The GAW post on jobs and kids.

A dear friend, an old sage at heart, called today to give me some wise words of advice after seeing my last blog post on the idea of taking photographs as a job. She apparently wants me to keep my day job. I hope she doesn't kill me for blogging about this, but alas, peeps, I must. It's time we all had the GAW talk. For those unfamiliar, that's Grown A.. Woman, which we all know we have to be at some point.

First and foremost, we here at According to Moi are not chickens without heads, and put a lot of thought into the choices we make. & we are pretty left-brained here as well, which means no life-changing decisions - especially when one has children and a mortgage - can be made at the drop of a hat. Research will go into this possible career addition, and in no way would I walk away from the fortunate situation of stable employment - akin to jumping off a cliff with my baby and house in hand. GAW don't do things like that, though sometimes we fantasize about it aloud and in the blogosphere.

& you know, I'm a GAW and can handle criticism. Not everyone's going to like me. & I don't care. :0) I'm happy to do my thing, my way, when I want to. If that means fewer offers and more time in between jobs - great. I can spend it with my little guy and my hubby. & if it all doesn't pan out, I'll still take photos. Because I like it and I want to. & that's the beauty of not being motivated by money or empire-building - I get to do what I want because I like it. & that's a Grown A.. Woman talking.

Beach Wedding and a Budding Idea.

My sister-in-law, pictured here looking gorgeous, got married this past weekend at a secluded, Hawaiian North Shore beach house amidst a small gathering of close family and friends. My job? To follow the actual photographer around and take photos for my mother-in-law, aka The Mother of the Bride. I did this because because we all know that MOBs are hella busy on their daughter's wedding day, tending to the bride(zilla), and they need some family member to take tons of photos of their only daughter's special day. & also because we all know that MOBs are highly impatient and in no way capable of waiting for the actual wedding photog's edited photos to grace their in-boxes a ridiculous 2 weeks post-wedding. P'shaw! So here are my first attempts at photographing a wedding. [As a note, I'd love to share more with you, peeps, but I don't want to post the bride or her party all over the blogosphere. I'm sure she'd love to do something like that herself, so I'm posting just one of her and a couple shots of her flowers, which are all un-edited because I just don't want to edit for the blog right now... Terribly lazy of me, I know, but I know you all understand.]

Now an interesting thing has come of this. My own mother asked why I don't do this as a job. A job?! I am a serious analyst! I am busy defending a budget that is going to be hammered in the near future and besides, I'm not that good of a photographer. Hmmm. But I have to say the idea stuck with me this week. The other oddity, a co-worker saw my photos and asked what I charged, and if I could come out to the beach today to take photos of her family. I had no idea what to say, peeps, which is a rare thing for me. Ultimately I said yes, gave her a quote of my fees, and suddenly, I find myself a photographer. I'm heading out to a beach in front of Obama's vacation home in about an hour, and am playing with the thought of creating a portfolio to actually do this on a part time basis.

The thought of a job that allows me to the flexibility of a SAHM during the week, especially with a little one on the way, is tantalizing. Especially when this is something I would love to do for free. I know my weekends would be full, but I'm fortunate to have both my MIL and my mom just 20 minutes away if I needed someone to watch the babies.

I have a lot to learn, both about taking my work from casual, hausfrau photographs to professional, and about setting up a business. Any suggestions? Any thoughts on it? I'd love to hear from you all who have set up a business and what it took to get there. I've spent the week researching photography websites and the market here, which is ripe for a boutique-style company.

What do you think?

Kelly's Mad Science Birthday Party, the New House & some crazy news.

What a week, peeps. I need to sit down and have a drink just thinking about it -- but I won't, and more on that later. Well, first we moved into the new house and that has been hectic. We had two moving trucks show up with all our furniture and belongings from Japan, and then two days later were barraged with two more moving trucks filled with things we've had in storage for the past 4 years -- aka, everything that we had decided not to bring to Japan when we moved there. I am awash in boxes.

But despite that little setback, I spent the first week setting up the public spaces and the most important private ones. So I'm proudly here to say that my living, dining, kitchen and bedrooms were set up and ready for use. Above is a photo I took of our family room set up. While living in Japan, we (ironically) acquired tons of Chinese antiques, so we tried to mix them with our furniture from the pre-Japan days. I've thrown in a cowhide for flair. I've always had a flair for the dramatic.

Speaking of dramatic, after 7 days of mad unpacking skills, we threw the Little Guy a Mad Scientist birthday party. Here's a photo of his Candy Lab. We had a mad scientist come and enthrall the kids with great feats of chemistry, including making cotton candy and their own slime.

I had found some beakers online, and filled those and some plastic, kid-friendly test tubes up with jelly beans, m&ms and other fun goodies. The kids had a blast and the Candy Lab got wiped at the end of the day.

& if that's not enough to make you tired --- We found out we are expecting another little one! Peeps, our Little Guy is 7 now. Hubs and I were President, Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms of our own One-&-Done Club. I'm sure it's like riding a bicycle and we'll get right back in the swing of baby things, right? We're excited to no end and really surprised, but we feel so blessed! We get to top off the year with exciting news and a growing family.

& if it's a girl, there's a Crewcuts wardrobe waiting for her. :0)

Paris on the Brain

Recently went through some photos on our external hard drive and found some beautiful photos of Paris the Hubs took this past Christmas. *Sigh*, just looking at them makes me want to hop on a plane (or three, I'm in Hawaii after all). I need to plan the next trip, but with buying and building the house (where prices are definitely not modest), it's just so hard to think about travel. But I still have Paris on the brain... Where are my Carla Bruni cd's? Maybe that will suffice for now... Enjoy!