Photographing the Everyday :: Athens Workshop

We're heading to Athens, GA! And while we're there, I'll be leading a workshop at my favorite store, TREEHOUSE.kid&craft on Wednesday, February 13 at 7pm. 

Spend the evening with me and you’ll learn how to take your camera off the automatic setting. We’ll cover lighting, composition, and getting those photos off your camera. You'll get in-depth look at digital photography so that you can begin taking photos you're excited to share! When we’re done, you’ll leave with a new understanding of your digital camera and will have the skills and confidence to start taking true creative control over your photographs.

You’ll benefit from a small workshop class size and an experienced teacher. I’ve been a professional photographer for almost 20 years and I’ve been teaching photography to kids and adults for over 10 years.

To register or for more information, click here, or on the image below. Can't wait to see you in Athens!

Heath Ceramics San Francisco

We had a wonderful day in San Francisco, despite the dreary weather. First things first, we went to a birthday party at House of Air. Our son had the best time ever jumping on their trampolines and we enjoyed delicious coffee and British tea sandwiches :) and cake! 

After the party, we went to CB2, H.D. Buttercup, and Heath Ceramics- and it was pretty clear: we love everything they have. CB2 (downtown SF) is having a great floor sample sale right now and H.D. Buttercup is having their half-yearly sale so get on it if you need anything! We picked up our new kitchen light. We spotted it months ago, but didn't buy it. Since then, we haven't found anything else we like better, so we bought it yesterday at 20% off- yay!! 

Everyone loves Heath Ceramics. My favorite place is their overstock room in Sausalito, where they sell boxes of their amazing tile for much less because they're second-quality. I wrote about our visit here. We did our kitchen backsplash with the overstock tile and we love it! You can see a little bit of the backsplash in this messy-house post. We didn't make it to Sausalito yesterday because Heath opened up a new factory and showroom in SF! And since they're smart & awesome, they asked Blue Bottle Coffee to share their space. Naturally we got warm drinks first before heading into the Heath shop. 

We're right in the middle of master bedroom and bathroom renovations and want to use some Heath tile in the shower. I love the triangle tile so much and am hoping we can get that for the shower. I also got to check out the new linens by Willow Ship and Alabama Chanin, two independent, female-run businesses that I admire greatly. Willow Ship is even based right here in San Francisco! Here are some photos from our visit to Heath. Have you been to their new shop? 

Singing for the New Year

I crossed off #45 on my Life List, y'all! On New Year's Eve. While wearing yoga pants. It was a lot of fun, but I'm glad it was just one song :) It was a great way to end to the year. And because I crossed off a Life List item, I didn't feel bad that I was in bed by 10pm (our boy, while super cute and sweet, is an early riser!). Thanks to my brother, Alan, for taking the photo below. And thanks to my awesome husband for letting me sing along with his band :)

Happy New Year

Happy 2013 from a bar in the middle of nowhere, California. We kept this boy up way past his bedtime so that he could see his dad play guitar on a song while I sang at the mic. He couldn't hold out and went to bed about 20 before we played. Maybe next year :)

Hope your night is wonderful and your year the best one yet!

2013 Goals and Ideas

I loved making my Life List for Camp Mighty and Go Mighty- the big picture of things I wanted to do with my life, in general, anytime. 2013 is much more concrete. There's more pressure because of the time limit. But I loved doing it for 2012 and am excited about the prospect of a new year.

1. Finish the house projects & landscaping before our sweet babe #2 arrives at the end of March. I won't be doing much of the manual labor, but I'd like to help make sure that it gets done, so I'm including it as goal #1. I'll be doing the fun, pretty stuff- paint colors, flea markets, hanging paintings, etc.

2. Continue to expand my photography business. I taught my first workshop on photographing kids last month and it was awesome. And I've been asked to teach it again at Treehouse Kid & Craft in Athens, GA in February and I'm super excited. I'd love to host a few more workshops this year.

3. Keep up with my Daily Kid Pic. I did a much better job at photographing and uploading in 2012 than 2011. Was it because it was on my list of goals? I'm not sure, but I liked the results and I don't want to jinx it- especially with sweet babe #2 coming in March. We'll keep the same Flickr set for both kids. And they'll get their own "year-end" books.

4. Have photos in Anthology Magazine.

5. Take a calligraphy class.

6. Read 12 books. One a month seems like a lot, given my reading past, but what the heck, go big, right?! After I write this list, I'm off to the local bookstore to pick up a few new reads & use my Christmas gift cards!*

7. Find a charity, donate $500, and volunteer with them on a regular basis. This is actually a request from my grandmother who passed away last year. Luckily she gave me the money to donate, so that's not the issue. The hard part is choosing the charity when there are so many. I know I want a local organization that focuses on children's education (reading or nutrition). And bonus points if my 4 year old can volunteer with me. Please let me know if you have any recommendations!!

8. Write book proposal and get the ball rolling on my coffee table book idea. Carried-over from last year because this did not happen at all.

9. Be a better cook. I wish I could write "Enjoy cooking" as my goal, but that seems like an impossibility. I don't enjoy it, but I know that eating healthy as a family is super duper important. Maybe my goal needs to be more tangible- like "Try a new recipe once per week"- or something like that. I think I need to get a few new things for the kitchen- handheld blender, measuring cups, and maybe a Vitamix! When my son says, "Thanks, Chef Kate," I'd like to feel like I've earned it.

My goals & ideas for 2012 can be found here. Apparently I skipped writing down goals and ideas for 2011, but my list for 2010 can be found here. What are your plans for the year??

*Update: After writing this post I went to Mountain Bookshop and scored some books! Have you read any of these?

2012 Revisited

Did you make plans for 2012? I did, and I want to take a moment to go over them; to see what went well and what didn't. The 7 items were my goals (in italics and bold) and I'm pretty happy with how the year panned out. 

1. I'm currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and it has ideas to improve happiness! Each month you focus on a different aspect of your life (Energy/Exercise, Love/Marriage, Friendships, etc.). My goal for the next couple of weeks is to finish the book and start putting the ideas into action! I notice that if I act happy (even if I'm not), everyone else seems to be happy! I highly recommend the book. Kindly check your local bookstore. Have you read the book? What did you think?

2. Continue to expand my photography business. The biz is trucking right along and keeping me busy. Aside from some super amazing weddings, the highlights of the year were attending the Feather Love Artist Workshop (my post & photos here, photographing Camp Mighty (my post here, here, and here, and teaching my first workshop! 

3. Plant some edibles. I did this, and we ate some, and the raccoons ate some, and I realized that my plants needed a whole lot more water. Everything was going well until we went out of town and they didn't get water. It was downhill from there. I'll try again next year :)

4. Get back to my Daily Kid Pic. Well, it wasn't everyday, but 172 out of 366 isn't bad -that's nearly every other day :) And it's better than 2011 when I did 82 out of 365. In the 4 years I've been doing this project, we have 816 photos, something I am very proud of. And it's been a great way to challenge, stretch, and improve my photography. 

5. Learn how to write a book proposal and then write it!! Yeah, this hasn't happened, at all. It's getting carried-over to 2013. 

6. Finish the interior of our house! We're almost done!!! We have one room left that needs renovations (we've done the other 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, and the living room). And then the fun designing and decorating start! We're going to try and get that all done before March (see #7!!)

7. Have another baby! I'm currently 7 months pregnant :) After 4 failed pregnancies in the last 2 ½ years, it's nice to feel the baby kick around. We're due in March. 

The full write up of my goals and ideas for 2012 can be found here. Apparently I skipped writing down goals and ideas for 2011, but my list for 2010 can be found here. Next up: goals for 2013!

2012 Wedding Favorites

2012 was a really special year for weddings! Thanks to all of the lovely brides, grooms, and families who made it so wonderful! Here are a few favorite weddings from my blog in 2012. Click on an image to check out the blog post. 

Our Holiday Card

This is the first time I've done a Holiday card since we've been a family. That's a bit embarrassing given my career as a photographer and past life as both a graphic designer and stationer. Add in my penchant for awesome stamps and it's all the more surprising. We wrote a message on the back (complete with custom kid art!) & mailed our cards as part of our advent calendar activity. I am pleased with how it turned out and will definitely do them again next year. 

Christmas 2012

We're up at my mom's house for Christmas this year. John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album has been on repeat. Every Christmas Eve we make cookies for Santa and my son gets to have his annual cookie. It's a highlight in our normally sugar-free household. "Making cookies for Santa" was on the agenda as part of our advent calendar. It was really fun using the cookie cutters that I used to use as a kid with my mom. 

Christmas morning came early, which is obviously no surprise to anyone. It was barely light outside when we started opening our gifts. Our son is the only little one on my side of the family, so the attention was quite focused on him. Next year will be a different story (did you see this funny that Honest Toddler posted this morning?) The wishes of our sweet 4 year were granted in the form of drums, a little umbrella for when it rains, Legos, and a "playhouse" (dollhouse). My brother and parents lucked out and found an awesome Plan Toys house sitting in a corner of a local hobby store for $50 (retail $240!!).

We had a great time wrapping presents this year. Our advent activity the other day was to wrap presents together. I wrapped up using kraft paper and twine and my son added the red pom-poms (with gobs of elmer's glue!!). I knew it would be a fun, doable project that would look great! 

Here are a few photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. What are you up to today?

Apartment 34 Photo helper

I had some unexpected help the other day at my photo shoot with Erin, of Apartment 34. Here's a picture from "Take Your Kid to Work Day." And a big thanks to Erin who was understanding. You can find the photos without my son on her blog.