Author Archives: 365 days of marriage

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About 365 days of marriage

I started this blog in April of 2011. At the time, Bret and I were wedding photographers and it was a way to share how marriage is more about the day to day and so much more than the wedding day itself. For about 5 years, I blogged about the joys and sorrows of the Christian walk, marriage, work, family and friends. I’ve blogged every day since a few weeks after I started. In May of 2015, we photographed our last wedding. Now, I have become passionate about simplicity, particularly in marriage, Christianity, business, travel and life. For a number of reasons, we have become minimalists. I’ve found that having simplicity makes life so much deeper, refreshing and joyful. I hope that this blog will help others see the benefits of living simply.

Day 1666 – Getting Off My Butt And Making Changes – Or – Website Tweaks

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I have been pretty much no good to anyone since I got home from vacation. Man! I’ve never had so much trouble getting back in the groove after vacation! I’m slowly but surely getting off my butt and getting things done!

This week’s project is a website tweak/overhaul/sortof.

Now, you may know I update my website quite a bit…A major change here, a minor change there. But this is the FIRST time I’ve actually really planned it out. Including, what do I want people to do on each page. A thing that I’m like, really Jen? You couldn’t take a few extra hours to figure that out before? (Shakes fist at “past Jen”) I’m also looking into things like how to get prospects fill out your form. It’s fascinating how much info is on the web! As well as in my copious amounts of notes over the years. One of the biggest struggles I think business owners face is using the information they receive properly. And boy howdy, there is a LOT of it! I’m overwhelmed just with the 3-4 articles INC posts every day on their Facebook page! I’m working on a system to process the information I read as well as scheduling time to read the information. Ahhhh, I love information! It’s pretty intoxicating! (Says the one who has 14 books out of the library right now!…on top of the other 5 books I’m reading in my own collection…)

So what about you? What is your biggest business challenge? And what system do you have in place to take in information and use it for your business (or life, or wedding, or family, or whatever?)

And no picture today, because I gotta get to work on all of this information! 😉

Day 1665 – A Day Of Rest…

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I had some dental work done today and the Novocaine totally got to my head. I really hate getting my teeth worked on…at least the day of and a few days after. First, you’re all numb for a few hours….then as it wears off, you realize how much pain you’re actually in. Since I knew I wouldn’t get too much worthwhile done today, I turned off the computer and sat in front of the TV. Funny though, I took my to-do list and worked on a few things while watching shows and movies. Who knew? What are your random “helps me work” tricks?

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Day 1664 – Blast From The Past

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I’m not going to lie…I’ve been a little behind on my life…my blog, my business, my laundry…nothing particularly awesome/interesting/funny happened today, so I took a peek in my archives and found this guy…

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It was a packet I put together for bridal shows/consults….It’s actually a pretty nifty packet! I stop doing them to save on costs….what do you think? As a bride, would this wow you?

Day 1663 – Is Your Parents’ Wedding Album Falling Apart? Is Yours? I Can Help!

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I am so excited to share more information about a new service I’m offering! What is it? Album reconstruction!

It happened somewhat by accident….I was asked if I could fix an album that was falling apart. I said I’d take a peek at it and figured I could!

Here are a few shots of what the albums looked like before the reconstruction.

They had a smaller album with 3×5 and 4×6 images. Most of the pages were falling out.

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They had the same problem with the larger album with 8x10s.

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So I took both albums and combined them to have a mix of all of the images. We had to do a few repeats of the larger images, but it worked.

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I LOVE the cover on the new album!

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It was a really awesome process….taking something that signals the beginning of marriage and making it like new. This wedding took place almost 25 years ago! It was quite an honor to reconstruct this lovely couple’s album. Listening to Canon in D while doing so brought tears to my eyes a few times!

Do you have a friend, relative, etc. who has an album falling apart? I’d love to chat with them! As long as the images are still in tact and not too damaged, I should be able to reconstruct!

Day 1662 – You Are Rich, Right Now – Do You Realize It?

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I recently started reading How To Be Rich by Andy Stanley. Wowie it’s so good! I’m only on the second chapter and it has already changed how I think about things.

He says we are so much richer than we realize. (The following is a paraphrase! I got the book out of the library, so it doesn’t have my typical underlined text for easy review!) Living in America, the luxuries we don’t even think about….one person working only 5 days to feed himself for 7 days….or one person working for more than one mouth to feed. Even making around $30,000, you’re richer than a lot of people in this world.

Tonight, I came across a video that really drove this point home. It’s since been taken down, but the gist is people got REALLY excited to get bibles.

Some of us have a bible or two lying around….for each person in the house. I have at least 3-4+ that I can think of off of the top of my head. My family is really into books, especially my dad (a trait he passed down to me)….to look at his library you’d think he’d been a pastor for years. He even has the bible in Greek and Latin. I have no idea how many bibles we actually have in the house….but, if I had to guess, I’d say at least 30 of various translations….not to mention several computer programs that have most translations.

I watched this video and was truly humbled. They were diving for bibles like I do when I go Black Friday shopping and go after the DVDs. Do I knock people over to get to my bible? Do I truly realize how awesome it is to have my own copy of God’s word to the world? Do I cry because I have access to this gift ANY time? ……do you?