2014 calendars

It's that time of year again! That time of year to reassess the past, make goals for the coming year, and look ahead into the future at the exciting changes and growth that lay ahead. This also means it's calendar season and I am here to tell you that the calendars I made this year are none to disappoint! I couldn't be more pleased with how beautifully they turned out.

This year I chose to make a larger calendar with only 4 seasons, instead of 12 months. Each of the 12x12" pages come ready to hang with a branch I collected during autumn walks and hikes with my dog around my hometown of Durango, CO. Not only does this make each calendar unique, but it adds an additional natural element to the already forest service certified (FSC) paper it was printed on. Thanks to Fresh Off the Press in Durango for the beautiful print job!

Click HERE to order! 

I'm doing a pre-sale and taking orders only through Jan. 8th. I will only make as many as are sold during this time!

Again, click HERE to order online. If you're in Durango and would like to pick up your calendar and pay in person, please shoot me an email or contact me through Facebook.

Thanks in advance for your support and have a HAPPY, happy new year! xo

I had a dream...

For the last few months I've been having a more than normal amount of vivid dreams. A colleague suggested after a frighteningly realistic pregnancy dream that I had been eating too many nightshades. (Apparently nightshades cause vivid dreaming.) I did have some homemade salsa the night before, but decided to blame that dream on all of my many, many friends who are pregnant right now. Last night I frantically awoke to myself whimpering/crying in my sleep. It was the second or third dream I'd had lately where my dog died. But after allowing myself to relax and go back to sleep, I had another dream, and it's this dream I can't stop thinking about all morning.

At the very end of the dream I was with a small group of friends and family and we had to walk down this flight of stairs that was so steep and high off the ground that you had to use both your hands and knees, like a ladder, to get down. To make matters worse we were above the ocean and a boardwalk where cars and people were below.  After a relaxing afternoon of shopping and eating, our group was headed back to the parking lot and everyone ahead of me quickly made their way down as they laughed and talked, not realizing I was struggling behind them and afraid of heights. Every time I moved my foot or hand I thought about it slowly and with doubt. My body was filled with fear and I hoped no one would look back to realize I was so far behind in the embarrassment that they'd discover my weakness. It was at that point that I overheard one of them say that heights didn't bother them.

He said, "It's simple. If you don't think so much about what's in front of you and just take steps, then before you know it you are where you want to be without the doubt and fear getting in the way. It's over thinking it that becomes the problem."

Dear readers and friends, THIS is my problem. I've been told a lot lately that I'm in my head too much, which in a round about way is why I haven't been blogging or why my career hasn't taken off like I want it to. I've been thinking a lot about this, and constructively working through obstacles to overcome it. I know what I need to do. Maybe this dream is just my wake up call, a smack in the face rather, to stop looking at each step in front of me, and instead just move.

I hope this inspires you on obstacles you are trying to overcome.

-What fears do you have?

-What's stopping you?

-What do you think about too much and why is it so hard to let go and just do it?

free. time.

I think a LOT about the concept of free time. Like, a lot. I think about how being a photographer and trying to make a living being creative creates free time that's not really free. Not only to I choose to live in Durango, CO. where it's very, very expensive to live, but I choose to live a life of creativity, a life where I don't have a guaranteed paycheck. I'm a typical "starving artist" who works a second job, sometimes a third, so that I can pay my bills and be able to do what I really love. Therefore, my free time when I'm not working my second job isn't really free. It's when I'm meeting with potential photo clients, blogging, editing (and taking) photos, working on my new website (coming soon!), reading about SEO, designing business cards or marketing material, designing client albums, emailing (so, so much emailing), networking, posting to social media, and the list goes on and on and on. I'm the one telling my friends I can't grab a drink for happy hour because I need to work. This confuses them because they know I'm not AT work. This is when I think about free time and realize my free time looks nothing like others' free time. "Normal" people work 9:00-5:00 and go home. Their evenings and weekends are as free as they want it to be. I on the other hand work, and then have to find time when I'm not working for the other work. Oh and lets not forget trying to balance things like laundry, cooking, friends, my dog, errands, or sleeping. 

I have a lot of friends who are just like me. Artists who paint, prepare for a gallery opening, or screen print t-shirts into odd hours of the night because they wait tables or sell books during the day. It's an odd lifestyle but we do it because the art is what really feeds us, not the actual paycheck that buys our groceries. It's a lifestyle we choose, so I'm not complaining, but no one ever said it was was easy, and very few people truly understand the behind the scenes of our day-to-day. Very few people truly understand that my free time never feels free.

This is why for the last year and a half I have tried so very hard to find balance in it all, to not make myself feel bad for taking time to read a book, watch a movie, or spend hours cooking an elaborate dinner when I really should be on my computer. I try to say yes to friends when I know a few drinks and laughter will fill my soul. And most importantly I've tried to get out of town even when I feel so behind on work, or have unanswered emails in my inbox. This weekend, and so many others this summer have been good examples of just that. And the ironic part of it all is that when I finally loosen up and let myself get away, I feel rejuvenated and inspired. And I take pictures for fun, something I too often forget to do.

Pictures taken this weekend on a camping trip to Ice Lakes with my two best friends and our best dogs.  I'll share more pictures of this and many other summer adventures soon!

mid summer goodness.

Sometimes the best moments aren't photographed. Like when your precariously flipping pizza dough in a charcoal grill via iphone flashlight at 9:30 at night. This pizza, doused with generous amounts of my homemade arugula pesto and grilled veggies, might have been the best pizza I'd had in over a year. I'm a firm believer that grilling anything makes it taste better. So be glad that I have no photos. They would only be torture.

I have many more of these torturous, unphotographed moments that I can't share with you which can only mean it's been a pretty good summer so far. Can you believe it's already July?? It's that time of summer that I actually start to feel a bit of sadness because it's already half way over and there's still so much I want to do! Luckily I am surrounded by so, so many wonderful friends who make my day-to-day life so delicious, no matter what season. It doesn't hurt that I live in such a beautiful place either.

Here are a few pictures as of lately:

photo of me by Jennaye Derge ^