Reinspired

A long time ago, I met a girl named Kristi. She was two years younger than me and we were pretty much instant friends. When I started getting into photography, I asked her to be my very first model. This is one of my favorite shots and from the very first session I ever did.




Recently, I have been thinking of making some changes (good ones! :) ) to Selah. I needed to be reinspired, so I decided to go back to my roots and remember where it all started. Hence, Kristi was called. She came over, I did her hair and off we went. It was a good time! Here are some of the images that we took. You might notice some new looks to the Selah Photography images... nothing like a little reinspiration! Enjoy!

Oscars 2012

Okay, so I know that I have been a blogging loser for awhile. I would love to give you the excuse that I have had a baby in the last year, been working, blah, blah, blah... but as my wise brother Zach says, "We are all busy". No excuses.

This first blog of 2012 happens to fall on one of my favorite mornings of the year: Oscar Nominations Morning! I don't really watch the live broadcast at 5:00 am. Instead, I like to be surprised when they come out. Perhaps this is in line with a far fetched dream that one day I would be nominated and my agent would call me to tell me I was in line to get an Oscar. Totally surprising, right?

Anyway, unlike years before, I have not seen hardly any of these films. I plan to though! I have made a HUGE decision this year to only watch the Best Picture nominees. Seeing all the films nominated for anything is extremely time consuming and costly. Mason understands my obsessions of Christmas and Oscars... to a point.

I am excited. Time to start planning the watching party and watching some films. I hope to write a bit about each one that I see, so let's hope that happens. See you at the movies!

40 Years

Well, if you can believe it, these two beautiful people above are my parents. To those who do not know them, meet Carol and Bill Wohldmann. Today, marks a very special occasion for them. They were married on this day, September 4, FORTY years ago. That's a long time. That was before this thing I am typing on was even invented... I think.

My parents are pretty awesome. Not in the way that some people's parents are awesome. Some people's parents like took them toilet papering in high school or let them buy their own personal box of Hostess snacks. That is not their definition of awesome. Their definition of awesome is to set an amazing example for their kids. They are hard-workers, do the right thing, help each other out, help others out, love each other no matter what, laugh A LOT, don't put on airs and they make beautiful children. (See my picture for an example)

So, to them I say, thank you! Thank you for not letting me slack off. Thank you for loving each other and seeing each other through hard times so that we could have a great life. Thank you for not giving me everything I wanted. Thank you for working jobs that weren't always fun so that we could do things like go to the glorious city of St. Louis and keep in touch with family that we would not have otherwise known. Thank you for making me learn and do stuff that I hated when I was younger like money management and cleaning house. Thank you for fixing my cars that I seemed to wreck all the time. Thank you for telling me to choose my friends wisely and not go out with boys that were jerks. Thank you for always giving me confidence and supporting me. Thank you for keeping me accountable. Thank you for loving me even when I was being a rebellious teenager and when I was being a know-it-all college student (and when I am being a know-it-all adult!).

Carol and Bill Wohldmann, you are amazing people. You have so much to show for it. Thank you for being my parents!

PS. This blog has the potential to totally embarrass my mom as she is one of the most modest people I know, but oh well. It's okay this one time, Carol. I love you!

One thing

Okay, tonight we will call this blog "Getting Real with Jill"... cheesy, I know. But who cares... I am getting real.

So, people over the last two months have asked me, "How have you adjusted to having two kids?" For the first three weeks, I said, "GREAT! No sweat." The next three weeks, I said, "It's an adjustment." Now, if someone were to ask me that, I would say, "This has been hard!" with a possible tear in my eye that with sheer will I keep from falling down my face.

Now, as most of you know, I REALLY like to plan, be ahead and think before the curveball is thrown... you know, all that Type A baloney. Also translated by some as being a controlfreak. Well, yes, I am. Nice to meet you.

But see here, that does not work super well with adding a second child to your house. No, sir. I have had more things go wrong or change in the last two months. Not all bad and certainly not all good.... one great! However, I have realized (as I have had to learn this SAME DANG LESSON like 400 trillion times) that it is not necessarily about the CHANGE that you are going through but the WAY you handle it.

I am a controlfreak... imagine how I have handled it. Yeah, not a good color on me.

I literally have been saying to God whilst shaking my fist in the air a la Scarlett O'Hara, "I just need one thing to go right. Just one thing!" Griping at God and your parents doesn't get you anywhere, kids. (but sometimes it does make you feel better for awhile :) )

So, as I was laying down counting my woes, I said to Mason, "I am tired of going to bed so emotionally exhausted. Good thing Suzie sleeps through the night."

This is where God says, "Hey, nerd, took you long enough to figure that out!"... not really... that is what I say to myself. God says, "There you go, Jill! Your one thing!"

Thank you, Lord, for my one thing you have given me!

So, I have babbled on long enough about my emotional roller coaster that is probably going to take awhile to get off of. I just wanted to say that amidst all the craziness that you may be going through, ask Him for just one thing if that's all you can do and He will deliver again and again. I am living proof of that.

This is dedicated to my beautiful sleeping daughter... I would rather have gone through all this five more times than not have you here. I love you, Suzie!

Sometimes you need a little inspiration...

Anna Paquin

Sarah Bernhardt Cookies

Maggie Grace

New York City in the snow

Zach Galifianakis

Edgar Degas

Tom Hanks

Beethoven

Super Sweet Car

Thank you, Yahoo, for providing these images and making my day inspirational!

Changing It Up

I am not sure what the dealio is with the football references lately... maybe it is the hot summer months that have me thinking about the bliss of the fall. COLD, WE MISS YOU! Well, I do anyway.

In the movie, Remember the Titans, Herman Boone is taking a newly integrated football players and making them a championship team. At their summer training camp, he is yelling at them during practice: WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY WE RUN! WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY WE EAT! WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY WE TACKLE! WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY WE WIN!

After remembering this scene today, I thought of two things. One, I am so glad is not the norm for chicks to play football. I would have either told off Coach Boone or sat on the sidelines and cried. Two, sometimes if we want dramatic results in our life... that's right... we have to change some things up.

To say that I have to change EVERYTHING about my life to achieve happiness would be both overwhelming and impossible. However, I am seeing distinct areas in my life where God is saying, "That... that right there... needs to change." Sometimes change is about thinking out of the box, getting more creative, working smarter and not harder.

So, I think I will. Life's getting more exciting by the minute...

Inadvertently Changed

In January 2010, I was doing my usual bit: watching all movies nominated for Academy Awards. (Waste of time? I think not!) In one of the movies, The Blind Side, a well-off family takes in a homeless high school student, who also happens to be an amazing football player. In one of the scenes, the mom , LeighAnn Tuohy, is having lunch with her friends at a fancy restaurant. One of her pals says, "LeighAnn, you are changing that boy's life." To which she immediately replied, "No... he's changing mine."

Rewind about 6 months... I am standing on a cement slab covered by a very carefully placed tent with about 200 people. About twenty of us were Americans and the other 180 were African pastors from all over East Africa. We had more looks and smiles to exchange than words due to the language barrier. We were all waiting patiently for the session to start... and this was the important one: every single pastor in that tent was getting a brand new bible concordance for them to take home. Some of them had been preaching out of one book of the Bible their whole ministry, so you can understand the unspoken excitement in the room (tent). AND I... the American, who had about five Bibles in her house and three computers with Bible Gateway at her fingertips, was going to help hand out the concordances to them. I am changing these pastor's lives.

On the contrary...

So, we start teaching them about how to use this new reference book and I am watching them all. The way they carefully turn the pages as to not tear it. Their backs hunched over with noses close to the page to focus completely on the words. Hands being raised to ask questions so to be SURE to know how to use this wonderful book. Then, later... the pastors would carry these concordances around to be sure to have it if they needed it. I would see them lounging on the grass between sessions reading through it and studying. Their commitment and thirst for knowledge was amazing. Didn't I change their lives? No... they changed mine.

They reminded me to not waste my resources. They reminded me to not take my blessings for granted. They reminded me that giving is not all about what I am doing for the other person, but to look and hear what God wants to teach me through giving. They reminded me that petty situations are exactly that in comparison to what our REAL purpose is.

So, GIVE and be changed.

Mission Barnabas International is the amazing organization that I worked with in Nairobi for the pastors' conference. They have many opportunities for anyone to be involved on whatever level they want to participate: financial giving, donating items to be shipped to Africa and many more. Check out their website to see how you can be a part! You can also be their fan on Facebook.