Finding My New Normal

Building my Photography Studio

I have the best husband in the world.

Our 30-year old ranch-style home has an extra room at the back of the house. Tucked away at the end of the hallway that leads back to the bedrooms, this room is a bit of an oddity. It's bigger than our master bedroom - a whopping 18' x 14' in size - but has its own private entrance through the garage. It has a closet, technically qualifying it as an extra bedroom, but it's on the small side.

I guess the builder might have intended it as a mother-in-law suite. The original owner had it set up as a game room where he played pool and poker with his TI engineer buddies. Us? Well, we've used it as everything from a guest room to an office to extra storage.

But not any longer. And this is where the "best husband in the world" thing comes in.

We're remodeling the room and turning it into my photography studio.

Yes, that sound you heard was me, screaming and doing the Meposian Dance of Joy.

I've designed the room as a multi-function space. By mounting countertop along the walls at a desk-level height, we'll both be able to use it as an office. Jim's workspace, along the far wall, will be covered by the photography backdrops when they're in use. No need to worry about co-mingled clutter ... just slide the backdrop across and voila! Instantly presentable studio.

Speaking of backdrops, my dad is designing a 3-rod system that will allow me to keep black and white drapes up all the time, and swap out the third as I need to. He's coming up for the long weekend to work with us and knock out the remodel, which includes lighting installation, electrical changes, carpentry work, and more.

But Jim and I had homework to do before Dad arrived: we needed to get the flooring knocked out. I'm proud to say we're done, and it looks great.

This is the "before" shot. We painted the walls about two years ago, and I like the golden color. (Plus, Jim was really reluctant to repaint.) Though black or grey walls are best for a photography studio, the worst that will happen is I'll get a nice golden glow on my photos - which is cool - and if I don't want it, I can do a white balance correction. Easy.

Carpet came up. I would be thrilled to get rid of all the carpet throughout the entire house (I've got huge allergies to dust) but I'll start with this room.

Jack-Jack had to inspect. This is the small closet in the room. I plan to leave the doors off, put a piece of countertop in there, and use it as a print station.

We decided vinyl floor tiles were the right solution for the studio. All the benefits of a solid flooring plus when you drop things (like, say, expensive camera lenses) they tend to bounce rather than break.

This is a commercial-grade tile from Armstrong. I love the pattern - it looks like stained & polished slate or concrete with all those colors and textures - it makes me happy.

And we finished last night. No grout, no sealant, no waxing. Just adhere and use a tile roller to make sure they're good and stuck.

One floor down ... the rest of the studio to go! Updates will come throughout the weekend. I can't wait to share my finished photography studio (and our shared office space) with you!

Getting creative about taking lunch

I know what you're thinking.

Mid-day blog posts are a sign of the self-employed, the vacationing, or the goofing-off-at-work.

Setting aside the fact that TypePad allows you to schedule a post to publish later, I'll freely admit that it is one in the afternoon, and I am blogging.

And yeah, I'm at work.

But this is my public declaration that I'm going to take care of myself - and that includes taking a lunch break outside of my office.

I've been back at work just two and a half weeks, and I've already fallen back into my old routine: I grab lunch, eat over my keyboard, and work straight through the noon hour. Or even if I do decide to take a break, I don't leave my office, which leaves me open for people to stop by and pull me back into their work.

My Word for 2011 is Listen. And I wasn't doing a very good job of doing it. Listening, that is - to my heart, and spirit, which were telling me loud and clear this isn't a good idea!

So today, inspiration struck. I blocked an hour on Outlook and labeled it "lunch". When the reminder came up, I picked up my adorable little Thirty-One lunch tote (thanks, Mom!) and grabbed my laptop and headed to the cafe.

No, I'm not working. Thanks to my handy-dandy little external hard drive, I've got everything I need to spend my lunch hour quite happily engaged in some digital scrapbooking. Aw, yeah... yet another benefit of ditiching the paper and going digital!

It's a small change, but I can already tell my spirit feels lighter. As I head back to my office for the afternoon, I'll be ready to push through the last four hours of the day and give my employer not only hard work, but creative work as well.

Sweet!

2010's Monday in Photos + Words

I'm making progress, slowly but surely, in pulling together the photos + words I collected last year into a cohesive album. Here's how Monday came together:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is an excellent exercise to undertake ten days before beginning my 2011 round of "Week in the Life" documentation. I've found I'm taking note of those photos that are most meaningful to me, and those that I didn't capture, but wish I had. I've also discovered while I'm good about taking pictures for a week, my weakness lies in the documentation of words.

I'm going to work on that this year ... I've got some ideas.
 

It's nearly that time again!

Now that I'm back to work after five months of medical leave (which is a super long story for another time) I'm trying to be better about exercising good work habits. Why not start back off on the right foot, right? I've always been a little anal-retentive about calendar-keeping, but now I'm actually trying to make it work for me with things like time blocking.

So I was updating my Outlook calendar, looking ahead to the next several weeks, and I came across this:

It's almost that time again!  What time, you ask? Time for me to carry around a camera and a notebook for a week, annoying my husband, stepdaughter, and co-workers by taking photos of everything. Time for me to chronicle a little slice of our wonderfully normal, beautifully boring, simple everyday life as I undertake my annual "Week in the Life" photojournalism project.

 

It's Life Art at its finest. But most people don't have a clue what that means, so I describe it as photojournalism. That works, too.

A Week in the Life is the brainchild of the amazing + talented Ali Edwards. She did her project in late July this year for a summertime chronicle. Personally, I like to anchor mine on the calendar and do it each year the week of October 1st. That marks the transition to fall and my favorite time of year, as the weather begins to cool and Dallas becomes bearable once more. It's the start of football and halftime shows and all sorts of family goodness.

I like the way it ushers in the start of our fall-to-winter holiday season.

Someday, I might swap it and do an April 1 week, but for now, I'm happy with October. It's cool to go back and see what we were doing this time last year and the year before and ... you get the idea.

Speaking of which, I got a little <cough-cough> distracted and never actually completed last year's album. My momentum tends to run out by the end of a week of capturing words + photos. So I'm working to put it all together now, and that's getting me doubly excited for what I'm going to capture this year.

I love the day-of-the-week pages with their big ol' photos:

 

 

 

 





I'm using the 12x12 Week in the Life Layered Template Album available from Designer Digitals along with the coordinating 2011 Sentiment Tabs. So stinkin' cute. As my girlfriend Audrey Reed likes to say, it doesn't have to be difficult. And speaking of Audrey, all photographs are copyright me or her.

Daily pages to come!

project SAVOR - Q ... Quiet

( graphic elements - Carina Gardner - ABC Inspiration @ JessicaSprague.com; page layout - all me. fonts - elephant, adobe garamond, and amaze )

Journaling reads: Learn to enjoy the quiet of your own company. It's not anti-social ... it's healthy.
"We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly." Besides, if you can't stand your own company, how can you foist it on others?