{inspiration}

inspiration.....it's all around us. jen wrote about finding inspiration last week and i thought i would continue that theme here with a fabulous catalog that is my new obsession these days. the photography in this catalog is nothing short of stunning and refreshing and inspiring. we do find inspiration all around us even in the mail!
toast. [another reason why i long to go to the uk.] shops in bath and oxford, notting hill and the west end of london. maybe someday they will come to boston. here's hoping and here's some inspiration for you.

photographer jenny zarins who has a style all her own - she's fantastic!

{earth hour}

what are you doing tonight?!!28 march? at 8:30 pm your time? well if you are like millions and millions of other folks, you will turn your lights off for one hour and celebrate earth hour!! there are no rules to earth hour - just turn your lights off for one hour and spend the time with your family, your pet, yourself. unplug and unwind. go for a walk in the dark, have dinner by candlelight, play a game, read a book, take a bath by candlelight - the list goes on. the goal is to reduce carbon emissions, it's your vote against global warming. and if you feel like recording it - come back and share your photos of what you did during "earth hour" with me. sounds like fun!! flick that switch!!

{mr. man}

okay, seriously.... drool, smiles, an occasional gleeful outburst, you know that breathing sound that babies make,their delicious heads....heaven. and here is shea....mr. man himself. finally, i was able to photograph this little guy. it all started when he was just a bump in his moms tummy and our schedules always clashed so we couldn't get that photograph and his newborn days were a little rough for mom but today the clouds parted, the angels sang, and i got to photograph this darling. i'll take that drool any day of the week. thank you rebecca for having me over - it was great fun to laugh with you and i can't wait to do it again. you're a wonderful mom - i hope you know that. and i hope you like what you see!!!

{M - my name is meg!}

when i was a young girl, i dreamed of being an interior designer. i would rearrange the furniture in my bedroom weekly. i think i drove my mother crazy - but she always let me do whatever i wanted. my bedroom was my cool little apartment, my "twin" beds my hip couches, my white plastic parsons table cubes my very fabulous coffee tables, that i always displayed my sisters glamour magazines - hiding the forbidden cosmo)on. i had throw pillows galore, a bean bag, a little dressing table with a three-legged stool, oh my......if i close my eyes i can picture it. i even had a red, white and blue theme at one time - oh dear. i loved my room. it was my mary tyler moore apartment. remember that apartment? - sunken living room, the big M on the wall, oh it was glorious. that's how my bedroom was. today it's my father's office and soon the room will belong to someone else. sadly my father has decided to sell our family home. oh i'm devastated. my heart is broken. i haven't lived in that house since i went away to college....but still.....it's home, and i'm sad knowing it will no longer exist as home. a quiet little beacon in the distance that i can always turn to. i always wanted annie to know where her mom grew up, run around the same yard. so much of that home changed for me when my mother died. so it's probably just as well.....but still.....home.

anyway..... i was flipping through the new west elm catalog and what caught my eye was the parsons table desk. now it's all i think of. it reminds me of my beloved room. that classic design, the parsons table will never go out of style. trends come and go, but good design, really good design remains. i am obsessing over this table and fear that i just have to have it - and i love the green. it's so great. memories of home. memories of my youth.

now all i need is a big M for my wall. thank goodness my name is meg!!!!!

{annie snippets}

i know i know, how many photos could i possibly have or post of my darling annie. well not enough let me tell you! she's my fav subject, i adore her, so you just have to let me indulge myself here and post a few more annie moments. little snippets of her over the past few days. reading to her little horse, dancing on the sidewalk, she's obsessed with having a "walking" stick these days and once in awhile she'll strike a pose. just for me. oh she makes my heart sing!!

{tea slingers}

{sidewalk sign}

{back l.to r.} nico, connor, philip {middle l. to r.} amber, alex, adrienne
{front l. to r.} meg, annie and bil

{the back of our employee tea shirts "tea slingers"}

{the gang with annie}

{the gang with paul}


{the girls l.to r.} adrienne, alex, amber
missing: jill and lindsey

{alex or as annie used to call her alco}

once upon a time i owned a fabulous tea house here in newburyport. licorice & sloe company. it was a wonderful place. we served over 100 different loose leaf teas that we imported from around the world. we offered unusual tea beverages and lattes made fresh to order. it was a very unique place. and very unique people patronized our tea house. we showcased beautiful artwork from local artists and enjoyed sunday morning music "crumpets and jam" from local musicians. licorice & sloe offered a very unique respite from the world. but alas all good things must come to an end. my husband and i decided that we were never going to be able to "support" ourselves with this business. this business that we put our heart and soul into as well as our life savings....so we decided to close our doors this past september, on our own terms.
but that's not the reason for this post. the reason is the staff at licorice & sloe company. we were so lucky to have the most incredible people work for us. high school and college kids that took their jobs seriously, were pleasant and lovely to all our customers, who cared about about my husband. cared about our daughter. cared out about our business, and like us had a great love for all things tea. when we closed our doors we weren't sorry about losing all that we had worked for, we were sorry that we no longer could offer these kids a place to work and a place to hang. that is what we miss.
we had a tea slinger (a phrase coined by my husband for those that serve tea in l&s co.) reunion the other night. some are away at college and were home for spring break and others are finishing up their senior year in high school and ready to move on. how cool are these guys, they showed up in their tea house shirts!! bil made homemade pizzas, we drank out of dora and diego paper cups courtesy of annie and we just enjoyed being together again. paul joined us as well, as one of our daily customers of the tea house, he too was touched by our "kids" - nico, philip, connor, jill, lindsey, alex, adrienne and amber( tea drinker and supporter extroadinaire).
these tea slingers mean the world to my husband and myself. we miss seeing them everyday. being a part of their lives. they really are great "kids" - we call them our kids but they are adults and they are amazing and will leave their mark on this world. we hope our daughter grows up to be like them, to care about school, to want to do great things with her life just like our tea slingers. we are very lucky to know them.
it was a very special time in our lives, owning licorice & sloe company.

{fabulous giveaway} HAPPY SPRING

check out the maternal lens for a wonderful giveaway!!! all are welcome ~ don't miss out!!

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

welcome spring {mini sessions}

welcome spring with a 30 minute {mini} photo shoot. now booking from 21 march to 11 april - you will receive a high res cd of approximately {10-15} beautifully edited photos ready for printing. you pick the location or i will - makes a great easter present, plan ahead for mother's day or father's day, or just because! send an email to meg@bluelimephoto.com to inquire about availability, reduced rates and details. i look forward to seeing you smile!!

{3 yr old} the many faces of........

if your child is like mine, you gotta grab those moments when you can. miss annie has my number now and she doesn't like her photo taken anymore. it's always a struggle. but there are times i prevail. like yesterday for example, she was getting ready to go for a walk with her daddy and i was doing the dreaded cleaning out my closet chore - day no. 2 {yes it was that bad} - i found annie's striped hat it's been missing for awhile - so getting her bundled for her walk, the light perfectly streaming into the room i had to grab my cam - she complied. such a good girl. i do notice her ease in front of the camera but it definitely has to be on her terms. if you feel like sharing a "got it" moment with me - include a link with your comment, i would love to see them. happy monday!! remember it's the last monday of winter!!!

{reading} ....abc's, abc's, abc's

as i've stated before annie is crazy about letters. all 26 of them. she can be heard humming the alphabet song or sneaking on my computer to type her name out...a-n-n-i-e-, a-n-n-i-e over and over day in and day out. she will read her books for hours, she reads to her baby dolls, to her stuffed animals, to her teapots, anything. her favorite place in the whole world these days, big surprise, is the library. we try to go once a week. she will grab a "magazine" and sit at the table and just soak in all the letters in front of her. we have flash cards at home that we work on with her identifying the letters and the objects that begin with those letters. i love to watch her learn. to be excited when she gets it. she's a sponge. she's intense. don't interrupt her when she's reading - it's too important. her response always is....."in a minute"....

{ballerinas} in training that is.

it was peek week at annie's ballet class yesterday. these darling little 3 year old girls running around on their tip toes, twirling, spinning, falling, laughing. oh to be that free. it was organized chaos to say the least. jean is so patient to take these little gals under her wings and calmly try to teach then dance. formal training doesn't begin until the age of five. i want annie to learn the art of ballet. it's beautiful. i danced ballet for nine years and often regret letting that go. there's an etiquette that goes with ballet and that's what i want annie to learn. a sense of self - and along with that grace, poise, respect, music and french - such a beautiful language.

the lighting in this studio is horrible for photography. there are no windows. beautiful wood floors but jet black glossy walls trimmed in wood - it's very 1970's bob fosse. {one singular sensation every little step she takes.....} oh sorry. anyway, it really was impossible to get any decent photos, so i really have to figure out this solution before the next peek week. i need that new speedlight from nikon the sb-900, yes that will do quite nicely.

here's a few shots - dark and grainy as they may be - think degas on a cloudy day.
{click on photo to enlarge}

{RUN!!!} don't walk..............

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{butterflies + pajamas}

annie had a pajama day at school. all the kids got to wear their pj's to school and the teachers too - they could bring their favorite stuffed animal. annie's class had an indoor picnic as well. it was so cute to see everyone walking around in their pj's and fuzzy slippers. of course annie wore brand new jammies - she loves butterflies. this is just a quick shot on our way into school. i love her pose - the combo of her two favorite things in the whole world {well for that morning anyway!} - butterfly pj's and rainboots.....we're having a nice thaw these days but unfortunately may have more snow tonight. humph!!!

{photo mojo}

today annie and i are starting our photo project. inspired by the good folks at photojojo. annie is mad about letters and numbers. she walks around all day pointing out the letters of her name and when she sees numbers she immediately starts counting, she also likes to hold up her fingers and ask us how many and then she puts her hands behind her back to "change" them and asks us again. hours of numbers fun!! i love her little sponge mind soaking up everything she learns at school. to say she is thriving in that environment would be an understatement. she amazes us everyday. i love the way she writes her name too - to me it's perfection. but anyway..... this project is perfect to combine her two loves to make this really cool calendar for her room. the calendar is a daily activity at school and makes for good observations to include the weather and even the time. we are going to go exploring for numbers and letters that i can photograph to create our masterpiece. i will post our diy journey and then the final product soon. i figure this is a great way to kill many birds with one stone - spending time with my favorite person in the whole world, getting outside and some much needed exercise, letting annie use her eye spy eyes and seeking out numbers 1-31 and letters for the days of the week and i can continue the happiness i get everytime i hold my camera in my hand. why don't you try this project and show me your results. i'd love to see.

{who inspires you}?

james merrell, james merrell, james merrell. if i click my heels three times can i capture an image like james merrell?! forever added to my list of who i want to be when i grow up. mesmorizing, gorgeous, stunning, breathtaking, why didn't i think of that?! wow wow wow. there are just not enough words to describe the beauty of his photography.
it's not possible to open up a design magazine, catalog or design book without seeing an image by this amazing photographer from london.
his portfolio is amazing and the inspiration is unending.
who inspires you? i would love to hear.