Can I just say Justine nailed her performance piece!? I know her mom was holding her breath the entire time. Justine played perfectly. I wanted to stand up, pump my fist in the air and start shouting as soon as she finished. You will be glad to know that I restrained myself save for a few “whoohoos!”. Justine was so impressive.Miss Olivia Ruby was just adorable during her talent portion. I thought I would share a few of her many faces during her performance. How cute is this!?

Holly is from my hometown, Springhill. We knew each other as kids, as most people do when you’re from a town of five thousand, but we kind of lost track of each other as we made our way into adulthood. When Holly and I found each through Facebook, she contacted me about a photo session. At the time, I remembered her from our childhood, but nothing really specific. When I met her little boy Mason, seeing his face, one that is so much like his mom’s, my childhood meeting with Holly rushed across my brain. And the thing I remember most (and Holly don’t kill me for this) is meeting her and being in awe of her curly red hair, exactly like Mason’s in these photos. I remember sitting behind Holly in class, and one day coming home from school telling my mom “I want hair like Holly Spring’s hair!” What then followed was probably my first crushing blow to the ego as my mom gently explained how hair color and genetics worked, and I settled with the fact that I would perhaps never be able to pull off such a rich auburn color. *sigh* However, my mom did agree that Holly was in fact, quite a cute kid.

Speaking of cute kids, get ready for some cute overload with Holly’s son Mason. Mason rocked his birthday photo shoot. I love our cake sessions! This is probably the only time that watching kids go from polite, neat little diners to unbridled, crazy messy little monsters is this much fun.

Okay, so here I am, blogging again, but where have I been? Have I been overwhelmingly busy working? Yes, that’s true, but that’s mostly my excuse for avoiding the world right now.

Whaaa?? Say again? Your logic makes no sense Anne Lord.

It’s true. I’ve been busying myself working, meeting dozens of families, kids, teens, couples, businesses and employees in an attempt to compartmentalize the grief at a loss I am feeling as of late. This loss was something that, until maybe a month ago I was not even willing to acknowledge as being a loss.

So you’re telling me this why???

I never imagined myself to be so lucky to have a job that affords me such an important glimpse into other people’s lives. In the history of my sporadic blogging, I have received emails, Facebook messages, texts, comments and phone calls to tell me how one of my posts encouraged you in living your life. Which is WOW, just WOW. I am floored by this. Yes, it is so surprising that it literally feels like I trip and fall face first into the floor when anyone tells me this. It’s a WAKE UP, WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING, YOU’VE BEEN DISTRACTED sort of shock. People have shared with me how a photo of a little girl in sheer excitement of ripping apart a birthday cake made a mom laugh uncontrollably in her office on her lunch break, or a couple during their first dance moved a dad to tears of joy. I’ve been so lucky to read and hear stories of couples becoming engaged, parents learning to live selflessly and babies discovering the world around them. Because of this, I have felt a great responsibility to post only the best, brightest and most positive and encouraging notes on my blog. Why? Because I’ve had people stop me in the grocery store to tell me that they just found my blog and they love my vision of the world they wish they lived it. And I feel so undeserving of this monumental compliment, especially lately, as my outlook has been so bleak, and as a result my dedication to my business and craft has been subpar.

In this, I started thinking carefully about what I say with my blog, because apparently, someone (besides my family) is noticing, and honestly, the responsibility of that scares me a little. And in this world of blogs that tout the “I have time to squeeze my own organic orange juice every day/put together the hippest outfit/make crafts with my kids daily/cook from scratch or other such something, and look at this picture of how vintage/hipster/chic/preppy I look while doing so.. in my very organized home” brand, I feel like I am doing you such a disservice in showing you only one perfectly photo-shopped facet of my world. Because sometimes the responsibility of the world is too much, and we aren’t going to just go and admit that on Facebook.

So I am just going to say it. The past six or so months for me have been dark. They’ve sucked. Not every day or every experience has been bad, some have been overwhelmingly funny and exciting, but there has been some sincere emotional and physical distress in my life. I feel like I have been failing at life, denying myself the chance to grieve. And that’s okay to admit. I’m not going to get too specific and over-sharey, because that is beside my point here. Mostly, I am just trying to say, it’s okay to not live the life we blog, and step out of our self-made brand to allow ourselves a moment to pause. (I kind of think that maybe this is something everyone else has figured out already, and I’m a little behind, but in the off-chance that this helps someone, I’m giving permission to pause in life.) And I have not been ME as of late. I just want to own up to it. We blog for our circles of industry sometimes, competing in the categories of whose happier, craftier, more creative, etc, and it’s just riDONKulous.

Grief and depression happen, and sometimes it’s too hard to even handle the responsibility of getting out of bed to brush your teeth, because that means acknowledging the responsibility you have over your body, your relationships with family and friends, and then the world around you. It’s unreasonable, irrational, and in my case, very selfish, but also unavoidably real and paralyzing. I am thankful for my husband, my friends and family members that have listened. Some days, I am thankful for the simple act friends make by just answering the phone and being willing to tell me about their lives, their struggles, their triumphs, or even about their trip to Target that day.. anything to get out of my head away from my worries right now and allow me the very important job of listening to them.

So where am I now? I’m tackling my email inbox and my work that has piled up. Prior to my month long internet black out I spent an average of four hours daily responding to emails and facebook messages from clients. Imagine this now x30 days. I’ve busied myself shooting almost 40 hours a week for several months without stopping to work on the behind the scenes stuff, because when I sit still I start over analyzing, I get stuck in my head, I worry on things I cannot control. I have been scared to sit alone with my own thoughts, to allow myself to grieve, which is ridiculous, I know. But then I hit a wall. Now, I am running out of memory, back up drives and scratch space, literally and figuratively. I’m working on my life, trying to find balance, trying to get through some difficult stuff.

My new initiative is trying to stop myself to recognize those moments that make me happy, trying to document them in some way. I’ve been keeping a folder of these moments since January. This folder actually inspired me to start a regular series of posts. What I hope to do is share with you photos or moments of free found happiness in my life. Moments that I happen to catch and need to acknowledge. This is not a list of “go buy these things” you will be happy AND relevant (I’m probably the worst person for that advice), although an iTunes purchase may sneak in from time to time. This is more a list of things that I hope inspire and encourage laughter, creativity, or hope. This is my attempt to step outside of my brand and acknowledge those surprising, imperfect, sometimes awkward but always enjoyable moments of life.. at least for me anyway. I certainly hope you share some of yours. So here is this month’s Free Found Happiness:

1. & 2. FREEBIES! Freebies make me happy, and here is some free iPhone wallpaper for you. I was photographing some legos for the husband when cats started attacking. They made me laugh so much, I wanted to share them with you. Download them here and here.

3. D.H.A.R.M.A. Initiative labels for us LOST fans. In celebration of sticking it out until the bitter, hopefully explanatory end, we have stocked our cupboard with DHARMA products. The beer label made us chuckle the most. You can find these here: http://maxpictures.com/weblog/2007/04/10/lost-labels-for-your-dharma-initiative-needs/ Gosh, so many FREE THINGS today.

4. When was the last time you laughed this hard?

5. Improv Everywhere. I save their videos for really rainy, gloomy, glummy days when everything is grey. This is their most recent one and it made me smile: Who You Gonna Call?. I particularly like the guy who mouths WTF while he texts it to his friend. Which probably is another thing that makes me smile, people who mouth the words they are typing. Here is the full video, and seriously, visit their website. I think the only thing that could have made this even better would be roller skates (for the ghosts to glide, of course!).

6. Kid art. I know my friend Jenn thought I was crazy when I was taking pictures of her toddler’s art, but it made me really happy to share in her daughter’s life.

7. Photographer lingo, the English language, texting.. so much room for error and misunderstanding. This is a recent text from me to Mary-Arthur, one of my Class of 2010 seniors, who ordered some last minute wallet sized photos (it happens to the best of us). “I have your wallets!!” just sounds vaguely threatening, like I am holding a ransom for said wallets. Which would be a strange thing to hold ransom, because if you have someone’s wallets, where are they going to get the ransom money. I’m just sayin..

[Hair & Makeup: Megan Cardwell]

Now there are a few surprising things kid sessions have taught me. One of those things is that you CANNOT, in fact, force a toddler to make a mess. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but truly you just have to let it unfold naturally.. no worries, the mess will come. At least this was the case with Madeline.

Happy little gust of wind right after the ceremony, right before everyone else came outside. I love this little moment between the two of them.

Vanessa had little touches of lace everywhere. I loved the lace looped thru her hair, and I love the simple, vintage feel of the lace as a little accent on their cake.

For some reason diapers were attached to the bumper of their get-away vehicle. I love that everyone in the background is staring just as confused as I was.