Work Life Balance for Photographers :: Give yourself a weekend every week ... What a concept!

Have you ever stayed up ALL NIGHT long rebranding your website?
Ever said "I'll be right there, honey!" And then two hours later you finally finish editing that shoot and you're way too late for dinner?
Or how about looking down at your calendar and realizing that you haven't taken a day off all month and you literally just worked a 28 straight day shift?

Welcome to the world of the self-employed small business owning photographer!
You are not alone! But you are about to burn out!

About a year ago I started taking the whole work-life balance thing really seriously. About 8 months ago I started doing something REALLY crazy....taking a weekend....every week! What? Yes. Two days, back-to-back, every single week. What a rebel!

Photographers are always impressed when I tell them about my weekend. They look at me like I just said I travel to the moon and back every week. I get it. Taking two full days off from your beautiful little business is tough! It's like mommies that miss their kids after they've only been apart for an hour. Your business is your baby. This is normal. But the thing to remember since that mama needs some 'me time'!

Here's the trick...
Schedule your weekends ahead of time. Why ahead of time. Book your weekends on the calendar at least two months in advance. Everything else gets scheduled around these weekends. Your weekends can shift foreword or back a day or two - we have to be flexible BUT never remove your weekend completely.

It's important to take two days off back to back. On day one you will probably think about work ALL FREAKIN DAY. Resist. My best advice is to get as far away from your house and office as possible. Go hiking or boating or skydiving! Force your mind to forget about it. #distraction If you hold out and make it to day two, something magical happens. You actually enjoy relaxing and you dont want to go back to work the next day. This is a good sign. It means you're getting the rest you need. Step three...force yourself to go back to work the next morning and discover the next layer of magic jelly beans....you're full of energy and excited about all the work you can get done with your clear mind and belly full of fire!!

Taking weekends has changed my entrepreneur work life. Seriously. I have so much more energy for life and enthusiasm for my work. I'm WAY more efficient and I'm actually doing OTHER things in my life now that have nothing to do with photography in the most wonderful way. Lol

Go live your LIFE!
:)
xoxo
Chamonix

{Grateful on Sunday} Thanksgiving, Bday Treats and Gold Sunshine

i woke up on this beautiful 26th birthday of mine to my husband creeping into our bedroom carrying a starbucks red cup filled with gingerbread latte! i seriously LOVE it when he wakes up before me (and brings me treats in bed) haha. so that was a great start to a thankful weekend. every 7 years my birthday falls on thanksgiving which means i get to eat pumpkin pie AND carrot cake (my fav). im a lucky girl. its not sunday but i shall celebrate my gratitude early in honor of this wonderful double holiday. today i am grateful for....

colorful leaves

late night dates w/ miggy getting starbucks and walking in the valley

when the sunshine makes the leaves look golden

cozy pillows

when the sun turns the clouds golden

improving my crow pose

discovering an awesome view of seattle

funky packaging

 my cat who loves hiding in the cupboards

waking up to sunshine

when miggy surprises me with flowers

cold blue sky days

firey sunrises

beautiful baked goods

chillaxin

waking up to a surprise gingerbread latte on my birthday by my earlybird husband

gorgeous morning sunlight

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
xoxo Love, 

Chamonix

Embrace Adventure and Be a Yes!

One year ago today Miggy and I moved to Hawaii to live the dream. We set off to try something new and exciting and totally different than our rainy homelands of Seattle and Scotland. Like everywhere I'm sure, life in Hawaii is was different than vacation in Hawaii. We arrived on the island with a rather stressful to-do list: buy a car, find a house, get Miggy a job, make friends, figure out where to buy good food and heaven forbid, get to know a doctor that can be our on-call in the event of a shark attack. 

It's incredible to believe that we were there for only 6 months because it felt like years. We've been back in Seattle now for 6 months and the time has flown by. I'm so happy to be back and finally Miggy is able to make some great progress with his life. He has a potential interview with a psychology department at the university to do some volunteer research and he has health insurance now so finally after a long time coming he is able to start getting his shoulder healed. He had his MRI this afternoon and I can't wait to see what the results are. 

Now that we've been back in seatown for a while, we're both tarting to feel the itch to move on to the next great adventure. I keep myself entertained with business adventures and weekend hiking trios. We've been chatting about bigger adventure though and I think about them every day. Traveling the world, being part of an exploration team, starting a little retreat center somewhere in the wild. 

I wonder what my next great adventure will be. I wonder if I'll recognize it when the invitation arrives and I wonder if I'll adventure the guts to say yes. Saying yes can mean uprooting but saying yes can also mean the quality if my life can sore to supercalifragilisticexpialidous levels. #beayes 

Xoxo

Cham 

Adventure Inspiration from the Couch :: Laura Dekker's Maidentrip

I lie on the couch, staring out the window towards the beautiful Cascade Mountain range and wonder to myself...why am I lying on the couch? I felt like I should totally have been up in the mountains. But all I really wanted to do was lounge around and watch TV. Don't worry - not the channel flicking kind of TV. I pretty much gave that up in high school. Nowadays when I watch TV it is always on Netflix / Hulu and at least has some purpose behind it rather than looking around for whatever is on.



Anyway, yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining and I decided to watch a documentary (I love docos!) called Maidentrip about the Laura Dekker - the youngest person to circumnavigate the world as a solo-sailor. I'm so totally loving my adventure documentaries these days. They are so inspirational. As the final credits rolled onto the screen I felt this urge to go adventuring too. But the reality is, my knees suck too much to let me be a mountaineer, I don't own a bike, and I currently have no experience working on a boat. So I probably have a long way to go.

But it dawned on my, I have my camera and although I do say so myself, I ain't that bad at using it. For the 30th time in the last month, I started daydreaming about being an adventure photographer / film maker. I love the idea of documenting exciting and inspirational adventures. So far I have one part of that puzzle - camera skills. Now I just need to start venturing off the couch. haha

What adventures are you dreaming of today?
xoxo
Chamonix

{Grateful on Sunday} Bringin' Home the Benjamins & the Gorgeous Pacific Northwest

Things are falling into place. It feels so good when you work so hard and finally you start to see results. This past month, my bank account has started growing and I set up my IRA and a brokerage account and people are starting to book photo shoots because they're finding me on Google organically (which still feels like a complete miracle!) and I've been able to make some fairly big purchases (like a new computer monitor and harddrives) without feeling guilty or going in debt. Feels good. Very good. It's especially rewarding because I've been making this money out of what feels like nothing. Granted "nothing" means like three years of 24/7 working and thousands of dollars on equipment, software, and workshops but whateva... it feels like nothin' haha Don't think I'm some gangsta swimmin' in a pool of hundred dollar bills or anything. I mean, we're talking a couple thousand dollars. That's it but it's so much to me. :D #feelinglikeabigshot This week (a.k.a. month) I am so grateful for this financial growth! 

I am also so grateful for officially launching the Maui branch of my family photography business (the Happy Film Company) and seeing Seattle & Maui side by side on my website,

 trees, trees, and more glorious evergreen trees everywhere I go, 

the beautiful sunset on the valley that I get to watch everynight,

finally starting to understand how the stock market works and dipping my toes in,  

going to Value Village with my brother and finding this gorgeous green creature, 

and then taking that gorgeous green creature home with us and laughing THE WHOLE WAY home as I drove behind them,

publishing my very first wedding video, 

FINALLY after three years of putting up with my broke-ass-but-still-clingin'-to-life-card-reader...I bought a shiny new one!

discovering a crazy delicious recipe that everyone is asking for,

treating myself to a girl's date with my neighbor and getting Shellac for the first time,

  

#PNW views from the middle of Lake Washington (views so good they nearly make you crash your car),

 colorful houses, 

driving with the sunset behind me, 

 quotes, 

homemade cake for breakfast, 

pretty letters from friends,

getting green juice as a surprise gift from Cheryl who couldn't stomach it haha,

taking action and buying my new computer monitor #makeithappen

 wild daisies,

my iPhone that lets me take pretty pictures all day long (easily a.k.a. without having to haul around my gigantic camera) 

the color of the trees when the sunset hits them, 

What are you grateful for today?

xoxo

Chamonix

{Grateful on Sunday} Hot Tubs, Card Games and Mandalas

This week the rain came back to Seattle after many weeks of glorious sunshine. I can't lie though, I'm loving it! I love the refreshing variety and the cozy days and the log fires and hot tubs with rain drizzling on my shoulders and face (keeping me from over heating). I have had such a crazy busy two weeks full of photo shoots and a wedding and now, for the rest of June, I get to enjoy some peace and quiet. I get to take a little break from shooting, focus on the business admin, read some books, do some yoga, go to a new book-club meeting and reassess what I'm doing, how things are going and where I want things to head from here on out. So nice. So many ideas have been flying through my head and I am so grateful for this quiet time to be able to sort it all out. 

This week I am grateful for experiencing my first Persian wedding, 

a midnight dip in the hot tub after a long wedding day, 

inspiration from a photography friend, 

playing cards with grandma and Miggy, 

and WINNING! (heck yes!)

when Cara sleeps in funny positions, 

tasty Irish bread that was kind of squishy, 

the beauty of Skype, 

reading a book that takes place on my home turf so I get to relate to all the local mentions,

whoever drew this and published it on the internet, 

midnight snack with lots of honey mustard, 

one of the most beautiful peaceful early mornings, 

celebrating my grandma's 91st birthday! (and my grandma!)

injecting health into my life, 

all the lessons I'm learning from drawing mandalas, 

soaking in the hot tub for probably 2 hours this morning and feeling fantastic afterwards. 

What are you grateful for today?

xoxo

Chamonix