last wedding of the year... and other randomness

Saturday was the last wedding I have for 2009. I'm sad and relieved at the same time. Now I can begin finishing everything up and getting ready for next year!

It was a beautiful day for a wedding... seriously, one of the best yet. However, due to daylight savings and the early hour at which the sun sets, we were unable to get out and do an appropriate amount of bridal pictures. So, hopefully we will be going out another day and doing them!

Andrea came with me as my assistant for the third time and I am sooooooo glad to have her! Truly, a good assistant is invaluable. In fact, I just booked my first wedding to actually HIRE a second photog. They have specifically requested Andrea and I couldn't be happier for either her OR me :)



Saturday also happened to be her birthday :)

If you click on the link to her blog you'll see a couple of the pictures she took of me yesterday! but if not, I'll be posting a couple tomorrow probably ;) I was totally sick yesterday. it hit me hard on saturday night, then i felt better in the morning, ok through the afternoon, then last night again... ugh. But I am feeling better now. Hopefully I've kicked it, but in the event that I haven't, I'm still pumping the vitamin c like a bad habit.

bangs baby

In my attempts to have something to post every day this month, I've taken pictures of thing I normally might now. However, when my decluttering self gets in the way, I realize that I delete pictures that are ridiculous...

Therefore, the picture I was going to use to post yesterday has been deleted... not to mention the fact that I just all out forgot to post :P

Anyways, I looked through my phone pictures quickly to see if I had anything post-worthy, and while there are pictures more post-worthy than this, I decided that since I hadn't shown you all the new bangs yet that this was appropriate.

Sooo what do you think? I have had a love/hate relationship with them the last week and a half... first I loved them, then I thought they were ridiculous, and have along the way come up with some interesting things to do with them... for example, trying to make them look 80's last Saturday at BASIC.

It would have been great if I had remembered to actually bring hair spray and my diffuser... seeing as how it all was flat within minutes of styling. But ahh well, I pinned it a little and it worked.

But I'm getting used to them and I quite like that I can choose to either rock them or put them away :) In fact, I got them trimmed yesterday for my photo shoot with Andrea tomorrow! I can't wait!

Killa's got a brand new bowl

In front of me right now sits two notebooks, with numerous pages filled with random scribblings. Notes while I'm on the phone, lists of things to do and little doodly-doos.

One of the lists though is labeled "general todo (personal)"

Things that I need to get done, but seem to end up doing so many other things before. At the top of that list was cleaning out the fish bowl. You see, about 2 months ago I had a tragedy here. Sting passed away, due to a toxic environment... when I was little, I had fish, and because I would clean their bowl multiple times a week, their life expectancy was rather short...

So, when I took up owning a fish this time, I thought it would be better to just leave the bowl alone... apparently 6 months is too long...

RIP Sting. RIP.

But I did enjoy having a little friend around. So a new fish came along, his name is Killa.



And he has been due for a cleaning... so yesterday I set to work to give him some fresh water. Problem is that today, the water still hasn't unclouded... I exchanged about 75% of the water for new water, but it it still reeeeallyyy dirty looking. Ugh.



When I bought this plant back in May or so it only had 6 leaves on it. I thought I was going to kill it because the tops would stick out of the water and dry out and turn brown. So I pulled all the dead stuff off and wouldn't ya know, that little plant has flourished! Its has about 13 leaves on it now and new ones just keep growing! So much cooler than plastic ;)



I couldn't believe how much algae I sucked up out of the stones. Waaaaayyy more than I expected.



This time too I separated all the big rocks from the little pebbles. I like the way it looks with the bigger rocks on top and because I've not sorted them out after cleaning the last couple times I've cleaned it they were pretty much all mixed together.

Please don't judge me now... I swear, I really do have better things to do with my time than blogging about cleaning a fish bowl... ;)

365 and holding

I discovered the joys of subscribing to blogs through an rss feed quite some time ago. My feed of choice is google reader, it's convenient and I really like the way it sorts my stuff.

Anyways, since about August I haven't really sat down and read through my beloved blogs. I have 103 subscriptions, obviously they are not all updated regularly, but many of them are. Currently I have 365 unread posts. I've kept many of these blogs at bay by reading regularly, but so many I want to take time to sit and read thoroughly... and they just pile up, accumulating more and more until I am like, yah forget it!

So today I have decided that I'm going to spend the next 30 minutes to an hour reading as much as I can, and then I'm hitting the "mark all as read" button *gasp!* i know, i know...

I realized that this (as silly as it sounds) is one of the things that is burdening my mind. I am sooo not a clutter person. But on the contrary, I'm horrible at keeping things picked up. Go figure.

So here's to a little de-cluttering... even if it is cyber-clutter ;)

not for the faint of heart

a week and a half ago, I realized that I wasn't living alone in this apartment.

No sir, I had a friend who made his presence known late one friday night by hopping across my kitchen floor. Did you know that mice hop?

I was so thoroughly grossed out by it I tried chasing it down to get rid of it then and there but was unsuccessful. The little bugger had gone back into the hole from whence he came.

I stayed the night at a friends house, out of sheer horror, and haunted by the memory of a pet gerbil crawling on top of me as I slept when I was a mere 8 years old.

The next day I acquired two mouse traps which I cleverly concealed behind my dishwasher and bathroom door. The original sighting spot.

A week went by and no dice. Err, I mean mice.

But then yesterday, Steve mentioned that he thought he had noticed the one behind the dishwasher being unset. But not noticing that there was a mouse in it. So this morning I went to get it and reset the thing and guess what awaited me... oh that's right. Little luther (i think that name is appropriate) was sandwiched in that mousetrap.

I'm not one for animal cruelty, but mice should know, they must not coexist with humans. There are consequences for doing so.

Luther has been disposed of... but not before I experienced some bodily reactions I was quite sure I was tougher than. Like, the thought of taking the mouse out of the trap before disposing, made my ears burn. Picking the trap up to put it in a garbage bag made my stomach flop right over. And when it's little body moved as its weight shifted on its trip to the garbage bag, I screamed so loud and dropped it back to the floor.

Yes, I am a girl. I am a screamer, and I get faint at the thought of rodents running wild in my house. Never thought I would have to admit that... but tell me you don't feel a bit weak when you see this:

a post a day keeps the something away...

Apparently November is nablopomo, and apparently I also cannot come up with post titles that actually make sense. For those of you who are wondering nablopomo stands for national blog posting month. Didn't realize this until this morning... and it's already November 2. nablopomo fail.

Whatever. I decided a while ago that I was going to make a valiant effort in participation this month...

Anyways, about this past weekend. I went to syracuse for the BASIC conference. The director had asked me to come and take pictures for them to use for promotional stuff etc. I got to drive up with one of the seminar speakers who also happens to be a really good friend of mine and got to have some amazing conversations :)

I also got to meet her friend Joanna, and we all shared a hotel room. Joanna is on the left in this pic, Tiffany in the middle. And obviously, that's me on the right ;)

And oh yes, while this is a bad pic of them, I now have bangs. That's right, bang baby, bang. Ha, I know I'm a cheese-ball. Andrea's going to take pictures of me later this week so I'm sure I'll have a better representation of them. They're fun, though I'm not sure I'll hang on to them for long. Kinda sassy and cute, but we'll see what happens.

the trees spill gold

Over the last couple months my life has been constantly changing... so many things have happened. I've made some big decisions, the kind that totally turn you around and make a few unexpected turns along the way. I decided to stay in NY and not make a big move to another state, but I did decide to move.



Now, when I walk to my front door, this is what I see. I am in love with this house and yard. The apartment itself leaves a little to be desired ;) but hey, I can't have it all at once now can i?

I've debated putting pictures of the inside up, but am going to wait until I have finished some of the decorating. I have some very specific ideas so it's not like I'm wondering what to do, it's just taking some time. So once I get it finished up, I will share pictures.



Other than moving though, there have been other changes. And it feels weird to just blurt it out here on my blog, but I've started seeing the most amazing guy. We've been dating since my birthday a few weeks ago and in all sincerity I am totally falling for him. I used to think about what this time in my life would be like, but I never imagined it would be this great.



Everything is different now... and when everything was changing near the end of the summer, I wasn't sure how ready I was for it.

Change is hard.

It takes you out of the comfort you may have found in the place you were in.



But there is peace in the change when you know God is leading you...

It was so hard for me to make this move from home to a new place... and I thought I would be alone.

But I should have known better. The first few days in the new house I had no internet and woke up to silence in the morning light. Such a peace filled my heart and I knew then that I would not be alone even when noone was here.

God knows me so well... and timing is everything with Him. I haven't been or felt alone in this first month away from my family.



Each time I look out the window and see all these leaves changing I can't help but sigh on the inside and thank the Lord for the different seasons He brings upon us. In life and in our hearts.

I am so thankful for the way He's been leading me and that He's guided me into a new season of life that is so much better than I ever thought it could be.

enchanted

People say that Orchids are hard to care for,
An urban legend that swirls around those bright
Beautiful red, blue, orange, pink, yellow, dark light

Flowered goddesses that
Lean and lounge sensually from every
Elite doorstep, every corporate hallway
And are so often looked past in florist's windows because
A vicious reputation precedes them.



Yet my orchids grow, wild and fair
With hardly a care from me almost-
Green hands, reaching, floating,
Dripping down their own stems
Filling the world of my room with
Such an effortless exotic grace and
Pop.

Orchids are women, a female flower
Undeniably
Then women are orchids as well?
Women are lush, curved, open and pinked
Sometimes blooming, sometimes waiting
Catching the sunlight as it dapples in
White yellow spots on our shiny leaves,
Stems and buds.

People say that women can be hard to care for,
An urban legend that swirls around our
Long hair and pointed shoes,
Everyday goddesses that
Lean and lounge and work and play
And hurt and cry and love and laugh
And try and fail and try and win and
Hope and pray and want and need and
Walk past you, day in and day out
Searching for a place or a way to set down
Our own roots, our own strength

In an world that sighs and says
"They are pretty, but too much work... I'll take
A peace lily instead."

original source for poem found here

Naples

On Sunday I drove down to Naples with Andrea and the kiddos, we went to a u-pick vineyard.



I made a grape pie two weeks ago, but am feeling the crunch to make another :) this time it won't leak everywhere and be a generally soupy mess. Ahh well, it tasted good!

Is it time for fall?

Oh yes, it is :)