Welcome to the Holidays!

Feeling nostalgic, I decided to pull up my blog post from this time last year and I found that I wrote a blog post very similar to the one that I have in mind for this one right now. Life is truly about cycles, whether it be seasons, holidays, family, or major life events.

At this time last year, we were frantically searching for an apartment for 2016, and prepping for my wedding festivities and trip back home to St. Pete.

I am hoping that this year our trip to St. Pete will be non-wedding-centric, just as exciting, and more relaxed. We’ll be spending three weeks home, and I hope that I’ll be able to spend plenty of time with my friends back home. There is also talk of going to Nashville for New Years’ which would be fun and different, and I’d get to show Brighton another classic southeastern city!

Last time I was in Nashville was for Ashley & Justin’s wedding in September 2014!

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I just finished sending the last of my Christmas gifts to my photography clients!

I made ornaments with my favorite photos of their sessions, and hand wrote a thank you card and sent them a care package for the holidays. I hope they like them!!

(They’re not all pictured here)

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As much as I complain about the snow here in Utah, there is a truly magical quality about it. It somehow turns me into a little kid, and I get all excited when I wake up to a winter wonderland outside my window like there was today. I run outside, still in my PJs, just to get a good look at the fresh snow on the ground. There’s a silent stillness to fresh-laid snow that’s just so comforting.

The quote on my tea seems to fit today: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished”

Hm. Interesting thought. I like that.

I’m not an especially patient person. It’s one of those things that has always been a challenge for me.

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I was just reading The Freckled Fox (who is an excellent SLC blogger, by the way), and she just wrote without a particular topic in mind and I feel that’s what I really want to be doing with this post. Writing is an outlet for me, and for some reason I feel so accomplished whenever I publish a blog post even if it’s not that big of deal.

I am working on a post of a summary of this crazy year (coming soon!). Man, 2016 was jam-packed. We got married, bought a car, and both of us changed jobs, to name a few.

Brighton said we should make a video recap of the year. Honestly, I don’t know if we have enough video to pull that together but I’d love to record more video even if it’s just for our own personal use. My mom shared a video from her childhood with her cousins last Christmastime, and it’s just like a time capsule! I can’t wait to share my photos and videos with future generations of our family.

Last time I was home, my mom said, “You guys [my sister, Brighton and I] document EVERYTHING! It’s like you have every minute of your life in photographs. When we were your age, we took a photo per holiday and major life events, otherwise they were far and few between.” (I am totally paraphrasing her but the sentiment is there!)

It just made me think about how technology has literally put a camera in our pockets at all times, giving us the ability to take a photograph at any time we want. In my defense, I took lots of photos before camera phones happened though, it just took a lot more effort since you had to take the photo, had no idea what it looked like, and then wait for the film to be developed. By the time you got the photos back, you had forgotten what they were. Now, I take a photo and want to see it immediately! Talk about impatience. Ha.

I got off on a tangent. Anyways…

I wonder what will happen a couple generations from now. Maybe they’ll have something like Google Glass that will record everything. Or something I saw on Black Mirror (NETFLIX, YA’LL) where it was a contact that was just always in your eye seeing what you see so you can rewind memories at any time. The future is here!

(This was 6 years ago today! WHAT. We were so young!)

Even though I think my mom thinks the amount of photos my generation (and especially me) takes on a daily basis might be excessive, I absolutely love it! Facebook and Google remind me what happened 1 year ago, 3 years ago, even 8 or 9 years ago! Sometimes I look at those “memories” and think “that was better left in the past, thanks Facebook” but most days, it makes me so grateful for my supportive family and friends over the years.

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I think that something I struggle with is living in the past and future, but not the present. As I was just mentioning, and is probably clear from the way I write on my blog, I’m excellent at reminiscing. I love to be able to write something at one time in my life, and then go back and read the words a year later and see how much my ideas have changed or stayed the same.

I love to be able to see the past 3 years of being with Brighton (has it ONLY been 3??) and just be filled with so much happiness.

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I am also excellent at living in the future and planning everything. In high school and college, I had a color-coded planner for my entire life. I still have a paper planner my Passion Planner…. which I can thank for ultimately encouraging me to follow photography, and I use my calendar on my computer for most everything— bills, blogging, photography, travel, goals, etc. I will literally look at the calendar and mentally/literally plan everything out for the next month(s).

I’ve been working on spending more of my time unplanned. Everyone at my old workplace knew that Hilary does not simply “do nothing.”

(Source)

A day without plans… does not exist. I’ve been trying to balance my need for constant action with some relaxation. My relaxation is this—blogging. Though I did do a yoga class recently that was called something like “relaxation and restorative yoga” and it was essentially an organized nap time. (Some might call it meditation??)… It was very relaxing, but I wanted to be a little more stretched. Oh well.

 [/fusion_text][fusion_text]I’m looking forward to going home for the holidays. Specific things I’m especially excited for (in no particular order):

• Seeing my parents & sister at the airport (1 day!)
• Getting a Pub Sub (Publix sub)
• Bringing some much needed noise and excitement to my parents’ house with my sister. We’re a force to be reckoned with when we are together 🙂
• Catching up with my high school and college friends
• Coffee-shopping with my sister and her new favorite brother 🙂
• Going to Bento for the Volcano Roll & Thai tea (hopefully!!!)
• Walking around in downtown St. Pete looking at the lights that are the same every year
• Opening presents and eating breakfast on Christmas morning with my family & Brighton. Our first married Christmas!
• Going on walks at sunset over the causeway & on the beach near my parents’ house
• Red Mesa Mercado burritos. Enough said.
• Warm weather (which I will probably be annoyed by as soon as I get there…)
• Katie French-braiding my hair
• Taking a break from the business and the always-working mindset. (Though I will probably work on my photography site/portfolio when I am home)
• Playing with Katie’s dog, Sirius
• Going to Nashville for New Years…maybe!

What holiday season traditions do you have with your family?