Things I didn't share in 2023

and what I’m doing differently in 2024

I’ll be honest, this post is 100% inspired by

Sara Tasker - Me & Orla

’s Things I didn’t post on Instagram from a few weeks ago. I don’t often share personal snapshots online; mostly, to protect my family’s privacy, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it’s also because I feel vulnerable about it.

While I love capturing raw, intimate moments with my camera, part of me wonders if people would really want to see them. I’m not special, that voice in the back of my head whispers. Who would want to hear about me? I worry that they’re not “artsy” enough—that I need some kind of justification to want to celebrate these small moments of my life.

This is something I’m hoping to work on in 2024: giving myself permission to share things like this if I choose. There will always be areas of my life that I want to keep to private. But especially as my son gets older, I feel the urge to capture the mundane details of our world, to preserve them in amber, and create a scrapbook of everyday moments we can look back on in years to come.

So, with that in mind, here’s a collection of memories, the small and the significant, from 2023. I hope you enjoy perusing them.

This post was too long for email, so if it cuts off weirdly you can find the full thing by clicking here.

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I threw myself a baby shower in February and used it as an excuse to buy every dessert from the French bakery that I’ve always wanted to try. I have no regrets.

just me, happy and healthy with a fresh haircut, two weeks before our baby arrived

light in the nursery, the day before everything changed

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There’s a firm line in my life that will always divide Before from After.

It sits right here, in the middle of April, on a soft, sunny spring day.

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ten days old

photo taken by my friend Annie from The Darling Lens

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It would be easy to just share these images and not talk about what else was going on for us at the time. But while these were some of the best days of my life, they were also some of the worst.

Two weeks after our baby was born, my husband’s grandmother passed away. Then our beloved cat went into sudden kidney failure and we had to say goodbye.

Looking back through these images brings up a lot of memories, both good and hard. Of course, the moments that we end up taking photos of are usually the happy ones—the sparks of joy and glimmers that give us hope, even in darkness.

It’s also important to remember what was happening behind the beauty though.

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summer was when things started to settle into a rhythm for us. we finally felt like we were getting our feet on stable ground again

in autumn, I began to feel more and more like my old self. creative energy came back. I started working on projects again. It was a relief that I still had it in me to make art.

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I didn’t pick a word for 2023, and I debated if I wanted to have one for 2024. After some thought, I’ve decided on Nurture as a theme I want to focus on for this year.

Nurture my child. Nurture my creativity. Nurture myself.

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one of my intentions for 2024 is to keep practicing sewing and to play around with shooting analog again.

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Resolutions is a heavy-handed word. It feel weighty, like stone, something immovable and inflexible.

Lately, I’ve been jotting down explorations and intentions for the coming year. They feel more open and free.

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blue hour mornings

Christmas mantle at my mother’s house

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This post ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. I’d originally planned to just include a handful of images, but as I wandered through the past, one frame at a time, I kept coming across moments that I wanted to honor.

If you made it to the end, thank you for walking through these memories with me. 2023 was my biggest year of change so far and it’s eye-opening thumbing back through the months like a flip-book and realizing just how much has happened.

It was a hard year. It was a good year.

Both can be true at the same time.

I know 2023 was tough on many people. Whether you’re excited for 2024 or just happy to be saying goodbye to what’s past,

I wish you rest, recovery, and rejuvenation this winter, and a happy New Year ✨