My little self employed family.......and some tulips.

Here I sit at my desk, editing photographs......basically what I do every afternoon and there is the sound of typing behind me. My dear husband, at his new desk. We both now share the same office at home, working for our respective businesses. I am a photographer, he a land surveyor. We are both self employed, and having the time of our life.

Times have been tough, times will be tough....but I would never change a thing to have the flexibility of seeing him throughout the day. Or going to pick up Cierra together after school. Making a pot of coffee mid afternoon and sharing it. This is the life I always hoped for, and now we have it!
Today I'm working on some photographs for my Etsy site, tulip photographs. It is almost that time again, my favorite time of year:) With the weather being so warm, it looks like mother nature may allow for them to blossom a bit earlier this year! My goals this year are to spend a few nights up there getting some HDR & sunset photographs.
Tulips are such a happy flower. Their brilliant colors radiate joy, and I wish I could be surrounded by them year round:) Here are a few tulips....and I hope they make you smile!

Cierra is such a kind soul

Everytime I have a conversation with my daughter, I realize how special & unique she is. I have never known anyone so positive, so kind, and so thoughtful. She is so grown up for only being 9. I am constantly finding little notes around the house from her. "mama, I love you" "mama, I hope you have a great day" "mama, you are the best mom"
Just melts my heart & of course brings tears to my eyes everytime!
I love how she is very aware of others around her, and how they feel. If someone is hurt, or sad...she does whatever she feels is needed to cheer that person up. I look to her every day for the positive energy she radiates, to help me become a better person.
I just adore the changes in her lately. She spends at least a half an hour in the bathroom each morning doing her hair, and nearly as long picking out an outfit. She has wanted a particular haircut for a few months now.....and my friend & fellow photographer/hairstylist Lindsey nailed it. Cierra loves it!

Zoi.......tale of a crazy cat.

I'm finding myself very overwhelmed by the passing of my kitty. Maybe it's that he/she (that is a story for later in this blog) has always been there when I wake in the morning........always there when I go to bed at night......always there when I return home each day. Zoi had a personality like no other cat, and all who knew him/her shared that opinion.
Let me go back a bit in time........
I was walking through the CrossCreek Mall with my soon to be mother in law, & my soon to be sister in law Karen. Being a very small, quiet mall with hardly any foot traffic I was thrilled to see a pet store. I always loved going in to see the puppies, kitties, & fish. There was a
reason I walked in there that day, and its name was Zoi. I saw a large cage full of kittens. There must have been over 2 dozen in there, all sound asleep...curled up in a ball of fur. EXCEPT for one. A black scraggly kitty was hanging from the top of the cage, or rafters as call it....and would just free fall on top of all the sleeping kittens. This cat would pounce and jump on all the still kittens and seemed to be in a world all to itself.
"I HAVE TO HAVE THIS CAT!"
"You don't want that cat." my mother in law exclaimed.
"I'M GOING TO GET THAT CAT."
And so I pulled $25.00 out of my purse and paid the cashier. And that was that. I had a new baby.
Zoi was quite a handful. We already had another cat TCBY (TC for short) and boy oh boy did Zoi like to pick on TC. Zoi would hide behind the door or closet and wait for TC to walk by.....then jump on his back by digging his teeth into TC's fur. Zoi always had a mouthfull of white cat hair.
Now back to the story about Zoi being a him/her. When I bought Zoi, I was told (and confirmed with my own eyes) that Zoi was a girl kitty. So when we took her in to get spade, we were surprised when we got a phone call from a nice older lady explaining that they were in fact going to be doing a neuter. Zoi had boy parts....they were just inside him:)
Cierra had grown such an attachment to Zoi as well the past few years. Being an only child, I used to catch her talking with Zoi....as a sibling would. This alone makes me so sad to think about.
But this is life, and after life there is death. I was raised with the belief that we will once again see Zoi, so I've shared these beliefs with Cierra. This keeps her hopeful, and has made her smile when she thinks about holding him again.
She is a strong girl, and I'm so proud she is mine.

my dear kitty

Today is one of the saddest days. We had to put our 14 1/2 year old kitty, Zoi down. He has given us such joy, such pain, such crazy mixed emotions over the years. We will miss him dearly. I decided to keep Cierra home from school today because she is devastated, and I didn't want her to sit at school all day and be overwhelmed.
Kenny drove up to Guemes to bury him, while I stayed behind with Cierra. We felt it was a bit too much, and she is a bit too young still to witness this and so we are at home playing games/watching shows/crying.........telling stories of our Zooooshhhh. (that is what she called him)
It is hard to believe that we've had Zoi nearly as long as Kenny and I have been together. I will post a few pictures of him & a few of my funny stories later this week. It is just too sad right now.
He was part of the family, and I love him so much.

I'm glad you are no longer in pain my dear Zoi.......Cierra, mama, & papa love you.

PhotoBlog Site

One good thing about being at home for the past 3 weeks with pneumonia is that I've been able to update my PhotoBlog:) I welcome ya'll to come take a look at it....
www.karladecampphotoblog.com
(Still some glitches but hopefully it will all be panned out soon) It took me one full day to figure out how to write a HTML code for the song on my front page to autostart. Ohhhh but it was worth it! I really love Joshua Radin:)

The worst part about this illness is I'm now hooked on like 20 different shows!! That really is nothing new for me, but it's pretty sad that I'm upset that Gossip Girl hasn't had a new episode for weeks now!!

Hope all is well....heading back to the doctor as I think I have a cracked rib from all the coughing I've done:( But the energy is getting back to normal....slowly slowly slowly.
Take care everyone!!