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WOW.  I mean, 9 months ago I told Michael that it was time for me to redo my website.  I knew the website I had built by myself for my photography business 7 years ago, was no longer cutting it.  Not to mention, for months, or perhaps maybe even years if I’m being honest, I had been feeling a prompting—a little voice inside my head—telling me it was time for change.  I knew that it was time to take the “photography” out of our name.  It was time to make a lifestyle blog that would work for not only me, but for us and for our family and all that we do, not just my photography business only.  I told Michael I missed writing.  I told him I wanted to blog again.  I told him I felt like I was SUPPOSED to start blogging and writing again.  I told him I had the idea of trying to sell my prints and my sister’s prints as art, for home design.  I told him I didn’t know where in the world we were headed but that I thought we were supposed to start a new lifestyle blog—cc+mike—and he told me to go for it.

I had no idea the journey I was about to embark upon.  I keep telling people that creating a website is like childbirth.  You might think I’m being dramatic, and ok, maybe I am a little bit because that’s what I do, but seriously…I’ve done natural childbirth without so much as an aspirin and trust me, the analogy is spot on in my opinion.  During labor there are times when you want to give up;  there are times where you think, “What in the heck have I gotten myself into?  I can’t do this!”  And most of all, you spend every single second during childbirth thinking—I CAN. NOT. WAIT. FOR. THIS. TO. BE. OVER.  Yep.  Sounds EXACTLY like a website redo to me.

That has been me for the past 9 months—daily moments of wanting to pull my hair out; moments of wanting to give up; and moments of looking at Michael, and my best friends, and saying, “I can’t do this.  I want to quit.”  But thankfully I have a lot of pretty awesome cheerleaders on my team and I didn’t quit.  I launched one website at the end of May after 6 months or longer of laboring on that website.  Then, two months after launching my first lifestyle blog, I realized that significant changes needed to be made if I wanted my print shop to be functional and my site to be Reward Style friendly.  So, I went through labor of a complete website redo again.  I hired Hot Coffey Design to help me get my print shop functioning and get my lifestyle blog more streamlined and I went through the whole painful process again.  Because I’m crazy like that.  I mean, what’s better than going through labor once?  Why not go ahead and do it back to back, twice in a row.

My girl Karli and the whole team at Hot Coffey Design were so patient, so amazing, and so helpful.  There were times where I wanted to scream and I’m sure there were times they wanted to scream as well.  But they never gave up on me.  They always went the extra mile and by extra mile, I mean someone literally drove to Broken Arrow to try to figure out my shipping issues that were haunting us.  So finally after 2 plus months, we have this new lifestyle blog ready to rock and roll.

So what is cc+mike?

It’s just our little corner of the world.  What does that mean?  Well you can hop on over to our lifestyle blog to get inspiration for your next home project, remodel, or room redo.  I will be posting sales and fabulous finds for both clothes and home items with shoppable links.  I will post funny stories and I will post serious stories.   I will keep you updated on my journey to publishing my book that I’ve written—Young Adult mystery/romance hopefully coming soon (you can read the first chapter here)—and I will also post our favorite quick and easy recipes.  Reward Style also makes it easy for me to keep you in the loop about upcoming trends for home and fashion, great sales, and basically, it’s shopping made easy for you right on my site.   You will also notice a nice little list of all my favorite places to shop in the sidebar of my website as well as an ongoing feed of new products from shoes to clothes to rugs to home accessories.  Again, shopping made easy for you.  Have a look at my photography page for updates on my latest sessions and galleries of some of my all-time favorite pictures.  Seriously, please go look at my photography page because I’m obsessed with the modern, clean design of how that page turned out.  Oh yes!  And of course you can hop on over to our PRINT SHOP and buy one of our original prints to make your home a more beautiful place.  NOTHING makes us happier than seeing a print from cc+mike print shop in YOUR home!

So that’s cc+mike in a nutshell.  It’s been a labor of love, and maybe even hate at times, but I’m so so proud to be showing you “my baby.”  I would be SO HONORED if you would take a look see at my website.  Check out the photography section, the food section, and definitely the print shop!  You know what would really rock my world?  Is if you even went to my site on a DESKTOP (I know, I know right?  Who uses a desktop anymore) because that is where my site really looks its best.  You would be my favorite person ever if you would even go to the trouble to leave me a little comment and tell me that you looked around this little labor of love I have spent 9 months on.

So without further ado, I give you www.ccandmike.com.  Welcome to our little corner of the world.  PS – if you want to stay in the know, feel free to subscribe and you will receive email updates.  I will also be doing a newsletter from time to time if I can get my act together.

Thank you from cc+mike for being a part of this journey with us!