30 Day Challenge {Lake County IL, Photographer}

Do you follow me on Instagram? If you do, you likely noticed some interesting pictures lately of my kitties’ paws. This past month I wanted to do a fun little challenge for 30 days, although I realized after I started that March has 31 days not 30…go figure.

So why do a 30 day challenge?  Simple…I wanted to take time everyday to notice the little things in my life.  All too often we are running from place to place, going to bed late only to get up early, constantly adding “to-do” items on our ever growing to-do list and never really taking a moment to notice the little things in our life. We start to take things for granted and while I don’t mean to be a downer…sometimes those things won’t always be around.  Life is about learning to juggle the conflicting priorities and I felt like I needed to push my reset button. I am known to consistently over extend myself and take on too many things.  The end result typically has me in tears to my husband while we figure out how everything that needs to get done, gets done. I’ve started to realize that sometimes the things I make priorities in my life aren’t meant to be priorities and instead I take things for granted when I shouldn’t…typically my poor husband is the one to get the raw end of the deal in those types of situations. But as life only gets more complex we need to realize to take a moment and notice the little things around us.

So how did my 30 day challenge go? Well I am proud to say that I completed it…all 31 days! But the real question is what did I learn from my 30 day challenge? Well, I learned…

  • Prince loves to sit on the bed in the morning, while the most beautiful sunrise will come streaming in on him as he dangles his little paws over the bed post.
  • Chip loves to sit next to his toys that he will typically brings to me in the late afternoon, and then drop them in the bedroom doorway.
  • Prince is much more adventurous with where he will go and always wants to be near me; when he’s not sleeping.
  • Chip is much more adventurous with how he stands or curls up or sleeps, in respect to the position of his paws.

I know…I imagine you are saying to yourself “Great, but I really don’t care about this lady’s cats.” So let me go just a bit farther, and tell you this… My big light bulb moment…I learned, that spending 5 extra minutes on just myself, laughing with my husband and playing with my cats, didn’t cause the world to come to an end…I didn’t miss any big deadlines, or miss any big meetings…instead, I would push forward and say that I gained happiness and joy for taking some time out of my day to make myself the priority.  So from this crazy little 30 day challenge of taking pictures of my cats’ paws I came away realizing that taking just 5 – 10 minutes a day for just yourself will bring with it great personal reward.

So, what’s next? Another 30 day challenge? More cat photos? Honestly…I’m not really sure. Maybe I’ll take the day to think about where to go next.

In the meantime…have you done a 30 day challenge?  Of any kind? What did you learn from it?  If you haven’t done one…try it out…let me know what you plan on doing and I would love for you to reach back out to me after your 30 days and let me know what happened!

And lastly…before you go…take a peek at my 31 days of kitty paws.
(Also, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @kate_fredrick to see what might be next for me…)

Week 4 of 2015 {Lake County IL, Photographer}

Another week…another fun set of photos!  What fun happened this week…

I enjoyed some hot cocoa, shared a favorite nail polish color, snuggled with my little fur baby, and I’m waiting patiently to turn some bananas into yummy bread!  The other fun thing going on this past week was joining in on a focus group with an amazing photographer!  She is pushing us to realize our dreams and move forward towards achieving them.  She’s giving us the little push out of our comfort zone we all need to experience.  I have a feeling that great things are about to happen and I promise to share with you the fun things I learn!  If you are interested, you can sign up for information on joining Jenna when her course goes live…www.jennakutchercourse.com

Get ready to enjoy another week!
Don’t forget you can follow for my daily photos on Instagram!

Need to recap the past few weeks: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3

Week 3 of 2015 {Lake County IL, Photographer}

Another week of photos!  How long do people say it takes to turn something into a habit?  21 days?  If so, I’m coming up on my 21 days.  I won’t lie…this week had some challenges. It’s hard to balance a 9-5 job, family, and a photography business. But one thing is certain…I’m loving how I’m growing and being challenged to think creatively at least for a few minutes each day.  How are your resolutions holding up?  Are you achieving them…or at least making some strides towards your goal?

If you’ve dropped your goal…it’s ok. Figure out what was causing you to fail (too hard of a goal, time balance issues, etc.) and then try new solutions to get yourself back on track.  It doesn’t matter how many times you fail so long as you keep getting back up and trying.  Success will come!

What is your favorite photo from the last week?  I’m a fan of the three glass bottles…but my heart does perk up with the little love note from my hubby…

Be sure to follow me on INSTAGRAM to see my daily photos!

You can also see my previous two weeks here: Week 1, Week 2.

Week 2 of 2015 {Lake County IL Photographer}

Another week has gone by and I’m still following through with my photo a day!  Did you see my first week of 2015?  It was a short little one but still fun…you can recap here.

I’m finding I love doing this…sometimes it will take me all day to come up with my idea for a photo and other days I wake up knowing exactly what I want to photograph.  I’m finding that the key to taking a great photo is seeing light…a little weird I know but my heart sings when I see some dramatic light filtering in through the window or I see how the reflection of our lamp is casting a great little shadow on objects on the table. Light adds character to a photograph and helps give the image meaning, a story. My favorite photo this week was my tree of halo oranges.  I love the shadows and color.  This photo was actually taken in our living room using our end table lamp. My husband may have given me a crazy eye or two as he saw me carefully balancing a bunch of oranges on our end table but he admits the outcome is pretty cool.  I hope to get this photo printed up and hung up in our kitchen.

What was your favorite photo from the week?

Great Banana Bread Recipe {Lake County IL, Photographer}

As I start the new year I always want to cook more and so I figured I would start the year off with a classic and share it with you!  Who doesn’t love a good banana bread recipe? Plus, I’ll admit my husband likes to tease me because I have a kitchen-aid mixer yet very rarely use it so this was the perfect opportunity. And I always tend to have bananas laying around ready to be used for banana bread…they just don’t stay ripe for very long!

Where do you go when you need a good banana bread recipe?  PINTEREST!  Once I saw that this was Martha’s recipe…I couldn’t resist and had to try it out.  It ended up being great and even my husband loved the result!

 

Perfect banana bread

by Martha Stewart

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature, plus more for pan
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups unbleached plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 3)
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional; I didn’t use them)
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan; set aside. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and beat to incorporate.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined. Add bananas, sour cream, and vanilla; mix to combine. Stir in nuts, and pour into prepared pan.
  3. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let rest in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.
    Recipe © 2012 Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. All rights reserved.