#ForYouForAllie | Danielle | A Personal Post

Testing my lighting- The only picture I have of Danielle! (We have to change that!!)

I’m not brave by nature. I always wanted to be one of those girls who boldly said what they needed to without hesitation. Instead, I often play the woulda-coulda-shoulda game. Knowing my stance, wanting to share my thoughts, but instead watching idly by on the sideline.
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So I did something that terrified me.

I was brave.

I had been longing for a photography friend.
Extra points if our personalities meshed.
Super extra points if we had lots of similarities.

I knew Danielle by name (I think we were briefly introduced as ‘the other photographer’) at my old MOPS group on the other side of Rochester. So BAM! Right off the bat- I surmised that we both have kids, similar values, and a need for ‘mom time’. So, feeling like a grade A creeper, I messaged her and asked if she’d like to get together to talk shop sometime.

And she did!!
(I’m sure you could gather that- or this would have been a really depressing story!) 

We met up for dessert and immediately I felt like I was catching up with a lifelong friend! Danielle is genuine, generous, and just about the easiest person to talk to! We sat together, comparing notes and daydreams and I couldn’t help mentally happy-dance that I’d been brave. Because this girl is awesome!

We try to meet up once a month to encourage each other, craft, chat, and just hang out! Besides my parents, Danielle is who I FaceTime most. I’m always so excited to see what she’s doing with her business and it feels so wonderful to have a friend that is genuinely interested in mine, too.
She helped me turn my business from one that was running me ragged to one that I adore! And she’s been cheering me on ever since!

Thankful for a dear local photographer mama friend who will guide me, pray for me, and tell me when my white balance looks off ;)

PS: Take a moment to check out Danielle’s beautiful work!
 
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This month's Allie Memory:

In line with my big-ole’-scaredy-self story I’d like to share a time when Allie helped me be brave. And to some, this may not seem like a big deal, but I was terrified to learn how to dive. Something about purposely jumping face first made my survival mode kick in hard. And that mode usually kicked in about halfway through a dive- which essentially meant: belly flop.

When Allie learned my 17 year old self had never, ever dived she didn’t make me feel dumb for being afraid, but she lightheartedly told me she was confident, 100%, that I could do it. And that’s thing about Allie. You just trust her. She never had an ulterior motive, she wasn’t trying to pressure me, she was simply confident. And it made ME feel confident. So my friend spent her afternoon off from lifeguarding- at the pool with me. Where she patiently taught me how to overcome this lifelong fear I’d built up. And wouldn’t you know- she even made it fun??

Actually, I bet you could’ve guessed it. Because that was so Allie.
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When my 10 year old cousin asked me to teach HER to dive two summer ago- I did- and thought of Allie the whole time. <3  

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