I hope everyone is staying well and still social distancing and wearing masks. I know it is hard, but we all need to do our part so we can continue to move forward and not take steps back.
I am excited to be back to work and see all of my clients and meet new ones as well. I have been open for one week and have learned what changes work and won’t work for the studio. As hard as some of these rules may be for some, it’s truly what’s best for the health of each client. Studio Cleanliness has always been a priority, I am just taking things a bit further…
I am washing my hands/using sanitizer at the beginning of each session but now I am asking that each client do so as well.
If any outside props are brought in, they will need to be sanitized before use.
Immediate Family (people who live in your household), are the only ones allowed in the studio during your session.
If you have been sick, with a fever, cough, and shortness of breath within 9 days of your session, I ask that you please reschedule.
If you have contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, I ask that you reschedule your session to 14 days after the known exposure.
Fabrics, Props, basically anything standing still in the studio will be cleaned between sessions.
A time slot will be held between each session to allow for cleaning time and there will only be a couple spots available per day.
I ask all clients to show up at their scheduled time.
Thank you for a successful first week back. I appreciate each one of you and thank you for supporting my business.
There are only a couple spots remaining for May, and June is beginning to book up. I can’t wait to capture memories for you!
When you haven’t worked in 6 weeks because of COVID19 restrictions and your fur baby turns 17 what else is there to do but have a birthday photo session for your cat!
I have had this cat longer than I have been with my husband. He & I have been through so much together. He holds onto my secrets, puts his paw on my hand when I cry, sleeps touching me with a paw all night, lets me hold him like an infant in my arms while he sleeps, runs to me when I come home, loves sharing whip cream and loves trying to escape outside to explore the yard. He loves my kids like they are his own, tolerated all their shenanigans when they were tiny, would be the first to their nursery room door when they would cry as infants. He truly is THE Best Cat Ever!!
We thought we were losing him 6 years ago when a vet misdiagnosed him telling us his rapid weight loss, 26 down to 5, was due to cancer and we should just keep him comfortable. Then one day we ended up on Dr Wellings schedule and she said “Why hasn’t anyone ever checked this cats thyroid?” Come to find out, he did not have cancer at all. His thyroid was working about 4 times too fast. So after trying and failing on some thyroid meds she referred us to MedVet in Columbus for radiation treatments. After that he has been healthy other than the arthritis in his hips from the muscle lost during the misdiagnosis. I am SO Thankful for that day we ended up on Dr Wellings schedule, she truly saved his life!!
Happy 17th Birthday Cheeto!!! I hope you get to nap all day in the sun while tricking each of us into feeding you even though another of us already has!
Why a mouseketeer? Well when Tori found out she was expecting she wanted to incorporate her love of Disney in her announcement but the littlest Mouse Ears Hat was sold out online so we ended up with this.
Which was still an adorable way to announce but not what momma wanted. She kept checking back for the hat because we still had ideas. It never became available so I was going to the happiest place on earth in February and she hadn’t announced his name yet so I offered to pick up the hats for the boys while I was there. Can I just say how much I love and am honored to know my clients secrets!! Pregnancies, Genders, Names… it’s exciting!
Thankfully Mister Brody decided to make his arrival a week early to beat the COVID shutdown! He was my last newborn before I had to temporialy close.
Brody is just as precious as his two big brothers are. Bryson and Breckin are always such a joy to photograph and seeing them with their latest partner in crime was wonderful. You truly have no idea how hard we worked to get the photo of the 3 of them together, Breckin was not having pictures at all that day so this was ONE image out of close to 200 snapped. I would do it again in a heartbeat though because look at those little faces!!
How are you really handling this? Like seriously, are you being honest with yourself and your feelings right now and in the past weeks? Or are you burying your head in the sand?
I have my good days where I feel on top of it. Like the laundry is all caught up, kids aren’t fighting over school work or with each other, my sense of dread that my husband will contract COVID that day is not as high as most days, dinner is prepped, I organized another section of the house, positives thoughts fill my head that my business will bounce back from this, etc.
Then I have my bad days. The days when I truly do not give a crap the laundry is an overflowing mountain, that the kids aren’t reading as much AR as I have them scheduled to do, I don’t make my bed or even have a plan for dinner. I just want to sit and wallow in my own self pity because the world is an even scarier place right now, my business that I have sacrificed so much to grow the last 5 years is now sitting idle, and that very day, may just be the day that my husband contracts COVID at work.
I have subscribed for a while to the blog, Finding Joy and she gets really real sometimes in her messages and many days that’s what exactly what I needed to hear. She recently wrote a blog titled Lessons from Isolation and it was as if I had it told her my thoughts and she blogged them. Please click the link and read for yourselves too, I bet her words will speak to many of you. Also sign up to follow her blog, she writes so many that are very relatable, especially to moms and wives.
My biggest take aways from that days blog was in needed reminders of things I knew deep down but never wanted to give myself the grace to feel or deal with.
Give yourself and others Grace. It’s okay if we have bad days where we are wearing the same leggings as yesterday and dinner is a frozen meal from the deep freezer. It’s okay if you want to sit and binge your favorite tv show and eat from your secret chocolate stash after everyone goes to bed. It’s okay if the click list person isn’t the peppiest when you pick up your order, they may be have been yelled at by a previous customer or are worried about their own health. Just offer a smile and tell them to have a nice day and stay safe. It’s okay if your friends don’t return texts quickly, maybe they just do not feel like chatting that day.
What is really important in life. Truly I think this topic will end up being a whole blog in itself at some point, but it’s shown, not just me, but everyone in the house, that we truly have everything we need right here under our own roof. From food, be thankful for what you have in the pantry and eat it even if it is a weird meal idea. This has been the best time to eat all those random foods you have in the back of the pantry. Clothes, be thankful you have comfy warm comfy clothes to lounge around in. Love, be thankful that you have a warm loving safe home to be in because too many are not that fortunate.
Hold on to that Hope, that tomorrow and each day to come, will get better. This one is so hard for me. I know we still have not had the worst of this horrible virus, but each morning when I’m watching the birds and squirrels out my home office window (I have hit old lady status and love watch them almost every morning), and notice how much my peony is growing and coming back to life after being eaten into the dirt by deer last fall, hope is a word that comes to mind. That there is a smidgen of hope that things will get better and we can come back out of this “COIVD19 dirt”, stand tall and feel safe in the outside world again.
Find something to be thankful for each day. Even if it’s something little like your coffee tastes great today or your kids put their laundry away without you asking them.
What are you thankful for today?
Cover photo captured by Autumn Branscome Photography in Princeton WV
Well Hello! Yes I am still around and I am shocked when I logged in here and saw that it really had only been a year since I last blogged! Seriously thought it was longer than that. If you can say something about my blog style, I am consistent with being inconsistent in blogging. I mean I have always been told “blog for business” “if you don’t blog you won’t reach your customers” well obviously I have not been blogging and still thankfully have a steady business. Or should say HAD a steady business until March 24th when the governor shut us down for being “non-essential.”
While truly I am loving this time at home. I have cleaned out closets, the garage, and sold things we no longer needed, I think we all need our busy lifestyles back. My daughter misses her friends, school and gymnastics. My son is missing his last 1/2 of 8th grade, he is most sad about his last season of track. I miss watching my kids compete, I absolutely love watching them challenge themselves and seeing the pride in their smiles when they do better than they anticipate. I miss my husband having a “normal” work week. I miss photography. I miss my all my AGP babies and little ones! More on what we all miss later on another blog. Yes I plan to do more blogging since I am caught up on editing for the first time in what seems like forever.
Can I go back to early March? Pretty Please? Can I go back to that facial room at His & Hers with Stephanie discussing all this Corona Virus stuff and telling her “Hey I am not going to worry until Reg worries because he literally never worries about anything unless its a stopped skyliner at Disney or an airplane ride.” So we go on, she’s doing all her magic stuff to my face to hopefully make me look younger and well rested and we are talking about her upcoming Disney girls trip. She shares a love for Disney just like I do, perhaps hers is possibly bigger. She is an “Epcot Mom” and I am a “Magic Kingdom Mom.” Don’t know what those are, look them up lol. We were saying “Oh Disney NEVER closes, ever for hurricanes, you’ll be fine to go, just wash your hands.” She finishes her magic, my face feels soft like a baby butt and I go back to the studio.
Disclaimer: Her facial room is a lot more relaxing looking than this, this was just the only photo of it on hand right now since she is closed down also. Book one with her, try it for yourself! #beautybybatton (Stephanie Batton @ His & Hers Day Spa)
Welp 3 hours after saying “I won’t worry til he worries” all hell broke loose!! He calls, saying call your Dad tell him to stay home, the kids need out of school and it needs closed, you can’t take the girls out of the hotel this weekend for Alee’s birthday trip, it’s going to get bad quickly and no one is prepared. Talk about panicking, again my husband again never worries, so I was like “oh Crap here we go!” For petes sake, I was at lunch a week prior with my bff and we were laughing at Corona memes and now we are buckling down and feeling the need to buy a toilet paper!
Text Stephanie like “ummm ya remember what I said this morning, now it’s time to worry.” Call parents and tell them to stay home. Go to the school ask about how absences will work if there is an impending pandemic coming and they don’t close. Figure out how to pull off a great birthday weekend for your 10 year old since you shouldn’t be in public. Stay calm on the outside because you can’t pass your fears onto your kids, but on the inside you are crumbling because of all of these unknowns.
Do you remember the time when you realized all of this was a lot more serious than you initially were thinking?
Cover photo is of my view each morning. Don’t diss “ohhh she has a Christmas tree up!” Listen, my big momma 12 foot is gone and packed away, this is a little pencil tree that only has my antique ornaments on it and it makes me smile.
Throwing a pic of Disney from February in here because I love it and miss is so much! See ya real soon!
Amanda Greer Photography 