Lauren Clark Photography » Blog

We sold out of all of our garage sale stuff in 2 hours on Saturday and now we are packing up the moving truck!

I will be out of the office for one week and then will get caught up on all of the albums orders, regular orders, and emails! Please be patient with me this week since it will be the biggest transition time all year! I will be moving in with my mom for 3 weeks here in Lubbock to finish off most of my Lubbock weddings and sessions and will be a workaholic trying to get everything in order for my move in July.

Josh will be remodeling the house in Stillwater for those three weeks and I can’t wait to see what he will do!

Thanks for your prayers and support!

A few months back when I first found designspongeonline.com I saw a really neat family tree print that they featured from  mytreeandme.com and decided to order one for Christmas. I got on ancestry.com and started searching for my relatives and I think it opened up a whole new part of me. I have always been the “historian” of the family, wanting to know stories from the old days from Grandma and my parents and then it hit me about a month ago to make a whole wall of old family photos in my  farm themed guest bedroom and I haven’t stopped searching for old photos yet! I have scoured garage sales for the last 2 weekends just looking for old frames that I could spray paint white and then distress and I have found about 25 frames and only spent around $15 on them all! Garage sales are a goldmine for frames! Here are the steps to do this yourself…

- Photograph old pictures that you would like to display with a macro lens in bright shade at f/5.6.

- Open them in photoshop and make them an old timey b/w and then print.

- Search garage sales for old frames of any color, but mainly focus on their size and texture. Spray paint them a flat white or any color you choose.

- Get 60 sand paper and rough them up on the edges.

- Put your prints in them and hang them all together!

I have only started on my side of the family and still have about 15 frames to fill. They will be displayed in my farm room at the new house in Stillwater and you can guarantee that I will show you the end result!

From the top left going clockwise… 1) My great Nana, Dorothea Macomber 2) The Gannoway Family, my great grandmother is on the bottom right 3) my mom’s baby picture 4) My Nana and great Nana 5) my dad’s baby picture 6) Mom’s senior pictures (sorry mom! Had to post it) 7) Granddad getting his hair pulled by his brother 8 ) Dad and his brothers making a newspaper 9) In the center is grandma and granddad.

Well for starters, we aren’t in Oklahoma yet.

I guess in this day and age buying a small, inexpensive house is like trying to cross the border down in El Paso! We planned on closing tomorrow, but things have taken longer and we won’t be closing until next Monday on our little fixer-upper. This week is all about de-cluttering and packing! We will be moving all of our things in a U-haul Sunday and taking my sweet doggies to their new home in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I can’t believe that the time has already come to move! We have been planning this move since last October and I would always tell mom and Magen to not think about it because it was still over half a year away. Well, it is soon, really, really SOON!

During my transition I may not have many photos of other people for you, it might turn into a reality show blog about Josh, the dogs and I until I get my business up and running, but I will keep you entertained:). Just think of me as the Pioneer Woman’s apprentice!

I am considering taking about 1 wedding a month in January-May next year to keep me busy during the nice weather… the key word is considering:). I actually turned down 2 weddings for the first time in 7 years this month and it felt marvelous! For the first time I felt in control of my life and business and didn’t just accept any wedding on any weekend. It was a small victory.

We are having a garage sale with a ton of NICE furniture this Saturday at 8 AM! I will announce more details soon.

My new logo and colors are marvelous and extremely different than what I have now. I can’t wait to show you my ITDR blog when it is ready.

Josh and I have been watching the first season of 24 and I do say it was very addicting and very stressful. I’m not sure if I want to put myself through that again, I mean, how many times can I handle people getting kidnapped and escaping their death in 1 day? Hardly more than once I would have to say.

I have just watched a half way creepy movie and can’t go to sleep and my typing and spelling are getting worse as the minutes go by, and so this would be a good time to quit writing.

I bought a 1940’s typewriter today. I am very glad.

Aimee just came over (we happened to be wearing the same outfit colors, thought that was funny) and I remembered that my dad gave me a packet of mud from the Dead Sea last night, and being the spontaneous duo that we are we went into the bathroom and put it on. Her son, Ethan, was so scared and he kept saying, “I don’t want to die!” I feel like we are on the set of LOST in this pictures (except the smell of dog poo in this area).

Ok, I am officially breaking ALL of the rules here with my photography blog, I mean, sheesh, I talk about Jesus, my diets, my personal life, and now I am using it as a digital garage sale. Oh well:)

We are selling almost everything we own. We like big, big furniture and sadly, our new house is tinsey tiny and we will have to adjust a few things, and so we just decided to sell it all! Email me if you are interested in buying any of it! info@laurenclarkphotography.com

For sale in this room:

Grey loveseat + grey chair for $600 (perfect condition, purchased from eurway.com)

Projector (not this one, but a spare): $500

Kitchen table (I would give this a 5 out of 10 stars, it has signs of wear and tear) and 6 chairs at bar height, you know, to keep our huge muts from eating our food! : $500

For sale in this room:

Ashley Furniture Dura Pella Stone Eurosuede couch, loveseat and chair (just cleaned by the carpet people 2 days ago!): $1000

42 inch LG Plasma TV: $800 (perfect condition)

White AWESOME kitchen stools: $300 for all 3

42 inch LG Plasma TV (I give it a 7 out of 10 stars, it does have one input broken off of the back so there is only room to hook up 1 of those red/white/yellow plug things) : $600

We are living in my mom and step-dad’s rent house during this time of transition and my sweet husband has been painting and fixing it up for them in the mean time. He has conquered three rooms and they all look marvelous! Here is the biggest transformation. He spent so much time working on this one and finally put the cabinets back on, so I wanted to take a picture and show you what a good job he did! I know all of your ladies out there are jealous that I’m married to such a handyman (a perfectionist at that!), but he’s mine, ALL mine.:)

Here is what he did to this room…

-took off the wall paper

-got rid of the metallic green counter top

-painted all of the brown trim white

-painted the cabinets

-fixed the tile in the bathtub

-bought nice new fixtures for the tub

-new hardware

-pretty blue paint

-re-textured the top of the walls

- and then put it all together again.

I love my handy man. Want to see his next BIG fix (oh my!), our new tiny house in Stillwater! 

(ick! Look at that green carpet! Josh says there are wood floors underneath-yay!)

I’m determined that our house will be featured on Design Sponge after we move in. You will be amazed at the renovation when he is through! We just accepted the counter offer on it and will be moving in July!

Why is it that when the Devil can’t make you bad, or more busy, he goes for your heart with fear? I knew that when I decided to stop taking weddings in February that the stability in my life would disappear, I mean, when you book out 35 weddings by the end of January you know that you will have a steady income for the rest of the year, but now that security has vanished… forever. It’s almost like seeing an army of fears marching towards me and knowing that it will eventually reach me, let’s say around November when I only have 1 wedding left for the entire year.

Will I really succeed?

Will we run out of money and have to get emergency jobs at McDonalds?

I don’t even have a degree, so can I even work anywhere else besides McDonalds?

Will anyone really book me for kid or family sessions when we move?

These are the fears that are looming over my head right now. I know that the Lord told me to quit taking weddings, and the doors to Oklahoma have swung wide open, and I know that we will grow in our marriage like we never have before, so why am I so afraid? Fear is scary. I watched Apocalypto the other day with some friends and the entire movie was about overcoming fear. I really want to overcome it.

Let me remind myself, and tell you, of something that happened to us when I was a sophomore in high school. My parents were $800 behind for the month and I never heard my parents argue, but I did remember hearing my mom fret about this extra money a few times. The next day we received a turkey, you know, one of those frozen ones that everyone gets as a gift around Thanksgiving, and when my mom decided to cook it the next night she opened up the gizzards and found $800 cash in a baggie inside the Turkey. This is the God I serve. He will bring you to the brink of failure and then show you that ONLY HE can provide and rescue us. God will provide for me. He may not give me a fancy new car, or $500 shopping spree at ZGallerie, but He will provide for our needs. My favorite verse is Matthew 6:33, But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things (food, clothing, shelter as mentioned in the verse before) will be given unto you. I have always “believed” this verse, but never have had to walk it out on my own. The Lord has blessed Josh and I so much in our first 5 years of marriage and now I believe He is going to refine us, put us through trials to where all fear is gone and all that is left is faith and trust. So please pray for me that we will walk faithfully in the new road that the Lord has called us to. Your thoughts?

I am so proud of my sister! She graduated last weekend, summa cum laude, with a Bachelors in Dietetics!  This was at her Honors Graduation reception where she received an award for her great grades! Way to go sister! She was one of 10 accepted into the Texas Tech Dietetics internship program and she will go far. Her dream is to be a writer for a healthy food magazine.

I stopped in at Grandma’s house yesterday on my way back from Dallas and was able to photograph some old photos of her and my granddad when they were growing up. I have always been the “historian” of the three of us, and am fascinated with how my relatives grew up and the stories that they have to share. I just love it, and yes, I am a member of ancestry.com! I once stayed up until 3 AM on ancestry.com searching my relatives all the way back to the 1100’s (which Josh informed me the next morning that I got off on the wrong relative’s name, but it was still fun to think back that far anyhow). I wanted to make sure that I had copies of these photos for a feature wall that I want to make in my next house. I want to have a wall of pictures of my grandparents, parents and us. I think it would be neat. Anyhow, photograph your family’s photos with a 50mm macro lens outside in the shade and you will be able to blow them up to about 8×10s!

My grandmother is Margaret Francis (Dean) Bodine, the second person on the right.

This is my grandfather, Truman Earl Bodine.

Truman is on the far left.

Having his hair pulled, something Grandma tells me happened often.

He liked striped overalls.

I love this picture of them.

Great Grandmother is on the bottom right.

I traveled to Morgan Mill, Texas last Thursday to stay with my friend, and first Brainwash, Allison Ballinger and then photograph a wedding in Dallas on Saturday! Her and her family live on an 800 acre horse ranch and let me tell you, it was my dream life! I even changed my ringtone to crickets singing when I arrived, it just seemed more like who I have become rather than my little “rapper” tone I had before:). Her son was a 30 year old rancher in a 9 year old’s body, it was incredible, I even did exactly what he told me to and almost threw in a “yes sir” at the end! Here are a few pictures from the first hour when I arrived. More to come tomorrow!

Carson and Henley

Yesterday as Chelsea and I were driving back from our quick trip to Wimberley for a wedding at Old Glory Ranch, I saw a historical marker that said “Indian Pictographs” and screeched my car to a stop and turned in. This is what we saw…

I’m looking a little scraggly from the early morning and 6 hours of driving.

Remember when my sweet dog London almost died of an Addisonian Crisis?  Well I wanted to give you an update!

She has almost gained back all 20 pounds that she lost within those few days! I fed her whatever she would eat and she will probably have artery disease because of it:). I bought a book on Addison’s in dogs and it led me to believe that because she was Atypical Addisonian that she only need prednisone and not DOCP (the $165 shot once a month) and so I called the vet and asked if we could give it a try. She has been off of her shot for 2 weeks now and only on 1 steroid per day and hasn’t shown any symptoms of going downhill! YAY! That means that we won’t have to pay a car payment once a month to keep our dog alive, PRAISE THE LORD!:)

Her disease will probably turn to Typical Addison’s in the future where we will have to pay for the shot, but I am so glad that we don’t have to do that right now.

Her coat is extra wavy and coarse from her disease, but this is the only way anyone would know that she has Addison’s. Anyway, wanted to post a picture of her being happy playing in the backyard, and then one creepy one of her slobber and fangs.

Yesterday we had the Braun’s and Jerry Newton over for hamburgers and the Pioneer Woman’s peanut butter chocolate pie (yum). Jerry works at Lifeway Christian store here in Lubbock and he was telling me about a book called RADICAL by David Platt (my mom and sister’s new favorite pastor) and he said how good of a book it was. It sounded like something I should read, and remember devout blogstalkers, I was on a reading kick a few months ago and only made it past 2 books before I was out of that phase. I thought that I needed to just read it all in a day and get it over with instead of starting it and never finishing it, and so I went to Daybreak with some friends to chat it up and ended up having 3 shots of espresso in my drink to help me stay up and read it all.

I am a lightweight when it comes to caffeine. I hardly ever have any, and when I would even half a half decaf at Starbucks my eyes would burn and my heart would race within 10 minutes of drinking it. It is sad and quite funny, so I knew that the 3 shots would do the job and maybe a little extra. Josh warned me not to do it, he said that last time I tried this I was up til 4 AM and was grumpy the next day, but I did it anyway. Caffeine really is a miracle. I couldn’t believe that my mind was so focused even after staying up all night and having such a really long month! My eyes stayed open and the entire book was incredible.

This book brings to light the contrast of the “American Dream” type churches with their million dollar buildings and soft cooshy chairs with the light show during worship and the churches in Asia and Africa where thousands of people come from villages risking their lives to sit all day in the hot sun to learn about the Word of God. It talks about how most of us think we aren’t “called” to go and make disciples of ALL nations, even though this is what Christ commanded everyone to do, and how we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new playgrounds and church event centers and don’t even give anything to missions or the local poor and needy.

I don’t want to be this way. I want to be less materialistic, less greedy, be fearless in my faith (the biggest struggle I have), travel to foreign and domestic lands to help the needy and share the love of Christ with them and not be consumed by all that does not matter, and tell me friends, does anything else really matter when compared to eternity? How  can I get so caught up in wanting a chair that costs $500 when that same $500 could feed and give water to so many children and families in need? How can I want a huge, modern house that will cost a fortune when there are so many people locally who NEED to be cared for? I want to be a foster mom and accept all who need help. I don’t want my life to pass by and look back and see selfishness and self-absorbed memories and possessions.

I want to live my life for Christ and not for myself.

I want to be radical.

My heart has a longing that I’ve never felt before and I think it’s because Christ’s return is soon and he is quickening the hearts of his people. Is anyone else out there feeling this?

Our picnic area that we made right up from our home site. It was really fun and hard. My obliques were super sore the next day.

baby racoon and momma racoon tracks.

My pet turtle that I released at the creek.

Look at my hunky husband tending to that fire!

The entrance.

I’m looking pretty country right here.

My land is amazing. Let me tell you, I was shocked to see the transformation since Josh and Mike have been working on it so hard every month. I planted some mammoth sunflowers down by the creek and the redbud tree and then widlflowers along the creek in the video below.

More to come Monday and Tuesday when I get home!