20 Years on Wildcat Hill

Wildcat Hill in the 1930's Last night we had our first rain (sprinkle) of the season! It was so nice to hear the rain on the old tin roof. This is one of the driest years that we can remember in the past 20 years. Yes, Kim and I are celebrating our 20th year of living on Wildcat Hill. Our anniversary is in December. We both look at each other in amazement wondering where the time has gone and how did it pass so quickly? Now with our son in college, Kim and I can have a “single” married life “without kids” under our feet. We didn’t have much time alone after we were married. Much of our lives have been centered around our son and of course photography. When I met Kim, I was a massage therapist. While Zach was young, I worked part time on friends and family. I remember I would put Zach down for his nap and go give a massage. That took a lot of energy, but we were creative on how we worked. Kim was a carpenter, really a jack of all trades. He worked for friends and family, but was always his own boss. Back in those early days, he photographed on the weekends, developed his film in the evenings and during the week printed at 3:00am in the morning. He would get up, go print and then be off to work by 8:00am. Our son Zach at Wildcat Hill (a few years ago) Whenever I used to complain about something he always used to joke about how he and I could change places. I could make the money and he would watch the kid. And about 10 years ago he came to me and told me he wanted to retire from carpentry. He said we could hire a manager or I could run the business. Well we didn’t have much money to hire a manager, so I set off on the long journey to learn how to operate a computer. My massage days were over. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. In the early days (1947) of Carmel my grandmother owned a hotel in the heart of Carmel called "The Homestead". I spent many weekends there as a child and in 1969 my family moved in to run the hotel. The hotel had 12 rooms and my first job was being a maid. Not the most fun, but it made me money back then. I remember so well my boyfriend going off and having fun while I had to stay and work! Besides cleaning rooms, I learned how to garden, how to sweep redwood needles off of the walks after big storms, how to book reservations and check people in and most importantly how to interact with people. I learned how to run a business. So running Weston Photography has been fun and exciting. I would say one of the most important aspects of the business is how you interact with your clients. And just like any home based business you work a lot!