Update on yours truly

Well - my life is currently a giant pool of stress :-) But I thought I'd update my blog since it's been a while.

On the homefront: Chris has been working from home for quite some time now, which is nice (but don't tell him I said that!) He cooks dinner for me most nights, keeps up with the laundry and generally makes my life easier. Plus I get to see him more... which almost makes up for having to share the bed every night. Plus I get to sleep about 5 extra minutes in the morning because he feeds the dogs :-) We have not yet adopted a baby :-( If you know anyone pregnant looking into adoption, send 'em our way! Seriously! Buffy, Faith and Soleil are all doing well.

At work: I still adore my job, even though this is the most stressful time of year for it. I am about halfway through IEPs. I got an extension to turn in my GAAs a couple of weeks later than the original due date because of comps, so those are now due this Friday. Feel free to visit my class blog to see my kiddos and what we've been doing! I update it with a little more regularity than I do this one.

School: I have finished my coursework and taken the first part of my comprehensive exams. The take home portion of comps is due this Friday and then my oral defense is on March 25. IF I pass all of that, I will be ABD (all but dissertation) so I should be "Dr. Mays" within a year or so, barring any disasters. I truly don't know yet if I would deem it "worth it" or not - I'm leaning towards not but they tell me I will feel differently when it's all over. We'll see!

Photography: I am still taking pictures, just not as often as I'd like to be. As far as the "business" goes, I have busy spurts (mostly around Christmas, beginning of fall and beginning of spring) and then will go weeks without any appointments - which is fine with me!! I love taking pictures, but I'm relatively busy with work and school and definitely want to keep the "business" very small and limited for multiple reasons, not the least of which being that I SUCK at the business aspect - i.e. collecting money, customer service (I hate talking on the phone to strangers which makes me procrastinate on returning phone calls which makes me look bad), etc. But I have a few loyal clients who keep me as busy as I want to be (sometimes busier LOL) and it's fun to document a baby's lifetime! So far I've photographed 3 different "first years" (4 if you count Caden) which is awesome.

Here is a sampling of some of my recent work - my photography website is http://photo.nicolemays.com and I keep intending to start a blog just for my photo biz but haven't gotten around to it ... story of my life, lately!