My Everyday - Something's Brewing

First off, have you noticed that my blog URL has changed?? It's not www.vanessavothblog.com. It's still hosted by Blogger so it'll automatically redirect you if you type in my old URL, but in the future when I change blog hosts, this will be the one that you'll want to have in your bookmarks!

My days have been filled with new marketing materials that I'm working on and preparing for Las Vegas and the WPPI convention, and dinner with my babe for Valentine's Day yesterday!

New marketing materials! Yay! I love playing around in Photoshop and putting new ideas onto "paper" and watching those ideas come alive! I've put together some new pdf packages for interested brides and grooms about my services and stuff. Very exciting!

I leave on Sunday for Vegas which I can't even tell you how excited I am about this trip! I get to see Las Vegas in all it's extravagance and over-abundance of lights and glamour for the first time. I get to spend 5 days with a good friend without our babies to take care. I get to put my home life aside for just a few days to fully soak in all the amazing knowledge I know that I'll be bombarded with from all the amazing speakers I've signed up to hear! And, I get to see a Cirque du Soleil show, one thing that I've always ALWAYS wanted to do yet in my lifetime! So many super exciting things!

And Valentine's Day. Yes, I don't love the over commercialized aspect of the day, but this year it turned out to be quite lovely. Monday brought Greek ordered in for dinner and the evening spent cosying up on the couch to watch a movie. Tuesday night we went out for dinner to Milestones and then grabbed Chai lattes from Starbucks and roamed around Chapters for about an hour before heading off to our Life Group. So good! I love Chapters. I could spend hours there, perusing the endless shelves full of words, wisdom, and knowledge or entertainment.

Onto today's My Everyday. My husband has gotten into making his own beer and wine. It started off as a hobby, buying the kits you find at the grocery store, but has evolved into somewhat of an art, mashing the grains to produce beer from scratch, basically. Our house often smells like a barn and there's carboy's strewn all around the house filled with liquidy goodness.

My Everyday - The Dungeon & Day Two

I've mentioned the fact that I work in The Dungeon. I refer to it as such because it's not a very fresh, airy environment. My office is literally in the back of our garage, behind the wall in front of me is the earth, and lots of it. This space was originally made to serve as my salon when I worked from home as a hair stylist. Now that I'm not doing that professionally anymore it's kind of converted into the everything room. It now serves as salon/office/cellar/storage, all at the same time. I do have a heater in here which makes it a little warmer and not so drab. But I do fantasize about my next house and office with a window and bright white furniture and decor. It will be lovely.

But for now, this serves as my work space, and it works quite well. Aside from the few times I've heard that darn mouse rummaging around in our garage! So, to help you envision where I'm at right now, at this very moment while I'm typing away, I took some pictures.

This is my desk, and on the opposite wall is my hair station.

And just behind me is my sink.

I didn't take a picture of the other corner, but that's where my sit down hair dryer is and a mound of chairs and stuff. Directly to my right is the wine rack and the current carboy of fermenting wine. Mm. No, I don't drink wine while I work. But that just gave me a great idea! HA! Just kidding. It's only 2:13pm.

And, Day Two of my 30 for 30 challenge was yesterday. It was a casual day, my only outing was to go to my massage appointment and then we had our Life Group meeting at our house. My hair looks fancy but it's not. A few bobby pins placed in inconspicuous places, a subtle french braid on one side, and a small black silk bow and VOILA! You have a non-stress, 5 minute cute updo. I'm thinking I should add a 30 for 30 hairstyle remix challenge. Yesterday's updo was still from the same hair as Monday.

Anyway, this was my outfit... black skinny jeans with a gold braided belt, hot pink cotton t-shirt, grey 3/4 length cardigan, white scarf, awesome teal snakeskin flats from Nine West. Thanks again to my hubby for taking the pictures!

Happy Tuesday!

My Everyday- Magnets and Messes

My daughter just had a super short nap and I didn't get around to blogging so I'm going to quickly post what I had planned on posting awhile ago but just didn't.

Cheyenne likes the magnets we have on our fridge for her to play with, but more-so she likes flinging them off the fridge and having them strewn all about the kitchen floor. It's quite entertaining for her. I can tolerate it until I step on an 'T' in the dark.

I've had a fabulous week so far, meeting with other photographers and friends over tea. On Monday I met with Jamie Delaine, and on Tuesday I met with Lyndsay London. We had a fabulous evening, talking for over 2 hours about how we got to where we are in our businesses. Lyndsay started her business the same time as me so it was neat to see her progress! I love meeting with other photographers and gaining wisdom and insight into their businesses and how I can better my own, and just encouraging each other in this process.

Ok, Girlie's done with being in her crib! I have to go!

My Everyday - New Lens

Buying new lenses is very exciting. It makes me feel like my world just got a whole lot bigger! I have more options for lenses to use during photo shoots and weddings and get even more creative than I could be with only one good lens!

I bought the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens yesterday. My husband and I knew that this would be our next purchase, and soon. Ever since I got my 35mm 1.4 I haven't touched my 50mm 1.8 (my husband was the last one to use it at the wedding that he second shot for me). I like crisp focus in my pictures and the 1.8 never met my expectations. It was a great starter lens with a wider aperture and definitely fit my style and feel for my images that I wanted that the kit lenses couldn't produce.

So now I have two lenses that I will love! Aside from the softness of the images produced by the 1.8, I still do love the feel and closeness of the 50mm in general. I'm excited to do a photo shoot using both lenses!

I took these today with the new lens. It's gross and rainy outside so I couldn't take my daughter outside for more creative shots but I just had to test out the new 50mm!!

I'm trying to plow through my to-do list today. Start crossing off some tasks. I've got a busy week of work and coffee dates with some fellow photographers! I met with Jamie Delaine yesterday and we chatted over tea, and we hardly talked about photography at all! (Jamie was one of my biggest inspirations when I decided to start my own photography business and I still stalk her blog daily and love being inspired by her work and her faith in God. God is going to use her in BIG ways for his Kingdom.) When I meet with someone who is also a follower of Christ the conversation tends to revolve around Him and our relationships with Him. It was great. I have another coffee date tonight and hopefully I'll be able to schedule a few more in yet! If you're a photographer in the Lower Mainland and would like to meet for coffee send me an email!! I'd love to meet you and talk with you!! =)

My Everyday - Tea Time

I was originally planning on featuring something else for today's segment of My Everyday. But this seemed much more fitting given the circumstances which I will outline below.

1. I'm drinking tea right now. I often drink tea while blogging or working in my dungeon in general. (Side note: I just realized that I should take a picture of my office so you can actually envision me in this so-called dungeon and understand why I refer to it as such. That will be another segment of My Everyday.)

2. I love tea. I love many kinds of tea.

3. One of my favourite teas is Tazo Zen. But the list of faves is quite long. I won't list them to save time.

4. High tea is one of my favourite outings! Never been? You must! It's fabulous. I went again this weekend. I'll explain it in my next paragraph that outlines my weekend for you.

On Saturday I celebrated a friend's birthday with another friend at Tracycakes for High Tea. They have three locations but we went to the Fort Langley one. All of the locations are decorated so quaint and cute and antique-y but really modern-ish. Make sense? The walls and ceilings are white and they have crystal chandeliers and large mirrors and old china tea cups and saucers displayed. So cute. You have to make a reservation for High Tea and you get to choose a tea and then they bring out a 3 tiered platter with bite size goodies on it. From egg sandwiches, to sausage rolls, to fresh fruit and scones, to mini cupcakes! When you first look at it you think there's not much there, but then you start eating and by the end you're loosening your belt a few notches and roll out to the car because you're too full to walk. Seriously. Fabulous.

I, of course, did NOT bring my camera because I'm lame and debated bringing it for so long and ended up not and then I highly regretted my choice. So, these pictures will have to do. A cup of one of my favourite teas.

We had many parties this weekend, and some much needed grown-up time without Girlie. Love her to bits, but it was nice to go out and dress up and not worry about getting cheese smeared on your outfit or having snot on your shoulder. Paints a pretty picture, doesn't it? =)

Saturday = birthday celebration extravaganza. High tea, a little shopping at Winners, and pizza and games with more friends!

Sunday = good bye party for a dear friend, also our cousin. Fabulous wine, more appetizers and yummy goodness than you could imagine, catching up with friends I haven't seen for a long time, and enjoying a few more moments and memories before Marilisa heads back home.

Today marks six months since our accident. Unfortunately, I'm still feeling the pain. I'm praying for healing this year, and preferably sooner than later. But I'm alive and well so I'm not complaining. I just didn't realize the after effects could last this long.

That got long and random. Thanks for pushing through to the end, if anyone did! Enjoy the rest of day!

New Segment: My Everyday

A couple weeks ago I was thinking of new things to add to my blog. I decided to start a regular "My Everyday" segment. Basically, this will take you in my everyday life. Kind of self explanatory. I guess one of my goals for this year is to take more pictures of my everyday life. The day to day. The imperfections. The rawness. The beauty. The craziness. And all the inbetweens. So, today is my first installment of "My Everyday". A look into the behind the scenes of Vanessa Voth. Beware.

Last night we had some new friends over for dinner and games. We met this couple only two months ago when we started attending a new Life Group from the new church we started attending in the summer. What is a Life Group? you may be wondering. Well, in our case it's a group of six couples that meet every other Tuesday at one couple's house where we interact with each other and share our stories/testimonies with each other but will eventually turn into a bible study of sorts. Yes, strange concept to those of you that may not be familiar with church in general. Twelve strangers, six couples, meet on a bi-weekly basis and openly share their lives with people they've never spoken to previously, with one similarity: Jesus Christ. I honestly never met any of the other ten people before the first meeting I went to. Yet, on that first Tuesday night, I felt comfortable enough to weep in front of them while sharing some personal struggles in my life. It's such a beautiful thing. Friendship. Accountability. Blessings.

Anyway, back to last night. We invited one of the couples over to experience our famous Pizza Night (yes, we did it on a Friday, but don't worry, pizza will be consumed tonight as per usual! Who says you can't have two pizza nights in one weekend?) They brought a bottle of wine to share with us, and that instantly made us bestest of friends. haha. Yes, I love wine. There, I said it. The bottle that they shared with us was probably my favourite brand and name ever. So chic. So sexy. So good! Check it out...

From their website: STRUT. The wine with legs. I love it! If you've ever been to a wine tasting you'll realize the play on words there. =)

There you go. The first edition of My Everyday, brought to you by Strut wines and a lovely new friendship with a fabulous couple!