,  is the one that amuses me most. The surgeon herself came into my pre-op room to write "YES" on the left side of my chest-- to ensure we all remembered which side was the one we were working on. That markered "YES" lingered for a few days afterward.

The next two shots show the stitching and tube that is still tucked into my chest, and yes, apologetically, there is also blood here. That is why I tend to stick to black and white pics for this sort of thing. Feels less gory. The sore to the side of the tube is my biopsy site from the week before.

I get to change my gauze pads two or three times a day, to keep the site clean and to help along the draining of that tube. Gross. No way around it. It is gross. And creepy. I think the tube might come out sometime next week. *fingers crossed*

The rest of the pics are tame-- just a few random shots of the electrodes that the nurses forgot to take off of me after surgery, and that I didn't even notice were still on til the day after surgery. Kinda funny...

Oh, and a self-portrait of me in my "recovery gear"-- the bad-hair-day bandanna and the industrial strength surgical vest they gave me after the surgery--- to hold me together and keep the dressings in place. Hot.

 

And there ya go, brave readers/viewers. Things in this area are doing okay.... but not AMAZING. The chunky lump is still there, and I simply don't know WHAT they'll suggest next. It doesn't hurt really, so maybe they'll let it alone. *shrug*

Meanwhile, the foot/ankle/wrist/back/joint pain that began the day after surgery has ended up CONSUMING my life this whole week. It is so bad, I am not sure I can convey to you how much agony I've been in. I cannot walk, really. My ankles sometimes throb so much I can't sleep. By Monday, I realized I was unable to even take care of my own kiddo on my own, and had to ask my mama to come get him and care for him for a few days. My hope was that these past few days would be full of rest, and maybe some solutions from my doctor(s)... But instead, the days have been mostly filled with more pain, less answers, and FAR less rest than I had planned. The days, instead, have been filled with being shuffled from one doctor's appt. to another, from one long phone call with a nurse to the next long phone call with a nurse. I've been to a total of FIVE doctors about this whole thing--- from breast to foot pain... And we're still not entirely sure what the deal is. It's kinda scary, and incredibly disheartening. 

But.

I get my kiddo back tomorrow-- in time for his birthday. And I feel a slight lessening of the pain today, so my hope is that we are on the downward slope of this horrible era. I want to get back to the good stuff--- to being a mama and an excited mama-to-be... Get back to my sewing machine. Get back to my work. Get back to taking care of my hubby, instead of the other way around. Get back to preparing for the holidays. 

I'm ready for some NORMAL to come back.

Why Not Shoot In Black and White?

I just have a random quick tip for those of you with digital SLR cameras, pro or not.

See, since last October, I switched to full RAW shooting, all the time. I was a JPEG shooter for years, loved it, was sold on it... but the RAW switch was easier than I thought it would be, and I am deeply satisfied with the end results.

However.

I lost two things when I switched:

1.) I lost the easy shooting/instant gratification/simple viewing/sharing capacity of shooting JPEGS when shooting my own personal photos.

2.) I lost the incredibly gorgeous (in my opinion) black and white shooting mode in-camera.

Let me address #2 first.... See, if you guys with the big fancy cameras didn't know, your camera likely has an option in its vast menu to shoot in Monochrome, or in other words, black and white. This is a really cool option for you if you know you'll only need your photos to be black and white-- because the camera won't record any color at all. If you know you'll want both color and black and white of a shot, you have to shoot in the regular mode, then convert to black and white in a photo editing program later.

But sometimes....sometimes you know you just wanna shoot black and white. And while you COULD shoot regular color, then convert later, WHY?? I just switch my camera to black and white right then and there... and the conversion the camera does REALLY makes me happy. Often, I just go into Photoshop later to add a bit of contrast or do a curves layer, but that's IT. No long-winded tweaking. The in-camera black and white is just that good.

However..... the funniest thing happened when I started shooting RAW. I could still shoot that monochrome mode and see the black and white photo in my camera's LCD... but when I brought the file into my computer, opened it in Lightroom, the black and white was gone. It was all color again. Why? Because a RAW file is just that---- RAW. No presets applied, no "in camera conversions", nothing. So when I brought the RAW file to  Lightroom to work on, it was stripped of the black and white frou frou my camera layered on top of the photo to display it in the LCD. It was purely RAW. So.... I lost that black and white loveliness. I'd have to create a conversion in Lightroom or Photoshop. The extra, tedious step was back.

UGH.

So. My (long winded) tip for the day is two-fold:

1. Try out your in-camera black and white. It can be so much fun to shoot in monochromatic and see the world that way. Try it out. Look for textures or moods that might be really enhanced with black and white. Try serious/pensive/truth-telling portraits of your kids or try taking images of small details in your home... Try it out. You might fall in love with the way your camera does black and white as much as I do.

BUT.

2. If you shoot RAW, switch back to JPEG first... just for the blacks and whites. just for fun.

Which brings me to that other dilemma I faced when shooting RAW--- the fact that I lost the simplicity of having JPEGS ready to show/share/enjoy when just shooting my own life. It seemed people were either all-RAW or all-JPEG, so I stuck stubbornly to my RAW switch... and in the meantime, my own personal photos got more and more backed up because they were stuck in this RAW form that needed to be opened in Lightroom/pre-edited/converted to JPG/exported to PS/final edited..... EXHAUSTING. So of course, they never got done. 

But ya know what? WHY be all or nothing?? So...a couple of months ago, I stopped. STOPPED shooting RAW when I knew the photos were just going to be casual shots of my life. I now switch freely back and forth between JPEG and RAW, and I LOVE it. I get to have my personal photos back... within reach, no extra steps needed. So. If you are a RAW purist.... why not try switching to JPEG, just one time, just to feel the freedom? Not with the pro pics you have to have super precise... but just for the playtime with your kids, or the photos of your latest crafty project? Why not?

Anyhoo...

That was rambling. 

Haha. 

And the photos above are the three spunky kiddos of my old pal Sarah from college days. I got to spend two lovely days with her when I was in Oregon in May. Turns out her town of Vancouver, WA is literally 10 minutes from Portland, OR. Who knew?? So we got to hang out, and her kids got to ham it up for me. Perfect.