wee bittles
kiddoes
teens
(my daughter at the park)
This is my entry to the iheartfaces photo challenge. Even if I don’t win… I love her face, and luckily I see it every day.
It’s that time of the year again where I am cleaning house… my business house actually. Where I sit down and take a good look at how I have run my business, what has been successful and those things that were not so successful, and what I want my business to become.
So here is some of the things I’ve decided… eh hem…
1) I still want to keep my business small, so that I can give my clients a high quality product and personalized service. I think that’s the mother in me, I have it in me to nurture people. Just like I want the best for my children, I want the best for my clients. Anything short of that, doesn’t feel right.
2) My clients want me to be compensated for the work that I do. I think sometimes people (including myself sometimes) don’t realize how much work actually goes into one of my sessions and the work that I produce thereafter. There have been occasions this year, after figuring out the time that I invested into a project, verses the money that I received, people in China were making more money than I was. That’s my fault for not properly adding in my production cost on the front end. But that was yesterday, today is a new day. We want to be fair don’t we?
3) My photography is art. It’s an investment and a treasure. I want to create beautiful and lasting gifts for a lifetime and beyond. I want to nurture that spirit in the way that I handle my business and interact with my clients.
So there you go… my declaration for the well being of my business. It seems funny to say these things, but I think it’s important sometimes to take stock in what you do and validate it. Don’t you?
I am still trying to recover from my week long, non-stop week of workshops. I had a blast, learned so much, and met some very cool people in return. (Now, if I could only catch up in my sleep.)
I also received a very cool email from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society while I was out. Because of all of the generous donations, including those from Jenna Whidby Photography, they had a very successful donation campaign.
It’s a wonderful thing…
(my daughter at the park)
For the next few days I’m in San Antonio at the ImagingUSA conference…. there are a ton of people who I want to meet and get to see; classes to take, products to check out. It’s practically a playground for a photographer.
See you around… later!
(As a side note: thank you everyone who wished my mom HAPPY BIRTHDAY.)
Today is my mom’s 70th Birthday! I can hardly believe it, she doesn’t seem THAT old. (Which is a good thing for me, ’cause I have her genetics… hee hee)
My mom and her two sisters in their maid costumes. (Mom's in the middle) This is how they were all dressed when I came home for Thanksgiving. Too funny!
I really wish I could be with her today… however, when you live 200+ miles away from somebody, it gets harder to just ‘drop’ in. So I had a thought, maybe you could help me wish her a FANTASTIC birthday via the internet? Yes! Please send her some birthday wishes below, thanks!
Here it’s the middle of the day, my son is upstairs in the office working on an assignment that I gave him, my daughter is home sick on the couch watching SpongeBob Squarepants, and I am blogging a not the most photographically important thing in the world. I am officially a homeschooler. It’s not entirely out of the range of my skill set. I was a teacher before I was a stay-at-home mom and then photographer. While I never imagined I’d ever homeschool, I am fairly happy about the decision. Although at first, I was a little embarrassed of how I got here because it just seem like I was because my son was failing out of school. He didn’t really fail, but for awhile it looked like he might.
(Side note: It’s kind of painful when all of your friend’s kids are A students, and your kid is not. What I am I going to say… he has bad grades because he’s not doing his make up work for all the days he’s missing? He has bad grades because he has a hard time focusing? He’s overwhelmed and avoiding his responsibilities? Really he’s smart too? I am his mom. I hate it when my kids are struggling, and I hate making excuses.)
This is how the rest of story goes, (and I’m going to have to try really hard to focus with Mr. Crabs and SpongeBob talking in the background.) May 19th, 2009, while I was at the funeral home making arrangement for my sister who had passed away the day before, Dr. A, our family doctor, called me with my son’s test results. He had a possibly fatal metabolic disordered called Rhabdomyolysis, and would need to be pulled from all sport activities. I had just lost my sister, and then I received the news that I could lose my very active son, too, if he stayed active. Sometimes in life, when it rains, it pours.
However, last month when my son got sick AGAIN, I took him to our old pediatrician, Dr. L. Dr. L decided to treat my son for one of his symptoms… migraines. My son was placed on a medication that for about a week didn’t have the best side effects, like memory loss and confusion. Of course, he started this a week before mid-terms, so that wasn’t the most convient, but at least we had hope that we could do something.
So to summarize… no rhabdo… new diagnoses “exercised induced migraines“… whoo hoo… my son is not going to die if he joins the swim or football team! (Unless he drowns or gets a fatal concussion, but not because his body is producing toxins to causes him kidney failure.)
Since we pulled him out of all sports two years ago, and will try to get him back into sports, which may make him sick and miss school, AND (taking a deep breath as I type this run-on sentence) since he is pretty awful about making up missing work, I decided to pro-actively just teach him. I was a teacher… I have friends who homeschool with boys my son’s age… I can do this.
So there you go… life is too short not to give your best to the ones who are the most important to you.
Now the photog part… the other bonus of teaching a teen is I can leave him home alone to go have a photo session with my clients… or if it was appropriate and if they approved, I could take him and use him as my assistant. Part of my plans this semester is to teach him basic photography and how to use one of my DSLRs. (Although I would not teach him while I am working, that’s just not the most professional.) Never-the-less, that’s the best part of home schooling… I can decide what is best for my son.
~Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?~
A note to mom and dad like the one I sent from summer camp.
“Dear Mom and Dad,
Please send money. Just kidding… although if you want to send money, I won’t stop you. Ha ha ha!
Today was a big day herre at the Whidby household, the boy started homeschooling. I like his new teacher too. Ha! I crack myself up.
And I am on my way to having the home office of my dreams… organized with everything at my fingertips. I know it only took 41 years for me to learn how to keep up with the mess. Better late than never.
Okay, got to go… love you lots, and Mom, don’t you have a birthday coming up? Aren’t you turning the big 70?
Jenna
P.S.: Can I stay at your house next week for the photography conference?”
Hmmm… I need to think of a good way to celebrate my mom’s birthday. BTW… it’s January 10th.
Every new year I feel hopeful with thoughts of how I am going to totally improve my life… I will become thinner this year, healthier, my house will become cleaner, my hair shinier… better-better-more-more. I think this is a good thing in some ways and a little tough to live up to in most other ways… but I have a plan of action this year.
1) Be more specific. I read the #1 reason why our resolve fails is because our goals are too vague. For example, instead of saying “I want to lose weight,” say “I will eat at least one fruit or vegetable with every meal.” Being more specific gives you a concrete way of gaging whether you have achieved your goal.
2) Take action. Make time for the things that are important. Change doesn’t happen, unless you do the things to make them happen.
3) Be gentle with myself. I think I would have to be the #1 critic of myself. It’s amazing, I would never talk to someone in the negative way I talk to myself, nor would I allow someone to talk to me the way I do. I need to learn to me loving towards myself… does that sound weird or unusual?
So… I think that means… love myself where I am at… strive for the thinner, shinier me… and be compassionate towards myself when I am less than perfect… like having less-than-perfect post… because I am a bit sleep deprived (long story short… my doggie likes to fend off our house from dangerous teenage tee pee-ers who were really papering our neighbors house.)
What about you? How is your New Year going?
(((hug… I resolve to be this gentle with myself)))