2013 Interns: Meet Chelsea | #sincerelylizphoto

Internet, meet Chelsea.

She is adorable, witty, and lovable. I am so excited to have her joining our team this semester. She is passionate about small business, social media, and her husband, Tucker. She will be working with me on PR/Marketing projects. When we get together, we totally have fun nerding out about social media and coming up with fun ideas for the business.

Recently I asked her a few random questions in an attempt to help you all get to know her a bit. I hope you'll take the time to read her answers and welcome her to the team!

1. When you were a kid, what did you want to be? When I was a child I wanted to be a photographer or writer for National Geographic magazine. My dad collected them for me for most of my childhood, and unknowingly introduced me to the word 'wanderlust'. I still want to travel a ton, but I have since lost my desire to be a National Geographic writer. I'd much rather manage a blog for them these days.
2. What do you do on your days off? I drink an exorbitant amount of coffee, attempt to clean my house, catch up on TV shows via Hulu, and walk around beautiful downtown Lynchburg. I also attempt to bake things every once and a while.
3. Tell us about someone that's an important part of your every day life and why he or she is important to you. I'm going to have to go with my wonderful husband, Tucker. He makes every day, and every circumstance an adventure and is a far better companion than I could have ever hoped for or even imagined. We recently got married (July 2012) and are soaking up all of the wonderful things about being newlyweds, especially after dating since high school. He is definitely an important and super fun part of my day!
4. What is your favorite blog? I have quite a few favorite blogs. My first is A Beautiful Mess, which is a blog I have followed for several years now. It is a lifestyle blog that is simply about creating and enjoying a beautiful life, and it is often my inspiration to enjoy the life I am so blessed to live. Another blog that I just recently found out about is And Then We Saved, which is another lifestyle blog about living on the cheap. It follows a journey of paying off debt, and realizing the fun things that you can do for cheap or free. She also has a ton of fun guides to things like cutting your own hair and making sugar scrubs out of coffee. As someone who is getting ready to graduate college I'm loving a good 'I paid off $50,000 dollars in debt in a year' story.
5. What is your dream job? My dream job is such a tough scenario to see played out in my actual life. There are so many things that I want to do! I want to be a traveling social media and advertising guru. I want to work from home and have strange and ecclectic children running around my house one day in the distant future. I want to work with my husband and start a graphic design & advertising cooperative that focuses on small business growth and expansion. I want to write and publish book or two. I want to meet & blog about celebrities, tv shows, and movies for a living. I want to be a bakery chef. I want to do a lot of things, but I think I have been given one of the greatest gifts of all: not having a specific dream job. This allows me to dream big, and be happy exactly where I am until I move on to something else.

Yay Chelsea! Doesn't she sound like so much fun?? Here she is in all of her adorableness!

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Equipment used for this session:  canon 5d mark ii // canon 50mm f/1.2 lens

Liz Cook is the owner and photographer of sincerely, liz: photography. She is a virginia wedding photographer and virginia portrait photographer who loves virginia weddings, family portrait sessions and couple photography.

To see more of Liz’s work, check out her latest work as well as some of her favorite weddings. To hire Liz, simply fill out this form.

seeing beauty again | #gratituesday

These dogs have been less than enjoyable for me over the past year (maybe two?). I have had little to no compassion for them, very short patience, and quiet honestly, I think they have felt the same way about me. If it wasn't for Tommy, they probably would have run away forever and ever. (Instead they would run off during the day and come home at night to hang out with him. Every single day, guys. Every day.)

We finally invested in an invisible fence and they have learned their boundaries. They have stopped ignoring my commands and what do you know... I happen to give them bones a lot more often than I used to, too! Things are looking up!

And they are pretty good with Sunday, too. Hawkeye can't lick her enough and Traveler just avoids her (which is much better than the other option of telling Sunday how she really feels).

This past week my intern, Chelsea, snapped this shot of Traveler and posted it to Instagram. As I scrolled through my IG feed, it suddenly took my breath away. I forgot... how adorable she is. How much she is very much alive and well... and needs love and attention, too.

So this week we reached out with a little more effort. We've had a lot of doggy cuddling time and extra bones have been given during the day. Our relationship is on the upswing again and I'm feeling really good about that.

I'm grateful for these pups. They are so good... obedient, patient, and loving. Far from inconvenient or a burden - truly. I have a hard time remembering that. I'm thankful for my new perspective this week.

Join us for Gratituesday at heavenly homemakers!

2013 Interns: Meet Becker | #sincerelylizphoto

Internet, meet Becker.

Her real name is Kaitlyn but she goes by Becker. That makes her super cool to me. I always wish I had stopped being embarrassed by my middle name (Carter) and used it as my first name, too. (True confessions!) :)

Becker is laid back, intuitive, and artistic. She is a dreamer, a talented photographer, and super eager to learn. I am really looking forward to working with her this semester. She will be assisting me at some weddings as well as working on graphic design projects for me during our time together. I am so excited about all that she will be bringing to the Sincerely, Liz, Inc. team.

I asked Becker a few questions to help introduce her to you all. Please take the time to read her answers below and welcome her to the team!!

1. When you were a kid, what did you want to be? I wanted to be some sort of performer or creator. I knew my life would not be boring. My mother sings opera, and my father is a photographer. My mother says that my interests were also "dramatic", from ballet and irish step-dancing, to opera and writing. I recall going through mountains of National Geographic magazines, cutting out my favorite pictures, and knowing right then that I was meant to be a storyteller through photographs. So, I decided to shoot for the mundane and be either a famous musician (I play the viola) or a National Geographic Photographer! You never know what God has in store....
2. What do you do on your days off? On my days off I read, read, read! And I love spontaneous adventures in good weather like hiking, waterfall-jumping at panther falls, walks in the park with my boyfriend Josiah, and getting in shape at the gym! If I was back in my hometown, Rhode Island, I would be at the beach swimming everyday and enjoying clamcakes and chowder.
3. Tell us about someone that’s an important part of your every day life and why he or she is important to you. Wow, narrowing that down is very hard. I'm going to have to say that Josiah Johnson is one of the most influential people in my life. I know everyone says their boyfriend is their "best friend." But he really is. He pushes me to try harder, and is incredibly supportive of my larger-than-life goals, always giving me great critiques on my graphic design projects and encouraging me. He is the goofiest person I know, with the biggest arsenal of character voices, funny accents, puns, and silly card games. I have learned to take myself a little less seriously (too many embarassing stories to tell here...) in the time I've known him, and to trust God in everything. He loves me the way I am, but continually makes me a better person with each day we spend together; The Mark of the good man.
4. What is your favorite blog? I divide my blog-time pretty equally between a few, but I love my photography blogs! I love to look up the newest adventures on this National Geographic Adventures blog. My favorite was a Mongolian Horse Trek feature. I also check out blogs on old vintage cameras like Film is not dead. A few fitness blogs have been motivating me lately, too.
5. What is your dream job? Oooh, thats a toughy. I'm still a little kid at heart and I want to do 5,000 different things. I would love to be a documentary photographer. I love storytelling, I love travel, I love being involved and recording what is around me. I did a documentary with The Festival Ballet Providence in Rhode Island and I fell in love with the story that was unfolding before me. Thats why I love National Geographic so much, because of their great stories through images. I have toyed with the idea of also owning my own photographic film darkroom in an artist community....a very small, but needed niche.

She inspires me so much! To be young again with the world at your fingertips... I just love her heart. :)

So, of course I had to do a portrait session with each of my interns..! (More to come later this week.) Becker's session was planned super last minute when the local weatherman began predicting snow in the forecast last week. We exchanged a few texts and ended up meeting in the corner of a parking lot for about 15 minutes the next morning to capture the pictures below. I just love how these came out and was jumping for joy that her artistic eye knew JUST what colors to wear with her porcelain skin against the pure white snow. So, so pretty!

I invited Josiah (her boyfriend) along for a few fun pictures at the end and was reminded, again, how passionate I am about capturing the love and chemistry between two people. You guys, I seriously snapped pictures of them for less than 4 minutes and look at the joy they instantly shared! Becker just lights up in Josiah's presence!

Such a fun semester ahead!!

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Equipment used for this session:  canon 5d mark ii // canon 50mm f/1.2 lens

Liz Cook is the owner and photographer of sincerely, liz: photography. She is a virginia wedding photographer and virginia portrait photographer who loves virginia weddings, family portrait sessions and couple photography.

To see more of Liz’s work, check out her latest work as well as some of her favorite weddings. To hire Liz, simply fill out this form.

Food Confessions | #wellness

If we are friends on Facebook, you have likely caught on that I share a lot about food on my timeline. I post things like information about the paleo diet, eating gluten free, and the lies I believe the government has told us for years about nutrition (i.e. fat is bad, sugar is not so bad - LIES!). I share these things because I follow a ton of food related Facebook pages and blogs... I follow them because I'm obsessed with food... Or, rather: I'm obsessed with my diet.

And, big confession: all of this roots in the truth that I am not happy with my body.

Now, I'm not writing this so people will respond and tell me I'm beautiful. So please don't do that. I am writing because I am on a journey and I want to share it with you. And seriously, I'm not the only one who isn't happy with her body so let's not pretend I am.

I want to be healthy and strong. And I am not as healthy and as strong as I would like to be. As I should be.

So this is my journey.

Sometimes (a lot of times), I find myself blaming society for raising us American kids with so much immediate gratification, indulgence, and really horrible food on the shelves in the grocery store. I want to blame my parents for giving me anything and everything I could have ever wanted before I even knew I wanted it. (They loved me so!) I want to point my finger and blame the people around me for raising me with bad habits and a lack of self-control.

But of course, it's no one's fault but my own.

Now, moment of truth: I'm a mom. And I do not have healthy eating habits. And it's time I face this issue of mine.

So, I stare into the mirror and ask "What will you change so that your daughter will not struggle like this?" I've said before that I really like (need) to focus on small steps. If I can change one thing at a time (maybe two), then I am more likely to find success in the future versus trying crash diets and huge overnight changes and failing repeatedly.

Because of what I share on Facebook and here on my blog, it's easy for people to assume that we eat paleo all the time, that we have a gluten free diet, and that we never drink soda. But the truth is, we still have a lot of bad eating habits and I share the research findings and interesting blog posts on social media because I am preaching to myself. I'm trying to learn, to take it all in, and ultimately to motivate myself to get my act together.

So here are our family truths:

• Eating paleo is always my goal around here, but we fail daily (see below). And Tommy is not really on board with the idea at all.
• I intend not to eat or serve starches at home (that includes rice, grains, and lentils, etc), but Tommy needs starches (both because he wants them and also because he is an endurance runner). So then I try not to eat the rice when I make it for him. But I always do.
• I believe gluten is bad for our bodies and we were not designed to eat it. But I purchase and we eat tortillas regularly. (I justify this by saying we don't eat bread… but I'm only fooling myself.)
• We drink soda. Tommy drinks it daily, I'll have a few swallows probably once a month. I love me some Mountain Dew.
• I am a fast food (Bojangles) junkie. I go through phases but my bad habit probably equals out to 1 meal a week from Bojangles (including sweet tea).
• I may have made the switch from white sugar to maple syrup or honey (both great, natural options), but I haven't changed the ridiculous quantity of sweetener in my life. I use a lot of syrup in my coffee, with organic half and half as well. (Although I've come a long way from the processed Sweet Italian Creamer!)
• I justify fats as being healthy... and we eat a lot of them. Coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, butter... and really these things are good for you... but everything in moderation. It's the moderation part I struggle with!

Those are merely the beginning of our truths. I am not happy with my body because I still have bad habits - eating and fitness. But I'm learning. It's a process… a journey.

I am going to be sharing my journey with you all in a little more detail than I have in the past. I hope to share the why behind the what, the resources I have found helpful, and the challenges I'm up against in our home. Our steps have been small, but they are adding up. Here's to health… and encouraging one another!

Read to me, mama!

Sunday says, "Read to me, Mama!"

And I say... "Tommy! Sunday wants you to read to her!"

And Tommy just can't say no...

But he knows what I'm up to. :)