Henterly lately

Heyyyy, everybody! Yes, I am still here. Turns out that I, having owned cats most of my life but no dogs, severely underestimated just how dependent a new puppy is. As in, I thought I'd be able to do things around the house like clean and blog and freelance and redecorate, when I was home alone. Guess who has two thumbs and was way, way wrong!

Fortunately, I think we're finally getting to a point where I can start catching up with life again. But the last six weeks haven't been all puppy cuddles! Here's a little of what I've been up to lately.



Lots of walks. ALL THE WALKS. Some days, I'm walking around my neighborhood four times a day. Cam has a lot of energy, so most of our walks are at least half a mile to a mile. I am really excited for her to get her leash manners together and start going on runs. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I miss running.



My secret weapon to getting work done is taking Cam on a 45-minute or hour-long walk, playing tug or fetch for 10 minutes, then watching as she collapses onto the couch in pure exhaustion. So what if there's a puppy nose on my laptop? I can squeeze in a solid hour or two after a hardcore workout for her.



We're just about halfway through our wedding season for this year; as of today, we have four down (including our own) and three to go. This was, sadly, the only picture I managed to take when our friends Tim and Kellen got married earlier this month. It was our first night out since bringing Cam home and let's just say a good time was had by all.



I also started getting more involved in my Big Brothers, Big Sisters match this summer. The last two years, my Little and I have met during her lunch break on Fridays during the school year. At the end of this year, she asked if we could add an outside-the-school match (called a "community match") and I melted. I mean, could you say no to this? She isn't allowed to come to my house yet and Cam was feeling under the weather the last time we got together, so we went to the pet store in lieu of a trip to the dog park.



I've also been working a lot outside of work, in both freelance writing and photography. One recent assignment involved taking pictures at a fundraising event, for which I was compensated in lobster. So I got to take photos of local/national celebs like Jack Hanna and Dominique Reighard (as well as other Columbus-area notables) AND I got a free multi-course seafood feast. All the win.





And of course there's my portrait work, which has been picking up more than ever. I got to do two really fun family shoots recently; the B family (top photos) has become a regular client for me, and the D family (bottom photos) consists of the sweetest couple I know from college and their two-year-old son. I'm playing with a new photo editing style (which you might have noticed in my Washington, D.C. photos in the last post) and I'm so in love with it right now.



Also, my odometer rolled over, which is pretty nifty. I've never rolled one before and I gotta say, this moment was pretty much the highlight of that day for me.





Then, last weekend, my little sister Ellen got married! It was an unbelievably beautiful ceremony and an incredibly fun reception. The band even let Matt on stage to join them for a song, and I about fangirled myself to death. He fiddles around with his guitars in the hours fairly often, but hasn't really been on stage since high school, before I met him. So it was so awesome to see him play live! (If you couldn't tell by my face above.)



One of my biggest regrets from my own wedding reception is that I only made it into our photobooth once, so I made sure to grab the bride and all our sisters for a quick sesh. We're beautiful and classy, I know ;)



This is just a field. Ellen got married in our family's hometown in northern Ohio, west of Cleveland. The drive between Columbus and their town is mostly farm country; usually I find the drive boring but weather was PERFECT on the Sunday drive back and I thought all the fields were just breathtaking. Plus, I was reveling in the fact that I somehow skipped the hangover portion of the weekend (not for lack of trying Saturday night) and basically the whole world seemed amazing.

So that's it! Like I said, much has been happening and it shows no sign of slowing down, but with any luck I'll hit my stride soon and get used to this new normal that is my life :)

What have you all been up to lately?