A Couple of Fun Features - Cottages and Bungalows Magazine and My Photo in a Book!

Hi Friends! It seems like we are on the downside of the Covid-19 mountain (for now anyway) and I am very much looking forward to life beginning to feel a bit closer to normal again. Things have been slowly re-opening here in NJ with non-essential retail starting up next week along with outdoor dining. I think we might be the very last state to do so but there was certainly good reason for that. I don't really miss eating out, we much prefer to hang out here at home, but I do miss HomeGoods!! And thrift/antique stores - there's just no online substitute for those. I realized that I never shared a couple of fun things that happened just as the world was falling apart.

Our home was featured in the Spring 2020 issue of Cottages and Bungalows! It was an exciting day when this issue arrived! I was in great company - lots of great ideas in this issue.

You never know quite what the end product will look like when you let a magazine into your home. It's a bit overwhelming, especially when they send a stylist that starts moving everything around. But, this shoot was super low key and I was the stylist so that was super fun and a new role for me.

It was just one photographer this time and he took many of the same shots that I do, but with much more expensive equipment. He had a list of my photos from Instagram that he replicated.

Here's a peak at a few of the pages. I think the writer did a great job of telling my story. To be honest, the pictures feel a little too edited for me - I prefer my pics to have more of a real-life feel to them, capturing light as an additional element in the room. But that's the probably more my issue with control than anything else. :)

And now onto another fun thing. A while back I received an e-mail from a publisher asking if I would allow one of my photos that she saw on Instagram to be used in a book she was putting together featuring bookstores all over the world.  Now, I am a book lover through and through and the picture was of my very favorite bookstore - The Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT. So of course I jumped at the opportunity.  I signed off a contract and then promptly forgot about it. Fast forward to a random day earlier this year when a package arrived from the publisher including 2 of the copies of the new book. Here's what it looks like.

It's actually a compilation of postcards and that's my picture of the beautiful Northshire at Christmas that is included inside. You can find it on Amazon if you're interested.

This blogging journey has led to so many unexpected places and I am so grateful for the opportunities that have come my way. When you're primarily a stay-at-home mom, it can get a bit difficult to see your value in the outside world sometimes. Of course, raising good people is the most important work that any parent will ever do, but it's gratifying to see a part of my own personal work on one of my bookshelves too.

I hope you all are doing well and finding the light in this crazy world.