After the first shoot several months ago, Mikaela and I got together mid-August for another photoshoot.

Along Spicewood Springs.

Red and Green.

Red, White and Blue.

All in all, I had a great time shooting with her.

God taught me a lesson on grace yesterday.

A friend of mine accidentally exhibited some behavior that I have a bit of baggage about in my past. And my first instinct was to think the worst of her, and in my initial communique I was significantly more accusatory than I needed to be.

In talking back and forth, turns out it was an accident – we were a victim of some non-obvious user interface behavior behavior on a certain social networking site.

That’s when It hit me – the fact that right off the bat, I had assumed the worst of her… how twisted of me is that?

About the same time, I had a response from said friend, in which she challenged me to be more courteous the next time, et cetera. It was quite a bit of a wake-up.

I ended up thanking her for having confronted me and apologizing profusely for thinking that she had done it out of malice.

It reminded me of a quote I’ve read online many times:

Do not attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance.

Sometimes those are useful words to remember.

Last night, the open windows in my house dropped the inside temperature to 78 degrees, colder than it has been in my house since, well… probably April.

(the A/C is set to 82, atrociously hot for most of you, I know – but even then, there were days my A/C ran for 14+ hours/day this summer)

As I left for work this morning, it was 60-something outside. Almost chilly. Fantastic.

Despite having gotten partially acclimated to Texas weather, I’m still a northerner at heart. Give me frost breath and thick wool sweaters any day.

I’m looking forward to sitting on the back deck around a fire pit, hot chocolate in hand.

Almost a year ago, I was contacted by a local Austin model about doing a photoshoot together.

She had largely been doing stock photography up until recently, and wanted to try having a photographer behind the camera, instead of just herself.

We ended up meeting at the gorgeous St. Edwards City Park in NW Austin, and spent some time in the heat shooting:

At waters edge.

Walking in the meadow.

You can see more on flickr.

I work like it’s up to me,
and pray like it’s up to Him.

I came across those words online the other day, and it struck me… While I might have that in my head, it’s not necessarily in my heart.

Often I don’t pray like it’s up to Him. See, I like being in control. When I do things, I know they’re done right. And that means that I then don’t trust God to do a good enough job for me. But that’s crazy, I mean… really, that’s crazy. Not to mention foolish.

And yet I do it, day after day, all the while wondering when I’m going to learn that lesson.

Take heed, friends, and learn from my foolishness.

10 hours, 2 cars, 10 people, 2 dogs.

Landlubbers on the beach.

Pool.

Kat.

More can be seen on flickr and on Facebook.

I realize this is somewhat belated, as the 4th of July has come and gone several months ago, but I just now have gotten around to finish processing the photos from the last three months….

Fireworks.

More fireworks.

The Grand Finale.