Life As I Know It

With her head held high

Last week my daughter went to her first formal dance.

And I have to applaud my daughter.  After all the crap she endured in connection with this thing termed "The Event" - a sort of "Prom-like" event organized by stakes in our area, which I thought should be a great and wonderful experience in the life of a teenage girl and ended up a lot of it being so NOT, she still got dressed up, put on a smile, and made the best of it.

And she looked beautiful . . .

 

 

CURRENTLY . . .

Working on 3 different websites.

One for the girls' soccer team - you can check it out HERE

A new site for something I cannot talk about just yet.

And a new blog site for my photography.  After many years of being with the same company,  using a flash site, I decided to finally take my site down.  After 2 other photographers in the last year started up on the internet with the same exact site template, I felt I finally needed to heed the advice of a very successful portrait photographer I met at WPPI.  Build a brand.  Customize and build something unique and set yourself apart.  

There are a million photographers (fish) in the sea.  Why on earth should someone pick me?

My husband has been nagging me to update my old site for some time.  He is very good at what he does and very honest.  Always.  He thought it boring and lackluster, not an adequate representation of the work I do.  I confess I hadn't updated it in 2-3 years.  While the site looked great, I felt it lacked what I call the  "wow factor".  And while I had customized it with my logo and colors and all that, it just didn't scream "ME".  I want people to visit my site and remember it as being "Chris Jenkins".  I had a client back in the beginning when I first had the old site who could recount much of the imagery I had posted there.  I have only had that on a rare occasion since.  I have a few photographers whom I admire that everytime I visit their site, I am "wowed".  I want to strive to achieve that for myself.

I also have been feeling that my work needs to be better.  And so lately I have been "looking" and paying more attention to trying to "capture those special moments".   I also have been taking on "special" sessions to diversify my portfolio.

I also feel that I need to grow.  As my husband says, right now I occasionally get paid for a hobby I happen to do really well.   Can you say "OUCH"!?  I need to grow into a successful business.

I haven't been blogging very much because all of this has been taking up pretty much all of my time.   And I have had to use skills I didn't know I had or acquire skills I definitely didn't.

I love this blog.  I love that it is here and I am free to post whatever thoughts come to mind.  It just makes me sad that I haven't had the opportunity to post.  I guess if you want something, you have got to create the time.  Hopefully I will be creative enough to do so.

~Laters

Never enough.

The problem with being someone who suffers from bouts of insomnia like I do is that I often find myself very much alone in the very quiet hours in the dead of night or the wee early ones just before the dawn.

With not much to keep me company.

Except an abundance of thoughts that swirl around in the big head of mind, cohabitating within the brain that often refuses to shut off and let me rest.

Yesterday was a doozy of a day and I ended it feeling very crushed. 

Crushed because I failed to master the life-work balance, crushed that I ran out of time to complete all the projects that I had outlined for the day, and crushed that almost everyone seemed to be a bit disappointed.

What I fail to understand is that despite all the good things one accomplishes, why is it that the "shortcomings" are what get noticed?

Is it even possible to be and do everything everyone expects 100% of the time?

I know I have lost sleep and worked myself in to a frenzy trying.

Maybe that is wherein lies my error.  I should be adopting the Yoda philosophy.  I shouldn't be focused on trying.  I should be focusing on doing.

I want to be a better mother.

A better wife.

A better sister. daughter. 

Friend.

I want to be more expressive in my creativity.

I want to be a better artist.

I want to be a better person.  A more generous one. More understanding. More forgiving.

And yet despite wanting all these things, I fear as I journey toward them, it will be never enough.

I am many wonderful things. 

BUt I am not yet many things people expect of me.

I hate this feeling lately of never enough.  It bugs and weighs heavy.

I pray one day I will learn to overcome it.