I am forgetful by nature. I’ve lost my purse more than a dozen times, but thankfully I haven’t forgotten any of my four kids. Or was it five? At Biola University where I was taking classes, trying to get into nursing school, I joined the yearbook staff. I had an old film camera and more than once I would forget to load it. Imagine my horror after I had taken 24 pictures of an event for the yearbook and realized there was no film inside! The night I drove up to Bakersfield to surprise my best friend for her birthday, and got surprised myself that she got engaged, I took all the party pictures. No one had a smartphone back then so I heard, “Yay, Michelle is taking all the pictures!” Yeah – it happened again – no film. She still teases me to this day (lovingly at least).

Thank God for whoever invented digital cameras. Seriously. Now I can take 500 pictures at a photo shoot (I usually do), and they are all there! My friends still expect me to take photos of our events because I usually have a camera and I am pretty much always wanting to take pictures. Honestly, one of the biggest thrills in my life is seeing images of people in the back of my camera.

Well, I did end up graduating from nursing school, but life has its funny ways of throwing curve balls. Or curvy paths. I took a path I never expected to take, quit my nursing job, and started homeschooling my children. I loved it. Now my oldest two are off to post-high school life and my two youngest have started public school and love it. I started nursing again and vaccinated over 1,000 people with CVS in early 2021. I love my life and all my jobs whether it is helping my kids, vaccinating people, photographing families, capturing seniors, real estate photography, and fun events. Funny how things change.

** I am fully vaccinated and boosted for Covid-19 **