Life is CRAZY right now..there are a million things going on and I can’t stop and think about it for too long or else I get overwhelmed! Between trying to pack up our apartment, painting the new house, computer troubles, packing for Germany, editing pictures, learning to blog, MOVING, working, and finding time to do normal things like SLEEP, I feel a little stressed..don’t get me wrong, I’m SO grateful that these are all good things for the most part!! And I’m also aware that to some people this might not sound like too much, but needless to say, I’m really excited to be on a plane in a few days with nothing to do but read the last two Hunger Games books… (I just read the first one so I am newly obsessed!).

I thought this would be a good time to set just a few goals for the rest of July and August to help me stay organized and use my time well! (I decided on July AND August since we won’t be back from Germany till the very end of the month and my internet access will probably be limited while we’re gone)…I am a list-making type of girl…I love writing lists and I love getting to cross things off!! It’s so helpful for me to have my goals down on paper. I’ll put my list of goals at the end, but first I wanted to talk about a MAJOR goal for this week, which is getting our house fully painted before we move in so that we don’t have to work around all of our furniture…painting takes so much time with nothing in the house, so I can’t imagine how much work it is when you already have everything in it!!..

BUT, the fun part of painting is getting to pick out colors!! It’s a little stressful when your extremely indecisive, but so far I’m happy with our choices! I made poor Ryan wait forever while I stared at the millions of paint chips.. (but really, Ryan could spend forever in Home Depot so I didn’t feel too bad..)…My biggest tip for decorating is to pick out a whole palette of paint colors that represent the color scheme for each room! That way you can reference them when choosing decor…it’s an easy way to keep the cohesive theme in your mind! Above is the theme for our dining room…the “natural gray” color on top is the color we painted the walls! The other colors represent decor like our curtains, chairs, cabinets, and the things we want to hang on the walls! I can’t wait to show you the finished room once it’s done! But I also am trying to slow down and enjoy the process of making this house our own. Life is passing me by too quickly!!!

Now for some other personal goals:

1. Go to bed earlier! I’m SUCH a night person, and the hours between 10 PM and 1 AM are probably when I am most productive…but when you have to wake up at 6:30 for work, going to bed at that hour definitely does not allow for a healthy amount of sleep.

2. Treasure the time we get to spend in Germany with my family. I only get to see my dad’s side of the family every few years, so its so important to enjoy every last minute with them! I’m also making it a goal to visit castles and eat lots of german chocolate.

3. Move into the house!!!

4. Love people well and spend more time with Jesus..as busy as life gets, its easy to neglect spending enough time with the people you care about…I don’t want to forget that relationships are most important to me!

And now a few business goals:

1. Make every effort to pre-blog so that I will hopefully be able to post at least a few times while I’m overseas! Like I said, I don’t know if I will have internet access but we’ll see!

2. Create a blogging schedule so that when I get back I can start blogging consistently. I’m so excited to have a blogging calendar and to be able to start sharing some blog series that I’ve been brainstorming!

3. Create a sample Senior Album…I am so excited to start shooting more senior portraits!! And I wish I had my own little mini album of MY senior pictures, so I thought this would be a great product to be able to offer clients.

4. Order moo.com business cards! My friend Katie has these, and I’m obsessed with them..the quality is incredible and they are so cute!

5. Work on using SEO to its full potential…This is something that I learned a lot about in my first job after college…the power it has to help a small business is amazing!!

Aaand I’ll leave you with another peek at Lance and Kristin’s engagement shoot coming soon!!: