This past week I’ve been hit by how much change one life can go through… Just looking back on my life, I remember so many dreams I had and so many things I knew I didn’t want…

• When I was 4 years old, I wanted to be a ballerina [say what?] and wanted to be wherever my parents were
• When I was 6 years old, I wanted to be a police officer and wanted to move back to North Carolina
• When I was 10 years old, I wanted to be a blue alien named Deena and never wanted to leave northern Maine
• When I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a singer and wanted to move back to northern Maine
• When I was 15 years old, I wanted to be a graphic designer, wanted nothing to do with ministry, didn’t want to go to a Christian college and wanted to get as far away from New England as possible
• When I was 18 years old, I wanted to be an advertising account executive working at Arnold Worldwide and a youth minister, wanted to go to a Christian college and wanted to get as far away from New Hampshire as possible
• When  I was 19, I added to that dream that I wanted to live in a big city like New York or Charlotte
• When I was 21 years old, I wanted to be an event planner, was about go graduate from a Christian college, and wanted to move to Virginia
• When I was 22 years old, I wanted to be a photographer, had graduated from a Christian college, and wanted to stay in New Hampshire for as long as possible

I am now one month away from being 25 years old. I am a photographer. I am an event planner. I did graduate from a Christian college. I am involved in ministry. I do live in New Hampshire.

And now, as I am “halfway to 50″, I find myself excited and looking forward with new dreams and possibilities for my future…

• I want to pay off my student loans in the next 3 years [I dream big]
• I do not want to live in the city
• I want to eventually run my own business as my full-time job – a business where photography, planning and weddings are the focus
• I want to get my book published [working on this already - it's just taking longer than I expected]
• I want to get married someday and start my own wonderful family
• I want to homeschool my kids [whoa, seriously?]
• I want to buy a house in cash or check – no loans or mortgages allowed
• I want to be the love of God to those the church has shunned, rejected, hurt or ignored

What are your goals and dreams compared to what they were when you were a kid? Are you seeing them come to fruition or are you seeing a shift in your dreams?

Unplugged Weekend

I’ve started planning this amazing ladies-only getaway… The idea would be to go away for the weekend somewhere in New England that isn’t a crazy far drive where we can all “unplug” – turn off cellphones, laptops, cable TV… I would love to say we could keep them off for the entire weekend, but I understand needing to make a call once a day or something to check in on husbands or family members or whatever. I’m also not looking to go without electricity or nice hot showers, so don’t worry about that. I’ve got a couple of different cabins I’m looking at in MA, NH and VT and I’m trying to keep it around $100 per person MAX which would include the cabin, food and gas. The more women we have going, the lower I can make the pricing – potentially down to $60/each! So we’ll see how it goes and who all is interested (if you are interested, send me a message and let me know!). The crazy in me would like to do it the end of this month, but it may be a little further out – we shall see!

Florida + Harry Potter World = LOVE

On May 18th after work, I will be hopping a plane to Orlando, FL where my friend Krista will pick me up and take me to her & her husband Lee’s place in Palm Bay for about 3.5 days of pure awesomeness. I haven’t been to Florida since my 11th birthday when my whole family went to Disney… and I haven’t seen Krista since her wedding in April of last year (which is totally unacceptable – we’ve been friends since I was 9 or 10 and she is downright amazing – and Lee’s pretty decent, I guess). We’re going to spend some time at the beach and over at Universal Studios to immerse ourselves in Hogwarts at Harry Potter World before I have to fly back on Tuesday morning. I can’t wait to see them… you have no idea how much I miss these two and how much they get me.

25th Birthday in Newport

When I was a kid, I remember my parents taking us to Newport, RI – walking on the Cliffwalk, checking out some of the huge mansions and getting tours, and just enjoying the awesome views of the ocean in this amazing place. Well, I figured it would be a fantastic place to go for my 25th birthday, so that’s become the plan! (Obviously, if you would like to come celebrate with me on June 8, 9 or 10 you are totally welcome – I haven’t decided on a final date yet). I plan to do something on my actual birthday on June 11th closer to home, but I haven’t figured that out yet, either. I’m just excited to be going to Newport again.

Vermont Wedding Weekend

In 2009 I spent a weekend in Vermont for Tom & Jen’s wedding surrounded by fabulous college friends. Well, I’ll be heading back to the same area for my friend Hillary’s wedding (yep – my wonderful double-L) and I can’t wait to see all of those people again. I’ll be traveling up on June 22 after work and returning some time on the 24th. All I know is that area of Vermont is gorgeous, some of my best college friends will be there, I get to take pictures, and double-L is getting married. : ) Can’t wait.

The Color Run

I heard about this 5k race a couple of months ago and it sounded awesome, but I never thought I would ever run a 5k. I had been wanting to get back into running and biking, so I bought myself some new duds. The next day, my younger sister posts on Facebook that she & my dad should run in The Color Run in Charlotte, NC and I was jealous. The Color Run is known as “the happiest 5k on the planet” and truly lives up to its name. Here’s how it works: you show up at the starting line in a white shirt. Every 1k, you get “blasted” with a new color which is essentially colored corn starch so it’s pretty harmless (you can eat it, though it doesn’t taste great). By the end, you are a fantastic rainbow and you are given a bag of your own color to throw around as you celebrate the end of the race with food & friends.

I found myself looking through their website to see where the closest one to me was and all I found was New York. Two days later, I looked again and there was one in Boston. I signed up immediately and created a team registration area to start inviting my friends. You should totally join me! You don’t have to run – there will absolutely be people who walk, and I may not even run the whole thing. The race is on July 28th in Boston, you need at least 4 people to get the team rate and right now it’s just me, Matt & Jenna. I’ve had lots of people express interest, and I can’t reserve spots (they sell out fast). If you would like to join my team, follow this link, click on Team Registration and fill out the information. Team members are $35 each ($38.28 with processing fee) if you sign up by April 15th. After that, it goes up in $5 increments for different deadlines. Sign up ASAP!

SoulFest – Year 5

My fifth year anniversary with SoulFest is this summer! I’ll be heading on-site on July 29th (the day after The Color Run – crazy, I know) and the festival is August 1-4. The bands this year are absolutely amazing and I am so psyched. The one strange thing is that a couple of my guys aren’t returning to work the festival, which will definitely be an adjustment for me. With that said, though, I cannot wait to be reunited with the rest of my SoulFest family. If you want to see me in my element – in the place where I feel most useful, most loved, most wanted and most happy – come visit me at SoulFest. : ) Nothing beats that for me. You should think about volunteering – full-time volunteers work two 4.5 hour shifts, get a campsite on Volunteer Hill, 1 meal card a day, and free admission to the entire festival. Part-time volunteers work one 4.5 hour shift per day and get 50% off admission at the time they purchase their ticket. Come join our family by going to the SoulFest Volunteer page.

Southern Vacation Part Deux

Literally the day after SoulFest ends (August 5), I will be hopping a plane to Charlotte, NC where my parents will pick me up and take me to my mountains in Blowing Rock, NC for the week. I can’t wait to see my family again and spend time in my favorite place on the planet (no offense to SoulFest or Nashua). Thus far, no place has felt like home quite so much as my mountains – and I have never even lived there. I’ve only spent every summer there (minus one) for my entire life. : )

Wedding Season 2012

Amidst all these adventures, I’m going full-speed into my second official wedding season with HilaryColleen Photography and business has exploded. I’ve got 12 weddings contracted for 2012 so far with a couple more still in negotiation and 3 weddings already booked for 2013. This wedding season is taking me all over New England in NH, MA, & VT so far, and one of the weddings is for a friend of mine from college, which will be fantastic. I’m so excited for the business expanding!

…And then we’re nearing the end of August – crazy! I’m working on coming up with some kind of adventure for Thanksgiving, but that can wait for a little bit longer. What types of adventures do YOU have planned this year?

Laura Leslie Photography

Whether there’s a newsboy hat involved or not, there’s just something about the casual yet vintage look that makes this irresistible.

Photographer Unknown

There’s something about suspenders that make things more comfortable and pretty laid back.

Photographers Unknown

I’m thinking my personal attachment may have to do with a mixture of Newsies and Doctor Who, but regardless, they look great!

Photographer Unknown

So besides the fact that they are super fun and allow for some great photo opportunities…

Photographer Unknown

HilaryColleen Photography

… Kids look absolutely fantastic in them. <3

Photographer Unknown

Photographer Unknown

Regardless of how you set up your look, whether it’s striped ties with suspenders or a super country look with brown pants and no vests, suspenders are one of the hottest trends in weddings right now.

What are YOUR thoughts on suspenders at weddings? Yes or no? You know my opinion, so I’ll leave you with my absolute favorite find so far…

Three Nails Photography

Feedly

As a Social Media Specialist, I need to know what’s going on in the world that’s going to be relevant to fans, followers, viewers, customers, etc. I could spend countless hours scouring the internet to read the blogs and feeds that have current content that I will find interesting. Instead, I’ve discovered the wonderful convenience of feed readers – I find the feed URL to the blogs and online news sites that I am most interested in and put them all into the same location for reviewing. I’ve tried several for myself personally at home and through different professions over the years, but none have compared to my latest find of Feedly.

As the website states, “Feedly is a news reader for creative minds, a simple and elegant way to read and share the content of your favorite sites.” I absolutely love the magazine-style layout which I have almost complete control over. Since I mainly use Firefox at work and at home, I use the Feedly add-on in Firefox, but it is also available for iOS, Android, Chrome and Safari. In addition to having a Feedly tab available whenever I need it, on every page that I browse, there is a small icon in the lower right of the screen which allows me to save whatever I am reading to my Feedly to read later – or I can share it on common social media networks. Pretty neat little feature, if you ask me. Feedly typically logs in with an email address, so you can login to your Feedly from any other computer with a Feedly component downloaded – another cool factor. I usually check my Feedly articles when I first arrive to the office and go through the recent articles to sort out which ones I am going to schedule into my posts. It’s a super time-saver and I love the customization features.

Hootsuite

Twitter can easily be a time-sink in terms of publishing content. At Workplace Essentials, I publish between 5-6 tweets per day, though many companies and organizations publish far more. Sometimes there’s content that I want to publish across several platforms – say LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook – and having to go to each individual page to do so was a bit too tedious. I had looked into things like Co-Tweet before and a couple different social media dashboards like Seesmic, but I had heard some great things about Hootsuite so I decided to check it out. I love this thing. Seriously.

You can access Hootsuite from any computer that can get on the internet, from your mobile device (I have the Hootsuite app on my iPhone), and it’s pretty sweet. Hootsuite allows you to bring in your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, Foursquare feeds and more all into your own organizational flow. I’ve set mine up with different tabs for each social network, and within each tab I have columns for my news feeds, mentions, scheduled posts, and keyword searches. Hootsuite even shortens URLs automatically to an ow.ly short URL. Love.

My #1 favorite thing about Hootsuite is the ability to schedule posts to just one or multiple social media sites in advance (I typically have 50% of my daily posts scheduled a week in advance) and they will post automatically when that time rolls around. This is fantastic for vacations or even just for getting things done more efficiently. After I sort through my Feedly articles, I go through my scheduled posts in Hootsuite and look at my newsfeeds to search for any re-tweet worthy posts or articles to look into myself.

My #2 favorite thing about Hootsuite is the add-on & desktop availability. I have Hootsuite downloaded as a desktop application via Fluid which shows up as an icon next to my Firefox icon on my Mac. This makes Hootsuite its own application – leaving my Firefox tabs to fill up with all my other tasks. The separate app is a huge deal to me, but there are also add-ons for Chrome or Prism. While that’s my favorite desktop add-on, I’ve also got the Hootbar installed in Firefox. This handy little icon allows me to go to any article, click on the Owl icon and schedule a post directly from the article versus copying the URL and then going into Hootsuite to schedule everything. Wonderful timesaver.

We actually purchased the “pro” version of Hootsuite which allows for some amazing analytics on our Twitter and Facebook networks. For just $5.99/month, these analytics are completely worth it. You can see the types of tools you will have access to with the pro-version when you are using the basic Free version – and you can absolutely just stick with the free one. I just thought you should know that the analytics reports are phenomenal and totally worth $6. : )

Visual.ly

Statistics are a crucial part of my blogging, tweeting and posting process. Many of my articles require some kind of in-depth numerical data that can sometimes be hard to wrap your mind around. Even concepts can sometimes be hard to explain with simple text and a regular image. This is where Visual.ly comes in. My older sister introduced me to this site (she’s a global studies teacher in Charlotte, NC) and I have spent so much time soaking up knowledge here. You can seriously search for just about any keyword or topic you can think of and you will find infographics that take the data or concepts and explain them with easy-to-follow images and such. These things are super appealing to the eye and are a great way to grab interests from clients around seemingly dry topics that have a wealth of knowledge if you can really explain yourself well.

Whether I’m blogging for Workplace Essentials or for my wedding business, HilaryColleen, I’ve found a wealth of information that is aestheticaly pleasing and draws me in to the very facts I’m trying to convey to my audience. I’ve also found myself just searching around here for my own curiosity. Political campaigns, how much money presidents make, the reality of student loan debt, Santa’s carbon footprint… you name it! I definitely encourage you to take a look and see what you can find. You can educate yourself and educate your prospects with these great visuals that were already prepared for you! Have some information that you would like to share? You can now create your own infographic on the Visual.ly website! Love this.

So there you have it! My top 3 web tools currently in my marketing “ninja backpack”. Investigate. Try them out. See what you think. Do you have any web tools that you think should be in every online marketing professional’s ninja backpack? Share away – I’m going to go do some Visual.ly searching…

I hated myself. I felt like I would never amount to anything – that God couldn’t use me. And the worst part was that members of the local church communities my family was connected to throughout all these years had also thought the same thing. It was a terrible feeling as a teenager when your self-esteem is low enough already and you think people are talking behind your back only to find out that they actually were. There were a handful of times that I heard my name brought up in such a sad tone – “It’s such a shame for a pastor’s daughter to be so sad and depressed.” “I’m sure she could be a great girl if…” Luckily these were the only portions that I heard at the time. Just three or four years ago I was told that I was considered a “lost cause” and that some friends of mine should not associate themselves with me or waste the effort – I was too far gone. I know I know – I wasn’t doing drugs or getting drunk or beating people up or being pulled off to jail. But the cloud that had eaten almost a decade of my life was so apparent to those around me that they were warding others away. To them I was a blackhole and they could feel the darkness around me – and they wanted nothing to do with it.

When I graduated from high school, I completely intended to start a new life and leave the old garbage behind however best I could. After nearly 8 years of keeping a secret all to myself, I let someone into my bubble. It was scary and unnerving and uncomfortable, but it was huge for me. No one else knew – just me and this one person – about the crap that had taken over my life when I was 10. And while it helped, I still hated myself and most of the same depressive stuff was still there, I just wasn’t as lonely anymore.

I made some great friends in college who completely changed my life and most of whom are still a part of my life today. AND I developed the very beginnings of a true relationship with God – a huge step in the right direction for me. I knew that He forgave me. I knew that my darkness would pass. But I hadn’t forgiven myself for the person I had become through those years in depression and loneliness. All these scars that I refused to let heal because I didn’t deserve it… So, I finished college happier than I ever remember being, but I just knew that there was something missing – that there was something more.

Today while home alone getting rid of a stuffy nose and sore throat, I found a video I had made in college at another one of the roughest spots I’ve ever been in. Looking into her eyes – my eyes – I could see the sadness, loneliness and fear… A fear of being left behind, left to rot, and left even more broken hearted than where I started… Because once you experience what you’ve been missing for most of your life, losing that is even more painful than just dreaming about what it was like before… And I didn’t want to go back to being alone.

As I’m watching this video, I just wanted to reach out and tell myself that it will all be okay – trust God and everything will work out just fine… And I can’t believe how everything changed and worked out. I was so broken… I mean, people could sense the broken in me even though no one ever saw what was going on. I was in such a rough spot that people could just feel it. I remember some people in high school were afraid of me… I was just so strange, so dark, for a number of years. Flash forward to the summer of 2009 when Jesus took a hold of my heart like never before and showed me that I am His beloved daughter and He has everything under control. I started to see that He truly did love me and what He could do through me… And the chains just fell off and the scars started to heal up all at once. I was free of that darkness – even though it felt like just a few clouds remained, they were all blown away and I could see clearly for the first time since I was 10 years old. At 22 years old, I was finally able to be who God created me to be without that darkness controlling me.

I remember many times being completely ready to give up. While I believed in God through all that was going on, I didn’t believe He truly cared for me or would actually do anything to get me out of the mess that I blamed myself for. I remember not asking for His help or guidance because I felt like it was a waste of time to trust anyone, so why trust God? And even when I did give things up to Him, I remember being so afraid that I was going to turn out like everyone said… That I was going to be stuck in the state I was in and that God would never use me… Happiness and a life full of His glory could never find me. If I could send a letter to myself, I would just include pictures of how my life has changed… Even pictures of me smiling and in happy times from my past, you can still see the huge weight that was on me. But then I look at pictures like these and I know God was with me through it all and I would not be who I am today without all of this.

I am able to spend my weekdays in a job I love with co-workers who make me laugh and inspire me to do the best that I can. I get to photograph and plan weddings for amazing and beautiful couples who show me so many different aspects of love in the way they live their lives. I have an absolutely amazing family that has always been and will always be there for me, even if I shut them out – they are phenomenal. I have a ridiculously handsome, God-fearing, passionate and loving boyfriend who is determined to show me who I truly am in Christ no matter how much he may have to beat me over the head with God’s truth and I can’t believe that I get to keep him. I have a second family of friends who are the most wonderful, challenging, encouraging, loving and understanding people I have ever met and I could never thank God enough for sending them to me. I have been blessed with friendships that have lasted through the years and never faded away as well as new friendships that are some of the most beautiful things I have ever been a part of. I am at such a wonderful spot in my relationship with God – and it won’t stop there. He has brought me out of the woods, out of the blackhole, out of the ocean of fear that I was drowning in and has placed me on His mountain that I will only continue to climb… With friends, family and Jesus, I am never alone and never unloved and never unworthy.

Looking at all the details and issues and problems and blah blah that came into my life, it’s so hard to believe that it could all work out like it has without God having my back. My story is pretty unbelievable. And so is yours. Don’t give up. You’ll see…

Oh, and here’s a song that was in the video I watched and is coincidentally a part of the title for this post. There is a point near the end of the song where you can tell that those who were separated have been reunited – the song just soars… I was 10,000 miles (or more) away from myself since I was 10 years old… and I was reunited with myself after that darkness was lifted. So, I hope you enjoy the song.

When I started work for New Horizons Computer Learning Center in Nashua, NH, one of my key responsibilities was to develop a social media plan and to take our sales team into the domain of using these networking sites to generate leads. Hah! I thought that was all just crazy talk, right? I started doing my research and discovered that there really were a lot of benefits to using LinkedIn for prospecting and networking with current clients. Before I could get my co-workers going, I needed to get into it myself, so I spent a week or two going through all the features and fully vamping up my profile (which I had just started 10 days before my first day). I added previous jobs & job descriptions, skill sets, a link to my portfolio, educational information, and briefly checked out the recommendations area. I did a little hunting around in groups and such and then discovered a jackpot for our sales people and, even though I didn’t know it, a future me: job postings.

For our sales people, they could find a company that was in need of someone to do X and they could offer our services to train them to do X. So, we jumped in and did the training, got everyone setup with LinkedIn profiles and links in their email signatures and they were off and running . Everything was going grand with my social media projects and all was well. Then through an unfortunate string of events including budget cuts, I was laid off.

I was completely jobless in a matter of 5 minutes with no prospects but plenty of student loans, rent, utility and other bills to pay. I jumped head first into looking for jobs using The Ultimate Job Searching Technique and searching for a job became a 24/7 thing quite literally… I would wake up around 7 or 8 each morning and would open up my computer in bed until I got hungry. I would check through apps on my phone whenever I was making food or out of the house. I spent every day in my living room searching through the same sites 2-3 times and applying wherever I could. I got a couple of interviews out of it, but my marketing skills were seemingly not needed at that time no matter where I looked. What was I doing wrong? My job search system had never failed me or anyone I knew before… What was I missing?

About one month after I lost my job, I started to notice job postings on LinkedIn filtering into search results I was making on Indeed. I decided to check it out and see what LinkedIn had to offer on the job front and was pretty surprised to see so many relevant job postings for me that I couldn’t find anywhere else. So, I started researching and boosting my LinkedIn profile into full gear for job hunting (there are some great resources out there if you do a little Google searching on using LinkedIn for job searching). I added my LinkedIn job searches into the daily routine I had developed through my ultimate technique and applied to a good number of jobs through there on a weekly basis. Within one week of this process, I had three interviews scheduled through jobs posted on LinkedIn, all with companies and positions that I didn’t feel I would be settling for and was pretty interested in learning more about. I was still slightly apprehensive about each of them and went ahead and had my interviews while also going to an interview for a job I had heard about from another online source. I wasn’t expecting much to come of them, to be honest. I thought I wanted this other job that I was interviewing for more than any of the jobs I had found on LinkedIn. And out of the three jobs I found on LinkedIn, I was completely shocked when I fell head over heels for one of them versus the job I thought I wanted. And I was offered the job within a week of interviewing.

So, here I am. A little over a month from first applying to a job at Workplace Essentials online through LinkedIn and I will have been the Social Media Specialist for their corporate office for a month on Friday. I absolutely love my job, the people I work with, the company I work for and all the things I’m learning and doing every day. I would not have found this job were it not for LinkedIn – and, for that matter, would quite possibly still have been jobless and approaching the holidays. I’ve been encouraging people left and right to get on LinkedIn, whether they are looking for a job or not, and explain to them some of the crazy benefits of using LinkedIn as a professional networking/job connection tool (as well as telling them my story).

Easy-to-print resumes
When you create your profile on LinkedIn, you allow executives who are hiring to potentially see your profile which serves as a resume (job & educational info, skills, etc.). The great part about LinkedIn? There are these wonderful Share, PDF or Print options on each profile which will create a pretty sleek and professional resume format for that viewer to share with their team and review together. If you have LinkedIn, click the PDF option on your profile and check it out – definitely neat. My current employers actually printed my LinkedIn resume before they even spoke to me.

Recommendations
References are a great bonus to any resume, but the beauty of recommendations on LinkedIn is that potential employers could actually check out the profile of the person who recommended you, see what type of capacity you worked together, and it’s all in one place yet again. Requesting and giving recommendations are also as easy as clicking a button and typing it out. Perfect.

Links to everything
Oh, you worked at ABC Company? Well, there are 3 ABC Companies near where you are, so how is a potential employer going to know which one unless you detail the address and then they can go searching for it? LinkedIn allows you to have links to companies, people, etc. right in your profile so there is no mistaking where you worked or went to school – an employer can just click right there!

The power of connections
While it may seem time consuming at first, connecting yourself on LinkedIn with people you have worked with, gone to school with, know personally, etc. can open some great options for you when searching for jobs. You can see who is connected to the company you are applying to and ask for a recommendation or that company could see who you are connected to, which can give you great kudos if they know people that you know.

If you are not on LinkedIn, jump on board. It’s not something you have to drown yourself in or spend hours a day every day checking up on. The best part of LinkedIn is that once you set it up, it pretty much does the work for you. I know people who just check in once a week or once a month and utilize things just fine. I’m currently a daily LinkedIn user mostly for my job, but it’s an excellent resource for news, connections, and (obviously) career opportunities. Hope to connect with you all soon!

I’ve done it again – gone and not posted for over a month. *Shameful*. Nevertheless, I have plenty of fantastic and wonderful things to update you all on!

At the end of the day on September 15th of this year I lost my very stable, comfortable and local job in Nashua. It was so completely unexpected and I was worried about finances and all that jazz. I began collecting unemployment and did everything I could to be ridiculously frugal so that I could still pay my student loans, rent and other bills. From time to time at my church we take time together to declare certain things over our lives – we have a set of PowerPoint slides that we go through and say aloud together which includes things such as thanking the Lord and declaring with Him for jobs and better jobs, benefits, sales, commissions, bills to decrease, blessings and financial increase to name a few. I remember one Sunday we did this and I was nearly in tears. Then that night my ever so wonderful boyfriend, Derek, had me put one hand on my wallet and the other on some of my bills. He asked me to simply pray “Lord, increase this (my wallet hand) and decrease these (my bills hand).” It seemed so silly, but I did it. Over the next month, I was noticing that some of my student loan payments were less than they used to be and I was actually having more money left over in my account each week than I had working full-time previously! It was unbelievable! And God wasn’t finished yet…

Exactly one month from the day I lost my job, I started a new job! I had my first day as the Social Media Specialist for Workplace Essentials in Billerica, MA on October 16th. I can’t even begin to tell you the blessings I have received with this job and working here – a pay raise & crazy awesome benefits are just the tip of the iceberg… And the commute is typically 30 minutes in, 20 minutes out. I will still be able to spend the week of Christmas in South Carolina with my family even though I will not have finished my 90 day probationary period and I have already been guaranteed any amount of time I would like to take off every year for SoulFest. It just seems like life couldn’t get much better than this, right?

Well, not only have I been booked more weddings for the 2012 season than I did all of the 2011 season already, but I received a phone call a week or so ago from one of the lovely ladies at The Knot telling me that I had been selected as one of their Best Of Wedding 2012 photographers! One year officially in the wedding photography business and I have already received an award from the #1 wedding website?! The announcement will be made officially on their website in January but I can share it now and celebrate!!

Seriously, I must be on cloud nine or something… When we pray for blessing and increase, God really knows how to show up big and take care of all the things we could waste time worrying about – so why waste the time on it at all??! : ) I’ve been spending this entire month remembering to be thankful for all the things I have and the things I take for granted. The results have been marvelous… I feel better and God has just been pouring love and blessing on me. Do not forget to be thankful, especially since this time of year is “dedicated” to things like this! It serves as a great reminder each day to be thankful in our every day lives. LOVE IT.

With all that wonderfulness out of the way, here’s what my upcoming plans consist of:

• Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family (minus my parents and sisters but plus Derek!) tomorrow in Connecticut
• Black Friday Shopping (duh.)
• 11/29 my dad will be here to visit with me after work for a bit!
• 12/10 photographing a wedding in Massachusetts : )
• 12/16 going to see Quidam by Cirque du Soleil in Worcester after work with Derek!
• 12/17 Christmas party awesomeness and my “family” of world changers will be reunited
• 12/23 flying out to South Carolina in the morning to spend the next week with my family for Christmas!

I am sure I missed something… but this is all the super exciting stuff I’ve got on my brain right now.

As many of you know, I’ve had a lot of free time lately. Generally speaking, any free time that I have had would go into job searching, writing my book, working on things for my wedding business, etc. When I get time where I can actually relax, I tend to choose things to do that aren’t entirely relaxing. My boyfriend gets on my case about this a good bit, reminding me that relaxation is not a synonym for laziness (I have a hard time seeing the difference sometimes). Well, all this free time has been allowing me to look at different ways of relaxing that I would really enjoy. Thanks to the inspirational Facebook postings of my artsy younger sister and an oh-so-crafty childhood friend, I’ve realized just how much I love making things and have started to explore different types of things I would like to make. And it starts with blankets. Yes, friends, I’m going to make some blankets.

Embellished Recycled Sweater Blanket

Cozy Sweater Blanket

I love the idea of recycling sweaters, whether it be some that I currently own or going to thrift stores and finding some. I love checking out Katwise and seeing what she’s done with her recycled sweater coats, dresses and arm-warmers (though I have yet to find one that is quite my style, I still think they are incredibly neat and unique).

I stumbled across this beautiful Embellished Recycled Sweater blanket idea first and got so excited. I mean, can you imagine cozying up under about 20ish sweaters worth of snuggly wonderfulness on your couch on a cold winter day? (Or, in our case here in New Hampshire it could even be a snowy October day – we got 12+ inches of snow last night!)

This may not be the blanket I start with since I have 0 idea how to use a sewing machine, but it is definitely on my list and I will get to it! : )

Tshirt Quilt

Favorite Tshirt Blanket

This may be the blanket that I am most excited to make… I have a ton of tshirts that I love and cherish but either no longer wear or only wear to bed for different reasons. My current plan is actually to make this blanket out of my old tshirts from when I worked at Apple – pretty awesome and exciting, right? I mean, how many people can say they have an Apple blanket, let alone an Apple blanket made out of Apple tees?!

Yes, I know this one also takes a sewing machine, and since I’m in love with this idea a slight bit more than the sweater idea, this blanket will probably be post-sweater blanket so that I can get better at using a sewing machine.

Tie Fleece Blanket

The Snuggliest of Blankets (no sewing!)

This, my friends, will be blanket #1. Why? Because there is absolutely no sewing involved. : ) Tie fleece blankets are really easy to make, comfortable and can look absolutely fantastic. All I’ve got to do is find 2 different fleece fabrics that I like, cut them to size, cut the fringe pieces all around the edges and then start tying. : )

I actually have an Apple fleece blanket from the days when I worked there… Stuart (my 7 year old cat) decided to make it his sleeping pad and now that beautiful navy blue blanket has orange fur all over it no matter how many times it is washed. I’m going to try to stay clear of dark colored fleece fabrics, especially since I now have an 8 week old kitten (Oswald) as well to furritize anything and everything in his path.

Vintage Yellow Chair

My craftiness isn’t going to stop with blankets – this just happens to be one of the things I can share how-tos and images on. I also have plans for rearranging and redecorating a couple rooms in my house, starting with my studio/quiet space. During the Christmas season it is used as a photobooth by friends, family and guests as they come for different parties and occasions, but during the rest of the year it has slowly turned into a storage room – not what it was meant for. I cleared things out yesterday and today I will start putting up the photos, organizing the furniture (it is a small room, but it has a double papasan and the beautiful yellow chair featured at the right in it), and fixing the backdrop curtain. The idea is that the space can double as a small studio and a quiet space for myself and my roommates. I’m pretty excited to see how it all turns out. : )

Bedroom Photo Wall

Then I will be moving on to updating my bedroom. Shortly after I moved in to my apartment in the summer of 2010 I took the time to put together a pretty intense photo wall that I loved. It has been absolutely fantastic, but now I find myself wanting something a bit different for my room. My boyfriend is going to help me with dismantling the wall as I start to figure out what I would like to do, but I have plans to add a piece of furniture (probably some kind of shelving unit) and some wall shelves and decor. My bed is actually already on the opposite wall with some new wall art above it, which I really like. Just need to finish the transformation.

Once I know from my landlord when they are replacing that last window in the picture with a new one (this window is hidden because it is absolutely hideous) I would really like to paint my room. The entire house is the color of my room, so I would love to start changing things starting where I sleep. : )

Well, there you have it – some of my current and upcoming crafty-type projects. I’m sure as I spend more time looking around on the web I will find more to add to my list, but I’m pretty excited about these few. I will keep you all posted on my progress and how things turn out. I would also love to hear about the different crafts and projects you have taken on recently! Tell me all about them – inspire me!

Photo from W2W Soul

Ever have those days where you’re  just not happy with your life. Out of nowhere, you start picking apart every little thing and trying to figure out why it just wasn’t as good as you want it to be. You know exactly the type of day/mood I’m talking about – you don’t like your job because you don’t find it fun or because you don’t feel like you’re doing enough; you don’t like your house because it doesn’t look the way you want or isn’t in a location you really want; you don’t like your car because it doesn’t have a CD player or because it’s not as new as you want; you don’t like yourself because you don’t feel you’re good enough at anything to consider it your “true talent” or you just feel lonely… The list can go on and on. And thinking about all these things that are “not good enough” for you on those days makes you start thinking about how on earth you can fix it all and it quickly becomes completely overwhelming. The only way to fix your life is to get a better job, make more money, buy a house in the country, buy a new car, and completely change who you are by next week because you simply cannot go on living the way you are any longer. And since that’s practically impossible, you just shut down and want to give up. It’s not worth fighting through all these obstacles, so you might as well just surrender and try to keep on living.

Photo from Mike Duran

Giving up is the easiest thing to do, sure. Surrendering seems like the best alternative at the time, I know, but have you ever stopped to think about why you all of the sudden are thinking all of these things? Where did the thoughts come from? You didn’t really feel like that yesterday or last week did you, so why now? And even if you did think that yesterday or last week, what exactly makes you feel that way? For some of you, it definitely may be time for a job change, a new living situation, etc. But before you go spending a bunch of money on something that may not even solve the issue, ask yourself one simply question: what in your life right now gives you joy on a regular basis? (and video games do not count) It is important to have things in your life that bring you joy on a regular basis – and by regular basis, we’re not talking once a year or when they happen randomly. Something consistent. Something real.

Chances are that you couldn’t think of anything too steady considering where your mind was at – if you did, that’s fantastic and you should probably do more of that and see what happens. For those of you who couldn’t really think of anything (and even for those of you who did), it may be time to invest some of your time in something that can bring you joy. And I’ve found that one of the easiest ways to get joy is to give joy to others who need it, one way or another.

Photographer Unknown

 My suggestion is to find a place where you can volunteer your time to give back to your community, to your country, to the world in whatever way you would like. Pick something, give it a try and if you like it, try to make it a regular thing (once a month is a good goal – once a week if you can). If you don’t like it, look for something else and give that a try. I can pretty much guarantee you that you will see joy increase in your life, whether it’s through appreciation for what you have, seeing the smiles on other peoples’ faces that you’ve been helping, making new friends, realizing that your life isn’t all you were thinking it was and that you were just missing something, etc…. There are some amazing opportunities, people and experiences to be had in volunteering your time to give back, and one of the things you will get back is pure joy – that puzzle piece you were missing for a moment there.

Photo from Alicia Kata

Not sure where to look for opportunities to give back? Here are just a few options that come to my mind:

I’m willing to bet you think the Red Cross only needs medical personnel… But this is very far from the case. If you visit the Red Cross Volunteer Match site and search around your location, you will find various opportunities. For those of you living around Nashua, current opportunities include:

• Disaster Action Team (preparing food, clothing and shelter in case of disaster)
• Maintenance Volunteer (janitorial work at a local chapter)
• Youth Services Administrator (work with youth in Red Cross Clubs)
• Community Events Coordinator (help plan fundraising activities, fairs, etc.)
• International Services Intern (working to educate others about fundamental human rights, international affairs, etc.)
• Health & Safety Sales & Marketing Consultant (assist in promotion of health & safety courses)
• Disaster Planning Intern (help plan for and prepare for disasters)
• Office Assistant (front desk and clerical a couple hours per week at a local chapter)
• Volunteer Management Team Member (Manages and coordinates local chapter volunteers)
• Community Disaster Educator (give presentations to groups about ways to prepare for and live through a disaster)

If you have at least 4 hours a month to spare, enjoy working with young people and think you could be a great role model, Big Brothers Big Sisters is definitely an organization to look into. Littles are kids of all ages and backgrounds that do not have an older sibling to look up to – some may only have one parent – and they are striving to find someone to look up to. There are two types of programs – Community-Based Mentoring and Site-Based Mentoring. Community-based mentoring takes place about one hour a week and the Bigs and Littles share time together in their community playing basketball, sharing stories and spending time together. Side-based mentoring takes place about one hour a week in schools, libraries or community centers sharing in the same types of activities. You can learn more about becoming a Big at your local Big Brothers Big Sisters website.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, every town and city has people who live every day without a home, not knowing where they will sleep that night or where they will eat. There are many ways you can help those in your own community who are less fortunate than you, and here are a few ideas:

• Get together any clothing items that you no longer wear (especially shoes and jackets) and bring them to a clothing drop
• Donate canned goods and food items to a local food pantry or soup kitchen
• When I was in college, there was a group that got together on Saturdays I believe and we would make sandwiches and bagged lunches before heading into Boston and giving them out to as many homeless people as we could, taking time to chat with them as well. I wouldn’t say this is for everyone and I would encourage you to only do this with a group during daytime hours, but it was definitely a wonderful experience
• Check in at your local food pantry or homeless shelter to see if they need volunteers. For you Nashua area folks, the Nashua Soup Kitchen & Shelter is always looking for volunteers and they are open every day of the year. Have a look at their website to see where you can help, including areas such as:
• Sorting donations
• Unloading deliveries
• Preparing foods for evening meals
• Coordinate a food drive in your neighborhood
• Dinner shift help for serving food & beverages, cleaning tables & washing dishes

While there is definitely a need right in your own backyard for food, clothing and shelter, there is also a great need overseas in third world countries – children either abandoned by their parents, orphans of HIV and aids or slowly dying with no way to overcome the poverty that has stricken their whole country. With organizations like Compassion International, you can sponsor a child for as little as $38 per month which gives that child nutritional meals, education, medical aid, the nurturing care of a local church and the message of Jesus. And don’t worry – you’re not just sending your money away with nothing in return. You will receive pictures and letters from your child – and will also be able to write back! Can’t do it on your own? Pair up with some friends! If you would like to see what sponsoring a child can do, simply check out this video and have your tissues ready.

Again, these are just a couple of ideas that come to my mind, but there are so many more ways to give back in your local and international community. What can you give?

I’ve had a variety of different phones through the past 2 years – Palm Centro, Palm Pre, Saumsung Fascinate, iPhone 4… – and it’s fairly obvious to anyone who knows me that the iPhone and I were made for each other. I never thought I could love a phone so much or do so much with a phone, but goodness, am I glad I can! I have about 85 apps currently on my iPhone. 85. I’m sure you think I’m completely insane, but I’ve discovered a whole lot of great apps that I get so excited about, I just walk up to random people and tell them all about this great app I just discovered (I do the same with websites – ask any of my co-workers). With all this app surfing I do to find the best apps for what I need or like to do, I’ve come across some apps that I think everyone should at least know about. So, here I am to share some of those with you – apps that I doubt you’ve got that I think you should get – in categories such as Navigation, Social, Games, Entertainment, Photography and Finance (to skip to a category, just click one of those links).

Navigation

In college, my mom got my younger sister and I a GPS unit to help with our navigation of “the city” (My sister went to college outside of Philadelphia – definite need for a GPS. I went to college in Boston and insisted I would be fine without one, but I was very thankful for it when I got it). And my TomTom was an absolutely wonderful help – until it just stopped turning on or charging when I needed it the most. I took the time to do some research and comparison on GPS apps and found a love for the Garmin StreetPilot. The deciding factor between the TomTom app and the Garmin? The Garmin included live traffic updates for free whereas it was a paid service through TomTom – plus it had better reviews.
App Cost: $59.99 one time.

Social

I tend to upload a lot of pictures to Facebook from my phone, and when uploading more than one photo it gets pretty tedious since the iPhone will only let you do one at a time… A friend of mine introduced me to iLoader Lite and it is a definite must have. I can now upload multiple photos at a time. Simple, but oh so important!
App Cost: Free

Games

Okay, I never thought I would be that kid who had a lot of games on their phone, but I really have a good number of games… My top favorites would have to be Flight Control (you are the air traffic controller handling multiple incoming aircrafts and with your finger you show them the path to land without crashing – sounds simple and lame, but it’s super fun), Sky Burger (each level you are given an order with a certain number of ingredients to add and by tilting your phone, you are to catch all the needed ingredients before catching a top bun – seriously addicting) and either Words with Friends or Wordfeud (both of which are free versions of Scrabble that you can play with your friends who have the app or who use it on Facebook).

Flight Control - App Cost: $0.99
 

Sky Burger – App Cost: Free
   

Words with Friends and Wordfeud – App Costs: Free
 

Entertainment

As far as movies go, even when I’m on my computer and I want to see when a movie is playing and where, I hop on Fandango – you can browse multiple theaters, see prices as well as the times and you can even purchase your tickets online for some theaters right then and there. Definitely saved my having to wait in line a few times when I was in Boston.
App Cost: Free

Photography

Okay… I have a lot of photo apps to share since I love pictures so much, so bare with me.

My absolute favorite photo apps are a tagteam – Fotolr Camera & Fotolr PhotoStudio.

I started with Fotolr Camera after being somewhat disatisfied with the Instagram app – I really wanted to see the effects before I took the picture… And Fotolr Camera lets you do that. You can choose from lens options like LOMO, Pop Art, Mirror, Old Photo (my fav), Sepia, Rainbow and more as well as choosing the type of film you use such as Die Cut, Film Style, Doodle, Black Borders and more to give your photo a neat edge or texture effect. As mentioned, my favorite part is that you can see what the photo will look like before you take it – and then you can upload directly to Facebook, Twitter, etc. The one thing to be aware of is that Fotolr Camera takes a little bit less of the frame then what you will see when it takes the photo, so give yourself a little extra room.
App Cost: Free

Fotolr PhotoStudio was an additional download I made when there were photos I had taken with the regular iPhone camera app (or even with the Fotolr Camera app) that I wanted to jazz up some more on my phone. Crop, rotate, resize, doodle, change brightness/contrast, add color effects like you can in Fotolr Camera, add text (with lots of different fonts!!), and top it all off by adding a frame/texture or putting your photo into one of about 40+ different scenes. And again, you can upload or send straight away to popular social networks or text messages.
App Cost: Free

I’ve always wanted a way to shoot cool panoramic shots – especially 360s (love). While working with SoulFest this summer, my friend Kenny was taking some panoramas on his iPhone and they were unbelievable. I asked what app he was using and he just says DerManDar. I know, right? Strange name, but this is a free app and the quality and ease is absolutely stunning. You just hold up your phone, press Start and it takes picture #1, then just keep moving and as it gets to the end of the next shot, it will take it automatically as you rotate until you click Finish. Then it stitches it all together and the stitching is nearly flawless. 180s, 360s, whatever you would like!
App Cost: Free

These last two photo apps are discoveries within the last week. One thing I really disliked about my iPhone’s camera is that I was terrible at holding it in a way that I could take a good picture of me or my friends and get us all in the way I wanted. What I really needed was a self timer… So, I did some searching and found just.SelfTimer which I will admit I spent a little too much time having fun with when I first got it on my phone. Set spans of 3, 5 or 10 seconds and the screen will actually count down for you once you click the camera button. All images are saved right in your gallery! Best discovery of the week for sure.
App Cost: Free

I’m a collage fan – I like to find neat ways of putting pictures together, but usually it’s in more of a presentation way than pictures on top of pictures. I had wanted a way to put multiple pictures into one neat, framed image on my phone and discovered a love for Pic Stitch. Choose from a variety of different layouts to include 2, 3 or 4 photos. Rotate, flip, change color (b&w, sepia or regular color only), change the size of the final document, and export directly to Facebook, email or your phone’s gallery. I partnered it with Fotolr PS for some little text additions and was having waaaay too much fun. : )
App Cost: Free

Finance

Before my iPhone (and a long line of could-have-been phones from Palms to Droids) I had a Samsung Fascinate and was trying to find a way to keep track of my bills and finances and all that jazz. While Mint had been mentioned to me over and over, I was really looking for something more basic that would just pull in all my bank accounts into one location as well as my main bills. Thus the discovery of Pageonce that has now been moved to my iPhone (yes, this is available in BOTH platforms!!). On one page, I can see a summary of all my bank accounts, all my bills due, my investments (which I have 0 of right now) and my credit card debt (also which I have 0 of). If I tap any of these categories, I can see the breakdown by account and even open up to see the latest transactions. Even my student loans are listed in here for me – love this. Very easy to keep track of, and there is a web component if interested. The app will also show you reports of where your money is going and more if you are interested. I still might check out Mint when I’m looking for something more in-depth, but I love Pageonce… So simple and quick.
App Cost: Free

I’m a proud ING user. My savings account and my business account are housed with ING and I have nothing but the highest praise for how they conduct their banking business. Thus their award for my favorite bank app, though it’s not really even for the bank – it’s for finding ATMs with the ING Free ATM Finder app. Search by current location or type in an address and up pops a map that you can zoom in on and select a location where there is a free ING ATM. Very handy. : )
App Cost: Free

So there you have it – my favorite apps on my iPhone that I think you should know about. What are your favorite apps? Any you think everyone should know about? And what about you Droid users – care to share?