Karen Jacot / the blog » personal

closeups

Karen — Sun, 02 May 2010 02:04:14 +0000

Having flowers on the back deck makes such a difference in how it feels there. I love all the bright colors–both of the flowers and leaves and the flowerpots. Lyle waters them with a watering can that’s almost too heavy for him to carry.

gardening

Karen — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:07:48 +0000

I know it seems like I’ve forgotten about this blog, but I actually think about it quite often. It’s just that that’s all I do–think.

A couple weekends ago, we planted some flowers and herbs and cantaloupes in all the pots we have had sitting around empty all fall & winter. The cantaloupes were Lyle’s idea. I have no idea if these seedlings will manage to produce fruit for us or not. The day after we planted them, Lyle woke up and bounded out of bed saying, “I want to go check and see if there are any cantaloupes yet!”

mommune 2010

Karen — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:27:38 +0000

I’m late with this post (what’s new?). Two weeks ago I took Lyle to upstate New York to hang out with friends for a week. Not just a few friends, but a LOT of friends, from all over the U.S. (and one who came from London). Mostly moms and kids, with a few husbands thrown into the mix, too. At the highest point I think there were 17 kids and nearly as many adults. We slept in various spots in two big houses–the host’s and her mother-in-law’s house next door. We spent the days hanging out and talking. We cooked together and ate together–there was always something happening in the kitchen. The kids played together and loved it–the house full of toys, all the other kids, the snow outside.

Lyle was particularly enamored of a 6-month-old baby who laughed with him the very first night we arrived–Lyle referred to him the rest of the week as “that baby I make laugh.” He also really liked “the boy in the orange shirt,” even on the subsequent days when the boy was no longer wearing an orange shirt.

on nighttime insights and clementines

Karen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:29:04 +0000

Hi, people. I’m having issues. I lie in bed at night thinking of great blog posts in my head (for real) but then when I’m sitting at the computer the next morning…nothing. Not a single thing seems worth writing about.

I remember my dad telling me once that as he fell asleep, he would have brilliant insights to computer programming problems he was working on. But he could never remember them the next day. He started keeping a notepad next to his bed so he could write down the solutions that he was coming up with in these moments. Only instead of waking up to clever solutions he’d brainstormed the night before, he woke up to notes that were complete gibberish. It was like his mind needed to *think* it had solved these problems before it could rest enough for him to get to sleep, so it tricked him to thinking he’d solved them.

I guess my mind needs to trick me into thinking I’m a good writer so I can sleep at night.

I love these two pictures that I took at the park last week. Lyle rode his tricycle to the playground and I brought along snacks because he always gets hungry playing outside. (So do I.) We’ve been going through a lot of clementines lately.

And this one from today…I love how hard he’s laughing as he’s yelling for me to push him “higher, higher, highest!”

snow + spa

Karen — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:17:01 +0000

This weekend I went to Dallas to sit in a 170-degree sauna. It’s the fire sudatorium at the Korean spa, and it’s totally amazing. They have several other saunas that are not as hot but that all claim to be good for your health in various ways. I just know that after spending all day sweating and soaking and napping and eating Korean food, I feel the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time. And if I get a body scrub? Where you lay on a table and get scrubbed by a woman with scrubby mitts over and over and over until you have no more dead skin left anywhere on your entire body? Then I feel the cleanest I’ve ever been. Love this place.

The building itself is set back off the road behind some self-storage units, and you drive underneath some giraffe statues to get there. (So random.) My favorite is the sign that says, “RIGHT ON.” Korean spa…right on.

Also, Dallas got 12 inches of snow last Thursday, which is a record and a crazy amount of snow for Dallas. It doesn’t usually last long once it’s on the ground there, but there were still a couple inches on the ground when we got there Friday night. Lyle spent Saturday morning playing in it.

happy valentine’s day

Karen — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:08:22 +0000

May your days all be filled with love….

cupcakes!

Karen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:37:26 +0000

I have a new blog design! It’s not necessarily in its finished and final state so you may still see things change here and there over the next couple of weeks, but at least I’m going to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and stop fiddling over every little aspect of it and just get back to writing actual posts. The main difference is obvious–bigger pictures! Yay. And please let me know if you see anything weird about the design or how it’s rendered in your browser.

Yesterday was my birthday. I love my birthday. I love having an excuse to do something fun with friends. To celebrate I took Lyle out for cupcakes when I picked him up from school. I don’t even care much about cupcakes, but Lyle does, and it’s a cute shop, so I knew we’d have fun.

He talked the whole way there about how he wanted a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. “Do they have that, Mommy?” I told him they did, but he wasn’t so sure. Until we walked in and he spotted them immediately…some even had sprinkles. He was in heaven.

so I can check off “blog” on my to-do list

Karen — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:40:45 +0000

I got a lot of things done that had been on my to-do list for a while, so I can’t let the productive day end without blogging again. (This is one of the things that has been pushed off…oops.)

My favorite thing about New York is just how much there is. How much energy, how many different things are going on at once, how many different shows, how many places to get street food, how many little hidden gems there are right in the middle of everything. I love how walkable everything is.

I also love that there are things like the cupcake truck. Cupcake. Truck.

a few macros

Karen — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:35:53 +0000

Look at this–regular posting, people! Can you believe it? And at the time this post goes live, I will be gallivanting around New York City with some of my best friends for a long weekend, but I am so committed to keeping up with this blog this year that I made sure to write this post ahead of time, just in case I don’t have a chance to post from NYC. See how that works? Blogging. I’m doing it.

I’m getting spoiled by my 50mm 1.4 lens…now when I “only” get f/2.8 on a lens, I find myself going, “That’s it?” That said, I am loving this 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. Here are a couple shots I took the other day. I processed these differently than my usual processing. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. I like them right now but I’m not sure if that’s because the processing works or because it’s late and I’m tired and it’s just different.

Can you tell what the last one is? It’s the stem of a leaf, in a pile of leaves Lyle was making.

should I say more?

Karen — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:47:32 +0000

I feel like I should say a little more about the Imaging USA convention. I think my friends are getting tired of hearing me say, “Oh, another thing I learned in Nashville was…” but despite how much I’ve been talking about it in person, when I came back to this blog I realized I really didn’t say anything about what I learned.

The overall message I got from the group of speakers I heard was to be genuine, to be myself, and to give my clients a great experience (not just great images). That sounds simple and basic, doesn’t it? But for me, it’s easy to get caught up in a lot of other things that other photographers are doing–even though I try not to–and it’s easy to think, “Well, this is how it is *supposed* to be,” when what I should think is, “This is how I want it to be.” I’m rethinking how I do some things in my business for 2010. Some of the changes will be behind-the-scenes and not obvious to clients, and some will–I hope–be cool and fun and make my clients’ experience with me even better.

And since every post is better with a picture, here’s me with someone famous (in the photography community, anyway)…his name is Becker and he is a master of social media and branding. He gave a short talk on the expo floor at the WHCC booth one afternoon.