Tell us about you

Where do you live?
i live on the edge of the piney woods in texas in a city named after the capital of a southern european country.
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Tell us something funny/goofy/silly thing about yourself.
most folks think i’m this serious, quiet person (i.e. most of the folks i’ve worked with in recent years) that’s occasionally talkative.  talkative, serious, yes.  also a really big dork, who has a tendency around her family and most of her friends to talk in different voices/accents, say stupid stuff, have blonde moments (yeah, so what if I’m not one?), and rattle off phrases of foreign languages at random.
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Do you have any pets?
two dogs (rascal & tater) and one cat (pokie)
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What blogs and mags do you read and what shops do you shop at?
when I have time online, i frequent a handful of blogs and flickr pages of real life friends and pals, plus some bloggers/photographers i’ve gotten to know over the past several years.
mags…pretty much anything travel related, self, rangefinder, and professional photographer
shops…
brick & morter: barnes&noble, ross, hobby lobby, thrift shops, used book stores
online: etsy, ebay, amazon, paper source
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Share something that lights your heart up
my dogs and cat
good mail (from friends)
gorgeous photographs
exotic flowers (& tulips)
compliments
learning something new
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What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
blue bell’s good heavens
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What’s your worst fashion disaster (PICTURES welcome, lol)?
besides 5th-8th grades? can’t think of any…right now
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What song on your ipod is most out of character for you?
well… SexyBack by JT and Right Round by Flo Rida…i like the beat of both, forget the lyrics!
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Favorite Movies and/or Books:
too many to list in both categories!
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If you had one hundred dollars fun money, what would you want to do?
right now, there’s several items on my etsy favorites list i’d purchase; anything left afterwards, gas money to go photograph area towns!
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What are your inspirations?
nature & flowers, gorgeous photographs, books, journals/blogs, friends, colors and prints
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What do you collect?
postcards and vintage cameras. 
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What is your dream? (You can also share a dream that has come true)
My dream list includes: a flexible day job that allows me to be creative and provides benefits,  having my photographs published in a major publication, having a book or two published, traveling to every continent (well, the six that are easily accessible anyway), design (& build) my own home & office/studio. well, that’s the professional/career dream, toss in a husband, kids, and another dog or two and you’ve got the whole dream!

What is your favorite childhood memory?

Oh, why did I announce last week I was choosing this one? Just kidding Timber Just a tad brain dead here to get this up on Tuesday … so, because of my response, I decided to save it for Thanksgiving Day …

My favorite childhood memory … I think it would have to be the holiday celebrations with my dad’s side of the family. It was the one time when most of the siblings (four of the five), their children, and the great-grandchildren got together. Usually Easter (all five siblings and most their families), sometimes Thanksgiving, and always at Christmas (four of the five). For years, it was always at my grandparents’ house, which is next door to where my parents now live — I spent weekends at their house, but rarely were any of the great-grandchildren down so I’d have someone to play with (you see, my dad’s the baby and he waited until his 30s to marry and start a family, so age-wise, I fall in with the oldest half of the great-grandchildren).

Thanksgiving usually resulted in the smallest group showing up — my dad and mom (and me until my brother came along), his older sister and her husband, sometimes their daughters and grandson, and a few times one or both of my dad’s older brothers and their wives. Maybe once or twice the oldest sister came.

But my favorite memories were always with my aunt’s grandson — my favorite cousin who’s two years younger than me. Thanksgiving was when my Mama (pronounced mah-maw) would put the bowl out so we could draw names for the Christmas exchange. Me and Justin would always wait until no one was really paying us much attention and we’d dig through the bowl until we found each other’s names One year his parents and him didn’t come, so my aunt ‘rigged’ it so we swapped anyway!

And since today is Thanksgiving, I thought I’d also answer the question I asked all of you in the Third Monday Giveaway … What am I most thankful for this year?

Of course, I’m thankful for the obvious things — God, my family, a roof over my head, food to eat, a pretty secure job in a field where there’s little impact from the economy, wonderful friends, lovable pets. I’m also thankful my car is finally fixed after three trips this month to the dealership (as well as fully repaired from September’s wreck) and that I wasn’t seriously injuried in that accident. I’m thankful I haven’t had any serious health problems. I’m also thankful for the ability to have a side business and for the clients who’ve chosen me to document a moment in their lives this year. I’m thankful that I am able to afford to sink the money I have (from my day job) into said side business so I have the opportunity to grow. I’m thankful to have made the photography related contacts this year and for the ideas that have been inspired that I hope to implement in the next few months. And I’m thankful for the visitors to this site who choose to come back or add me to their blog/feed readers.

So … that said, I hope all of you have/had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I hope to have up some freebie deals for Freebie Friday tomorrow that are good beyond Black Friday … if you see something I should add, leave me a comment or email me at girl [at] 5foot4 [dot] org!

What are things you do for fun?

Well … that’s a good question … what is this fun of which you speak, Goofy Girl? You know I’m almost as busy as you are

Oh, alright … when I do have some free time (which is rare these days), the things I like to do for fun if there are enough hours in the day …

Sleep — how is this fun, you ask? I do good to get six hours a night right now since its the ‘peak portrait season’, so anytime I can make up for the other two hours a day I’m in desperate need of is ‘fun’ to me. In fact, I crashed Sunday afternoon for nearly three well needed hours of sleep!

Reading — I’m a huge bookworm. And right now, due to the aforementioned ‘peak portrait season’ I don’t seem to have much time for this activity as I prefer. Weird thing is I seemed to have more time to read for fun when I was in grad school than I do now! Anyway, I read a bit of everything — from crime/political/military thrillers to chick lit. Sometimes I even toss in some biographies or historical fiction too. You could even include blog-reading here, since it seems to be the only thing I make any progress on as of late

Take pictures — of non-human subjects. Like plants, animals, architecture, landscapes, and other nature-related stuff. Some still-life also. Lately I’ve had to force myself to make time for the ‘fun’ photography since I don’t get paid to do it, and thus those images get shoved to the back burner when it comes to editing and appearing online.

Travel — whether a day trip or a two week one, I love seeing/discovering new places. In fact, this is one of my 101 in 1001 goals, to do more traveling. Last week I ventured down to Georgetown for a day, next month I’m headed to Fredericksburg and maybe another locale or two when I’m off at Christmas. Next summer I’m taking two weeks off and doing a bit of a cross-country road trip.

Zone out watching tv/dvds — sometimes I just don’t feel like doing anything else or going anywhere, so I just pop in a dvd or tv series (that I have on dvd) and zone out. Lately it seems like have either a dvd, a football game, or something off of PBS playing in the background while I’m editing photos. And, occasionally, I actually venture out to a movie theater to see a movie — the latest one being Fireproof, which just made it to the local theater over month after it came out!

Putt putt or bowling — these were two of mine and a couple of friends from grad school’s frustration releases when coursework was driving us nuts. We kept it up on a monthly basis after graduation and until one of the trio left because of a job transfer.

Umm … I think that’s it. I used to run for fun, but I just don’t have the time right now. Maybe when it slows down in the spring I can add it back to the list!

Next week — I’ll answer Timber’s question and then Goofy Girl’s last question the week after Thanksgiving. Have a question you want to see here — leave it as a comment or email it to me

The question — “Where do you see yourself in three years?”

The answer I gave at the time — Teaching criminal justice and political science at the juco level full time somewhere in the state of Texas.

The extended answer to explain why I want to see myself there in three years — when I started out on the grad school route five years ago, my plan B for the degree was to teach (plan A was to work in federal law enforcement) if I couldn’t achieve plan A. Well, the further I got in, I realized plan B was the more feasible and more realistic route. So, after finding out that the only way I could teach CJ would be to also gain work experience in the ‘field,’ I finally got a job in an area of CJ (where I am now). I have a little under a year and a half before I meet the work requirement. In the meantime, I’ve started my photography business, so that’s altered plans, and dropped the plan A completely.

So, basically, in three years I want to be teaching full time during the academic year and focusing on photography full-time during the summers (part time the rest of the year).

There’s one other reason I’m determined to be at that point in three years from now — I want a career where I can be there (whenever I marry and have children) for them like my mom was for me and my brother. My mom was a stay at home mom (except for a couple of part time stints over the years) to me and my brother. She was there for nearly everything — from the first’s to school functions and track, cross country, and powerlifting meets. I don’t know that I could ever make photography a full-time career financially, but once I’m to the point where I can start paying myself, I can stick that money back for other reasons that aren’t ‘for’ me.

Meanwhile, I’d like to think I’ll find whoever it is I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with sometime in the next few years and starting a family will not be all that far behind settling down and marrying (although those last two might be closer to five and not three years out from now!).

So — that’s the long answer. Not that I think the person will read here, but at least it’s answered for posterity’s sake

Happy Thursday! Rather, Happy its almost Friday!

What got you into photography?

Truthfully … it all began with the taking of this photograph:

My dad’s mother took this image of me with an old polaroid camera … I remember being fascinated that the picture developed right in front of my eyes in a matter of minutes. I was only four, but polaroids still fascinate me, even though I’ve never owned a polaroid camera!

That’s what sparked my initial interest and led to my periodic attempts at photographing friends and travels … but it didn’t turn into a full-blown passion until I purchased my first digital camera (a Kodak one that could double as a webcam) right after Christmas in 2000. As crappy a camera it might have been, it took some great photos at times and led me down the path I’ve been on for nearly eight years now.

Flickr also deserves some credit too — except for Sony’s Imagestation site and my numerous galleries on my personal sites, I really didn’t post a whole lot of my personal images (excluding my Austrian travels) until I joined Flickr three and a half years ago. I blame the many Flickrites that inspired me with their works for the thousands I’ve spent on cameras and related equipment, software, and plugins ever since!

There’s plenty of photographers who’ve inspired me as well in terms of my people photography, but I am saving those for my (supposed to be) weekly feature on my biz blog.