I Got a Ring

Four years ago, John completely surprised me when he pulled a ring out of his pocket and asked me if I would marry him.

I remember being completely in love, completely excited to be become his wife, completely thankful for that moment.

Today, I am still in love, happy to be married to my man, thankful for every day that we get to be husband and wife. Our lives are not what we planned or expected - but we are blessed beyond measure.

I am glad John had the guts to ask me to marry him!

Husband and Wife

Click here to see more images of Chad and Anna's wedding!

P.S. Thank you Hailey Rahm for giving me the opportunity to be your second shooter! Check out her website to see more photographs of the wedding in the near future.

A Little Hill Called Everest

So, I have not written in a while because I’ve been super busy being a party animal.

Or not!

In reality, I have been trying to catch up with life. I can easily become overwhelmed when I have too many things going on at the same time – and simple tasks become a bigger deal. Every little hill starts looking like Mount Everest all of the sudden.

I took some time away from the blog to be able to get through some of those little mountains:

-Second shooting a wedding (photographs will be up soon!)

-Preparing to have friends over who were in town

-Getting ready for Christmas vacation with family

-Planning up coming photoshoots

…

I am looking forward to having a bit of a break soon to celebrate Christmas with some people I love!

I hope you are doing well, wherever you may be at this very minute.

"Frustrated" is the Word of the Day

I feel frustrated. My mind is busy with 101 things that I need to do – yet I know I don’t have enough time to do it all.

If you don’t know this about me yet, let me just warn you that I tend to be very much task oriented. If there are things to do, I sure have a list that helps me plan everything and I tend to think about that list until everything is complete and crossed out. This system helps me be organized. It allows me to stay on top of things. However, this system can also become my Master. In other words, I become its slave. And here is where life gets messy.

For the past year, John and I have talked about how we wanted this Christmas to be peaceful and restful. We planned on taking time to thank God for the gift of Jesus and prepare to celebrate his birth with hearts full of joy. We planned on not becoming too busy.

We planned and planned and planned. And here I am frustrated with the many things we once again have going on.

Knowing there is too much to do and little time to accomplish it all, I become a little robot – trying to do as much possible, as fast as possible. Meanwhile, I neglect my relationship with God and John. The things that should be a priority don’t even make it to the task list.

John shared with me on our drive to work this morning that he feels like he is not important enough to be part of my list. Hearing him say that hurt. It hurt badly because I am trying so hard to do my best in 100 different areas of life. But in the middle of my hurt, I can’t blame him for feeling the way he feels.

Knowing that I need to make time to have quality time with John, I struggle letting go of my list. After all, if I don’t do the things on the list, no one else will. Do you see my dilemma? I try so hard to do everything…but I know that I can’t do it all. But I still try. And I get frustrated.

That is pretty much how I feel right now.

Life Recently

Can you believe it is almost Christmas time? A part of me feels like it was just Christmas a few months ago…but here it is again! I am very much looking forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus with family.

Meanwhile, I am attempting to build a new routine – still. You are all probably sick and tired of reading about me trying to build a new routine. Sorry! But the routine is well in the making and my brain is doing way better than a few weeks ago (right after I started a new job). By the way, I should tell you a couple of things about my new job. I am the Fund Development Associate for a nonprofit that provides tutoring services for first through twelfth graders in low income neighborhoods. I love my job! I am learning a lot about fundraising, grant writing and tutoring. It has been a hard transition, but it has been very worth it.

As far as other areas of life…well, here is a list of things that come to mind:

·         I decided to not get a Christmas tree this year, but I am already sad that we don’t get to decorate a tree. By the way, I am not sure how a pine tree got to become a part of Christmas…and I must say that I get a tree because a real one smells good and I think it is super cute when it is all decorated with non-blinking clear lights! However, I refuse to let the lack of a tree take away the joy of my Christmas. Seriously, Christmas should always be about Jesus and nothing else.

·         I need a haircut really bad.

·         I pretty much ate yams every day this past week.

·         John and I had a much needed date night last night. It is hard to find time and energy to be together these days. I like to think this  time in life is preparing us for life with children.

·         I just cleaned the bathtub.

·         I really dislike cleaning bathtubs.

·         A lot of good things happened this week and I feel very thankful.

·         I have a couple of photography opportunities coming soon and I am so excited! Stay tuned.

·         I love tutoring!

Well, the list could go on and on, but I am sure you have had enough by now. I hope you have a good and relaxing weekend. Take some time to reflect on the ways you have been blessed this last year.

Free Photoshoot Winners

The winners have been contacted and I can't wait to capture some special moments!

I will be posting some images from these shoots in the future, so stay tuned.

Announcement!

Since December is my favorite month, I decided this is a good time to offer three FREE photoshoots! Please email me if you are interested.

info (at) daniellynobile (dot) com

Deadline is Sunday, December 5th at 12:00am – so make sure you send me an email before then. Please write ‘FREE photoshoot’ in the subject line. I will be using a random number generator to choose three people.

I am looking forward to being your photographer soon!