Every year, on New Year’s Eve, Daniel and I make lists for the upcoming year. We each make an individual list of what we personally want to accomplish for the year and then we make a list together of what we want to accomplish as a couple.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but it is one I stole from my cousin and her husband. We keep our lists in the notes app on our phones so it is there to look over throughout the year.

During our NYE goal planning sess, Daniel and I also look over the past year’s list and see what we did and did not accomplish and discuss it. Communication, or lack of, especially with those closest to me is one of my greatest flaws, and Dan’s biggest frustration with me, so I am constantly inserting activities like this into our lives to force me into being transparent.

Creating our lists this year, a strong theme began to reveal itself. My personal goals for myself were a lot of learning to slow down, enjoy life and focusing on self care. When it came time to create our “couple’s list” it quickly started becoming Daniel’s way of saying Danielle needs to slow down and enjoy life.

And so the year of 2016 was dubbed the year of “Living with Intention.”

Which sounds so easy when you’re just typing it in your phone. I won’t work at all on Sundays. I’ll go to bed at a decent time. I will quit letting others guilt me into things for free. I will make time for personal blogging and chatting on the phone with friends and all the little things that bring me joy.

*waves magic wand and everything appears how it should*

Or not.

Fast forward to end of April. I was working all day, every day of the week. I felt rushed, stressed and overworked. I couldn’t even think straight, my business was getting all of me, but it wasn’t getting the best parts I had to contribute.

I’m a maker. It’s what my job entails, I crave it. But I crave more than the making of pretty photos. I love to cook, to garden, to make soap. Canning jams and vegetables brings me such intense self gratitude, it’s a little ridiculous. 

I love blogging (I have another outside of Two Arrows that is more personal), and have a weird obsession with self help books. I am a Christian, a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. I am SO much more than a #girlboss photographer, but my workaholic tendencies forget that. I forget about me.

In my need to make everyone happy and grow Two Arrows, I had thrown my living intentionally and self care promise to myself out the window so fast, it was somewhere back on the highway getting hit by oncoming traffic.

So last week, as I was crying my eyes out through washing the dishes I had convinced myself I didn’t have time to wash, but needed to be done, I had a come to Jesus moment. It was like when my computer is so overloaded it freezes up and there is nothing to do but hold down the power button and start again.

I held down the metaphoric power button on my New Year’s resolutions, took a breath and started again.

Friends, I will no longer be working on Sundays.

I’m taking back the day of rest. I’m doing the things that bring me joy.

I’m living intentionally.

This means, if you text, email, call or send a carrier pigeon to me or Daniel on a Sunday and it is related to a session, photos in general or anything Two Arrows related, I will not be answering you until Monday. I will also no longer be taking photo sessions or editing on Sundays.

Instead I’ll be in a church pew, or making an Orange Leaf run with that handsome blue-eyed man I’ve loved since 2012, or getting a reminder of how hard things like tomatoes and peaches are to peel, because my Sundays are for canning or whatever I dream up. My Sundays are for me.

Thank you all for understanding!

Danielle