This blog has moved to a new home! Yay!

So I made the jump to a self-hosted blog. You can now find me at http://www.myinvisiblecamera.com. Thank you for supporting this blog, I hope to see you there.

New Frontiers

Sometime during the busy holiday season I sat across from one of my best friends, Kitty, at our favorite restaurant. We sat around our usual cozy table, crowded with our husbands, my boisterous children, handbags, baby bags, and large downy winter coats piled high around us. Our voices grew louder, competing to be heard when mixed with the din of the tavern. She asked me how I was doing and I replied, “I’m coping. Having lupus can sometimes be consuming, and you know, I’m coping.” Being the lovely friend that she is, she let this response slide while we were in the loud tavern, having drinks, and eating wings.

The following evening via Skype chat she cornered me about my answer. She said, “You are one of the most enthusiastic and positive people I know and for you to say you’re coping is a big red flag.” We then proceeded to chat for the following hour or two about our goals and dreams and how funny it was that they had changed over the course of a few short years. Photography, roller derby, school, spinning. These were all things that filled much of my time and ambition in the past few years. Now, with lupus as a big part of my life and how I operate, I had to focus on not only what I loved to do but what was good for me to pursue. I love photography with all my heart but I realize that I can no longer pursue a photography business. It has demands that I cannot meet. Of course I will continue to photograph; my camera is an extension of myself, but I will do so without deadlines and pressure, just for the love of it.

So instead of lamenting about what I could not do anymore, we chatted about things that I could do. Of course this blog came up. I love blogs. I am a crazy blog reader. My Google Reader feed is sick. I love that I can read a blog from a woman in Texas and feel like she is my best friend. I laugh when she laughs, I sigh when she sighs. It’s better than any sit com on tv! It’s a book, that gets longer every day, and it comes with an Instagram feed! So naturally when Kitty and I spoke about ventures that I would like to put my energy into and ventures that would be in fact, healthy for me, taking this blog to level 9000 was it. With Kitty in my corner, we hatched a plan. (Yes, I like using the word “hatch.” It makes me feel like I’m detective or part of the Scooby Doo gang.)

Of course with anything I do, I like to do it well. Call it my fatal flaw. Or you could call it OCD, same diff. Over the past month, I’ve been brainstorming for a new blog name. Tanya King Photography is beautiful and will always be a part of me because hey, I’m Tanya King and I like to take photographs, but I want a name to encompass this blog and what it is. My boys came up with a bunch of funny ones that cannot be published nor should see the light of day but in the end I decided on the one that made the most sense for me. My blog will called “my invisible camera.” It will be named this because despite not being able to shoot for hours on end like I used to, I still see things through an imaginary viewfinder. Often when I see something, like my son’s smile while we’re nursing in the wee light of the morning, I think, “I just photographed that beautiful face with my invisible camera.” And it will be named this because when accompanied with words, my invisible camera can capture not only sights, but sounds, touches, and the loveliest of smells.

I took the first step to new frontiers this week. I bought http://www.myinvisiblecamera.com. I’ll be redesigning this blog over the next few weeks. So excited to have you with me as I do!

photo above is my darlin’ Finn as Davy Crockett. It was one of his Halloween costumes this year.

All this turtle wants for Christmas is Super Powers!

Yesterday I accomplished so much that I felt, strangely, normal again. After having Finn last December I was so sick that I couldn’t even walk without assistance (we shall forever call that time the “dark times”). The months that followed his birth were filled with doctors and diagnosis and a lot of sadness on my part that I would never be me again. Me, Tanya King, who needs 5 projects to be going on at the same time in order to feel whole and accomplished. (I blame this on my immigrant parents and their constant desire to have the American dream but that’s another story. :] ) Getting winded going up the 5 steps to get into your house, frankly, sucks.  So yesterday I woke up feeling energized; a week-long Christmas vacation ahead of me and a regimen of life-enhancing drugs that are finally beginning to work gave me a spark. I felt like lupus gave me a little vacation and it was beautiful. I took full advantage. I finished editing some calendars for my family from our summer vacation in Cape May. I believe that ‘Better late than never’ is the official motto of my lupus club.

I used Paislee Press’ ridiculously simple and easy calendar templates.

Then I tried my hand at making some calzones from this Pioneer Woman recipe. Her recipe? Magical. My version? They came out ok. I need to tweak the recipe for our family’s likings and not be so lazy-like in my rolling of the dough. They came out a bit too fat. But sincerely, anything that’s beef and ricotta in a bread type crust can’t be wrong.

Then insert various nursings, naps, searching for the ever elusive matching gloves, vacuuming, watching as Vader hauled the Christmas tree through the house and out into the forest, vacuuming again, and then I edited this photo from Finn’s first birthday portrait session. I took a lot of photos over the past year but have had scarcely enough energy to eat dinner sitting up so they are on my to-do list.

So I guess what I’m saying is that today instead of wishing for superpowers, I’m going to make my own. I refuse to let lupus get the better of me. My to-list is still the same length and it may take me weeks to write one post to tell you about it but I’m still going to try. Slow and steady. Yup, that’s me. haha! I gotta tell you that I find a little humorous that I now equate myself with a turtle instead of the hare. So anyways I hope you’ll stick around with this slow little turtle and see how I do. I’ve got so many adventures ahead of me!