Yikes!

OK, sorry, it's been a while again. I am a terrible blogger... forgive me?
To be quite honest, I haven't really been "with it" much the past few months. I started in May back to work at Top Foods, which is unfulfilling, tedious, mundane, irritating, depressing, and low-paying. BUT- there are a lot of really nice people there and I enjoy working with them. Plus I'm SUPPOSED to start getting some health benefits soon- (I HOPE SO! This girl's got ISSUES!).

Anyway, I finally am getting the website back up and running again, and it links to here- so I thought I had better update this since I haven't done it since before school got out.

A lot has happened since I last wrote. Some good, some terrible. Many of you know about Samantha's fight with cancer for the past 2.5 years. Sammi went to Heaven on September 5th. The past two weeks have really seriously sucked. I miss her terribly. Honestly- I was VERY close to quitting photography due to the depression and everything contributed to (in part) by her progressing illness, I had lost my love for it. Sam was always happy to be my guinea pig whenever I needed practice when I was first starting out, or whenever I wanted to try something fun or new, Sam never had any kind of hesitation to let me play around and do whatever we felt like. Another time, when I did a "Santa Paws" type fundraiser for NOAH (a local animal shelter) Sam was my assistant for the day, helping people choose what they wanted to buy, taking orders, making my job easy. Seems like throughout my photography journey, Sam was always there in some way or another- and I think that's why it has been hard for me to continue when she was getting sicker, and for the past couple weeks thinking of continuing without her. It occurred to me yesterday morning though, that she would have been so mad at me if she knew I was quitting. This was a girl that never gave up EVER- she fought with every ounce of energy she had and then she fought even harder. Who am I to quit?
So- maybe with a little boost of the massive energy Sammi left behind, I am feeling motivated again and ready to face the world.

In other Eagan news... my kids started school on September 3, my youngest is officially a kindergartener! She barely made the cut-off for birthdays by 13 days- and she was born a week early! Had she been born a week late, I'd have a preschooler for another year, but she is doing good in kindergarten. Cody, my middle child, is in first grade and doing well. We are having him evaluated next week at Children's Hospital's Neurodevelopmental clinic to see if they find anything unusual about him. We have our suspicions but we are going to wait until we hear what the pros have to say about it... Kayla, my joyful 8-year-old, is in third grade this year and LOVING it. She was so worried that it would be too hard but they are having so much fun she is barely even realizing that she's learning anything! Yet she comes home with spelling words like "continents, equator, hemisphere, and equation". I love seeing my children enjoy school and am thoroughly enjoying watching them blossom into such amazing people.

Back to photography. I no longer have the studio (which you know if you've read the rest of my blog) but I am doing location sessions in parks, homes, wherever. It's so much more personal that way. I will post some Fall-Winter specials in the next couple days.

I'd better get some sleep now! The 7:15 alarm clock is unforgiving...