Karen Jacot / the blog

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.

This past week I was in Nashville for the annual photographers’ convention called Imaging USA. It was three very full days of going to classes and visiting booths at the expo and attending parties. I saw some fantastic speakers–like wedding photographers Dane Sanders, Joe Buissink, and Jose Villa–who gave inspiring talks and gave me lots to think about. I also ate fried pickles for the first time ever. (Pretty tasty.)

The convention was at the Opryland Resort, which was a crazy hotel. It is huge and easily rivals anything in Vegas. The only thing missing was the casino. (And in fact it felt so much like Vegas to me that after I got back I accidentally referred to it as Vegas a couple times, leading my husband to suspect that I hadn’t been at a photo convention at all but instead had snuck off to Vegas without him. Haha.) This hotel had several garden conservatories that made you feel like you were walking on paths outdoors, except you were still inside the hotel. The food in all the restaurants was overpriced (captive audience, I guess, it was possible but not easy to leave the resort)–I had some seriously expensive sushi in front of waterfall that was served in takeout containers. What is up with that? At least for that price I should be paying for nice presentation. Am I right?

My roommate at the hotel was my friend Blonnie, a photographer who lives in Delaware. We laughed a lot and took a lot of goofy pictures of each other. The one below was a random shot she took of me that she probably wouldn’t even have thought was worth sharing, but it turned out to be one of my favorites.

People! How come I am SO BAD at updating this blog?? I hate that I am behind on posting session images. I know several photographers who post “sneak peeks” of pics the same day as they shoot the session. I wish this were me, but I have not managed it yet. (Or gotten anywhere close, really.) So…some more session images coming soon.

In the meantime, I managed to get away to New York City last weekend to visit some friends. I had so much fun, even though my feet were killing me because I stupidly chose to bring just one single pair of shoes–NEW shoes that I’d just bought earlier that week. Not smart!

Our trip to Boston was a very quick two days. Our Sunday morning flights didn’t pan out quite the way they were supposed to (one was canceled) and we couldn’t get rebooked until the next evening. So, we flew up on Monday, arriving around midnight. We flew back home Thursday, leaving around noon, so we could have had time to get up and do something early that morning, but we didn’t. We just hung out at the hotel. Tuesday and Wednesday we were out on the town having fun. Jeff was at a conference during the day, so Lyle and I were on our own most of the time. It was cold, and there was a lot of snow and slush on the ground, and Lyle didn’t like any of that one bit. But I think he had fun anyway.

This was my first trip back there since I moved away 3.5 years ago. It was fun to go back to the familiar places.

One of the places we went there was the Children’s Museum, which featured this awesome three-story climbing structure made up of a series of ramps. Adults were allowed to climb on it, too! This thing was seriously the highlight of my trip.

And now I’m back in Houston with 80-degree weather and no pretense of winter anywhere. I had to turn on my air conditioner today because it was so hot and stuffy in here and the ceiling fans weren’t helping enough. And it’s only March!