Posts from the ‘Personal’ Category

Feb 14

Happy Valentine’s Day/Generosity Day – Doug and Victory!

Happy Valentine’s Day/Generosity Day to my two sweethearts — you both make my life so much sweeter!

Doug and I are celebrating Valentine’s Day/Generosity Day with little Victory! It is our first Valentine’s Day with little Victory, and for Doug and I it is our tenth Valentine’s Day together! Unknown to each of us at the time, on our very first Valentine’s Day, Doug and I got each other the exact same Valentine’s card! I still have this card tucked away along with all the other cards Doug has given me over the years! I love cards!

I really like the idea of Valentine’s Day being Generosity Day, a movement started by Sasha Dichter! Generosity leads to confidence and happiness, which then leads to good health and inner peace, which then leads to world peace. Generosity is the ultimate gesture of love.

“Love recognizes no barrier. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” ~Maya Angelou

Happy Valentine’s Day/Generosity Day to all!

Feb 11

Happiness Jars!

I recently learned about something called a ‘happiness jar!’ Over the weekend, I made my own little happiness jar, shown below. Can you tell that I love stickers! Either daily or weekly you write down on a tiny piece of scrap paper the happiest moment of your day, which will stay preserved in the happiness jar for years to come! I thought that this would be a neat practice that I wanted to incorporate. It only takes a few seconds to write down and preserve the simplest and happiest moments. I like how it is a tactile practice and non-electronic, something that is rare these days! I also think that it will be neat to refer to this jar in the future looking back on a younger version of myself! I also believe that this is a good way to practice gratitude! You can get inspired and check out a whole bunch of happiness jars here!

Happy Tuesday!

Feb 3

1 Comment

Two Year Blogiversary!

Today is the two-year Blogiversary of www.biscuitsspace.com the blog for Katherine Carver Photography! It is difficult to believe that two years have already passed by so quickly! Here is a post to the one year Blogiversary! Also, here is the first post on the blog. The blog has come a long way since I began the blog two year ago! To commemorate each year of the blog, I am working on making blog books, a book compiling all the blog posts for each year — 2012 and 2013, a total of 509 blog posts! The blog, to me, is an online journal, something that we can always refer back to capturing memories and snippets in time.

If it were not for our beloved Biscuit, I am not sure I would have ever started blogging. Biscuit was such a blessing and gift to us. Biscuit permanently changed our lives in so many ways and Biscuit sent us our precious little Victory. Of course, the blog could not be possible without my inspiration — our precious fur babies, Biscuit and Victory — my muse and the stars of the blog, shown below!

Thank you to all of you who read and subscribe to this blog! I have enjoyed sharing my journey along with sharing my photography, our fur babies, and parts of my life with you. I greatly appreciate your support, and I hope that you continue to enjoy reading the blog!

Thank you so very much for your support!

Jan 31

1 Comment

Around Here This Week

This week has flown by really quickly! We are looking forward to the weekend!

-This week Doug was away on travel for work and it was just me and little Victory! While I was at the gym the other night, Victory managed to get hold of a full bag of chicken flavored Greenies Pill Pockets and she chewed through the bag and she ate all but two pill pockets! She is a smart and stealthy sheltie girl! So far, she is doing ok! Evidently, Victory is getting more confident, and we are not going to keep any food within her reach!

-This week Victory started to make motions that she is interested in playing! She is coming out of her shell more and more and we are seeing more of her personality shine through each day!

-Victory is going to meet some furry friends for the first time this weekend in the City!

-This week we ordered Victory’s Valentine’s gift! Hopefully, she will like it! Also, check out these neat scratch off Valentine’s if you are in need of some Valentine’s!

-I love these new Lululemon tops and yoga pants that Doug got me! I love Lululemon and I remember the times that Biscuit came with us to the Lululemon stores in Nova Scotia and in Maryland, including the dressing room — he never liked to be left out! (P.S. — here are the best, most comfortable undies ever from Lululemon — I think I have almost every color/pattern!)

-I hope to make some more progress on my photography project — lots of editing work to complete!

-Also, we’re planning more rest. Doug and I have made a conscious effort to make more time for rest, which has been really helpful.

-Most of all, I am so happy that Doug is coming home today! We have ‘date night’ tonight — hope to try a new restaurant, something different! We are also almost done with getting caught up on the Son’s of Anarchy! Victory will have watched every episode with us! When it gets warmer and after some training, Victory will be able to join us for ‘date night’!

-Also, I’m still practicing trust, my word for the year.

Happy Friday!

Jan 29

1 Comment

Gratitude and Making Art

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” ~Rilke

I have a theory that there is a connection between gratitude and creativity, making art. I believe that if you have more gratitude, it is easier to make art — especially if you are in the middle of a large project, which requires a lot of perseverance and patience.

As creators we are constantly looking for what is next. Our next body of work, project or goal, and how we are going to get there. With this forward-looking perspective, we often focus on what we are lacking. However, the mindset focused on improvement can really push us forward with our creative work but every so often we need to center ourselves. We need to come back to who we are and what we do and think about what we are grateful for.

Thus, if you can focus on giving thanks; the positive; being thankful for where you are at; and showing gratitude it will enable you to continue your creative work more easily instead of focusing on the gaps and what is missing. Gratitude – whether we feel it or receive it – gives birth to creative ideas.

Happy Wednesday!

Jan 24

1 Comment

Not “There” Yet

“Do your thing. Do it unapologetically. Don’t be discouraged by criticism. You probably already know what they’re going to say. Pay no mind to the fear of failure. It’s far more valuable than success. Take ownership, take chances, and have fun. And no matter what, don’t ever stop doing your thing.” ~Aster Roth.

Often we think to ourselves or we have have heard others say, “I’m not there yet.”

Here is the thing to remember about a phrase like that, the thing that you have to understand and remember: The “there” in “not there yet” is not a real destination. And if you put off doing anything until you get “there,” you will spend you entire life waiting to arrive.

The fact of the matter is that nobody is going to tell you that you have “arrived.” I recently saw a card that put it very poignantly, “Do you know what all great professional athletes, writers, and actors have in common? None of them started out that way.”

Ultimately, each person has to make that choice for themselves that is his/her time.

Do the thing that you do not think you can do. This is how you will get to “there.”

Happy Friday and stay warm this weekend — it is super cold here!

Jan 21

Victory: Snow Day!

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ~John Steinbeck

Today we have been enjoying a snow day with our little Victory! We are glad to be home in this weather. The snow is coming down in all directions attempting to blot out the neighborhood colors. Isn’t it amazing how the snow blankets the other noise in your life and you become grateful to be tucked in and witness winter’s beauty?

We put Victory’s pink coat on her and we took her outside for her afternoon walk. As you can see in the images below, the snow is really coming down here! Little Victory was a little trooper in the snow! Here is a link to Victory’s first snow! After her walk in the snow, Victory took a long nap with her Daddy!

Today is also special because it is the 500th post on the blog!

Happy Tuesday!

Jan 20

1 Comment

What kind of accent do you have?

What kind of accent do you have? I recently came across this dialect quiz that has spread all over the web. I grew up in Michigan and after taking the dialect quiz, the results concluded that I have an accent from three possible geographic areas: Rockford, Illinois; Toledo Ohio; and Detroit, Michigan. So, the test seems pretty accurate as I grew up in Southeast Michigan! Doug said that he can sometimes still hear the Michigan accent with certain words even though I have not lived in Michigan for about twelve years!

Have fun taking the dialect quiz!

Happy Monday!

Jan 17

1 Comment

Victory: Tuck In Ritual

Do you have a “tuck in ritual” before bed with your furry family member? We have a nightly routine and “tuck in ritual” with little Victory each night. When we come home from the gym after dinner during the week, we play with Victory and watch a little TV with her — She is a Sons of Anarchy fan! I think Doug wants to get little Victory a cut — but I think Victory is much more sophisticated! Then, we take Victory for her nightly walk around the neighborhood. She always gets a little treat after each walk as positive reinforcement for doing a good job on her walk!

Then, we head up to bed, and then little Victory comes up the stairs behind us and she literally runs and hops into bed squarely between the pillows and our headboard waiting for us to come to bed. (On the weekends when we are able to stay up later, sometimes, Victory heads up the stairs on her own and puts herself to bed!) Once in bed, we then give Victory a bowl of water in the hopes that she will not wake us up for a “midnight drink of water!” However, around 2:00 a.m., recently without fail, Victory runs up and down the middle of the bed waking us up for a drink! Usually Doug gets up and gets her fresh water! We are working on Victory getting out of the bed to get her water on her own!

Additionally, instead of Victory immediately settling down and going to sleep between one of our heads and our headboard, as Victory had been doing since we adopted her, Victory has recently been quite active at night. She keeps us up most nights for an hour or so wanting to play! We think this is a good sign that she is getting more comfortable with us and her new home! However, both of us, including Victory, are pretty tired in the mornings! However, unlike us, Victory has the luxury of sleeping all day! Victory does let us sleep in on the weekends, which is really nice! We do think that Victory enjoys the predictability of our night-time ritual.

We had a somewhat similar night-time ritual with our beloved Biscuit — except he slept on his Orvis bed next to my side of the bed and he usually only woke us up if he had a potty emergency! Sometimes on the weekends, Biscuit would join us in bed so that we could sleep in a little longer!

The ordinary moments are the moments I most savor.

Happy Friday!

Jan 15

Critiques

I very much miss the classroom based critiques from college. It was always nice to put up my work and receive feedback from peers and my professor on my work.

However, since I am not currently in a traditional classroom setting, I find the following helpful in terms of obtaining feedback on my work — projects.

1. Critique Partner: Find a critique partner in order to help give each other feedback on your respective work to help ensure that you are making ‘strong work.’ I believe having a critique partner or regular critiques, with people you trust is a nice way to receive feedback on my work.

2. Artists You Admire: Contact artists whose work you admire to see if he/she will provide you with feedback on your work. Most people are happy to help. I have reached out to photographers whose work I admire, and I have formed some nice relationships with other photographers and artists who have provided feedback on my work, which has been very helpful.

3. Former Professor(s): If you still have relationships with former professors, you can reach out to him/her and request feedback on your work.

4. Photography Conference: Attend photography conferences such as the Society for Photographic Education, where you can have access to many artists in one location to receive feedback on your work.

5. Galleries: Contact Galleries and determine whether you can pay for a consult to have a gallery review your work.

6. Organizations: If the intent of your work is to communicate for a specific cause, belief, political issue, etc., you can reach out to organizations who might be able to put you in touch with someone like-minded who can also provide feedback on your work.