Posts Tagged ‘dreams’

Picture Your Dreams, Make Them Come True

Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

I am officially 2 months into this crazy photography business idea and I am busier and happier than I’ve been in years. Convincing people to pay you to do what you love is old, cliched advice…but it’s repeated so often because it’s true. Never do I think “Oh no, I have a photo session today.” I always, always think “Yes! New people! New location! New light! I am so lucky!”

ginger snaps pictures collage

It’s been a long road to discover what I wanted to be when I grew up. Until I showed up to my first day of Biology 111 in college I was convinced I was going to be a marine biologist. Then I wanted to be a journalist, a tv anchor, a Pilates instructor, a human resources manager, a house flipper, a real estate agent, a thrift shop owner, and some sort of unnamed, unspecific job that involved being semi-famous and doing glamorous stuff all day. I was somewhat successful at a few of those, incredibly unsuccessful at others and never got past the just-dreaming-about-it stage of most. But once the idea to start Ginger Snaps Pictures took over a tiny piece of my brain, I couldn’t let it go.

Am I still terrified on almost a daily basis? Totally. What if the day gets crazy and I flake out on an appointment? What if I drop my camera and it breaks in the middle of a session? What if my client hates every single picture? What if my computer and my back up and my back up back up all fail? What if I’m charging too much? What if I’m charging too little? What if I am the worst photographer ever and everyone is just too nice to tell me?

Believing in myself might be my biggest challenge. It’s hard not to compare myself constantly to other businesses. There is always going to be someone better than I am. Always. My goals are just to work hard, constantly improve and make my clients happy. It’s really not that different from parenting – except the clients are a lot LESS demanding and easier to please! It’s super cheesy to say that because I believe in myself I’m making my dreams come true, but it’s the truth.

Working hard to make your dreams come true no matter what stands in your way is also the lesson in Monsters University.
collage 1 Monsters University-3

Monsters University-5

Monsters University-7

Monsters University-8

This is the face I make every time someone wants to hire me.

We’re big Monsters fans in our house – we own the first one and I took the kids to see the second in the theater this summer. We watch a lot of happily-ever-after-type movies, so learning that hard work, determination and doing your best are worthy endeavors too is something I’d like to emphasize. Of course the message is cleverly hidden in an adorable, hilarious movie that my 2 year old, 4 year old and myself all liked equally. Plus I hope the kids can see that lesson in real life as my business grows. Fingers crossed!

You can pre-order your copy of Monsters University here! And to celebrate the release, Disney is going to give one of my readers their very own Monsters University Blu-ray Combo Pack PLUS a $50 Visa gift card. To enter, leave a comment telling me about a time you believed in yourself to achieve your dream.   

 

Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “”#SweepstakesEntry””; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post”
c) Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 10/3/13 – 11/3/13.
Be sure to visit the Monsters University Page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

 

It Was Only A Dream

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

I took a huge step on Sunday and left Baby Evan in the nursery at church for the first time ever. It took me 5 minutes just to walk out of the room and 5 more of peering through the door to make sure he was ok before I made it back to the service, but I did it. And he was fine. He was actually better than fine, he was totally happy to be playing with a whole room full of new toys and other kids to yell at instead of sitting in my lap in the service being told to shhhhhh constantly.

Apparently my subconcious was much more upset about the decision than I was because Sunday night I had the absolute worst baby dream EVAR. I dreamed – in a horribly realistic fashion – that when E and I went to visit my parents for Christmas, we left Baby Evan in his crib. In the dream, we discussed bringing him with us but decided he was going to be too much of a hassle to travel with and we’d just get someone to watch him for the 7 days we’d be gone. But we both forgot to actually get someone to watch him and made it all the way to Virginia before we remembered. The next four hours of my nightmare was spent trying to find the phone number for my next door neighbor, calling people we knew who might be able to come check on Baby Evan, fighting with the bizare woman who answered the phone when I called the baby store that ended when she called Child Protective Services and told me I’d never see my baby again.

You know how in dreams, sometimes you’re conscious of what you should be doing but your dream self refuses to comply? Clearly, if I really did forget my baby, I would turn around and drive right back to get him (although after that nightmare the chances of forgetting the baby are even more minuscule then they were before – I’m never again leaving a ROOM without him, let alone the state). But in my dream E and I had a very serious discussion about whether or not Baby Evan would starve to death if we just stayed 5 days instead of 7. And we wondered if $500 was enough to pay the neighbor’s teenage daughter to come over and watch him for a while.  I think at one point E mentioned there was water in the dog’s bowl (which the dog didn’t need because we REMEMBERED TO BRING THE DOG) and the baby would figure it out.

I woke up even more exhausted than I was when I went to bed and feeling like the worst mother in the world. I spent all day Monday making up my horrible (imaginary) parenting to Baby Evan with lots of hugs and patience and taking him everywhere I went. I was rewarded with no baby-abandoning dreams Monday night. Clearly, my subconscious and I have some issues to work out before I try to leave the baby in the nursery again.