It seems like there is so much going on these days that my head is just swimming with so many different things, so I thought I would just throw a couple of thoughts out there.
The economy – Cheridy and I have been super blessed that our business has not been hit too bad by the economy yet. We’ve been hit in a lot of indirect ways, but business has still been good. Detroit has been hurting for quite some time due to the fallen auto industry which I’m thankful everyday for not being a part of anymore. There is a tremendous amount of stress with all the job loss and threats for even more going around, I can only imagine how stressful that must be.
The housing market – This is where the economy has gotten us. Our condo is still sitting vacant. We would love to get a bigger place and potentially even hire some help but with that extra payment on the condo, we’re not ready to take on more risk right now.
The election – I’ve never been big into politics, in fact, I hate politics. However, I really felt this election is super important and we’ve been trying to watch the debates online and get caught up with everything so we can make smart decisions.
Marriage/Business – Working from home with Cheridy and Mayz has been a true blessing but the long hours have been getting quite taxing and we know that we need to reevaluate some of our business decisions this winter and continue to work smarter and make decisions that are best for our family. We did our best to implement office hours so that we didn’t schedule any meetings after hours. That system is only the first step. The problem is that even though we don’t have meetings after being closed, we still have piles of work to do that are keeping us up until 1:00 am to try to get it all done. In the next year, there will be some changes to our business to help us to adapt to the workload but that will take a lot of planning and brainstorming which will hopefully happen during the off season months. We still have 5 more weddings to shoot this year.
Photography Class – My basic photo class will be over by next week. It was another good class and this weekend we have our field trip on Sunday to go shoot at the Detroit Zoo along with our final critique class on Thursday. I had another great group of people and gotten some really positive feedback and responses so far. One thing I noticed is that most of the people in the class want to learn photography so they can get better photos of their family. I might do a little revamping to the class this winter as well and try to include more examples and demonstrations that are related to photographing people.
Church – There are always different roles that we need to play and different ways that we need to use our skills and gifts. One of the things that Cheridy and I are really passionate about is missions. We’ve been on a number of mission trips in different parts of the world and those experiences have shaped who we are and in many ways have fundamentally changed our concepts of life, family, priorities, etc. With missions work, there are multiple roles, those on the front lines and those supporting back at home through prayer, finances, etc. Now that we have Mayz and he’s so young, I really feel called that our role in missions has changed from those going on the trips to more of a financial support role and we feel truly blessed that are in a position where we can do that. We’re definitely looking forward to going on another trip and someday teaching Mayz about the world and opening his little eyes to what God is doing in other parts of the country/world, but for now, we’re staying home.
At our home church, we are now involved in the New Community Co-op which is a group that provides child care for the Wednesday night services. Co-op parents drop their kids off when they go to church but then once every 5 weeks they have to then work in the co-op and watch the kids. I’ve quickly learned that watching children is not a gift that I have so I’m looking forward to being on the security team while Cheridy can deal with the whining kids as she seems to tolerate it a lot more than I do even though it’s not her favorite thing in the world either.
On the other hand, what I’ve been called to do is to help out with Africa Christian Ministries (ACM) where I am now on the board of directors and hoping to take ACM into some new directions using some of the technology that is available to us (blogs, website, facebook account, e-newsletter) and tie all those things together to help raise awareness of what that great ministry is doing.
Overall I think this time of year can be quite challenging trying to keep up with everything that comes near the end of our busy season. This year is especially different because now we have Mayz and need to balance in family time and play time with him as well and we’re just going to continuing praying for guidance and direction to help make the best decisions for our family and business.
Thanks for reading.
Here’s a parting shot…
Mayz’ hair used to do this on it’s own. Now it takes the miracle of hair gel:
