Two heaping cups of courage and a double dose of prayer

          Well, here it is…two months into the New Year and I feel like I’ve just barely sat up and placed my feet on the ground after a dream filled slumber .The wisps of all my Grand wishes for 2012 still forming into solid plans  Two to be specific. Start my own photography business (so I can do something I love and spend more time with my family), and expand the  family business at home. I know what you're thinking. "This broad is CRAZY!" I realize this looks like a great recipe for a stress induced disaster and truthfully, I can't argue. All I can say is I choose to call myself ambitious! Photography is something I LOVE, and if you know me at all, you know that my heart's desire is to be at home more with my kid(s)(someday!). So making these plans a reality, will be a dream come true! But month and a half in, I feel like I’m already behind! Or maybe- more like my road to get where I want to, has just ‘broadened’ a bit. And I’ve now realized, I need to either change my pace or accept the fact that this may take a little longer than planned. 

Obviously I have time yet for the family planning, since operation baby #2 won’t commence for a few more months, but it still seems to be at the forefront of my thoughts, since starting my business will greatly influence the way this whole baby thing turns out. I can hear the clocks ticking...ticking..ticking..and some days it’s all I can do to keep myself from grabbing my little man’s Elmo slippers and super gluing them to my ears just to drown it out. A person could live with furry, red, way-too-ticklish monster slippers stuck to their head you know. I’m pretty sure anyone can attest to the fact that sleep-wear is totally acceptable shopping attire for any WalMart in the country…. although adorning it on your head might draw a few strange looks.

            I feel like I’m constantly caught between SUPER excited and really overwhelmed. And the middle ground is me, … on a teeny-weeny, tiny little pipsqueak island, surrounded by doubt infested waters and budget and time eating sharks. And just across those ugly waters, I can glimpse paradise. All these happy, smiling, down-right-jovial photographers with their lines of clients and fabulous websites on display and I am just thinking…how in the HECK am I going to get there?!! All the while I have these spirit crushing thoughts nipping at my heels, I am also keenly aware that I am being extremely unfair here….to ME! I am second-guessing myself before I even have a chance to lace up my steel-toed boots and stomp across that water; karate kicking every stinking shark that gets in my way.

Because I know I can!! It’s just a matter of taking my passion and turning it into the foundation for my confidence. Because when I’m behind a camera, I feel like the world is doing me a giant favor by submitting and exposing itself in my viewfinder.  I am SO excited and privileged to be the one freezing a moment in time, that will become a memory forever. Privileged, when others allow me to capture the stories and beauty of their life in a way that they can cherish forever.  The excitement in snapping that ‘perfect’ shot is addicting! Like the ‘holy-cow-we’re-on-our-way-to-DISNEYLAND’ kind of exciting!!! And who doesn’t want to do something that makes you feel like a kid at Disneyland for a living?!?!

Nothing compares to being a Mom, but that’s a pedestal all it’s own. And until I hit the lotto…I don’t see ‘living life’ as a sustainable income in my future. (Side note: we are still plugging along famously with our budgeting, although not without our financial temptations-but more to come on that in a later post!)

            I know I have a lonnnnng way to go to get where I want to be, but if can just focus (Ha! Yes, let’s intend some pun there) more on they why I’m doing this…then maybe the how won’t seem so scary. It will just become part of the making it happen.

                                                          Bottom Line!