in my efforts to begin organizing myself for the year ahead and yes, getting my shit together, i just wanted to share a bunch of...stuff.

first, i want to share a bit about facebook (FB)--an online community full of networking opportunities and a wealth of information. if you've never been there, i highly recommend it. it's amazing the help i've received from folks on FB...and the friends i've found or who have found me. here's my personal page and business page.

since not everyone, who reads my blog, is on FB, i decided to share a few things here that i recently discovered and|or shared on FB just today.

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i'm finally feeling better today (after suffering from a terrible stomach flu on new year's day. what a way to bring in the new year, huh?!). i was actually recovered from the puking yesterday, but the dehydration was still hugely kicking my ass. so now that i'm better, it's about getting organized. and that begins with grocery shopping, since i have nothing in the house. not having a clue what i wanted to cook for the week, i posted on FB, inquiring if anyone had any great recipes they could share. and i learned about these great recipe sharing sites:

smitten kitchen orangette allrecipes (actually an old fav)

i've printed out some super yummy recipes and will head to the grocery store in a bit (after the construction guys are done working on the walls in our 5th bedroom). my plan is to buy a clipboard and put it on the kitchen wall with the week's recipes clipped. kind of like this (love her series of inspirational clipboards).

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our KS house is already rented and we're looking at real estate in tampa. this whole thing is rather surreal. we've been here six months and are moving in six months. oh. my. gosh!!

steve is dreaming of building in tampa, although i'm not sure it's going to be possible in the area we want to live. our location options are based on the communities middle and high school (kiele's school is our priority). and for the moment, we're house hunting in the 33629 zip code of tampa (palma ceia area).

but, if we magically happened upon cheap land, here's a couple homes that steve and i would love to build. maybe after our sailing adventures. sure can't hurt to dream! the spirit of palo alto the Xhouse 2

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i'm planning my spring trip back to san diego for client shoots, sometime in april or early may (leaning towards late april). if anyone is interested in a client shoot during that timeframe, please email me. i also plan to do client shoots in san diego and NY in the fall. it's so exciting to have clients across the nation. i guess that's one of the perks of being a military-family photographer. needless to say, i'm blessed and grateful.

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speaking of grateful. my plans were to start my grateful | 365 project on jan 1st; however, my stomach flu trumped that idea. and so i begin today. you might remember me blogging about hailey's inspirational 365 grateful project in the past. my plan is to do simple iphone photos for this project and will print them (probably in a 5x5 book) at the end.

today (01 | 365), i am grateful that my kids play so awesome together. sometimes it amazes me. don't get me wrong, they do have their fair share of typical sibling bickering, but most of the time, they play like this. and it melts my heart.