This isn’t me. This is.

I’m sitting in our living room. I just tackled a whole army of emails and I’m feeling most proud of myself. The husband is on his way home with the ingredients to make mojitos. We’re growing herbs now (because we’re so green) and we have fresh mint leaves begging for some liquid to swim around in. Mint mojitos made the most sense.

I’ve been really busy lately. It’s because I’m so popular and successful. Don’t hate me because of it.

Alright fine. It’s because I have a part-time job that I make full-time and then surrounding the largest parts I pour in the sand of blog reading and Twitter and Facebook and then the water that seeps through the sand comes in the form of spinning my brain in circles thinking about all the terrible things that are going to happen when I quit working so much. I mean come on people! I’ve got photo contests to manage, students to keep happy, emails to be sent, posts to write, new workshops to advertise the heck out of. I am super important. And, super busy. And, kind of tired. And, starting to not feel like myself. Oh crap. This isn’t what I wanted …

Last fall I met the lovely person who has done all my incredible design work you now see. I could quickly tell he was the type of designer that gets to know you so that the designs match … well, you (genius, right?). I had on a normal outfit of cream and cream and a splash of color in my earrings. Hair pulled back because I’m too lazy to get up early enough to shower. Flip-flops - one of the $3 pairs from Old Navy. He opened up his laptop to check out my current site and blog design and then kindly said, “This isn’t really you.”  ”Yea, I know, but it’s bright and lively and colorful because well … I take pictures of kids and that’s what you think of when you think of kids. Bright colors and giant patterns.” “But you’re wearing all cream. With greasy hair. And, no makeup.” Okay, he didn’t say that, but practically he did.

Then, we started to brainstorm and he told me that some time that week to surf the web and add to a list any sites or fabrics, clothes or housewares that jumped out at me. I sat at a coffee shop for 5 straight hours and did just that. It was so freeing. I would see outfits that were SO CUTE … but then I’d stop and remember. That’s not me.

The result? Well, good grief - you’ve seen my gorgeous sites and blog. To. die. for. Right? I’m just lucky I found someone who helped me express my business true to me (not you, although you are perfectly beautiful in your own way.)

I just marked the category for this post because I often times forget and then they show up “uncategorized” which annoys me. I marked it “ramblings.” When we were deciding on the tabs I would have at the top I wanted “ramblings” to be one of them. It’s most accurate to what I like to do. Ramble.

I like to share my heart. Even when it’s painful. Actually, I like to share my heart most when it’s painful. When I’m most happy I can’t ever think of anything to say. Which is why I haven’t been sharing much - much of me - here lately. I’m really, truly happy. Do you know how good that feels to write and feel when there was such a large window of time when I felt just the opposite? {Enter giant, deep sigh here … }

I’m happy.

Still infertile.

Freaking out about these new kid/teen workshops I’ve just launched. I just know they’re going to fail. But, how could that be when they’re so incredible and there’s so much heart behind them!? Yet, I have so much insecurity swirling around right now. I might just drown in it.

I love my husband. Sometimes he gets on my nerves (like last night!!!), but he’s really a dream come true.

I want a baby. Just one will do. Although I’d really like for them to have a sibling.

I want to create an area in my photography business where I only take pictures of women. Because women are beautiful and so many don’t know it.

These are just a few things I’d like to write about.

For now, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.

Thanks for checking in. Thanks for letting me “ramble.”

xo,

jc