My Birthday!

Just winding down now from my best birthday yet! I took off this past Friday to relax and fully enjoy the day, and am I glad I did. I was able to sleep in and then enjoy my breakfast on our deck.

This was my breakfast :) Chocolate covered strawberries and tea. Not exactly the healthiest, definitely an indulgence! They were part of my birthday gift from my sweet boyfriend. He knows how to spoil me!!

After breakfast I, of course, was out in my yard snapping photos with my macro lens for a while. Taking pictures is my ultimate form of relaxation. A time to slow down and take in the beauty of the world around me. These are a couple of the pics I took in the morning dew. I stayed out and watched the rising sun bring my yard to life. Something I love doing, but rarely have the time for.

My best friend Jackie came down from Pennsylvania for the second weekend in a row to celebrate with me. We went to lunch with her sister Suzy and my favorite little baby, Ciara. I had no idea where we were going, and I was pleasantly surprised when we ended up at this beautiful and quaint tea house in downtown Annapolis named Reynolds Tavern. I must say, she is very creative with her gifts. I had so much fun! Jackie and I both ordered "afternoon tea" which came with a pot of tea, biscuits, mini sandwiches, and tons of sweets. Delicious!! Forgive the quality of the photo, point and shoot camera...

After a delightful lunch and a stroll around Annapolis we stopped at one of our favorite book stores/cafes for a glass of wine. While we sat outside the store and sipped our wine the bright blue skies darkened and started to look menacing. No sooner did we (and everyone around us) notice the very sudden change in the weather, the winds picked up. We had a very long walk to the car... I always follow the weather, and I knew that there were supposed to be thunderstorms, but did I remember an umbrella? Of course not. It started to sprinkle, then it started to pour. Everyone but us was huddled under store overhangs, but we trekked on. We were laughing at the craziness of it all and just enjoying ourselves. What good is life if you can't sing in the rain (/thunderstorm)? This is a photo of us when we finally reached the car. Soaked and totally happy.

I spent the evening with my parents, boyfriend, and best friend. We all had dinner and drinks out. I had an amazing birthday! Thank you again Mom, Dad, Reggie and Jackie for everything. I love you!! And thank you to everyone for the amazing gifts and birthday wishes.

To top it all off, the weekend was a blast too (I love it when my birthday lands on a Friday)! Saturday I photographed my friends pre-prom photos and on Sunday had a family birthday party. As you can guess... the pics are coming soon :)

A Beginning...

Starting this blog has been a long time coming. By no means am I a great writer, and I have always wondered if I would have enough to say to even start a blog. I ended up giving up on the idea years ago; deciding I probably wouldn't have enough to write about. In the past few months, however, I set some goals. Rather high goals in fact. I decided I want to start my own photography business. *Gasp*

For as long as I can remember I have always loved photography. It has been a hobby and passion of mine since grade school. I remember changing the film in my hot pink 101 mm camera during recess at Rockledge Elementary. It looked something like this. Ahh, beautiful pink plastic. I loved that camera. In fact, I recently dug up some of the photos I took using it, and they really brought back some memories! I ended up posting some of them online to share with others. I enjoy hearing people's reactions to seeing photos from over 10 years ago. Sharing these moments with others is one of the things I truly love about photography. Really, that's only part of it, capturing the moments is the really fun part. I could go on and on about how much I love photography, but I won't put you through that now, I will save that for future posts...

About 1 year ago I purchased my first DSLR. It has been glued to my hip ever since. My boyfriend, Reggie, calls it my second boyfriend (and my many lenses have been labeled our babies). One day, maybe 4 months ago, I had an epiphany. Why not turn my love and passion into a career? A true ah-ha moment, everything changed.

Once I decided I wanted to start a business it kept me up at night. How do I go about this? What are the initial steps I need to take? I was very overwhelmed. I spoke with everyone that was close to me about this idea, and had helpful hints from almost everyone. Some just thought I was crazy. I ended up speaking with a friend of mine at work, Jillian. She is a big time blogger as well as a mini Martha Stuart. I mean this girl has some amazing attention to detail and she continues to wow me with her clean and creative projects. She suggested that until I can start a website I should start a blog for my business. Something I had considered quite a while ago but blew off because I had nothing to write about... well now I do!

Months later, here we are. I am very excited to be starting this blog to track my work and progress. I know I am at the very beginning of a wonderful journey and I'm enjoying every moment of it.