High 5 For Friday

Another Friday...this past week flew by.  Linking up with Lauren again for High Five For Friday.

 So here is a pic from this past weekend when my friend Jess came to visit. Clearly I wanted to mess up the photo and have my mouth open in the pic hahah guess I was just trying to make it a fun pic :) 

I looked outside on my patio and this was in the snow...Do you know what it looks like??  I was like ahh look there is a heart in the snow...I guess cupid left it for me maybe :)

So this will be my life for the next few months..This is the study guide for the certification exams for becoming a school counselor!!!  I will be taking the national and counselor exam in April so me and this book will be becoming best friends....Side note Amazon Prime is amazing!!!  I signed up for a student version and they gave you six months free and with it you get free 2 day delivery but this is the second time I have ordered something and it came the very next day...I ordered this at like 1:00 yesterday afternoon and it was at my door at like 11 this morning!!! That is crazy...Way to go amazon

So don't you just smile looking at this picture :)  Here is a picture of one I took last weekend during the family shoot I did.  Cutest little baby Evelyn

During my trip to Target today I took a walk through the home section and these mirrors caught my eye... I love mirrors, they are an easy way to spice up your walls.  I didn't get these mirrors because I don't really have anywhere for them to go but I want them and like them and felt the urge to take a picture of them.

Cheers to the weekend!!!

Fill your minds and your hearts

First of all I apologize for the small hiatus...last week I was so proud of myself for blogging everyday and this week i don't know what happened...life got ahead of me and this week has flown by (I guess that will happen with grad school, work, etc etc)  The good thing is I'm back :)

So being a photographer I love to look for inspiration in other photographer's sites or Facebook pages and I recently started getting Click the magazine.  I like to read about the latest photography gadgets and to hear stories from other photographers and get ideas from poses.  I checked the mail today and it was a good mail day because there was a Click magazine waiting for me!!!!  It was wrapped in plastic and there was a little card inside promoting a company's card design.  What was on the card really gave me the inspiration for this post.

The card was reminding people to love what they do and do what you love... The front was the little girl in the picture with the John Lennon quote, "You Say I'm a Dreamer, But I'm Not the Only One" On the back of the quotes it had a few quotes from different photographers...

"Value yourself and your work"

"Follow your own heart and dreams"

"Continue to challenge yourself"  

I never thought I would become a photographer, I always loved taking pictures, and then a job at a photo studio fell into my lap and then now I have my own small photography business.  It may be small but it makes me happy :)  When I get to take pictures, whether it be for a wedding or family shoot I get excited to capture memories.  I take pride in my work and work hard to make my clients happy.  These pictures will be pictures they will look at for the rest of their life and I want them to be happy with the end result.  This pushes me to challenge myself and get creative and not stop coming up with new ideas.  A photographers job can be very challenging at times, especially with certain age groups (toddlers) :) but I have various families tell me how patient I was and how they couldn't believe how good the pictures came out even though their child was being so bad.  All it takes is a little patience and time and that cute pose and smile will be caught in a moment.  

I don't know why the card made me think about my own life so much tonight.  It is not just in my photography work that I want to live by the mottos above, if you are doing anything you should value and love what you do.  If you are not enjoying yourself you will resent it in the end and not be happy. If you have an interest in something work hard to make it happen and do not be afraid to take a chance. We only get one life so shouldn't we enjoy living it??  

High 5 For Friday!!

Today I am linking up with Lauren for High Five For Friday where I pick the top 5 things from the week.

1. The Blizzard of 2013 kept me stuck inside for two whole days but I was finally able to dig out and get back to a normal routine this week!!! (A lot of people were stuck at their house for much longer than me, but trust me when I say there is only so much movies and dare I say pinning on Pinterest you can do.

2.  In my post about reading Girls in White Dresses I said how hard it is to see friends from college but this weekend that is happening!!!  My friend Jess is coming for the weekend!!  She lives in NJ and we try hard to see each other every few months but sometimes life gets in the way.

3. I have blogged everyday this week!!!  I try hard to post everyday but sometimes that does just not happen.

4. I am excited to laugh tonight when I go see Identity Thief.  I love Melissa McCarthy, she never fails in the laugh department :)

5. I have a photo shoot tomorrow!!  I love being a photographer and it has been a little while since I took family pictures so I am super excited to snap some shots tomorrow :)


TGIF!!  I hope you had a great week and enjoy your weekend!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Hope you have a great Valentine's Day!!1  I hope you are wearing red or pink and spreading the love today... I got the cutest card in the mail from my goddaughter Emma and her baby sister Evelyn :)

Emma decorated it herself and her mom wrote a quote she said about me...I guess I am funny hahaha 

On my bookshelf

Here are the books I have read over the past few weeks…

Safe Haven
By: Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks has to be one of my favorite authors.  Yes the books are pretty much the same, love story, predictable at times, but still always a great read.  I read Safe Haven when it came out, but with the release of the movie coming (this week actually on Feb 14) I wanted to reread the book.  The books are always better than the movies in my opinion but I still enjoy the movies.  While rereading this movie there were a couple parts of the book that I had forgotten about and I still enjoyed reading it for the second time.  It was hard to not picture Julianne Hough and Josh Duhmael as the main characters though.  You know how you create the characters in your head and what they look like, well these two are not what I pictured for Katie and Alex.  If you haven’t read this book I definitely recommend it and I will be going to see the movie so I will let you know what I think.  If you like a good love story then any Nicholas Sparks book will do the trick.

Girls in White Dresses

By: Jennifer Close

I have seen this book browsing through Target and bookstore and finally downloaded it on my kindle and read it.  This is a book that I could really relate to.  The book is about a group of girls and there life after college.  What its like when the first of your friends gets married, and then another, and others who are no where near close to getting married.  Life after college is the time where you really find yourself, find a career, or start to decide what you want to do with your life.  The book follows the girls through their adventures, girls trips, romances, going back home, moving, being broke, visiting their college campus, etc.  In the book they discuss how much they miss college and this is something I was just talking about with one of my friends the other day.  We didn’t know how good we had it in college.  Yeah it was a lot of work, all nighters studying, class, labs, etc etc but think about it, a place where all of your friends are in the same area and there is always an excuse for a party.  Now my college friends are all over the state or country for that matter and busy with our own lives that it is hard to get together that much.  Yeah it is nice to have a job and more money, but college was 4 great years. 

One of the characters in the book thinks all of her friends have a plan and direction and she doesn’t really know what she wants and I could relate to her in some ways.  I know what I want career wise, it just took me a little while to get there.  I am the only one of my college friends that is still in grad school and not working in a full time career.  When I graduated from undergrad I worked for two years before starting grad school.  I don’t regret it; I learned a lot working for two years and gained experience but sometimes wish I was on the same page as everyone else.  My friends work M-F set schedules and mine is all over the place.  I have class in the evenings, work retail all different hours including the weekend and it is hard for some friends to remember that I am not free on the weekends like they are.  Enough of my rant, I am enjoying grad school but excited to be done in a year and get a job as a school counselor.  I would recommend the book J

Softball Seam DIY Project

 I played softball for many years growing up, and apparently there is something in my sister’s and my blood because all three of us played softball.  My younger sister plays now on her middle school and travel teams and by looking at her Facebook page you would clearly see that softball pretty much is her life, she loves it. 

While stuck at home during the blizzard I came across this DIY project on Pinterest and knew I had to try and make it for her.  Lucky for me I had a softball lying around and here is what I made…a bracelet out of the softball seam.  I followed the instructions found here… 

 Here was my end result

You are able to make two bracelets using the seams.  I thought this was such a creative project, something I never would have come up with.  It would be sentimental to make one with a ball from your senior night game, or a game you hit a home run or something like that. 

Cheers to another completed project from Pinterest!!! 

Oh and who knew that this is what a softball looks like naked… 

Heart Nail

With Valentines Day a few days away I wanted to try and get my nails ready for the holiday.  Well really I spent so much time on Pinterest looking at nail designs and wanted to try and do one myself.  It actually ended up being really easy. 

The nail polish I used plus a topcoat.  

NYC In a New York Minute Color Fashion Safari 

Nicole by OPI Love You Cherry Much

To make the heart all I used was a piece of masking tape.  Just fold the masking tape in half, draw half of a heart on the fold, cut along the heart you drew, and then open the piece of tape and presto, heart nail stencil! Paint your nails with your main color, wait for it to dry, lay stencil down and paint with heart color.  Carefully remove stencil and then admire the cuteness J

It was simple and cute, adds just the perfect touch for the holiday.  I do not usually wear nude color nail polish but I am enjoying it.  Based on the People Style Magazine neutral shade nail polishes are in right now, it says that neutral shades tend to look good on everyone. The pop of the read heart goes well with this color. 

XOXO 

Just Keep Shoveling...Just Keep Shoveling

Friday

So the snow is still falling but hopefully we are in the home stretch and the cleanup process can begin.  So after my post (rant) about who needs snow I decided there is one good thing about the snow…being able to photograph it.  As a photographer I enjoy taking pictures, it can be the simplest thing as snow on a branch but taking a photo you can see the beauty of it.  Here are a couple of shots I captured yesterday:

Here is what it looked like outside early in the afternoon when the storm started...

(Doesn't look bad at all right?) 

I think Pinterest’s traffic was at an all time high yesterday from people in the northeast it def was at my apartment, my roommate and I were on it alllll day.  You know its bad when you have it open on your phone and your laptop at the same time.  Seriously I do not know what I did before Pinterest came into my life.  Besides Pinterest I watched two movies, Clueless and Taken 2.  The snow was falling all day, looking out the window all you saw was white.  As the night went on it rose higher and higher with no end in sight.  I was a little nervous to see how much would fall overnight

Watching the tree out the window get covered and covered in snow 

On the couch with a blanket, Pinterest and watching Clueless

 This is what it looked like around midnight 

There is my car on its way to being buried...wait to see what it looked like in the morning. 

Saturday:

Woke up and looked out my window and ahhh my car was gone!!!  No it wasn’t stolen but it was covered in snow. 

Those are my windshield wipers sticking up!!!  

The snow was still falling and so deep.  I think this is the most snow I have ever seen in my life. Around 11:00 my roommate and I ventured out to see if we could try and dig out our cars.  The snow was up to our thighs!!  Heavy wet snow is not easy to walk through and not having the proper snow clothes is no fun.  Two pairs of sweatpants doesn’t do the trick let me tell you.  The snow around my car was up to the windows and just everywhere.  You would shovel and shovel and shovel and look down and it looked like you made no progress at all.  I cant complain as much as people who had to shovel a whole driveway. Since this was Storm Nemo people just needed to say Just Keep Shoveling, Just Keep Shoveling.  My car is pretty much all out but I had to abandon it because it was just too cold and painful. There were many wipeouts into the snow while I was out there and when the snow is that deep it is not easy to get back up J This storm has solidified my distaste of snow, especially since I talked to my family and friends in North Carolina and they were enjoying a nice 50 degree sunny day.  I moved back to Connecticut because…??? 

The only Blizzards I want to be a part of anymore are the ones from Dairy Queen :)