yesterday gracie and i got to hang out with charly for a few hours to shoot his senior portraits. i was super impressed by his quiet confidence and maturity. he is such a sweet guy and has a good head on his shoulders- i have no doubt that awesome things are ahead for him. congratulations charly, on closing this chapter of your life and stepping out into the next!
sometimes i go a long time between grocery shops. so i eventually end up void of a variety of fruits and vegetables, and left only with spinach. lately... in between nutritious meals of cookies or ice cream, i'll eat handfuls of spinach to make up for said meals. the only possible way to eat spinach IS in handfuls, because you taste less while eating more... its a genius vegetable-y solution for me. so anyways, there's your fun fact for today; because its my blog! stay tuned for a sweeeeeeeet senior portrait shoot coming soon! (high school senior, not senior citizen- sorry to get your hopes up)
sarah & paul had an awesomely beautiful and unique wedding. they had their romantic ceremony in the wine cellar at hotel vintage and their amazing 'tea and coffee' reception at the ace hotel (which is, in my opinion, basically the coolest hotel that ever existed. seriously, just check out the rooms on their website). there were so many photos (even after i narrowed them down 3 times!) i wanted to post... some are close but i just couldnt chose between them. and its my blog so you just have to deal with it ; ) hope you all love em!
p.s i'm so loving this verse lately:
6 So He said to me... 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty - zechariah 4:6
meet (again) shelle, who's wedding i got to attend and shoot in palm springs last june. she is awesome and starting up her own business as a feng shui consultant, how fun! anyway, gracie and i hung out with her and her super cool dad in montecito for a few hours this afternoon and got some really cool photos for her new website (coming soon). i have a ton of sweeeet ones but these few caught my eye and i wanted to post 'em real quick :) comments and constructive criticism welcome :) p.s. i'm super siked about sarah & paul's wedding this weekend in portland, OR, so be ready to check out those photos too after the weekend!
so i just had my first "has anyone ever told you you look like..." experience.
melissa joan hart; a cute 90s actress who's show consisted of witchy powers and a talking cat- could be worse, hah! i do see an uncanny resemblance (especially with the freckles in the second one!)... thoughts, anyone?
p.s. thank you all of you who gave your support in my spankie situation. such kind readers i have! :)
goodbye spankie, you are the best cat that ever lived. everyone that knew you knew that you were something special, and out of the ordinary. thank you for being my best friend since i was 8, always there when i needed you, to purr away my tears. i will miss you so much but i am so grateful for the blessing of time i had with you, and how you hung on through these last 4 months for me. it was an honor to be by your side while you passed away. i hope you have a blast in kitty heaven, eat and sleep to your heart's content, with a new, healthy body :) i love you forever.
The sky is grey and the light is far The sea is a rage within my heart I turn my sight to the crashing waves I cry in the night just to be saved
I need eyes to be my guide I need a voice that’s louder than mine I need hope I need You Cause I can’t do this alone
Grace I call Your name Oh won’t Your smile fall over me I’m cracked and dry on hands and knees Oh sweet grace rain down on me I need You grace
I pray for dawn a new day to live I pray for mercy only Jesus gives Though darkness falls and a million cry I believe over all there’s a greater light shining for us
this is rochelle, she is awesome. she is my brother's girlfriend, and she is AMAZINGLY talented. in every area. one of those people that you'd want to beat up for being so good at everything but then you don't want to because you like them so much. anyway, she has an etsy shop with a ton of cool stuff and she has way more stuff at home to sell and does custom anything...check out her shop HERE. besides, she is almost done making my custom prom dress and its gorgeeeeous. yes, i said prom. i know i am 20 (ROFL) but my best friend is a senior at the school i graduated at, and were going and its going to be suuuuuuper fun...pictures to come i promise. so ANYWAY, these pictures are from a 15 minute mini family shoot today for rochelle's mom for mothers day, i will try to post a few more from the shoot in the near future. by the way, thank you for checking out my blog. sometimes i don't post for a few weeks, then i'll post 3 posts in a day... i'm mysterious that way. feel free to say hello, i love meeting new blog friends...the internet is such a small world sometimes.. but then again its really huge. small world... a better way to put that is 'big God!' because he connects us to each other at the right times for his purposes, how sweet ;)
*opinionated and probably not politically correct rambles below.. you've been warned!*
so i just finished reading this book called 'under the overpass' by mike yankoski... do yourself a favor and get a copy. its like $4 on amazon. it might change your life and view of comfort - questioning 'whats so great about the 'american dream' anyway'? the way i see it, it hasn't brought much contentment. there are broken people all over longing for something real... and this book, a journey through the life of a homeless man might wake you up. it woke me up and in a great way... it is stoking the flames of my burden that God is already birthing in my heart to reach out to the world. you'll see in this book how even churches turn a blind eye to the needs of the hungry, hurting and needy. i am realizing more and more how far the church of america has strayed from the true foundations that Christ laid down. what is the point of being Christian if you don't follow Christ? If you don't act out your faith? to be cozy in a church room once a week and wear your best outfit and show everyone how holy you are? then walk out the door and have your mind emptied of what you learned like someone shaking an etch-a-sketch drawing back to nothing? NO! I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the lazy church, the complacent church, the lukewarm church. where are the real followers of Jesus? they are fighting a battle, with "weapons of righteousness in both hands..." (2 corinthians 6:7), swimming upstream.. they are the rebels these days, that where the counter-culture is; and i am not ashamed (romans 1:16) to counted as one of them. you bet i'm ashamed of what people have done in this world and to eachother under that name, under the large banner of 'christianity'... though what i see being so prevalent in our society is 'church-ianity'. Lame, who wants that? the 'church' was never meant to be a building with thousands of people and one preacher (don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good churches like that, reality being one of those, i attend there and and respect it as a whole) but we (the church) have missed the point. if you read the bible, you will see plainly that we ARE THE CHURCH. we are the temple of God, that is why Jesus said that 'he would destroy this temple and raise it again in three days..." (john 2:19) he was talking about him being the temple (and was referring to the crucifixion), the church, God's dwelling place. and when we accept his sacrifice for us and new life in him we welcome the holy spirit to breathe that life into us and he dwells there and never leaves us. so i say all this not to condemn any readers... but to propose a few questions that i've been wrestling with lately... is injustice concerning you? what does Jesus REALLY mean in matthew 10:9 when he said "whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it"? one of my favorite parts of the book was a quote in the beginning of a chapter by G.K. Chesterton's book 'Orthodoxy', "We don't want anger and joy to neutralize each other and produce a surely contentment. We want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent,", that about fits the bill. so i suppose that a lot of you reading this are fellow blog friends, or my family. maybe some of you are prospective clients... wondering "where the heck is this coming from? this is a little TMI?" but i think to myself of vendors i will hire for my wedding someday (Lord willing if someone wants to marry me, LOL!). yes there are many options- for cake bakers, for caterers, for djs and photographers... so what separates them? what makes any of them stand out? if everyone basically does the same thing... then it has to be one thing that sets you apart; your character. i am going to hire people in the future because i believe in them as a person, that i appreciate not just what they do but with how much passion they do it... looking deeper to see what drives them. so whoever you are reading this, if you haven't already seen it a million times in my posts, this is what drives me: the needs of people, the hunger inside them, whether it be physical hunger for food, emotional hunger for compassion, or spiritual hunger for a savior... i want to be available, in season and out of season (2 timothy 4:2) to drop whatever i'm doing- to get down at heart level with someone in their time of need and say 'how can i help you?". this could simply be me serving my wonderful clients and delivering to them a beautiful end product from their wedding- being dependable and helpful, or it could be having a good attitude when someone rips me off or hurts me and offering grace to them, or it could be buying food for someone who's hungry. yes my heart's desire is to be out on the missionary field in another country, in a place that is throbbing with brokeness, bringing them to the Healer who heals me. but sometimes when you tell Jesus you want to give your whole life to him, He tells you to 'stay' when all you want to do is run away and start fresh. there are ways everywhere and in every part of my day (and anyone can do this!) that I either have the opportunity to share the love of Jesus, or repel them from him by my actions or unconcerned heart. Jesus wasn't ever in a hurry. even when he was on the way to heal Jarius' daughter who was about to die, he stopped to heal the woman with internal bleeding... he was so unconcerned with an 'agenda' that he just noticed her touch his cloak, and he stopped to help her. (and yes if you know the story, Jarius' daughter died because Jesus stopped to heal this woman, but then he had an opportunity to even more display his power and love by raising her from the dead!) if the king and ruler of the universe isn't too busy for people, and i know that he isn't too busy for me, than my day should never be to busy for Him or what he wants to use me for, and the people he can bless through me. so anyway... you're probably all afraid to read this book now, hah! these are thoughts that have been developing in me for quite some time and this book was just a catalyst to move me to action. if you do read it though, i'm sure that the Lord will encounter you in a way that is applicable to your own life, and wake you up from 'comfortability' like he has for me.
p.s. the eleventyseven show turned out to be really fun, even though it was a small crowd (ranging from 5 years old to like 55?). i finally got to meet the crew from rockforlife.org, and i am excited to get more involved with them this summer :) anyways, they played a mean cover of backstreet boys amongst a ton of other great songs, and yeah, i totally bought their CD!
theres a video HERE about myspace that made me rofl (it wont let me embed it here so you have to go watch it)
and heres that song 'its beautiful', too bad its a super cheesey picture-slideshow and not a cool video but oh well get over it and listen to it anyway:
if you are in the so-cal area and are free this thursday come to this show!! even if you aren't that into pop punk, rockforlife is putting it on, and they are an awesome organization to support! check out eleventyseven here, i love the song 'it's beautiful' :) hope to see a ton of people there!
this afternoon gracie and david and i shot some pictures for my brother's band inherit disease. i haven't done band photos in a few years but it turned out to be really fun :) my brother is the funniest person i've ever known and the rest of the band were a barrel of monkeys as well. anyways- heres a few i picked out real quick... maybe i'll add some more in later. be sure to check out their page if you are into death metal! they will be on tour in usa and europe this year, so if you want to book them for your wedding you better get on it, asap.
if you haven't already heard, polaroid as a company is stopping production of the much beloved instant film. this just about rips my heart out. i love polaroids with a passion i can't quite explain... they are just a part of me! i include them in both my personal and business life and it makes me so sad to think of a future without the joy of instant film. if anyone feels me on this, go to savepolaroid.com and sign the petitions. this could be the end of an era, we have to fight the system! *cue applause and crowds cheering*
charly
