Closures & Revelations

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for my family and I. Losing my Oma/Grandmother so suddenly right after Christmas & New Years. We all believed she would live to at least 100 years old since she was such a strong person. Always running around insisting on doing things for herself. She was even madly studying over Christmastime for her car license renewal test.

The Memorial Service was this past Saturday. It added a little bit of closure for her family and a chance to say goodbye from her friends. Although, she will always be with us through memories. She will be greatly missed beyond imagination as we were all so close.

As a result of these tough times for my family (especially my mother) I decided it would be best for me not move halfway across the planet until January 2011. It was a bit sad to settle on this change of plan, but I can’t leave my mom just yet not knowing if I was able to come home next Christmas when I suspect it won’t be easy. It will also give me a chance to start my company without rushing it, and a nice amount of time to save up even more than I planned. Additionally this gives me a chance to come to the UK in September to check out Bristol and look for possible areas to live as well as other cities I’m dying to see (and hopefully add Scotland to the travel itinerary).

On a happier note I had a second meeting with a Graphic Design friend of mine who is doing my Logo Branding, Blog Design, Website & eventually promotional material. I’m very excited about what she showed me and I’m even more elated thinking about the end “product”!

I looked at a few graphic designers who were equally amazing in work, but thought it would be best to go with someone who I’ve known since the late 90’s and who would be able to decipher my mind and what I was looking for.

Well before I bore you all with more text I’ll end it before I babble on. I’ll have lots to share with you all soon

<3
Kirsten Julia

Terrible Times

I haven’t updated as soon as I promised, and for that I am truly sorry. Unfortunately a tragedy has occurred recently within the family and I haven’t been fully myself. My family and I have been quite busy making arrangements and dealing with issues. I know these situations happen in life, but of course you’re never quite prepared for it.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll still be inactive with posting here and on twitter, but I assure you I will come back as strong as ever if not stronger than before.

<3

Kirsten

King Tut!

The past couple of weeks have been insanely busy with getting ready for Christmas and assisting on my last food photography shoot of the year, and for some reason I decided (once finished with work) that I needed to bake a lot more cookies. The next thing I know in 1 day I baked as much as I did a week prior. I’d like to say I’m done baking, but I have a cake still to create tonight.

This morning I tried my hand at decorating gingerbread people (none of us have pants… see that required even more patience and time):

Conclusion: FAILED! I love baking, but hate the decorating part process. As seen in the photo below when I gave up after decorating 8 gingerbread men, women & dogs and still had a lot more to go:

Last week I was lucky enough to go to the King Tut exhibit at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). Supposedly this is the last time these ancient Egyptian finds will be traveling around, so it was a must to see this while one still could! I decided to take my point and shoot just in case they didn’t allow photography in the exhibit and good thing too because they didn’t. So sadly everything I saw will have to hopefully last forever in memory. (I’m such a Museum nut that this was a bit disappointing)

The only thing I managed to take photos of on the AGO grounds was the egyptian inspired cookies (yes… more cookies):

and the “nothing to do with Egypt” lookout windows on the 5th floor:

After the AGO we did a little Christmas shopping on Queen St. W and found out that the new Sherlock Holmes movie was pulling no stops when it came to advertising. They decorated the whole 1st floor of an old building to look like the inside of Sherlocks house: (photos darkened so you can see as much as possible)

and then lucky for me Jude Law was waiting for me around the corner :D

Enough about that! I’m excited to mention that last night some moves were started in prep of relaunching my brand. I won’t go into specifics till the time is right. It’s also not the only exciting thing happening soon.

2010 should be an excellent year!

Hope everyone has a great Holiday & Happy New Years!!

December is the month!

I’ll definitely be the first to admit that I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like to (once or twice a week) and I can only partially blame this on my very large HUMONGOUS to do list. The other half of the blame can be placed on me as I should be able to stay up an hour extra to write something. I guess I just felt that until I can check something off I really have no exciting news? Things must change!

I’d love to show you how my Christmas decorating has been going, but the decorations are sadly still in a box waiting for me (I know I know!). So lately when I’m not sitting in front of my notebook or computer figuring out what my next plan of attack is, I’m baking and thinking of my next plan of attack, or going for a run and thinking. The thinking will never end.

Oh the plus side of everything I’ve been thinking so much that I’ve made 7 batches of different types of cookies all within a few days. Although I guess it would only be on the plus side if I could send everyone who follows me a cookie to prove that there is some sort of productivity going on!

I’ll share some of my to do list plans to give everyone a bit of an idea to what is on my plate for the upcoming months:

1. Hire a Graphic Designer to rebrand myself
2. Redo my website and blog (blog first!)
3. Write and post more photos!
4. boring stuff
5. more boring stuff
6. Bake cookies (ha! kidding!!)

So please don’t get used to anything about this site. I know I’ve been a little A.D.D. about how it should look and have changed things a bit too often, but I believe my only solution for this problem is to hire someone else to figure this out.

I’m truly excited for the new Kirsten Julia Photography brand and I hope you will be too!

Edit Fest

My music playlist for the Edit Fest this weekend. The only problem is I don’t think 9 hours of music is enough.

One of these days I should invest in a proper light table…

(I’ve slacked on updates lately as I change things around. I’ll get one up as soon as possible… I’m thinking this weekend after my big edit fest)

Fall <3

Fall is one of my favourite months. Brilliant colours & warm blankets. Just wish this didn’t mean that the freezing cold months of winter were on their way!

- Kirsten Julia

www.kirstentamme.com