Go Shorty…It’s Your Birthday!! Anyone else channel a little 50 Cent on their birthday? No just me?? Okay did I just date myself? I have to admit with a little hitch in my hip and a metabolism that seems to be running at snail pace, I have started to feel like I am knocking on that “middle age” title that some people like to hand out to those who don’t know how to use snapchat. I grew up in that era where my mom let me play with my friends down the street…which for me meant blocks away but she doesn’t need to know that, and we just had to be home when the streetlights came on. But so much has changed since those days and sometimes it feels like the world is moving so fast around me and all I want to do is take a nap!

Last night as my husband and I were laying in bed talking about our day and I started to list off all the things I felt were failures with myself and even my business, and here are some of the things he countered me back with. “You had a beautiful son with this body” “you have the perfect face” “your on the right track with your business” “you work so hard to please your clients”. We went back and forth for several minutes until our eyes started to droop and we said our goodnights. This morning I woke up to a card he left for me on the nightstand and it started out saying “I wish you could see what I see….”. The struggle to see the beauty within myself has been an ongoing battle. When I turn on the t.v. I am reminded how very different I am then others. Finding common ground with our business clients has been drilled into us photographers from the beginning, but when you are twenty years older than the clients you hire sometimes, what do we really have in common. So here is my birthday wisdom…

Self love and self care will be an ongoing focus for me this year. I did a lot of traveling this past year, and at times I didn’t give myself much time to relax and smell the roses. So my words of wisdom to myself is to allow myself time to veg out and do some things just for me!

Wardrobe: Torrid

Bag: Kelly Moore Bag

Location: Mission San Capistrano

Pics of Me: Stephanie Weber Photography

Edits: Ty Pentecost Photography

Film Scanned: Photo Vision Prints