Finally starting 2012

So our blog posts have been missing, for over a month now. Not missing in the sense of "where did they go?", but missing in the sense that none have been composed. Of course, that started out from the pure overload and ongoing stress of the holiday season. (Did I mention a big industrial shoot that couldn't be rescheduled, and the day before spending it in the e.r. with Conor being diagnosed with pneumonia, the next day Jeff with a sinus infection, while he shot outside all day in the cold and the next in the freezing rain, the next day Lane with an ear infection and the client from the industrial shoot needing super fast turnaround time?) We were so busy, that the first day we actually got to enjoy and didn't have a deadline to meet was on Christmas Eve, and I'm not kidding. And I can say, it wasn't all our fault, we followed delivery dates given by one of our vendors, and they took it to December 23, which had us wondering if we would be driving all over Central PA on Christmas Eve delivering orders that we had promised for Christmas. If that is what we had to do to keep our promises to our clients, that is what we were going to do. Luckily, everyone lived or worked nearby (and insisted it was not out of their way to come to our house to get their goods), so our last client meeting was around 2pm that day. Lesson learned from that, orders for that particular vendor for the holidays need to be submitted by us a month before their cut off so we're not sweating and stalking our orders page waiting for the "order shipped" confirmation to come up. Not a fun thing when you have two young kiddos who are super excited for Christmas too and you want to enjoy the excitement with them.

We got through the holidays, were able to enjoy a much needed week of downtime and reorganization of our office at home and then got back on track. Back to meeting with wedding clients, designing albums, processing orders and put a full day architectural shoot for a builder in there for good measure. Even though I enjoy doing blog posts and sharing pictures, sometimes I just want to spend some time with my kids, go to bed or read a little bit after staring at the computer screen all day. Being a photographer, if you want to survive and pay your bills, you take the jobs when you can get them. Because two months from now, things are going to be really slow, as they always are that time of year. That's just how it is. Our former intern, Katelin, shared this chart with us and it is so true.


Jeff and I have a list of things we want to implement into Blue Dog, change and overhaul. It's going to take a while, but we'll get there. I promise to do some new blog posts, geez, maybe even tomorrow. But before I go, I will answer the one question we have been getting more than anything else lately: How do you like working from home?

Now keep in mind, we have been working from our studio (which has always been a 10 minute drive from our home) for 10 years. That is a long time. So if we wanted to work on an order, we would have to drive into the studio. Work on marketing material, drive into the studio. Respond to emails - well, that we could remote in to do. At first I didn't think I would like working from home. What would make me get dressed if we didn't have an appointment? What would keep me on track? How would people find us if we weren't downtown anymore? Well, we are still downtown in a sense - we meet our clients in a rented space downtown and it's awesome! We don't have to keep our regular business hours and then stay late to meet with someone from out of town, or juggle schedules for Saturdays, we just change things a little bit. We can spend more time with Conor and Lane - who both still go to daycare, since we do need to get some work done here. But we can take them in a little later or pick them up a little earlier because we don't have set business hours dictating when we have to do our work. I can finish my album designs after the munchkins have gone to bed, I can respond to emails on weekends, I can meet clients when it's convenient for them and not secretly groan that it means I'm going to have to be at the studio for 12 hours. All said and done, we like it, still getting used to it, and we both agree, we should have made this move a few months before we actually did.