a cheerful farewell.

hello my dears. yes indeedy. this sweet stack of pastel children's novels was by far my proudest thrift store prize of the summer.now it's time for a bit of true blue honesty and a complete subject change. the last few months have been tough. i've been struggling to find a balance, as we all do from time to time. i've been contemplating + praying about this for the last 5 months and i've made a big decision.

i am saying farewell to taking a break from this little blog of mine.

with slightly slumped shoulders and a bittersweetly beating heart, i am choosing to move forward and focus not on the things i cannot accomplish, but to rejoice in what i can. you know the feeling? when you're doing 100,000 things and only doing them 50% well? i am over that. life is so, so full and i simply need to prioritize what truly, truly matters...like faith, family, home, career, and time to just relax and be in between. this blog has been a super important piece, or more appropriately a collection of pieces of my life for the past 4 years. then at some indefinable point, it became more than just a little hobby and more of a nagging responsibility, at which point the joy began to seep out and the guilt began to seep in.

this blog has carried me through so many amazing life transitions!! like moving away from the heartland, a san francisco adventure, a surprise pregnancy, a spring chicken, and a grateful passage to motherhood. which brought us back to the midwest where God led jeff to start his own tiny little photo business on the side, which quickly grew into something more. we also cozied into our very first home with a craft room for moi and a yard for the boy to flourish.

and all along, i have been so immensely blessed to meet so many beautiful friends with similar passions and enormous, Jesus-loving hearts, many of whom have challenged me to survey my own. this blogosphere is one powerful network. i have been inspired again and again and again. i've been challenged to be more authentic, more creative, more intentional; more appreciative. i gained confidence to throw parties for perfect strangers. i found utter joy in sharing my favorite little craft projects and recipes with you. i even have a little family record of birthdays, holidays, and everything wonderful that happens in between. heck, i eventually even learned how to take a decent photo.

now that we've shared some fond memories and dried our my tears, are you ready to hear the silver lining? good. because there is one.........i am jumping into this photog biz of ours wholeheartedly. i think i may have something to contribute, the foremost of which is my time. last spring i received a golden piece of advice, from an ahh-mazing mentor & colleague: make your business personal. make your blog personal.

at first this did not sit well with me at all. this is my blog, my gig...and our photo stuff is our photo stuff. that's just how it was gonna be. but after letting the whole thing marinade for awhile, God helped me realize that i'd been pretty selfish and how this whole thing made perfect, amazing sense. that's when we got serious about a re-brand/re-design, making way for this whole new chapter. it's been a long time coming.long story short, Living the Swell Life lives on (right here). i have big dreams, big plans to compose a manageable one post per week on something personal, something creative, or something inspiring amid our busy business business. funny how i am so completely at peace, yet completely spazzing about its reincarnation, and my our pretty new space. cheers to new beginnings; to wearing a photographer hat.

and no celebration would be complete without an invitation to the party. pretty please join me? hop on over, update your link, and enter a super lovely new camera strap cover giveaway
(i crafted a whole bunch, just for you)!!

see you on the flip side. but first. just one more of a coy little boy, because i love him so. so. so: