So yes, I know, I am wayyyy behind on the family portrait stuff..so maybe the cuteness of Raima will have you forgive me?

We went down to San Jose to meet up with some of my old school friends (as in, I feel old. I've known them since we were in 7th grade! SEVENTH GRADE!) who were up in the Bay for a volleyball tournament.

Anyway, I had to chase Raima around the convention center for awhile since chasing her around the courts wasn't a good parenting thing to do, lest I wanted her to learn how to play dodge ball. She was walking around and around, waving and saying hi to folks - which had everyone gush. A little tiny hand waving and a little tiny voice saying HI! - how could you not?

Here are some more photos...


So yeah, in case you didn't know - our friend Jenny had her baby!! Baby Luna Lisette on 2-13-13. It was a successful VBAC!! Way to go Jenny!!

So, am I forgiven?

Yesterday, I got my required permits and business license (which I should have done last year!) with the help of my little assistant Jax. I still have yet to open up a separate bank account - but I plan on doing that next week. I also got a business loan (GULP - not a big one but enough), I know in 2013 most everyone, including myself - was hopeful of having less debt. But if I am really serious about this - then I need to invest in it - while investing in blood, sweat and tears is great and all (and I have plenty of it) it doesn't pay for some much needed equipment and insurance. We, as in the hubs and I, have decided to give up our master bedroom for the guest room so that we can turn the master bedroom into a studio & office. This way, I can have clients come in and not have to go through our entire house because it's located at the back of the house by the kitchen that has a separate entrance. I can also lead clients to an outdoor space if we wanted to meet outside too - or if they had their kids, they could play in our backyard.

I can't wait - I am so excited to rearrange everything. I can already see where everything should go in my head!

Anyway, aside from that - I am excited to be a part of my friend's birth team and got to accompany them on the tour of the hospital last night. I brought my camera along and also my promo flyers - and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to reach out to prospective clients - but, I chickened out!! I had a stack of my lil promo flyers that I made and spent money on but I was too nervous and I mean - these women were here to see where they were going to give birth - where all of the magic happens - I didn't want to interrupt that with a sales pitch - although they were all looking at me with my camera - since I was taking photos of my friends.

I know I know..I need to get over being shy or rather being laughed at and rejected - but I'm not requiring them to buy anything - just taking a look..sheesh..anyway..all the mamas to be were so cute..it almost had me....yeah, no. :)

Oh - for those of you who can still do a little shopping-if the holidays didn't already burn too many holes in your pocket book, I wanted to mention that Shabby Apple is having a site wide sale, and even better the sale is even on sale!! HA. So use code: NewYears to save 20% on EVERYTHING on their site:


Now back to business - my business, really OUR business. You see, when Charlie and I first started dating we had shared one major passion and hobby - photography. He was still using film while I was getting more into digital at the time (this was early 2008). He was really good for someone who never took a single photography class in his life! I had even built him a website once but then it was too much to focus on that as well as my old blog and then we got married, we had kids and we had a lot more responsibility than ever before. It was always a lofty dream of mine to have a multi-disciplinary business as husband and wife. Of course, Charlie's real passion is teaching and watching him go thru his credential program and teach kids and go to work doing what he really loves doing - was one of the inspirations for me to get my shit together and just do it - do what I love, of course while still maintaining all the responsibilities - which is not fun at all. Since my desk job provides us with the steady paycheck AND the health insurance - it's really hard, but I'm dedicated. Just like having a newborn, you don't sleep much - and well with all this business stuff or rather pushing my passion from hobby to a business - I'm not sleeping much and that's ok.

Anyway...

So - in other news, I got 100% funded for a peer to peer loan using Lending club except I can't freakin' find my 2011 W2 (nor my file folder of our 2011 taxes, where I KNOW that's where I would find it!) and I am missing the one paystub for that year end to date. These are the last of the required documents in order for me to receive the loan! If you haven't heard of peer to peer loans, it is a platform where the funding of the loans are done thru other people (investors) and not a bank. With Lending club, you request a loan - they check your credit score, give you options on amounts and payments and when you agree to it - they put it up on their board and investors take a look to see if it's something they are interested in putting their money in and if there are enough investors you can get fully funded. For my particular case, 45 strangers are investing in me, well in my business (it's not a major loan. I only requested an amount I know I could make the monthly on - for 3 years). You have the option to write a note to the potential investors and I stated it was to jump start my dreams & passion of photography - and make it a business. I stated it would pay for the required licenses, permits, insurance and some equipment too.

Here is the link to wikipedia for more info on peer to peer lending. I think aside from Lending club there is also Prosper - but you will need to have close to excellent credit to qualify for a loan at Prosper (which I didn't have and so was not approved).

As I was continuing this post, which was from yesterday and was supposed to be my Friday Perspective post - but as you can see, it is now Saturday..anyway, I was able to slash my auto policy monthly in HALF! You can too - especially if you haven't had a policy review in over a year or even 6 months. Things change, things get better or worse, so it's a good idea to call em up and see what they can do for you. Next up is cable - either canceling it completely or seeing if they can lower our monthly too. By doing this, it allows me to keep with our budget and include my loan monthly payment without sacrificing much of the necessities. Charlie might argue that cable (sports package) is a necessity - I wish I could just buy a sports package and nothing else but local cable.

Anyway, my focus these first few months of the year is finding ways to cut our expenses and grow our business. On top of my other responsibilities, of course...

speaking of responsibilities..have you read this blog post about how you are never failing as a mother? - Well, you should.

*Disclosure: Shabby Apple above - is an affiliate link. All other links are merely something I wish to share with you all - no strings attached ;) BUT if you are interested in learning more about Lending club - they do offer a referral program, so if you want to sign up, email me - and we can split the rewards (at the time of this writing, it's $100 - so, yeah...)

Driving down the 5 as I type this on my phone because I left the laptop in our bags at the back of the van that I re-packed & rearranged after my hubby packed it. Yes, he asked me if I wanted to do it and I said no. Until I looked at how he had packed it. It was atrocious people, seriously.

Anyway..still need to get some gifts together- as in make them, print cards and get frames. Yikes!

Last week on our visit down to Southern California, we got to visit new parents M & the Sweet Lady and their new baby Jack. Isn't he a cutie pie? So tiny and yet so powerful ;) Oh how I love babies!

I want to try and take some portraits of the kiddos so I can make my own shadow image or cameo to use as gifts. I've seen some tutorials around the web but haven't really thought about it much until now. I really need to start my craft projects, but every time I have my furlough day, which is when I had hoped I could do stuff - something else seems to come up. Like last Friday, work actually asked me to come in - which I'm not complaining about (yep, really). And the week before that? I chose to sleep in, yeah so that happened. Anyway, next Friday we will be in Southern California again for my grandfather's memorial services, and it looks like I have been chosen to do the first reading (gulp), which I am honored to do. I just hope I don't cry too much or laugh uncontrollably - that would be awful considering, but that is my usual nervous tick - uncontrollable laughing fits.

Anyhoot, have a wonderful rest of your weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday. I think I will use Sundays as my fun day & day off to spend with family and not have to worry about the blog.

What are your plans this weekend?

I am no chef but I do like to cook and pretend I could compete on an episode of Top Chef or Chopped. I love looking at recipes, but I don't like to follow directions (I wonder where Jax gets that from!). So, when I cook, it's usually something that just comes to me and make things up as I go along. If I have a few ingredients and can't decide on what to make, I'll scan for a recipe that maybe has those ingredients and use it as a guide and go from there. If we haven't gone grocery shopping in awhile, I just "shop" our pantry to see what I can come up with and 9 times out of 10, what I come up with is surprisingly good!

• 2 lg cloves of garlic
• 1 small yellow onion
• 1 tbsp of finely diced ginger (or 2-3 tbsp of ginger powder) - or if you don't like eating bits of ginger, what I like to do is cut up big slices of ginger and then remove them when I serve the dish. That way it still gets the ginger flavor it needs but you don't risk accidentally eating the ginger (unless you leave them, which I have done - sorry Charlie).

• 1 box pkg of vegetable broth or chicken broth or vegetarian chicken broth (yes! it does exist!)
• 1 pack of dry or already cooked & packed thin rice noodle (if you don't have any on hand, you can also use egg noodles,  ramen noodles or even pasta like spaghetti or angel hair)

• 1-2 tbsp oil (I used olive oil, some people would use peanut or even a touch of sesame)
• 3 tbsp fish sauce (or to taste - this is a key ingredient that offers that "authentic" Thai curry flavor)

• 1 cup chopped cilantro (or basil)
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• 1 lime cut into wedges (lemon is ok too)

• sliced tofu, 1/2 -1 package firm tofu
• sliced chicken, 2 breast cutlets
• sliced fish, 2 fillets
• 2 cups of shrimp

We had a rough start to our weekend, but this was after I had already set up this post. We just found out the car repair we need would cost us a big chunk of money that we weren't anticipating (nor that we have) and so we had to do a little readjust (and I had to calm my nerves and worries). No more little extras, like gymnastics for Jax (until next year perhaps), but more parks and libraries instead..we'll survive, we always do and really, besides this hiccup, life IS good. And good times are still to be had, especially this weekend..since we have nothing planned! So maybe I can do some crafting :) What are you all up to this weekend?

P.s. Don't forget to turn back your clocks and savor that hour, if you can!

The fabric finally came!

Books from my friend Cat for my birthday

Traffic into the City

Beautiful colors, not really depicted in this photo

Had lots of plans today but didn't get around to much. I've got this nasty head cold and ugh my head! So much pressure and my eyes feel like they need to be gouged out. It is not a good feeling.

This morning I gathered all the bottles and my pumping supplies to give to a good friend of mine who's expecting her first. I was kinda sad to be giving the up...no more babies? :( At least for me, or for now, oh I don't know..

Took a much needed nap which helped a little and now we're late for a Halloween party in Pacifica. I kinda wish I was still in bed though, but I'm also starving and there will definitely be food...so off we go as a greaser, a 50's wife, Batman and a butterfly..

(Excuse how this is- ramble ramble, I posted using my phone, while kids are screaming because we aren't moving. Ugh, headaches and traffic plus kids do not mix)

Murphy's law happened and so to cheer me up we did lots of silly photo booth!