It took my mom asking me why I haven’t blogged in a while to realize I haven’t blogged in a while. Thanks for checking in, Mom!
Yes, it has been a while. I’m sorry for the silence. I usually have way more to say.
The short answer of where I’ve been is: I haven’t done much with the horses recently and I’ve been either busy with a toddler, or working on launching my new business, Courtney Noel Studio. Both incredibly time consuming.
Let me tell you about Courtney Noel Studio for a minute. I am creating a mobile studio, going directly to your barn or home to create gorgeous photos of you and/or your horse.
I’ve been taking photos since I started this blog back in 2015. At first it was the usual photos for the blog, but even back then I tried getting photos of people with their horses. Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing so it looked terrible, but there was something pulling me towards it.
This year, it finally clicked. I realized that what I truly love to make are the most gorgeous photos of woman. I convinced some friends to pose for me and seeing them transformed into their best self was incredible. They were shocked at how beautiful they were. They hadn’t seen their true beauty before.
It’s a beautiful thing to give someone that. In addition, because I love my horses, I wanted to go further with that idea to include horses. I haven’t seen anyone offering the kind of photos I want to offer. I haven’t even seen it because I have not made it yet. It’s a work in progress. But I have a clear direction, and I’m going to get there.
I’m really excited where this is headed. It’s a little scary to hang out your shingle and call yourself a professional, but sometimes you just have to jump right in, and be willing to make mistakes.
It’s been an exciting time of learning, experimenting, and researching. I am so excited to be building up this business, and I hope you’ll follow along as I go!
I’m starting in my local area but I hope to be traveling just about everywhere in the future. If you want to be photographed by me, there will be an opportunity in the future!
Courtney Noel Studio has it’s own website, instagram, and facebook page. That website has a blogging page where I will feature photoshoots, but, I’m still going to be bringing in some content here. I love to share what I’ve learned, and sometimes things are just too good not to share.
Now that we’ve gone over that, let’s come back around to the blog. The main reason I haven’t said much here is because I haven’t been doing much with my horses. I hate to say that – it kills me a little inside. Horses were my life, and now they are on the backburner. I’m caring for them, but that’s the extent of my interaction with them. I haven’t ridden in forever, I haven’t been working with Stu. It’s a bit shameful.
I do have my excuses. I am taking care of a toddler. If you don’t have a toddler, you have no idea what they are like. They demand constant attention and you have to try to keep them from killing themselves every single day. I used to think it was absurd that parents would let their kids play on a tablet, but now I’m wishing she’d just play on it for like ten minutes so I can sit down and relax. Just ten minutes. Please!
There are many things that I did not understand before having a kid. Your life really is dominated by them.
But that’s not to say it isn’t ultimately rewarding. It’s just… tiring. Time consuming. Feeling like a servant to the most demanding boss ever with no time off. Sleeping in past 6:30 is the biggest luxury in the world, comparable only to going to the bathroom without an audience.
I have never thought that anyone would be interested in hearing about my days with a toddler. So I stopped writing. I had no story to tell anymore.
I love writing. Writing is why I started this blog in the first place. I could have had horses without writing, but it was something I wanted to do.
Now I have horses, but no story to tell about them. I am itching to write though. But what story could I tell?
Really, there is only one solution. I’m just going to have to write about other aspects of my life. Maybe I have something interesting to say about being a mom? I don’t know at this point. I don’t feel particularly talented at parenting.
When I think about blog content going forward, I have a few ideas. There’s the photography tips I mentioned earlier, motherhood, the baby, life on the farm, life in the house, renovations maybe? Fitness has always been a hobby of mine, so I could talk about that. Basically it’s going to be about a lot more than just horses. The horses will be included as much as possible, but I’m not going to try to pretend I’m doing a lot with them when I’m not.
I still have hope that the horses will still be a major part of the blog – especially as Bridgette gets older and can join me with them. She already follows me around when I feed them!
Hopefully I’ll still be able to create interesting content out of this. I’m going to try it! Thanks to all the readers who have been with me over the years, and anyone who kept coming back to see if I updated. I’m trying not to let you down. I’m aiming for two posts a week now, and we will see how that goes.
Thanks, everyone!
1 comment
Starting a business is not an easy task, plenty of considerations to keep in mind in the digital and social media era. It has you guessing on whether you have all your bases covered. There are directories also. After a while, it’s just a go.
This parenting thing, I used to say, “I forgot my owners manual (dad version) at the maternity ward.” There are times when you second guess yourself. The hard part is making sure your kid doesn’t catch onto the second guessing. But, as a whole, I love being a dad. My first wife, my second wife, they both love being moms. It’s made the parenting thing easy.