Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been the fastest year ever. EVER.

Even now as the turkey has been neatly put away for leftover fiestas, i still am having a hard time realizing that Thanksgiving has once again come, and now is gone.

Please forgive me for not making this a super sentimental post. I really do love thanksgiving and all it represents, but that's not what this post is about. It's just my ramblings...

speaking of ramblings, I've seen this cartoon many a time... it never ceases to make me chuckle


Last year at this time I was in the airport awaiting my flight to Brazil. Oh how I wish i could go somewhere like that again this year. I have so many places I'd like to go. I seriously hope that someday I will be a good enough photographer that people will pay me to go to awesome places and take pictures. how sweet would that be?

Anyways, this is going to be short and to the point. I have an action list of things that need to be blogged about. One of which is the outcome of my latest Best Buy fiasco. I hate that store with everything in me and am DONE making large purchases there. The whole story will come in a later post... hopefully tomorrow, but who knows.

I am going to bed shortly as tomorrow morning I am going to be arising from my slumber to participate in a beloved American tradition.

BLACK FRIDAY

That's right. Me. 3AM. The mall. Lots of money going down the drain.

I'll let you know if i get anything of note ;)

In the meantime, be thankful in every way possible. Give someone a hug before bed and enjoy the rest of this special season :)

potatoes and ... fish?

Saturday was a great day. All day friday i was thinking to myself that i wish i could just have a day where i stayed at home and did whatever i wanted aaaaaaallllll daaaaaay loooooong...

well, saturday rolled around... and as my alarm went off to get up for my financial class, I made an executive decision. If i didn't go to class, i wouldn't have to leave the house aaaaaaallllll daaaaaay loooooong.

So, go i did not.

After crawling out from under the 4 or so blankets i had on, i trodded downstairs and turned on the tv. I decided to wait for my dad to get up and then see if he wanted to make breakfast with me since my mom was gone and we were the only two left at home.

Turned out, he did want to make breakfast. So I got some potatoes and started cutting them up. We were going to reheat some leftover waffles that we had frozen from earlier in the week and have eggs as well. Poached eggs none the less.

As I was cutting up onions to put in with the potatoes, my dad walked in the kitchen with an opaqueish grocery bag and some sort of meat in it. He's like, "oh here we go, let's have fish too."

Hmmm... I looked down at the bag and wondered why in the world he would store a fish in a grocery bag. I mean, of all things! Like, there is a such thing as ziploc bags and there's that thing we call CLEANLINESS. If you only knew my dad, you would know that he never does anything half way. to see this brightly colored fish's scales showing through the bag, I had no idea what to even think.

I was at. a. loss. for words.

But I managed to finally ask why the fish was so bright... and he told me that he just scooped it out of the fish tank.

OHHHHHHHHH! Now it all made sense. We have these ginormous goldfish that we have actually had in the tank for the last 8 years... i'm sure they are at least a few years older than that. and they are a good 8-10 inches long. not including the fins and tail.


Apparently an opaqueish grocery bag is a coffin fit for a gold fish. Goldie (which was not it's real name as the fish did not actually bear a name due to some unfortunate circumstances surrounding how the fish were obtained and a series of events that caused me to hate them deeply for a long time) would not have fit down the toilet hole... so to the dumpster he went.

You'll be glad to know that the landfill will indeed be the fish's final resting place, as we did not eat it...

oh the joys of memes

I was tagged by Stefanie for this meme... so here I go!

1. What is your funniest childhood story? i used to think that i could get pregnant just by sleeping in the same bed with a boy... so one night my brother and i were like 6 or 7 and we had a little sleepover in my room... and i was afraid all night long that because he was in the same bed with me that i could get pregnant haha!

2. What would your dream dress look like if you could design it? a strapless deep red knee length with an angled cut at the bottom. hmmm... i have it pictured so nicely in my mind, but i don't think that the style i like is actually the kind i like best on my body!

3. What weird habit do you have? i'm not OCD most of the time, but there are times when I want to sit and relax... and I get everything ready to just go loaf... and then I remember something like that I left a bag on the kitched counter, or a door is open, or a drawer isn't shut. so i have to get up and fix it before i can truly relax... yah, that's kinda nuts, but that's me!

4. How many cookbooks are in your kitchen? i think like 4 or 5. but I don't use them often... i usually make stuff up lol!

5. Granny panties or loyal Victoria Secret girl? I really don't care where it came from as long as it's cute :)

6. My favorite memory from 2008 so far is... the months preceeding the Mexico trip and actually being down there. We had drama practices and team meetings about every other week and I looked forward to them almost every time! it was such a great way to build our team before actually going down there.

7. I secretly... want to fast forward my life 5 years to see where i would be

8. I could really go for... some olive garden shrimp fettucine alfredo

9. We are going to have a big snow storm and you will find me... cleaning off my car (again) and moaning about how cold it is because i never have time to sit on the couch and just let the weather *be*

10. I knew he was the one... ummm... ya, i didn't, and I don't!

i've had it

Generally, I am a very tolerant person. However, I have gotten to the point recently where I am fed up with picking up little grumble piles everywhere, closing doors and picking up dirty sox.

Therefore, I decided to write out a list. I don't feel like it's fair to expect kids to do things that aren't clearly laid out for them. And though I have said these things many times, sometimes it lasts for awhile and they just need reminders. However, I wrote up a list so that they can refer back to what is acceptable and what is not. This house is going to be a lot cleaner from now on... read more to find out why...

This will be the discussion I have with the 3 of them as soon as they come in from frolicking in the snow. I didn't want to spoil their fun just yet...

When you go in or out shut the door.

If you make food, clean up the mess.

If you are done with a game or craft, put it away.

(is it just me or is this all common sense so far? ... sigh)

Do NOT put your things on the kitchen table or the counters when I tell you to "put them away."

If I ask you to do something and you either don't do it, or don't finish doing it, you will be able to do some super fun cleaning chores.

If I speak to you while you are watching TV and you don't respond appropriately, there will be no more TV that day. More cleaning will ensue.

Be respectful of the house, your parents' time and money, your siblings and me.

Be helpful and try to solve problems instead of creating them and expecting me to always fix them.

Tattle-tailing with an attitude (no matter how right you may actually be) will no longer be tolerated on any level. Attitude = room/cleaning/no electronics/or whatever I decide.

When I talk, listen. I will listen to what you have to say after I have finished. Don't cut me off to make a point. Your point is that you don't trust me to help you and that will get you nowhere... well, maybe your room.

*big sigh*

Well there you have it. Reasonable I say, right?

Christmas pictures are imminent!

I have just posted my first official holiday special!

Go check it out and let me know if you're interested!

handle with care

after checking the status of my package and realizing that it was indeed AT MY HOUSE, and I WAS NOT, I quickly devised a strategy to book it home and retrieve it.

that strategy included waking up andy.

he got to sleep for 45 minutes... plenty right?

well, here it is. Fragile: handle with care. like the 3 tears in the box there? That's nice I think.


There are about 25 or so pictures of me actually opening the box, and what i did with the camera in those precious first few moments... but they're so intimate i feel uncomfortable sharing them on here.


Good lord people! It's a camera for crying out loud! Not a stinking CHILD!!!

But my goodness, it was very, very exciting to open this thing up.

Nothing could have prepared me for the extreme happiness I feel holding this camera.

Just tonight I set up the lights in the dining room and hung up a sheet to do some test shots... there's no way i could ever go back now...

from the moment I decided to get this camera I had this feeling that I should never use the camera before actually owning it. Because once I did, it would be over. I would never be able to use my camera without feeling annoyed that i couldn't do "this" or "that." I couldn't know what I was missing out on... but now I know... and it is soooo good :)

I'll spare you all the crazy photographer mumbo jumbo, just trust me when I say it's good

So here is my fave from the night.

This particular shot is completely unedited. i am simply LOVING the fact that I can shoot in b&w. I never thought I would want to... that i would want the option always of having color... but now... I don't know... I liked the bw shots tonight so much more than the color.

We shot just under a hundred and what's so cool about using the lights is that once they are set, you just shoot. You don't have to worry about exposure at all... you already did that. So I sat down and had my mom shoot me too, and that's where the pic at the top of this post came from. It's also for the benefit of those who wanted to see my face when I wouldn't show it the other night.

That's it for now... I must force myself to go to bed, because as I explained yesterday I have been getting up at unearthly times... and will continue to do so...

status: DELIVERED

I just got done checking the tracking code for the long awaited 5D...

and the status says DELIVERED!!!

well, minus the exclamation points.

and I am here. at work. not with my camera.

I could probably start crying right now. like a baby that's been born but can't be held... ok maybe not that extreme. but hey, what can i say?!

If andy wasn't taking a nap right now, we would SO be making a trip back to my house for it... hmmm... is it WRONG to wake him up for that :)

o'dark hundred

You're familiar with military time right?

I learned it well when I worked at adt and still remember now. I actually got so I didn't need to do the conversion anymore, I just knew what each hour was.

It makes a lot of sense really. Then you don't have to worry about the silly am and pm business.

But regardless. That's not the point i'm making here.

the point is the hour of day (or night) that I have been getting up lately.

O'DARK HUNDRED

it's the very official name for what most people refer to as 5:30am.

Some people may think that this is normal and good. I, however, do not.

Why have i been getting up this early you ask?

Because my friends, I have this thing called "weight" that needs to go!

Since the end of spring i've been doing fairly well with eating much healthier (with the exception of the many girl scout cookies I ate today) and have been doing so with the intent of actually BEING healthier. I have found though, that one of the side effects of eating more healthy is WEIGHT LOSS!

OMGosh, who would have thought?

So I get up with my friend Traci 3 or 4 days a week and we sweat our butts off together trying to do things that noone should be allowed to do. ever. especially at that hour.

But it's good. Getting up early, starting the day off that way, makes me feel better. However, I have become serverly lax in my eating habits as a result of this...

the reasoning: "I'm doing this very good thing for my body, I can relax in this area."

the reality: "I'm getting up early and going to bed late... and because i'm eating crap i'm more tired than EVER! AND i'm sore!"

Moral of the story: eat well, exercise early and all is well with amanda

platinum 12

It's been almost exactly 3 months since I made the jump to blonde.

I had been highlighting blonde since about May, but August 13th I made the plunge and entered the world as a level 11 blonde.

It was strange to me that people didn't seem to notice as much as I thought they would. Of course, that's not the reason I did it. But still, I was suprised when very few people noticed that I had gone all blonde.

Since that point I have had my roots done twice. Once about 6 weeks ago, and then again today. I realized that in order to maintain this color, I really need to do the roots about every 4 weeks. Not much more than that... more than 4 weeks and i really start to feel disgusting... which is unlike me. I usually don't care about stuff like that. But this isn't like high-lights, it's all out inch long brown hair emerging from the top of my head!

The problem with doing my roots every 4 weeks however, lies in the cost. I do not have the fundage to be able to continue going to get my lovely blonde hair maintained. So i decided to do it myself.

I was originally a level 11. However, for reasons I am unaware of, they do not sell level 11 dye at sally's. And since I did not want to go darker, I decided to opt for a level 12.

Let's stop right here for a moment. You are thinking that I royally screwed up my hair and i am about to show you a picture of the hideous outcome aren't you?

I knew it.

You have so little faith in me!

I will have you know, that the color actually turned out quite nicely. It's slightly lighter than before, but it's lovely I think.

(notice: the reason that my face is not included is NOT an accident)

However, the point I am making is not about the new color. It's about people observances of the color.

Just today, before I did the dying deed, I had 3 people comment on my hair color. Saying things such as, "oh wow, your hair is really blonde." or "did you just dye your hair?"

Hmmm... response in my mind to the first: "um, yah, it is. and it has been for about, ohhh, say THREE MONTHS!"

response in my mind to the second: "yes actually. And when I did it, I only dyed the bottom part making sure not to get the inch closest to my head."

Of course I was nice and only said nice things... i would never be sarcastic... that's so not like me.

Here's the most amazing part. Because I know you're probably thinking that the people that have said these things to me are people I don't see very often.

One was my dad.

One was a friend I see multiple times a week.

One was my brother.

There were 2 others who I don't know as well... and that's completely acceptable... but seriously, my mind is kerfuffled. I don't know how I could drastically change my hair color and people not notice for seriously 3 months...

Oh well, like i said before, I didn't do it to get attention. I did it because I like it. And i have NEVER dyed my hair the same color more than twice. Today marks the 3rd time i have done it this color... and I love it! it's the best color i've ever had.

i am trying

to contain my excitement.

But let me tell you, it is REALLY hard!!!

I bought my 5D like a week and a half ago, and it's STILL NOT HERE!

But tonight, I received the shipping notification and it will be here in the next few days! WOOHOO!!!

Pictures will be forthcoming...

But if you can't wait until then, check out the photography blog and see what i've been up to :)

autumn favorites

I read a post the other day about autumn. This girl is such a sweetheart and was explaining how she prefers the word autumn over fall.

I think that is so romantical :)

Anyways, it got me thinking about why I love autumn...

As much as I love summer and the warm weather, there is something intoxicating about the smells that you start noticing when the windows close as the colder months approach.

All year round, I enjoy a good frappacino every once in awihle... but only when it starts cooling down do I really enjoy the lattes... I especially love the chatting that occurs while said drink is consumed :)



Now's also about the time the fire's start burnin in the wood stove. One of the best feelings in the world is curling up on the couch with my WIRELESS internet that now WORKS! and doing my lovely internet activities such as blogging, or chatting or emailing or photo editing... all whilst enjoying the burning flames of the fireplace and possibly multi-tasking even further and watching a movie.

I gotta take my breaks where i get 'em ya know!

Each season brings its own unique colors... but autumn... mmmmm... autumn brings the most vibrant array of colors. I think I appreciate it more because we only see these colors for a very short time.



In the early autumn i love watching the colors change daily. Then as the season shifts the leaves begin to fall and cover the ground with their amazing color. Then... they start drying up... and make that super amazing crunchy sound under your feet.

Yah, and then there's the fact that i'm allergic to leaf mold and dust etc... so playing too long in the leaves results in sinus pressure... that's always fun haha

What else do i love about autumn... oh! I almost forgot the BEST PART! the day that daylight savings ENDS! A whole extra hour to sleep... does that ever happen... mmm, not really :) but it's the psychological part that helps :)



When I was little, my mom would take us to mendon ponds at different times through the year. but my favorite and most memorable time was in the autumn when the cattails turned and the milkweeds were popped. I tried doing that again about 3 years ago and ended up with enormously puffy eyes and a runny nose that wouldn't quit. It was pretty sick. I'll just let that one stay a nice memory :)

So what do you love about this time of year? Is it the on-set of the new holiday season or maybe the diligence that is inherent as school sets in? Do you have memories of what makes this time special? it's important to remember these things... and write them down so when you feel like you don't have good memories, you can look back and remind yourself that "oh yah!" you really do! :)


post from one year ago today: fall appreciation

VOTE: 2008

focus

I am aware that this blog has been turning into a personal promo for my photography business. I guess that's ok... sometimes. But i think it's been too long since I've been writing meaninful (or even funny) stuff.

I made a list of potential things to blog about the other day, and I want to get back to it. I love writing, and the reason I started this blog was to allow myself an outlet for that side of my creativity.

So here i go, attempting to get back into the spirit of true blogging and writing the things i want to remember the rest of my life... or at least the things i think about and make me wonder :)

Hold on tight, it can only get better from here!

a request to my super duper readers :)

I'm currently working on thinking of things to blog about that DON'T involve my photography business, but in the meantime, I wanted to ask you all a favor.

I don't really understand how or when or why I somehow happen to have so many readers. But I do, the stats don't lie... but the comments do! how does that work anyways?

Ok so, I posted over at my photo blog today in an attempt to spread it around. I just want the blog to get traffic mostly right now, and since I'm not really sure how to do that without being blunt, that's what I'm doing!

So here's what i'm asking. If you have me added or linked, or whatever you call it, would you please hop on over to my photo blog and link me there too? :)

I will love you oh so much!

Ok, back to real world blogging. I have a list I made in church the other day... bad me! why was i thinking about blogging during church...


another hilarious post from one year ago yesterday: but my lips hurt real bad

read it, you know you want to ;) you might understand the hidden side of chapstic addiction better after you do LOL!