Lately

For the past six months I've been tweaking my lifestyle and schedule to build more efficiency into my day. I will have to say this does not make me a very fun person to be around. With time, my goals continue to be aggressive however my energy is limited. If I'm not discipline with my day, it's much easier to get distracted or burnt out. Here are ten things I'm currently doing that's keeping me on top of my game:

1. Getting at least eight hours of sleep every night.
2. Having a consistent morning routine: gratitude journal, mediate, yoga sculpt and then my day begins. 
3. Understanding what foods work well with my body and fueling it with that.
4. Drinking a ton of water. 
5. Thought downloads. 
6. Doing one thing every day that gets me closer to my goal / dream. The secret of your success is found in what you do daily; I read that once on Pinterest. 
7. Blocking hours at a time on my calendar for the top three things I want to accomplish and giving myself a break in between.
8. No alcohol. Nope, not even wine. And I also gave up coffee. See #2 and #3.
9. Making a handful of commitments, scheduling it into my calendar and making it nonnegotiable. At the end of the week I do a quick review to see what worked, what didn't and make adjustments for the upcoming week. 
10. Taking a social media detox. This is my biggest distraction and time killer. If I need a mental break I simply read a book; something I always say I never have enough time for. My books are loaded on my phone so they're easily accessible. 

Photographs inspired by Vilhelm Hammershøi's painting,“Woman Seen from the Back” (1888). 

Thought Download

Whenever I can't focus on a task at hand I do what's called a thought download. Basically a thought download is writing down everything you're currently thinking of that is occupying your brain and thus taking you away from much more important tasks such as analyzing data on spreadsheets (I know, my life is SO fun). I usually do this every few days. Let's just say I get distracted A LOT! So here we go...

- First, can you make out what's behind that bokeh? It's the skyline of Seattle from Kerry Park, my favorite place to hang out with a good book and people watch.
- Many times I've watched the Game of Thrones hiding underneath my beau's armpit with a blanket and one eye closed. It just occurred to me last night that I may not be mature enough to watch that show.
- Speaking of my beau, I have an obsession with 90's R&B and I love spitting (not literally but in a Urban Dictionary kind of way), lines at him as a way of flirting.
- Oh! That reminds me, last Valentine's Day instead of a card I sent him a singing telegram by yours truly and sung / rapped him the entire song of "Shorty Swing My Way". He was impressed to say the least. :)
- I am a creature of habit indeed. I went to Gourmondo's Cafe for lunch four days in a row and ordered the exact same thing. Now if I can just apply that sort of dedication to my workout routine.
- Remember that goal I had to learn calligraphy? Well, my wish was granted. Between my sister and friend's wedding invitations, I hand wrote 120 wedding invitation envelops. The only thing I call successful about that is coming out of it with no carpal tunnel.
- I've been reading a lot of books on the Art of X (insert anything you can think of) and I just thought of my own book to write, The Art of Doing Nothing. First tip, put this book down and go take a nap. Second tip, why are you still reading this book? Yup, I see a New York Time's Best Seller potential here.
- During Memorial Day weekend my beau and I had plans to leave town but last minute decided to cancel and do our first ever staycation. We turned off our phones and didn't tell anyone we didn't leave town. I highly recommend doing this but be ready to lose some friends if they ever find out you skipped out on their BBQ. Don't say I didn't warn you...

And that's enough confessions and random gibberish from me.

Goodnight internet.

Lately

• - This picture pretty much sums up what I've been up to: playing maid of honor and bridesmaid for Jodie and Mailee's wedding. 
• - In between that I'm squeezing in hot yoga, spending time with my beau, looking for bridesmaid dresses and some blogging. Yay! Notice my consistency this week with blogging. ;) 
• - Oh speaking of hot yoga, I desperately need a cut and color but I'm holding off because I hate having my hair too short to put up while I'm sweating. Is that TMI?
• - Quarter end has been tough for me at work as I'm leading many projects but I'm powering through it. 
• - I'm anxiously waiting my for my Hawaii scans to come back from the lab. The suspense is killing me! 
• - Which reminds me, if you've been following my instagram you'll noticed I just got back from a nice long vacay with lots of r&r! 

My Birthday

Birthdays to me are a personal holiday to celebrate being you. I believe every person should take the day off every day routine to be pamper, do something they love and spend some time reflecting on the past year and what's to come or however they wish to celebrate being wonderfully themselves.

This year my little sister was getting marry on my birthday weekend therefore I was busy helping with wedding stuff and didn't have much time to reflect. However, I did get to spend my birthday with my favorite people - my sisters and my beau. My sisters and I had some spa time, a yummy dinner and a fun karaoke night where I sang 'Dancing Queen' to my heart's desire. My sweet beau surprised me with a birthday fruit cake and champagne. The festivities will continue when we take our trip to NYC in the next week which I'm so excited about.

If I had to use one word to describe this past year it would be simplify. From my workload to my wardrobe, this past year has been difficult to accept that I can't do it all and have it all without burn out. As I peeled back the layers of distractions that were not necessary in my life I saw the beauty in simplicity. I embraced shooting with my Pentax K1000 focusing on honing my vision and letting go of all the technicalities that come with a DSLR and my love for photography grew. This year I want to see where simplicity and focus will take me... to new exciting experiences and adventures I'd hope...

Happy Birthday to My Beau!

Images taken from his birthday weekend celebration.
There are very distinct moments I can remember of when I fell a little more in love with my beau and here's one of them...
We were having drinks with his friends at a bar and someone asked me what I did for a living. I mentioned I photograph fashion events aside from my day job but I just loved photography in general. My beau then adds, 'She's so great at it. She'll have to show you her work sometimes...' and goes on talking about my photography. I blush and feel my insecurity as a photographer creep in. A million thoughts are going through my head of all my short comings of being a photographer (meanwhile my beau continues to proudly talking about my work). Quickly I tried to interject with all those negative thoughts, he knows this but instead of letting me verbalize them he reaches out to hold my hand and continues to talk positively about my work. I have no choice but to listen. As I am listening to him, I am overwhelmed with emotions for how much this man believes in me... and just like that I fall a little more in love with him. In addition to all the other great things he does for me, he is my biggest support. He pushes me outside of my comfort zone, he challenges my artistic view in photography and wherever we may be he patiently waits for me to capture my perfect photo. I am so blessed to have him as my partner in adventure. 
Happy Birthday to my beau who is the most amazingly supportive, patient and loving person I know. 

Looking Back on My Journey As a Photographer

Although it seems like so long ago it's only been about nine months since I first picked up my film camera. This led me to thinking a lot about my journey as a photographer. My first love was fashion and since I could remember I always wanted to be a fashion designer. During college I took on an internship that allowed me to attend fashion shows. In order for me to document my experiences I used my little point and shoot camera. Eventually I grew frustrated with the image quality and as a graduation gift to myself I purchased my first DSLR. From that point on my love for photography grew and I tried to learn as much as I could about it. Shortly after I was made the luckiest girl when I became a freelance photographer shooting along side the other photographers at these fashion events that I had been attending. That was four years ago. After years of completing shot lists, double triple checking my camera settings, clicking my shutter button four times just to make sure I got my shot, etc...  this past year I was feeling a little jaded. Somehow photography just didn't feel as fun as it used to and I forgot how excited it used to make me feel... so I took a little break from freelancing and picked up my film camera. As time passed, I wanted to touch my digital camera less and less and my simple SLR became my camera of choice. I love the simplicity of my SLR. It takes away all the noise and I can just focus on my vision.  

Lately I've been debating if I should get back into photographing freelance / commercial work or if I should deepen my love for photography and work on expressing my vision on film. After weeks of debating about this in my head I've decided to be very selective of the freelance work I take on so I can continue to photograph just for love...

to be continued... 

Thankful

I write love letters to my beau, my niece and bestfriend as frequently as I can. I'm one of those people who don't like to save up all my appreciation and express them only on Thanksgiving or any other holiday. I believe a big part of that has to do with losing my father at such a young age - it has taught me to never take for granted the people I love... the amazing people in my life.

This year I have been so blessed! I have so much to be thankful for... my family is doing well and is in good health, I've gotten to see a bit more of the world with my travels... and so on...

Sometimes it's difficult for me to blog because I'm not the best at words... however, I want to thank you for reading. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Love,
Youa