Happy Monday!! I shouldn’t be so excited it is only the start of the work week and for heaven sake it’s Monday! But i’m am so excited. The past 2 Monday’s I have blogged about my amazing experience at United in Santa Barbara,California. And that has been so much fun sharing my images on the blog with you. I still have more but this Monday I wanted to talk about setting goals for yourself and making yourself accountable for them. At United one thing I noticed most photographer that spoke there talk about setting there goals. Which I have always done, but many said you need to put your goal somewhere public or where you can see them daily. I can honestly say I have never put my goals in public or made them visible for even myself to see everyday. So for 2013 That is going to change i’m going to blog my goals monthly and they are also going to be visible in my office so I can see them everyday. While at United my roommate Callie talked about Lara Casey. I had never heard of her but was all ears to what Callie had to say about Lara. Long story short Callie told me to check out Lara blog. So I did that just  last week, and I can’t tell you how many hours I probably spent on her blog. It’s not a photographers blog, it’s hard for me to even put into words on how to categorize her blog. If I had to I would say its a business, inspirational, spiritual, pure, meaningful content that we all could probably use more of in our lives. I had goose bumps, shed a few tears and just felt excited and pumped up after reading her blog. I highly recommend checking out her blog. It also is probably the prettiest blog I have seen in a very long time. While reading the Lara blog she talks about writing your goals out monthly but before you can do that you should reflect on what worked for you the past year. That was a daunting exercise for me, I didn’t really want to see that on paper. what if I had failed myself? So I did just that and I was quite surprised. We can get so caught up into others success we lose sight our our own.

what did I make work for 2012

• I started offering prints and albums – I love creating albums
• Not only did I book my first solo wedding – I booked 4! All but 1 of my brides bought a wedding album. Their first family heirloom
• My senior photography took off more so than the previous year
• I introduced my new senior collections – All but 1 of my seniors booked my top 2 collections, which means all my seniors but 1 received a beautiful custom album designed by ME!
• I did my first stylized bridal shoots
• I did not 1 but 2 stylized senior shoots – 1 spring and 1 fall
• I submitted my work to be featured on blogs – I love taking beautiful pictures and I want to inspire other’s. This is one way I can do  just that.
• Shot a reception first dance outside in complete darkness except for my flashes and the DJ lights!
• I change my website company to SHOWIT!!!
• I started a blog of my own

I’m sure there are more but this is what first comes to my mind. Next Monday I will blog about my goals for 2013!!

Because every blog post deserves a great picture i’m going to post a few pictures of my wonderful Family. These 2 are my life and I love them more than they will ever know. These pictures were taken this past summer at Navy Pier in Chicago. That is where Dave took me on our first date and we take a yearly trip every year to navy pier with Kenna. That particular day we did nothing but eat good food at our 2 Favorite spot in Chicago Lawrence Fisheries and A Jew Town Polish. We choose to relax at the pier where they had live music so of course Kenna and I danced our booties off. Later that evening we watched the navy pier cirque shanghai show. I recommend that show, it’s so amazing watching the acrobats fly in the air and the flexibly the gymnast have is out of this world. Ok the gymnast in me  just came out but we love the show! We have been many times and I’m sure will be going back. Have a great Monday! Katrina