Well hello there world! If you’ve stopped by my little corner of the internet – you may have noticed some things look a little different 😉 I’m super excited for this coming year and all the possibilities it holds! You may or may not know we are going to have some awesome changes in 2014 and I’m excited to share some of them with you today, starting with the blog!

I realized it’s been a few years since I really worked on this site or even updated my banner across the top, and with all the improvements we’re making this year – I thought this would be a great place to start. It’s been made known to me how much people enjoy reading the little things I post here. So I thought rather than this be my blog – I’ll make this a sort of public journal. A space to share not only my sessions but little behind the scenes peeks, things from my life, and some of my own rambling thoughts. So from now on – you’ll notice I’ll be referring to this space as the journal. 🙂

You also may notice a the logo looks a little different. It took me a while to decide if I wanted to change it and how I wanted to change it, but after much thought and deliberation – I realized that I needed a logo with a little more flexibility. By separating the tree and text I can have a square, vertical or horizontal logo – which makes it so much easier for this logo to be functional in a variety of settings. Here’s a peek:

One of the biggest changes that has encouraged my idea to give the brand a facelift is that we will not be taking weddings this year. This was a HUGE decision, one that took a lot of thought and conversations with my husband, as well as family and friends. It was a tough choice to make because I’ve met some amazing people through the weddings Ryan and I have documented over the past five years. But when I decided to open my own business, the goal was to be able to be a stay at home mom. Well here I am, five years later, with a business and no kiddos. It’s something Ryan and I both really want (and have wanted for a while – but that’s for another entry), so we decided we are going to take 2014 completely off from weddings. At this point I have not set a date for taking weddings again simply because we need to see how the future unfolds. So until that time – I will be focusing all my energy and passion into my seniors, couples, and families!

Also – as always – 2014 brings goals for the the new year! And just like last year – I’m continuing to work at not being a workaholic haha! It’s hard to start having a family when you work from 8 am to 2 am the next morning. The whole work/life balance is something I hear many women and small business owners talk about struggling with, and I am no different. But it’s something I’ve spent a lot of time working on this past year and plan to work on this year too. Strangely enough, I’m much more productive on the days when I can work from our Kirksville location. Every time I drive to Decatur – I lose an hour and a half of my work day. So when clients are willing to come to me – that makes me super excited! Especially since we built this space specifically with you guys in mind! And I must say when I am more balanced between working and living – my art and productivity skyrocket!

Speaking of productivity – that’s another thing I plan to improve this year. Waiting to see your portraits can be unbearable and I am going to try and speed up my process this year anyway I can. I found some new software and I’m creating some special actions specifically to help make the whole post production side of the business more effective.

Well I hope everyone is excited as I am about all these little changes! I’d love to hear what you think about our new logo/branding/public journal. If there’s something you’re excited to see from us this year – I’d love for you to share! Comments and notes really do make me giddy! I hope you all are having a fabulous day!