I met Leigh & D at the Highline in New York last year for their photo shoot.  And to be honest, I liked them right off the back.  They were up for anything.  An they’re so down-to-earth and funny.  I’ve loved that we’ve become friends since that first meeting in January.

This session was pretty exciting as I found out Leigh was pregnant!  So even though she wasn’t showing, I thought we had to throw in a little maternity/prego/baby action in the pictures.

So it’s Father’s Day.

It’s kind of crazy to me how many kids my parents had. Even more so that my dad was our sole provider while my mom stayed at home with all of us as kids. Over the years he’s shown me what kind of man to look for in a husband and even more how much I have to be thankful for.  I’m like him in so many ways and could not be where I am today without him or my mom.  I really do have great parents.  And over the years of my own ungratefulness and hormonal angst and negativity they’ve always loved me.

And I think they did a pretty good job raising me.

* The first picture is of me and my dad circa the late 1980s. One of my favorites of me and my dad. (please forgive the poor quality.  I don’t have a digital copy of actual picture handy.)
The second picture is my favorite father/daughter picture I’ve taken over the years. It’s my brother and his first daughter at the hospital the day she was born.

Taking a nod from Kelly and Ali. I decided to have my own little list of things I wanted to do this summer.

1. Explore the marina district.
2. Visit the De Young Museum
3. Eat a lunch at the Ferry Building
4. Explore Sausalito
5. Ride my bike as much as I can.
6. Get up to date with my project life album
7. Do the summer reading program at my local library.
8. Take more pictures with my big camera or instax
9. Donate clothes.
10. Organize my life and my closet and all the work supplies I have
11. Watch a movie outside somewhere
12. Wake up “early”
13. Take care of my wrist and elbow and shoulders and back
14. Have a sushirito yummy.
15. Love life more.

So I’m here at the hospital in labor and delivery again to shoot another birth. My last birth was three days ago, and for a long time I was scared these two ladies would have their baby on the same day. I think it’s baby season. I also did a newborn shoot on Friday right before that first birth. March was like this as well. Three births in one week.

I’m filled with so many adjectives. anxiety. exhaustion. happiness. excitement. joy. curiosity.

Births are simply amazing.

Jason nearly a half hour old, with his daddy for the first time.  This is why I love birth photography.  I get to witness such precious moments.

*the song in the video is “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” by Iron & Wine
this video was made with Photoshop, and I learned how to do it at the video blogshop with designlovefest.

I’d been sitting here for about three hours before I realized I wasn’t playing any music. And usually whenever I’m working I need to play some music to keep me focused and productive. But not today. Today I listen to the music of the wind breezing through the trees, wrestling through its leaves. The light “kink” and “cant” noises the blinds make as the breeze hits it against the window. The steps of children running up their front doors and neighbors taking walks. It all lulls together to this calming, gentle melody.

I love days like this. In these moments it’s easy to remember that today is God’s day. And not just that today is Sunday, but that I owe every day of my life to Him. Every joyful, peaceful moment is His. He gives every good and perfect gift. And today, right now is a good and perfect gift for sure.

~Meg

the picture above is from my trip to denver.

Things about June.
1. I finished designing the bulk of my packaging goodies until I can have it all professionally done.
2. I had to pay for some big purchases. New packaging. Estimated tax. Two plane tickets. One conference (ALT Summit! Yay!!!!). 8 days at two hotels. ugh.  And that’s pretty awesome.  I like to pay bills. I like the satisfaction of going back to “zero” every month or pay period.
3. This is the last month of “free” weekends. I use that very loosely. Starting in July, I’m shooting a wedding every weekend until September. Yikes. I don’t know why I do that to myself.
4. I’m not traveling at all this month… and it’s nice.
5. I’ve been pretty productive these first 6 days of June. I’m more productive without deadlines, ironically. I balk under pressure.  I learned that that’s due to the fact that I’m a discouraged perfectionist.

6. I sold my google stock and made lots of money. I’ll buy it again when it goes back down.
7. My parents celebrate their 40th anniversary this month. I celebrate that I think I can remember what day it is. (My sister got married the day after them and for the past 8 years I’ve had a hard time remembering which date was my sister’s anniversary and which was my parent’s anniversary. Finally another sister gave me good way to remember.)
8. My littlest niece is 6 months old. And I’m happy to say I haven’t missed her baby-ness like I have with my other nieces and nephews. I’m capitalizing on this time when I can still cradle her.
9. I’m very happy. I’m excited to ride my bike. The weather’s been great.
10. I started reading my first fiction book since who knows how long.  So far. So good.  I started reading it last night.  I’ll likely finish it in the next couple of days. (It’s good, Karen!)

11.  I keep a list of books I’ve read.  I’m trying to someday read 52 books in one year.  This year I’m failing miserably.  I was supposed to finish 20 books by now.  Last year I did pretty well. I almost got to 25 by the end of the year. Now I’m aiming for three books by the end of June.
12.  I like that I have stacks of books in my room.  I’m going to try to sort through the ones I’ve read and the ones I haven’t
13.  I’m doing Ali Edward’s One Little Word Class.  My word is “fresh” and this month is “think fresh”.  So far this One Little Word class has been awesome.  I love it.
14.  So far been having really good devotions. Like REALLY good.  I’m looking forward to what else God will teach me this month.  (It all goes real well with “think fresh”.)
15.  I really need to eat some new york style pizza.  I’ve been also craving a caprese salad. desperately craving one.  It’s been less than two months since I’ve been to New York.  I’m sad it’ll be another three before I’m back.  This will be the longest I’ve been away for a long time.  But… I have an exciting idea for this coming trip.

16.  I’m 100% set on going on a trip for my 30th birthday.  I can’t wait to go.  I think I’m going to start planning this month.
17.  This month I also started taking a class called “Thrive”.  It’s been amazing and I can’t wait to implement what I learn into my business.  June is my first month, but I have a handful of months of catch up work to do.
18.  I am schedule to photograph two births this month and the more I think about it the more I think the babies will be born on the same day.  (I think the 14th.  The first 5 births I photographed were born the 14th.  Amazing, no?)
19.  I’m going to go to the De Young this month.  For fun.  For me.
20.  I also plan on (mostly) catching up on all my project life awesomeness.

My outlook is good.  Bring it on, June.  I’m excited to see what you have for me.  yay.

.   .   .   .   .

And because posts are boring without pictures… Here is a picture of a gate at Angkor.  I think it’s the victory gate.  I liked the smiling faces.  Enjoy

I’m also listening to this amazingly beautiful sad song, “All I Want” by Kodaline.  Who doesn’t love a band from Ireland?  I’m going to kidnap them when I go next year.  Fingers-crossed.

I love to ramble.  And so my rambling I shall continue.  Multi-tasking does that to me.  My mind is all over the place right now.

I just realized I mislabeled all my 2013 folders 2012.  Nuts.  I’m going to have to rename everything now.

My rambling can also be attributed to the two births I’m “scheduled” to photograph over the next couple of weeks.  I’m seriously anxious about shooting these two births.  Both ladies have already had their share of early contractions, so as it stands, I’m on call right now to go photograph their baby’s births.  It honestly makes me very nervous.  I hope they don’t have their babies on the same day.  I’d be really sad if I missed one of them.  But I’m so excited.  I love photographing births.  Let me say that again for emphasis.  I love photographing births.

.   .   .   .   .

And because posts are boring without pictures, here’s a picture from Jessica & Ryan’s wedding that I’m editing.  A really sweet moment between Ryan and his father.  I was tearing up when I took this picture.

This session with Kelly was probably one of my favorites of all time.  Everything came out better than I imagined.  I loved shooting these photographs.  I loved editing them.  super. fun. amazing.

A while back Kelly Purkey came to visit San Francisco and we took that opportunity to have a little bit of a photoshoot.  I have too many pictures I love from her session that I had to split up her shoot in two blog posts.  I met her at the International Terminal at SFO after she arrived from her flight from Michigan.  Kelly did spruce up a bit and change before I started photographing her, but she honestly didn’t need it.  haha.  When I met up with her I actually was in awe how great she looked after her long flight.  We went wandering through the terminal, and as you can tell…. I’m very funny.

As you can tell by her pictures, Kelly is such a friendly, warm person.  I love hanging out and catching up with her.  She’s awesome.  And she’s so talented.  She has her own line of stamps and project life goodies.  I stockpile her fun products whenever they come out.

I loved the idea of photographing her at an airport because she seems like such a wanderlust/jetsetter to me.  That’s actually how I came upon her blog.  I loved seeing pictures of her adventures through New York and her scrapbooking trips around the world.  Now that she’s in Chicago I can’t wait to see what other exciting things she discovers.