1. 

   Shelley Torgerson says:

   September 30th, 2009 at 11:44 am

   I soo hope I get the actions! But even if I don’t I now have hours of blog and site checking out to do because of all these great recommendations! Thanks for the great idea. I hope no one has posted this one yet, I love this blog http://loveobsessinspire.typepad.com/my-blog/

We have a winner!  The magic post was no 407!  Congration Shelley..please email me for your Eye Candy actions set!  I would have had a Random.org screenshot to look all professional but lo and behold, for some reason my screen captures are coming out all black.  If anyone has a cure, I’d be thrilled…

Thankyou thankyou to everyone who contributed so many fantastic sites – I will definitely compile into a page for future reference.  I’m now suffering inspiration overload!

Evolve started this week and as always, it’s exciting and busy and wonderful to meet a great group of girls.  I’m so sorry to those who missed out this round, we had a lot of disappointed people but please be assured we’re changing this up over Decemeber/January which will make a difference to waitlists.

Thanks to Ivy’s Anty Ahngie, as my children call her, for the very sweet photo.

**EVOLVE IS NOW FULL!  Thankyou!

That title makes me sound like I’m selling rugs.   We’ve had some last minute places come up in the Evolve Workshop that begins this week.  While we do normally adhere strictly to waitlists, there just isn’t the time to navigate Spam Filters and wait for email responses to one-by-one offers as I have limited weeks left in the year to fit workshops in and must get started!.  If you would like to participate and are ready to register and pay today, please email Fran asap.  As anyone who’s contacted us about workshop places in the past knows, this is a great opportunity to jump the queue.  (Evolve is the advanced course, runs for 4 weeks and is $295 USD).

Loving:

The “favorite websites” you all sent in! Wow! Sooo many amazing places I hadn’t discovered yet..I’m still going through the comments and compiling a list but I thought it might be a good thing to include them in a permanent page here?  Such a wonderful gathering of all things interesting and pretty.  I’ll add that to the “to do” list :)

That my printer and I are finally one.  We’ve had our differences this past week and today we’ve made up.

That my week guest judging at IHeartFaces has begun!  Please do say hello if you’re over that way :)

That it’s school holidays and we’re sans routine.

And not:

That my Spam Filter caught so many of the favorite website comments!  I know it makes sense that it would but I didn’t think of that, did I??  Wading through the Spam Comments Folder to rescue the legitimate ones was most umm, informative.

That I’m so far behind on email.  I’m sorry to those of you who are waiting to hear back about all manner of things.   I do hope to climb Inbox Mountain one day very soon.

That it feels like a thousand years since I visited the spa or bought a pretty frock.  Shabby Chic is not cute when it’s referring to one’s state of being.

Happy Monday :)
S x

Because it’s Friday.

Because Evolve is about to launch!

Because I have the house to myself and I’m loving it.

Because I can.

On one condition.  Can you please tell me what your most favorite website is?   I need inspiration and some new-comers to the daily line up.  Anything creative and whimsical and quirky.  With or without stuff to buy.   Great design, good reading, pretty things.  In exchange I’ll give away a set of Eye Candy Actions :)  Leave me a comment and I’ll pick a random next week (Even if you’re not in need of actions but know a pretty site, please let me know!)!

In other exciting news, next week I’m guest judging at IHeartFaces!   The lovely Angie invited me around to look at some pretty pictures and chat photography – I could hardly say no!  She’s already asked some great questions so I’m looking forward to what next week will bring :)

Can’t have a nakie post so here’s Ivy and her supercute toosh.

S x

ps. Evolve place offers go out tonight.  PROMISE.

ETA:  Because the comments have URL’s in them, a lot more are going to Spam so if you get some weird message, don’t worry..I still get it – I just need to approve.  LOVING the great links shared…keep them coming! S xx

A few more photos from Orange County..at the beach..with Ivy.  (It’s becoming apparent that the child never stops skipping.)

All 24-70 2.8 | Canon 5D Mk 2

Eye Candy Actions

Sheye x

ps

I was most disappointed to find no cheap socks yesterday but lo and behold, we have a Ped Egg.  (See, I wasn’t kidding about the pedicure items, was I?  Solid proof that my beloved does not read my blog.)  Further to this, I’m thrilled with my pretty Peter Alexander nightie, copious amounts of Lindt, favorite Clinique gloss, and lens that I’m yet to order.

Thank you to every one for the beautiful birthday wishes, you all made my special day extra special :)

S xx

Another something I’ve discovered… I am less afraid, and more.

The more?

Being apart from my children.  Not always, but mostly.  The ever present fear that this could be the day that becomes another new kind of normal.  The inability to assume everything is okay.  I need to know that everything is indeed okay.  Like many things, I’ve learned to live with it.  I don’t like it very much but it’s proven difficult to shrug off.

The understanding that Ava has really gone.  Forever.  Those seconds where I drift out of sleep and into the awful knowing that I will not see or hold her in this lifetime.  I could never even begin to try and explain the total despair that fills those moments.

The realization sometimes that yes, it seems time did make it better but they forgot to tell me the new better is so much less than.  There is an impossible leap between the measure of better before and the better we’re existing in now.  It’s a strange, unsettling thing to know that this..this enormous flaw in the tale of my life, can not be put right.  There are days where that reality sits in front of every waking thought.  And it scares me so.

And the less?

I could write endlessly about the things that once worried me and now do not.  When you’ve seen one of your worst fears realized, the shift in perspective is incredible.  To be forced into that primal state called grief, you emerge altered and strengthened and to some degree, fearless.  It’s what lets me share as I do here.  The layers are peeled back and the meaningless is stripped away.  How glad I am for it..The beauty that has found me in my rawer state is astounding.

There are so many things I might never have done if not for fearlessness.  I don’t believe I would be teaching photography, for one.  I love that I didn’t let fear hold me back from seeing if it was possible.  I love the feeling of genuinely wanting to share what I’ve learned with others..the happiness to hold nothing back.

I love my discovery that, as a Mummy, a photographer, a wife, a friend..my near enough is good enough..It’s all I have.  I give my best and I still fall short sometimes and it is okay.

I have no choice but to carry the fear but I do choose to celebrate the fearlessness.   Both make up my every day and they remind me to be glad for what remains.

S xx