Happy New Year!

For most people, the new year is bursting with vegetables, fiber, and hope.

Call me seasoned {or cynical}, but I’m going to pass on the healthy eating initiatives. Incredibly salty tortilla chips, guacamole, and exotic melted cheeses constantly beckon me, so trying to cushion the weeks between Christmas and the Super Bowl with cabbage and cauliflower seems pointless.

Yes, I’m weak in regards to food.

But I do have some very lofty photography goals.

What makes my goals outrageous is that I’m not an actual camera owner. I dated a point-and-shoot about a week before Christmas, but decided the convenience of my iPhone was a better companion.

That may seem crazy {yes, you are reading a photography blog}, but my desire this year is to digitally capture memories, even if it isn’t on the finest equipment or with the most acutely trained eye.

You heard right: I’m going to use my iPhone to capture the good, the poorly focused, and the ugly.

Photography is the simultaneous marriage of so many elements: art, emotion, creativity, awareness, beauty, and perspective…to name a few.

And surprisingly, my simple, ordinary life is complete with those exact qualities. They are present every day, even every moment if I slow down to notice.

So that is the heart of my photography goal: noticing.

Maybe my artistic eye will improve, or maybe it won’t. I have a feeling my pictures of food will look as appetizing as mud after the rain. But at least I will remember the laughable joy of a lopsided birthday cake or cruising into a West Texas sunset in a noisy Suburban on a summer night.

All of the Professional Goal Setters out there will tell you that setting goals is only the first step. The second part involves creating a plan to accomplish goals, especially tasks that are out of the norm.

Each morning, I double-knot my Asics and throw on layers of warmth to run through the neighborhood before sunrise. I don’t need reminders or a detailed steps since it’s become part of my routine.

But picture taking? I tend to go on binges…50 blurry pictures at a Kung-Fu Panda themed indoor tubing run over Christmas and ZERO photos on New Year’s Eve. My hand doesn’t yet automatically reach for the camera as life spills out in my midst.

Thankfully, the good people of the internet know my weaknesses and have covered the bases.

I’m testing two different daily photo sites to reset my slackerly ways.

The first is 365Project. Incredibly simple, it’s used by professional and hobbyist photographers alike.  Uploading pictures is a breeze, especially since they can be emailed directly from my phone.

Online users can view and comment {or not.} There is a paid version ($19.95/yr) that probably does magic tricks and other fancy stuff.

The free version is perfect for the photo rookie. I still haven’t figured out how to rotate pictures once they’re uploaded to the site, and so far, that’s the only glitch {and user error is still the most-likely suspect.}

The other hot-poker to my photo-challenged hiney is an app called Photo365.

So far, it is my fave. Also very simple, it uploads shots from the phone’s camera without so much as an email.

It also has a daily alarm feature that reminds me to take pictures. {I’ve needed this 4 out of 4 days in January. Ahem.}

There are quick links to sharing on Twitter, Facebook, and Flikr, not to mention email. My photos wouldn’t exactly shut down social-networking sites due to high traffic, but if I capture a gem or two during the next 365 days, I might try it out.

And look how cute this daily calendar will be someday:

I’m hoping persistence pays off where talent is void.

Right now, it’s January 5th and my optimism is skyrocketing.

By sharing this with all of you, I’m building in some accountability/potential shame to help me follow through.

Come January 31st, I want to show-off a checkerboard calendar stuffed with memories and moments.

p.s. fellow iPhone hobbyists might become addicted to Instagram, Hipstamatic, Photoshop Mobile, and Camera Bag. Check out the app store and consider yourself warned…

So here we are early in the merriment of December…ready to partake of Christmas adventures both big and small. There are so many options for Christmas cheer that you have to be at least a little strategic if you don’t want to get stuck watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the fourth night in a row when you could’ve been flipping between “Elf” and “Christmas Vacation” for 3 hours while the dishes don’t clean themselves.

In almost a decade of parenting, I’ve figured out some tricks to making tiny parts of the holiday season as enjoyable as possible. We take time for advent activities, snacking on our favorite treats {really, that’s more of a year-round activity} and drinking hot chocolate so chocolately and rich that you suddenly understand the deepest emotions of a Ghirardelli chocolate square.

But I am a miserable failure at picture-taking.

Sure, there are the blurry, pajama-intensive, glasses-wearing, make-up free photos of Christmas morning bliss. They’re a universal chronicle of spontaneous joy instantly transferred from discarded wrapping paper to smiling cheeks.

The days leading up to Christmas morning can be a blur of parties, activities, decorating, and pageants. {In theory, at least. Does anyone even have pageants anymore?}

This year, I’m purposing to be different. I want to capture the entire season–from little moments of unexpected rest to the traditional Christmas Day smile-in-front-of-the-tree-or-I’ll-eat-your-candy pose.

As a gift from the miracle of the internet, here’s a creative list of fun pictures to take during this season. {You can download a pdf of this list by clicking on the link.}

 

 

Instead of turning these ideas it into a Checklist of Guilt & Insecurity, customize it and think through your family traditions already in place. In my case, crafts make me tense and crabby, so I’m probably going to skip that one, or just check the box and pretend it was awesome.

So grab the camera, intently gathering moments from each day, storing them as gifts to unwrap in future years.

Oh, and if you need some chocolate motivation, here’s the Best-Ever Hot Cocoa Mix recipe.

Drink at your own risk.

Best-Ever Hot Cocoa Mix

3 cups nonfat dry milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 cups Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups Ghirardelli white chocolate chips
1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients in large bowl. Working in two batches, pulse ingredientes in food processor until chocolate is finely gournd. Store in airtight container for up to 3 months. To make hot cocoa, stir 1/3 cup of this mix into 1 cup of hot milk. Top with whipped cream, mini marshmallows, crushed peppermint, toffee bits, or whatever else makes ya grin:)

Makes about 20 servings

*if you don’t have Dutch-processed cocoa powder, good ol’ Hersheys will work just fine!

 

Meet Grae.  He showed up last year for his one-year-old shoot with captivating blue eyes and full Vikings regalia.  My favorite one of the shoot was him sporting the Vikings garb but with a very sad face and alligator tears spilling over onto his cheeks…which just seemed so appropriate.  But since it is my first post, and I don’t want to offend anyone…certainly not sensitive Vikings fans, I left it out.  Let’s just say this little Vikings fan had me at ‘hello.’

This year, he did not disappoint.  In fact, my affection for him became a full blown attachment during his two-year-old shoot.  It turns out that little Mr. has quite the personality.  His captivating blue eyes are just the beginning.  He is crazy smart, seriously funny, and the way he said my name had me in a puddle at his feet.  He is the total package, and it was a kick chasing him all over downtown Parker to capture his two-year-old self.