my life, squeezed into one single day

I have to tell you guys about the day I had yesterday.

So, first thing's first: Bear wakes up at 6 a.m. on the dot, before the sun even rose. I get up, feed him breakfast, and go upstairs to play with his toys for an hour or so before school, and out the window I catch a glimpse of this incredible sunrise:

Look at that.

And just as I'm about to contemplate the meaning of the universe and the incredible, vibrant, amazing creations of our planet... it's time to drop Bear off at school and head...

To hair and makeup for a photoshoot.

And not just any photoshoot! Houston Magazine is featuring me as a Power Lawyer this summer, which is a really big deal for my law practice! We've been putting the pieces together for this photoshoot for a few months, and I was so excited when the day finally came along.

So, off to the salon for two hours of getting camera-ready.

Can I please look like this all the time? That hair! Oh my goodness.

Truthfully, I was a little nervous about the photoshoot because I've done a lot of them for this blog and sometimes they're great and sometimes they're terrible. It sounds crazy to say that getting all dolled up in hair and makeup and having someone take your picture can be terrible (and, obviously, I mean "terrible" in a very #firstworldproblems kind of way), but sometimes creative people have different visions and when you have a photographer and a shoot coordinator and hair and makeup people who are all creative and each have their own way to do things... well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But this one was important to me, and I wanted it to be great.

And it was.

It was awesome. We had a great photographer, and everyone was on the same page, and once we'd settled on what I was wearing, an hour later, boom, we were done.

Oh, did you think that was all? Not even remotely. So... onto the next part of my day.

But, yup, this crazy day continued. Because next, I was headed to a fashion show! Houston designer David Peck was showing his spring collection at his new flagship space, so I headed off to see his beautiful show and see some fellow Houston fashion bloggers.

The show itself was stunning, and you know me: if I can sip prosecco at noon on a Tuesday, I'm a pretty happy girl. Throw in the fabulous company of Caroline, Candace and Lyndsey, and some beautiful clothes, and David is lucky I ever left his showroom, because, man, that was a fun afternoon.

After that, I had a few hours of time while Bear was at school to squeeze in my actual work, which I won't spend a lot of time detailing, but I think it's important to remember that, even during a particularly glamorous day, there was also quite a bit of time devoted to my real work, which are less-glam things like conference calls, drafting discovery, case development and strategy, and a lot more. It's easy to pick a day when I had something monumental, like a photoshoot, to highlight my law practice, but the truth is that the most important part of my work is the day-to-day time I spend tackling issues that are important to my clients.

And then, a few hours later, six o'clock rolled around, and I picked Bear up, changed into some baby-friendly, washable clothes, put on my glasses, and spent an hour like this:

And, you know what?

It was the best day.

It was my whole life, collapsed into a single day. It was life as a lawyer melting into life as a blogger melting into life as a mom, all in the space of about twelve hours.

When I started my law practice, I decided to make an effort to talk about my career more on this blog. That felt like an important decision for me, because for a long time it felt like I was being pulled in two different directions: part of me was juggling this high-intensity career where I worried that if people knew about my blog, it would make me seem less professional or less driven. And the other part of me was juggling this glamorous, crazy life in the fashion world where I worried that being a lawyer was somehow "uncool."

But a little over a year ago, I made a conscious choice to be open about both sides of my life. Yes, some days I go from law to fashion and back again. Some days, I sit in front of my computer all day long, writing briefs and responding to emails, and that's not more or less "cool" than attending a fashion show, it's just a different kind of day. Truthfully, I like them both.

And at the beginning and the end of the day, I sneak in some precious moments with our baby boy. Even if I'm bleary-eyed at 6 a.m. if I have to put my newly-coiffed hair into a ponytail so it doesn't get pulled by messy baby fingers. That part of my day is incredibly important too.

So I wanted to share it with you guys. Because you see a lot of discrete parts of my day-to-day on this blog, but I thought this was a particularly good day to show how everything gets weaved together. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard, but that's the thing about balance: sure, it takes effort. But it's so incredibly worth it.