1) Pay off debt & bank as much extra money as possible!

As the Great Dental Woes of 2011 have become the Bankrupting Dental Woes of the Two Thousands (or so its starting to seem as I guesstimated I’ve probably spent $10k out of pocket since having my own dental insurance policy in 2002!), I’m realistic in the fact I’m gonna probably end 2012 with a pitiful future house fund and a dentist that’ll be able to better clothe/feed his children at that expense. I do have every.single.intention. of being out of debt on the cc balance I have now (for spring 2012 tuition and a few dumb purchases in 2011) that’s locked in on a 0% BT through November 2012. I don’t plan to carry a balance on the other two cards that I use for daily purchases and gasoline and pay off at the end of each month (one nets me a decent cashback bonus of approx $100/year for using it & the other one nets me about $150/year towards paying off my student loan balance). My student loans will be paid in full by year’s end (they’re just over $2600 as of today). My car will be paid off by summer’s end; however, its falling apart slowly, out of warranty completely, and just surpassed 100k last month, so I plan to trade it in on something else that I hope won’t be falling apart before its paid off! … that’ll be sometime between September and December 2012. I am contemplating two weekend trips this year + possibly one longer trip in late spring that I need to save some money for … at least one of those I’ll have travel companions to split costs with, the other two I don’t know yet. Meanwhile I want to beef up my emergency savings, try to build back up my medical savings once I get past what has to be done this winter (its about 1/3 done now), and bank some biz income towards buying a 70-200mm lens for biz & personal usage. And maybe, just maybe, if the biz has a banner year beyond my expectations AND Canon finally releases a quirk free successor to the 5D Mark II, I’ll be able to afford to pay cash in hand for it late this year.

2) Get & stay healthier.

I’m gonna be open here but not to the point of TMI in hopes I’ll have some positive support in achieving this one this year. Family and some friends know about this, but I’m putting it out there for everyone else to help hold me accountable and be supportive (btw, if you don’t have anything positive to say, click the X in the corner now.)

I’ve been reading up on foods to help counter this pesky phenomenon known as Acid Reflux that I seem to have developed/inherited. I’d like to keep what teeth I have before it destroys them all. Having TMJ is bad enough, need to lower my stress and decrease the # of times I spend more than half an hour with my mouth being worked on so it will stop flaring up so often so I won’t have to take those pesky muscle relaxants that make me feel dingy. I’d also like to counter all these weight (30 lbs) that stress and PCOS have helped me pack on since 2007. I’ll be happy to lose 15 of it. My wardrobe budget would be glad too …

While this is a year-long goal, next month I’ll begin spelling out what small steps I’m working towards to achieve this. Right now I’m looking for the right workout regime and foods that’ll help both issues.

3) Focus on education/growth as a photographer.

Essentially, all those materials I didn’t finish last year? Gonna finish them if it kills me or means a little less sleep a couple evenings a week. Also I have two photo projects this year — a 52 week challenge (year three of shooting/blogging an image a week on my biz blog) + monthly self portraits inspired by a quote that speaks to me that month. Also going to invest in a few tools to challenge myself photographically (filters primarily).

4) Either make or buy American for part to all of every present I gift this year.

If you’ve seen the Made in America series that ABC News has broadcast about since last fall, then you know what I’m talking about … how many jobs we can help create/maintain if we buy American instead of cheap overseas crap. I bargain shop & buy gifts for people year-round as I come across things I know family and the friends I gift to will like, so usually they get twice as much as a result. This year I intend for at least one if not all of the items I gift them for birthdays/Christmas to be American made or made by me. I’d love to be able to do the same for baby and wedding shower gifts that come up during the year if possible … but I’m not going to hold myself to that one since those are usually purchased from registries!

(original found here)

(original found here)

#2: Learn how to and make a time lapse video like this one:

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

… and … local or not, please go vote for my pet photography business, Sit.Stay.Snap. Pet Photography, to win the WFAA-list’s Best Pet Photography category … I’m competing against several other DFW area pet photographers and would love to win!

PS… you’ll need to confirm your email address (look for the email w/ the subject line: Welcome to the WFAA-list), its the first of the two links in that email!

Thanks in advance!

Crazy, crazy week … hoping to find time to blog soon!

While dew is a bit of a detriment to early morning portrait sessions, its so nice to not sweat a few pints worth during an hour session for a few months!

PS … I didn’t realize that when I moved the blog, the default settings for comments required registration … I’ve fixed that now, no registration required

… September started off slower paced, then Hermine blew through Texas and gave me a sinus migraine that lasted seven days.
… which resulted in having to take a day off work and go home an hour and a half into another workday.
… I don’t even need all the fingers on one hand to count how many days this month I haven’t had some sort of headache.
… shot a portrait session 70 minutes east of home, flew home (figuratively), showered/flat ironed my hair (no quick feat), attended a funeral in hometown, and attended a wedding in DFW (in which the car battery on the vehicle we were in was dead when we came out from the church to go to the reception) all in one day, while the above mentioned migraine was going on. Didn’t make it to the reception …
… the brother finally had knee surgery (from his February freak injury) late in the month … he’s slowly recovering.
… at the day job, including the above mentioned two sick days taken, toss in one federal holiday, one out of the office work event, and taking a day off work for my brother’s knee surgery and I worked my poor brain to frazzle levels churning out more reports than days I worked in the month (without going into detail about what my day job is exactly … which I had to interview someone for, do background research and contact other parties involved, and write up before the submission deadline).
… shot more sessions which I’m three days behind in editing at the moment
… signed up for an online (non-credit) class in which I’m behind on already
… launched a revamped version of my pet portraiture portfolio
… redesigned marketing materials for both sides of the portraiture business, which I ordered en-masse last night … now I’m broke again
… read at least three books, started another one earlier this week
… fell behind on email (already way behind on letters to penpals, one of these years I’ll catch up)
… forgot to wish my best friend a happy birthday on her birthday earlier this week, at least I shipped her gift to her earlier this month!
… spent more hours staring at a computer screen than doing anything else, including sleep.
… and some other stuff that my brain is way to exhausted to remember at this point.

Thankfully late last year/earlier this year, I sat down and evaulated the biz and figured out how to make this holiday portrait season a bit less crazy than the last three (2007, 2008, and 2009) … and limited when I booked sessions, factored in time for reschedules due to weather/illness (which if not used may be reopened for last minute sessions or be catch up time), and factored in time off so I wouldn’t in even worse shape physically and mentally. That little bit is helping me survive while all the weekday madness is out of my control.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to December (and January) … several weeks of down time with the business session-wise (and a couple weeks off completely from the behind the scenes stuff), plus time off work from my day job. Some of my fellow photographers think I’m crazy for wanting to skip October and November already, but when life is already in overdrive x’s 3, who doesn’t want to skip ahead in order to have a bit of down time … right?

I’ve had a folder full of car images sitting on my computer desktop for most of the summer with plans of sharing them all by now. Since summer’s nearly over and before I forget about them yet again until after holiday sessions wind down, I decided to share several of my favorites over the next couple of months. The above image as well as the rest of this series of car images were photographed in late 2008, so I’m way overdue on sharing them! (View the first in the series here.)