It's easy to take for granted the beauty of the life you're currently living. ?

This morning seems normal... kids playing, we slept in, I'm about to workout while I'm listening to a social media webinar... you know, a lazy Saturday...

This was NOT my norm for 10 years though.

We were wedding photographers for 10 years. It was great. I loved my clients and we shot on beautiful beaches and chandelier hung ballrooms. We saw the most beautiful decor and wedding fashion and met all types of people.

The flip side of this all was that we had to leave our kids every Saturday for about 14-16 hours. We woke up around 5:30am to get our equipment ready, get the kids fed and ready, and get ourselves primped for a formal event (breast feed a baby, take a shower, feed the other kids, spend 1 hour on my hair, breastfeed the baby, do my makeup, give the kids a snack, get the camera stuff ready, get everyone dressed, breastfeed the baby, print out wedding day itineraries, shove some carbs in my face, and leave).

I'd get to the wedding and never know what was going to happen... was the bride going to be a stress ball? Did her mom get into a car accident on the way to the hotel that morning? Did the bridesmaid sleep with the cousin and come to the wedding hungover and everyone's mad at her? Is the mother of the bride a micromanager? Is the groom smoking weed on the balcony of at the Ritz Carlton and acting like a total goof? Is it going to rain and make taking pictures really hard? Is it so hot that the bride doesn't want to be outside but will regret not pushing through for good pics later? beach of the bridesmaid

We never knew what was going to happen... The expectations on us were HIGH.

As I had more and more kids my heart was more and more at home... where my kids were having softball games or ballet recitals that I was missing...

What started out as a thrilling career of beauty and art became the thing that kept me from those lazy Saturday mornings with my beautiful family.

So, today might be extremely "normal" but to me it feels extraordinary.

Freedom is having choices. It took me just shifting things around and finding a business that still used my passions but gave me that freedom.

I will always love taking pictures but I'm so thankful for the freedom I have now to choose what type of Saturdays I will have!!!

Whatever you're doing today- be present and be thankful!