Our Old Kentucky Home: Coaxed by Copious Treats

A day before the movers came, a photographer arrived to take pictures of the home that we’d lived in for less than a year. I had only recently come to love the house and finally start to feel at home, so at the very least, I was excited to receive the memento of professional photos.

Big surprise - I did not manage the time I had off between jobs well, so I started cleaning and styling my house the night before the shoot at approximately 8:30 PM. As you can imagine, I was working for most of the night.

“....I thought surely she must be trying to kidnap me because she simply could not be that motivated to do her job...”

After a only few hours of sleep, I woke up early and went to Kroger to buy some fresh flowers and fruit for the photos (and to bring to the hotel room with us to rot before throwing them away). For some reason, the floral department manager suddenly became very interested in my floral journey and INSISTED that I watch as she opened multiple shopping carts worth of boxes to see if I preferred what had just arrived to what I had already selected. She KEPT INSISTING, suspiciously, like her cart was a white van and the flowers were candy or puppies, and I thought surely she must be trying to kidnap me because she simply could not be that motivated to do her job. I mumbled a few polite declines to no avail before crying, “[girl], I’ve got to go! This photographer is about to be at my house and I just need these dead flowers for one picture!” She nodded with understanding and we departed ways.

The shoot was dizzying. I was on about three hours of sleep, so I was grateful our realtor came over to help. Even with all my styling and cleaning we spent the entire shoot shifting piles of books, anything that might suggest that we had an animal, and the actual animals, coaxed by copious treats, from room to room.

It paid off. The photos turned out beautifully.