Dave and I decided we have great legs. So we decided to name them after the Great Lakes.

I chose "Leg Erie"
Dave chose "Leg Superior"

Moving to New York City

You never know what to expect when you move, until you just take the leap of faith and try it. 

I was determined to move to NYC for a few reasons. I didn't want to break the bank (we have family there,) I wanted a creditable film experience and I wanted it to be far enough from home that I felt that I accurately tried living on my "own" with Dave. The result was pretty interesting since I ended up feeling closer to family more than ever, seeing the importance of believing strongly and reality check in the area of film. 

My relationship with Dave grew so immensely I can hardly imagine how we functioned before New York. Our communication grew as we discussed daily, merging our goals and exploring the direction of our future. The social pressure of always having an exciting thing to do on the weekend eased as we found joy in the simple aspects of life: dates might consist of going to a used book store, jogging in the nearby park or sipping some hot coco with a dog sprawled on our lap (surprising considering the city "never sleeps.") Don't get me wrong, we made a point to sightsee but when I think back on the experience, those usually weren't the moments I cherished the most. Other than Christmastime which is truly magical in the city.

Even more than our marriage, we grew closer to the Williams (probably too close for their comfort) and appreciated their innovative perspectives on life. I learned for the first time in my life that I do actually desire conversation and am willing to sacrifice my fear of using the phone to call my siblings, parents and friends more often. I felt more involved than I thought I would living thousands of miles away and looked forward to our weekend excursions to Oneonta to visit the Noorlanders (for a breath of fresh air in comparison to city streets.)

I found out I really like commuting, I could fully immerse myself into books and made a point in reading the classics that I hadn't given a chance before. Every morning as I stepped out of the bus station I would pause for a minute, taking in the strangers, the bustle and my surroundings. By doing that, I felt that I allowed myself to truly appreciate the effort that went into getting into that spot. 

I realized that film was making me desperate. I recognized that up through the point of moving, I had very self centered motives and had dragged Dave around with me in hopes of a satisfaction that is unattainable. I wanted my future to be different and if putting my film career on the back burner for a while, I knew the importance of acting on that intuition. I remember the day it all changed for me and I knew I wouldn't be staying in NYC, or at least staying at that film company. The head of Development (his job is to think all day about the content of potential TV shows and research how successful they would be) was explaining that the number one goal of a TV show is to bring in revenue. Then, he added that there are a few sure fire subjects to making money: drugs, murder and sex. He wanted to point out that if we didn't want to work with at least one of those topics, we weren't ever going to make a lot of money in this industry. That's when I knew it would be fine if I didn't "make it" in the film industry. 

You might already have a hint at how much I admired my crew members and part of that is they didn't only encourage my knowledge on the technical aspects of film but they challenged my beliefs. Not in a negative way, not in a way that I felt they were trying to fight with me but in a way that made me stand taller. You wouldn't guess it in the beginning but we were all so different and believed a variety of things that it made us respect each other that much more. They didn't understand everything that I had grown up learning and I didn't understand a lot of the practices they did but through the diversity of religion in the city, they judged me by my character/personality instead of the fact I was LDS.

So on the anniversary of moving to New York, it's good to take a look back at the things I'm grateful for as well as the things that have changed in the past year. 

Often I feel inadequate for the next stage in my life.
I don't know what to expect with a baby, I want to be fully prepared.
Right now, I feel a little dumb because I spent the weekend around fumes and products that I should stay away from and I'm extremely worried about the fact I did that. CLR, cleaning products, paint fumes...the whole shabang. So I feel like I've messed up before I've even started.

Personal Preference in Photo Editing

Many of you have heard my theories on "photoshopping." Simply, as a non-fiction documentary filmmaker, my quest artistically is to make my creations as authentic as possible. Lately, mainly out of curiosity, I've explored different photo editing methods and styles to see if some fit me better than my usual (which is very minimal.)

Photography wise,  I like subtle changes. Changes so slight that it may brighten an eye that already has a sparkle. Here's an example of a before and after:

I guess the weird thing people request all the time is if I can change the way they look. I always want to say, well, I want the picture to look like YOU because that's the exact person I care about. It's kind of why I've been avoiding the "wedding world." The expectations are unrealistic, with the majority of clients. I've worked with famous celebrities that are less picky than brides and they pay much more. I rejected 12 weddings and had one cancelation this summer. I mention them because I didn't expect that I'd ever reject a wedding in my life. Maybe it's due to the fact that I'm growing a baby, I have a full-time job, I have at least one doctors appointment a week, we're desperately trying to finish the remodeling of the house, we've still got to move our stuff fully into the house and within the next 6 weeks I'll have a newborn. Free-time is spread pretty thin, we're making it work but if you've asked, you've probably noticed that I'm not taking on new projects...probably for a while. If life ever dies down again then maybe I'll swing back in that direction.

I don't really know why I'm blogging about this other than it's a personal discovery and I can't help but be passionate about this art.  So far, I've been loving the creative freedom I've had on my personal projects lately and should probably focus on all of the other things I've got to do instead. 

Babies

So...my sister had a baby today. And I watched it happen. 

The adrenaline that has run throughout my body today has been unimaginable, resulting in peaks of excitement followed by sudden crashes in emotion. I thought as an adult your feelings stabilized a bit but I don't know if that's true. Here are pictures of Erika and I that we took last week. When both of us still had our babies inside of our bodies...

And introducing....Ryker Price :)

Jude Law

What would you dance for?
I'm not advocating Whiskey btw, it seems irrelevant to the storyline.