One Bite at a Time

Yesterday marked two full weeks with Noelle. On one hand, it’s been easier than I thought — the actual care part. On the other hand, there’s so much to think about for the future. Our emergency fund isn’t finished. There’s a lot of education to save for. Medical bills are starting to arrive. What career path am I ultimately going to choose? It’s overwhelming.

I’ve tackled a lot of large and daunting goals in life: paid off tens of thousands of dollars in debt to become debt free, lost 60 pounds and ran a Spartan race, got a few Black Belts, got a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (still working on more), built a business from the ground up, and so on. But standing here looking at what needs to be done to give Noelle an amazing life is the largest task to date. And I refuse to use debt to accomplish any of it. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to pay for it — with real money.

There’s an old saying that I always refer to when facing large tasks. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I have a fork, but obviously it’s better if somehow I can take bigger bites. So I have to figure out how to make my fork bigger. Time to hustle harder.

{ The Image }

Noelle is lying on a white blanket which is on top of a pillow. Lighting is simple: an LP160 in a shoot through umbrella at camera right. A white reflector at camera left. It’s not one of my favorite shots but my wife liked it so here it is. I imagine the older she gets the easier this is going to get. From when we set Noelle down on the blanket to getting this shot was about 38 seconds — then she got upset. It’s been that way every time.

Leading up to her arrival I imagined having hours to setup and shoot pictures as she slept silently. Not a chance. She knows when you have a camera in your hand and she’s not particularly happy about it. I’m convinced that newborn photographers drug their clients 😉 I’m not going to give up though.