With my husband in the thick of nursing school and myself in the thick of owning and operating a business out of my home while raising a beautiful 16 month old boy, life can get a little hectic. 2009 was full of so many blessings for my family and success in my growing business. I am beyond thankful for those things.

While on our vacation this December, spending all of my time snuggling and playing with my baby boy, while also holding the hand of my husband (my very best friend in this world) and laughing and talking with him with nothing else to worry about I had a realization. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had not been enjoying my life. I had been doing all that I could to keep my head above water and check off my to do list that there was not a single drop of life left in me to enjoy my many blessings and the people that God had blessed me with.

I was in my car the other day listening to country music and I heard the song "I run to you." There is a line that says something like: "I run my life, or is it running me?" It struck a cord with me big time.

I tell you all of this so that you can know me a little better. I have always been a very transparent person (sometimes to my detriment). But, I want to take my blog readers on a little journey with me. This is the slow season in the Oklahoma photography biz and I welcome it with open arms so that I may ENJOY this wonderful life I have been given. Don't get me wrong, I love photography with everything in me. What I am striving for in 2010 is BALANCE. All of the people that are closest to me will probably agree with me when I say that this is something that I need to work on. I need to play and rest as well as I work. With less sessions to blog, I am going to be doing more posts of a personal nature. So, I invite you to get to know Shannon a little better, while I get to know myself a little better.

This week has been wonderful, I mean really really wonderful. Two dates with my hubby, lots of play time with my kiddo and a long lunch date with my dear friend Nichole. I love me some good girl time. I brought my camera along so that I could photograph things that make me happy.

We ate lunch at Cosmos on Brookside which was oh so yummy. Then we ventured through the sludge (the mix of old snow and rain) to Barnes and Noble for some treats and coffee. I had the seven layer bar and a decaf americano with cream.

I look a bit like a freaky serial killer in this photo but Nichole wouldn't let me take her picture so you are forced to look at me, dark circles and all. Yes, I have these bangs now. Nichole calls them my zit bangs. I had a huge...no wait...humongous zit on my forehead on the day of a wedding shoot. Makeup would not do the trick so, I cut bangs to hide what was lurking beneath.

I love books. I love how they smell, how they feel, how they look. I used to love reading them too. Now I try to read in bed and five sentences later I am out. It takes me a long time to finish, if I ever do. I can't even count how many books I have started and not finished.

I love journals too. I used to write in one every day. It is how my mom found out about all of the bad things I did as a teenager (not too smart on my end.) She was a good mom, I was a very bad teenager.

Sorry Mom. ;)

Now, I buy pretty things like this for to do lists. Aggghh.

There is a guy in my bathroom re-glazing my bathtub right now and the fumes are overpowering my home. If there are tons of mispellings and grammer errors in this post, that is my excuse. I am high.