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While getting ready for this business launch, I’ve been thinking a lot about the word START.  So I looked up the definition:  START: 1.  To begin or set out, as on a journey.

Nearly seven years ago, I started something.  Sure it was just a little blogspot blog – like every other stay at home mom in America at that time – but nonetheless, I started.  I had absolutely no clue what that would lead to – C.C. Miller Photography.  I can not even begin to express how starting that little blogspot blog and subsequently, C.C. Miller Photography, has changed the course of my life.  I’ve been a part of births, graduations, weddings, birthdays, and countless other milestone moments.  I count myself privileged to have captured priceless moments for thousands of people that will forever stand the test of time, allowing them to return to a place in time that would have otherwise been forever forgotten.  Miller Party of Five – that little blogspot blog that I would be embarrassed for you to even see now – and C.C. Miller Photography, have helped me define who I am.  And all because…I started something.

Somewhere along the journey of being C.C. Miller, the photographer, I embraced who I was created to be.  Yes, I am a photographer but I am also more than that.  I am a storyteller.  I am a designer.  I am a cook.  I am a party planner.  I am a writer, yes a writer.  I was born to create and I’m in this amazing place in my life where I’m not scared or embarrassed to admit that.  I’m confident of who I am and I am without a doubt, a creative soul.  Turns out, I have this amazing husband beside me who is my absolute opposite in every way.  He is detailed and organized and business minded and thinks absolutely everything through before he acts.  He is everything that I am not and when you put it all together, it makes us a pretty freaking awesome team. He’s the business, the details, and the calm to my crazy.  I’m the doer, the creative, and the crazy to his calm.

So where am I going with this?  Well, I’ve been fighting a battle for quite some time.  It was time to redo my old flash website that I built myself almost 6 years ago and it just didn’t seem right for it to be called C.C. Miller Photography anymore.  I didn’t want to be limited to just being a photographer when there are so many other things I love – like building and flipping houses with my husband, design, staging, interiors, writing, cooking, and traveling.  I knew that going in a different direction would mean building a completely different website and Lord have mercy, there is nothing I hate quite like computer troubleshooting and building a website.  So, I thought about walking away before I even started.  But I couldn’t shake this feeling.  There was still this fight going on – a battle raging within – something telling me that I wasn’t supposed to walk away.  So I didn’t.  I decided, instead, that it was time to START…again.

So what exactly am I starting? I don’t really know.  I don’t know where this is all headed.  I’m a jump first think later kinda girl.  But you know what my sister posted on my wall yesterday that keeps ringing in my head?  “It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready.  I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything.  There is almost no such thing as ready.  THERE IS ONLY NOW.”

Are you ever really ready to jump off a cliff?  No.  It’s scary as hell.  You don’t know what you’re jumping into.  You don’t know if rocks wait at the bottom for you.  Maybe you will die.  Maybe you will fail.  But maybe it will be glorious.  Maybe it will be the best experience of your life.  Maybe it will take you somewhere you never could have imagined going.  You can stand on the edge of the cliff and wait till you’re ready, which will be never.  Or you can just jump.  You can START.

So hi there.  I’m Carissa Miller, but my best friends and family call me C.C. and you can too.  I’m married to Mike Miller, my high school sweetheart and best friend, and together we are starting www.ccandmike.com – our little corner of the world to be creative and share that with others.  What can you expect to see in our little corner of the world?  Well everything that I love of course – my family; pictures of our crazy life and travels; lifestyle photography; our latest home design projects; room reveals from not only our house that we just built, but from other projects that my EXTREMELY talented and hot (yes I can say that because I’m married to him) husband and builder/contractor will be undertaking; yummy food and recipes (food section); lifestyle photography (photography section); and MOST IMPORTANTLY – some original print art by myself and my amazingly talented sister and business partner – Rhesa Storms – on our shop page.  Oh and one more thing…and wow this is really a stretch for me but I’m putting myself out there because if I’m gonna jump, I mean I’m really just gonna go ahead and full on go for it because that’s how I roll.  So…I WROTE A BOOK.  Yep, like fiction, mystery/romance, book (see very bottom picture).  I wrote it last year while I was creatively bored because I took a break from photography while we waited for our house design to be completed.  I never, EVER, planned to tell anyone but my kids found it on my computer.  Then they asked if I wrote a book. Then they told me they believed in me, and I figured, how in the world can I tell them to chase their dreams, if I’m not going to practice what I preach?  I am currently letting my best friends read it…and it turns out they are all pretty into it so they say, and are encouraging me to go for this.  So as scary as this is…I’m jumping off the cliff, and part of that means announcing publicly – that I wrote a book – and maybe, just maybe, I will be sharing some more of that on www.ccandmike.com sometime soon.

So pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine if it’s past 4 pm, and take a look around our little corner of the world.  We are ccandmike.  Opposites attract.  High school sweethearts.  Home Designers/Builders/flippers/renovators.  Business Partners.  Mom & Dad.  Best Friends.  Buy a print for your home on our shop page from me or my uber talented sister who is joining me on this venture (more to come on that tomorrow); follow along with our latest building or home renovation project or call my husband if you are looking to build or renovate; get a yummy recipe for your next party; read a little story that will make you laugh, or perhaps even cry; and who knows what can happen when you are willing to have the courage to jump off that cliff and START something – maybe even read my book sometime in the future.

So welcome to www.ccandmike.com.  Thank you for stopping by our little corner of the world.  Here is a little photo montage of more to come from cc&mike – family, food, house design, building and renovation projects, original print art for sale, travel, lifestyle photography, and writing all on this lifestyle blog!  And Ps…my mom always taught me it’s nice to share.  So feel free to share our little corner of the world with your friends and family.