Short and sweet today. I am thankful for wonderful fluffy hotel beds and pillows. I have been craving them this week.

Today I am thankful for beautiful sunsets. Even thought it is getting dark super early these days; witnessing sunsets like these make it totally worth it.

Today I am thankful for big, fluffy covers. I love to wrap myself up in them and just sleep the night away. With the recent time change, I feel my body just craving my bed and my covers. This picture just makes me want to crawl back into bed and spend the morning reading or cuddling. Happy beautiful Saturday everyone.

Today I am thankful for long flights. Now your thinking, what?? Who likes sitting on a plane for an extend period of time,  let alone in a middle seat? Yes, this girl. But hear me out.  I just returned from Seattle ,WA where I had a mentor session with the fabulous Sarah & Chris Rhoads. I will talk more of this awesome experience soon.

Alright back to the subject, my plane ride there was about a three hour flight from mpls. So, I had just finished watching my rented movie on my iPhone (I had never done this before, but it rocked my socks off and I will be doing it every time I fly again) I looked down at the time and we still had about an hour and a half and I sat there a little anxious on what I was going to do for the rest of the flight. No cell service, no Internet, no facebook oh my. What am I going to do?

After fidgeting a bit, I took a deep breath and pulled out my new journal that I purchased from anthropologie. I have had this little number for weeks but everytime I picked it up, I put it down because I was distracted by another activity or it looked too pretty to write in. I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but I just don’t love my handwriting. It just never looks as nice as everyone else’s.  So I said to myself, “Really Gina, you bought a journal just to carry around and look at, really???” after a little self talk, I dove into writing in my never been touched journal. No agenda, no subject, just scribbled down my thoughts. Four pages of scribble later, I remembered how much I loved to write. It was so refeshing to search my thoughts with no other distractions. I can honestly say that I hadn’t experienced true quiet time in months, maybe in years. I had forgotten how to slow down, and process onto paper. This experience was so refreshing, and probably never would have unless I would have been stuck with nothing to do on that plane, so yes I am thankful for long flights.

Today I am thankful for clients that share their hearts with me. This August I got a phone call from a past client that you never want to get. Their family just got word that her father Tom was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and that she wanted to set up a session of the entire family because there wasn’t much time. My heart just sank. Being that my husbands family member had recently lost her battle with this nasty cancer in months, I understood the importance of these photos.

The day came for the big family session and to be truthfully honest…. I was dreading it. I don’t typically shoot large multiple family photos. I also had a jammed packed day with client meetings and a couple other rescheduled sessions. So as I was approaching the location, I was putting my game face on and ready to snap right through the session. I arrived and was introduced to everyone and then BAM.

This family welcomed me with just by the smile on their faces. I literally stopped in my tracks for a second with near tears while meeting this group. For the next hour or so this family just truly loved on one another and I had the great honor of capturing it. I was immersed in their giggles, hugs and love that was just ooozzzing out of each and every one of them from grandchildren to adults. I also was truly expecting a very sick Grandfather, but Tom didn’t even wince at the pain. He spent the whole session making everyone else laugh, cry, play. He made my day, truly made my day. You would never have guessed that he was headed to hospice the next day. Tom lost his battle with cancer on Friday, October 23, 2009 surrounded by his ever supportive family.

This family truly shared their hearts with me, and for that I am eternally grateful. Every time I look through these images I have happy tears of the beautiful moments that these truly were. Again, Joy thank you so much for the opportunity to share these moments with your family. Much love to you all.
Tom, you were a amazing man even in the short couple of hours that I met you. You truly touched my heart and made me better. I know you are clowning around with all of the Lord’s angels these days and smiling down on us. Thank you for sharing your life and your family with me.

Today I am thankful for boots! I love love love boots. They are so comfy and I am so happy they are really in style this year. While searching for outfits for my mentor session with the Rhoads this week, I came across these boots. Seriously I share a name with these killer boots?  I may or may not of had to purchase them, but its fate right?

Also, on my to purchase when I am famous have lots and lots of money 🙂 list are these yummy ones. Here is me in Colorado rockin’ my gray boots and being a dork. priceless right?

Can you believe it is already November? I feel like this year has just flown by and I can hardly believe that the holidays are just around the corner. I definitely think that this goofy weather has played a part in feeling like we were shorted a warm summer and a typical beautiful Minnesota fall.  This year I have really realized that life goes by at its own pace and unless I make every moment count, unless I slow down to stop and smell the roses, to notice the simple things… Time will just wisp away through another season and I am left feeling like…”what? it’s over? where did the time go?”

So in light of Thanksgiving this month, I am going to post daily about something I am thankful for. This is something I intended to do weekly with my Thankful Thursdays when I launched my new blog, but things have been so busy. I seriously am doing this because I feel that there are so many little things that I am missing. I truly want to slow down and find those little things that God has blessed me with and notice them, voice them. That being said, I am making a commitment to blog each day until Thanksgiving (hence the bold in the sentence above). Did you hear that? I mean read that… I want you to be my accountability partners, I want you to be on me like white on rice, like my trainer at the gym, like peanut butter to jelly. I mean it. Thank you in advance.

Also if you stop by… add a comment on what you are thankful for.  It will be just a little fun thankful, grateful share-fest. You can comment daily, weekly, or maybe just once. I would love to hear about what you all appreciate in your daily lives. I promise it will be fun.

So with further adieu…Today I am thankful for…