Serously?

A somewhat recent photo of Eric and I. You can't
tell so much because of my beanie, but I've cut off
my hair. So far, it hasn't caused me to lose any of
my super-powers. 

Ugh, I was really hoping it had been less time than this since I wrote here, but it hasn't. Nothing since last August. My grandmother's funeral. Nothing about all the major events since that time.


But this space still calls to me. For a while now, it has felt like writing letters to friends, rather than keeping a personal journal, and I find that matters to me. So here I am. If you are one of my readers, I actually really appreciate it. I realized that I really do write to you. My writing is shaped by knowing you'll see it. It's an extraordinary blessing to have people with whom to share ordinary things and I don't take it for granted.

And so, forsaking guilt about being behind, and feelings of inadequacy when compared with other blogs, I offer up a stopgap post. All is well here. Evan came home from his mission in September, then turned around and left again. He's settled in Provo and back in school. In September, I traveled to Texas for work and Eastern Europe for fun. October found me in Spokane WA and Coeur D'Alene Idaho for work-fun, Then we went to Mississippi for Christmas. A new granddaughter joined the family in November. In 2017 we also finished our basement and made a beautiful working space for me. I'd share a photo, but it's filled with storage tubs of our stuff that we are getting rid of so it's not ready for prime time. It's still lovely to have a place to work, and the clean-up is moving along, so hopefully photos are coming soon. We are sharing our home again, and it's going well. Thus, we remain on the cusp of empty nesting, but not quite there yet. Toddlers definitely have a way of keeping life from getting boring. In spite of the impression my social media posts seem to give, I was actually home far more than I was traveling last year. 2016 was the year of the crazy travels, not 2017.

This year, I have trips planned to Alabama (this weekend, in fact) for my beloved cabin weekend, Utah to photograph a wedding in April, and hopefully, an extended visit to Arizona in October. I will also have trips to California, Connecticut and Illinois for work. The usual trips--nothing exotic--I mostly want to spend as much time as I can with friends and family. I've also been asked back to Young Women Camp to help out.

I read lots of books last year, with a big chunk of them being the Harry Potter series. There were other good ones, but I didn't write about them because....who knows. Sometimes it feels like fun to write up a review, and sometimes it feels like a big yucky job, and I just don't get around to it.

My photography work is as steady as it ever was, and I'm grateful. I am looking to buy a new camera this year, and possibly a new lens.

In between these occasional blog posts, you can always catch up on Instagram, even if you don't have an account--my feeds are public. You can see my day to day stuff here and my photography here. And I still do use Facebook, just not every day. And you can check back, because sometimes I do that thing in which I write about something 6 months later and back-date it so it's in chronological order. If you get my posts by email, you'll get all the awesome anachronistic posts as well as the legitimately new ones. Lucky YOU!

Thanks as always for reading, and letting me know you do so. Happy 2018 to you!

Love,
Kel

Here's everyone but Kristen the night Evan got home from Argentina. That was a good day.