Wedding Pics!

After nearly three months, we finally get to pick up our wedding pictures today!

Ringo

Little Ringo misplaced his blue squeaky stuffed bone a couple weeks ago. Everyday when I came home from work he would tear around the house looking for it. He temporarily made due with a rawhide bone we gave him. This dog doesn't chew on rawhides, he just carries them around like a prize. He sleeps with them too.

I finally gave up hope that we would ever find the squeaky bone. I'd looked all over the house for it. So, last night while I was at Target I bought him a new squeaky bone. It's exactly the same as the last one, except the new one is green. I gave it to him when I got home and he went crazy. He ran laps around the kitchen squeaking the hell out of that bone.

I was laying in bed later on watching TV when Ringo ran into the room, launched onto the bed and dropped a squeaky bone by my feet. Not a new, clean, green one. A dirty, smelly, blue one. He somehow found the old one no less than three hours after I replaced it.

That dog is a jerk.

Stressful Weekends, Stressless Weeks?

This weekend was pretty unrelaxing. Yesterday was spent within close proximity to a bathroom and I passed out at 9pm. Today was spent working. Unsuccessfully. I was trying to take photos of jewelry for a friend's website and it didn't go well. I spent three hours photographing it and none of the pictures turned out great. Then, I ran over to Cat's house, ranted about my afternoon, painted some mountains and left.

Since I'd only spent $5 on Friday night and $10 on Saturday, I felt like I deserved a weekend trip to Target on the way home to stress spend. Target is definitely a weakness. I bought two Christmas presents (very good of me) a $20 dress for myself and a magazine. (Oops. Whatever.)

Not only did I stress spend, but I stress cooked and ate a very comforting dinner of mac and cheese. I did health it up a bit by adding corn and spinach to it. And then I brought it back down with sour cream and shredded cheese. But there was still spinach in it. That definitely counts for something.

New Toys

Finally, today I have both my camera and my health and therefore have the energy and ability to sit at a computer and share pictures and type coherently. Matt and I have both been sick this week. The awful, "makes you wish you'd just go ahead and die already" stomach flu type sickness. I had plans yesterday with two different people to take some Christmas pictures and I didn't want to cancel since it's so close to the holidays. I made it through both without incident, but I did leave the first one in a hurry because I thought I was going to puke all over their Christmas tree.

The second was a little more casual. I just went out with my friend Jen and we took some pictures around downtown Omaha. We're both working on improving out photog skills so we just bummed around for a couple of hours. She helped me find things for a Christmas photo project I'm working on as a gift. More on that later... I also wanted to try out a new lens that my sister got me as "payment" for being her mural painter and upcoming baby photographer. I'm not really qualified for either, but she seems to think I'll do ok.

The lens is a super wide angle lens and it was tricky to figure it out. It doesn't work that great when you just shoot things straight on. I had to play with it a little. It's really awesome though. Here are a couple of pics from my first time out with it:





That's it for now. I'm going to go relish in my ability to drink coffee and eat pizza.

The Wheels on the Bus

I did something this morning that I haven't done since the second grade.

I waited for a school bus to pick me up in the morning.

Isn't that weird? It sort of amazes me that no matter how old you are, you're never too old to have to ride a school bus.

You know, I'm more than happy to ride city buses. There's a sort of dignity in taking a city bus. There is no dignity in taking a school bus, however. Not after the age of twelve anyways.

I work for a non-profit that provides long term residential care for youths that are pulled out of their homes for behavioral/legal reasons. It's a very well known organization. You can probably guess what it is. Well, this morning politicians from all over the state as well as executives from other non-profits came to our headquarters for a meeting regarding Nebraska's Safe Haven crisis. As a result, they closed off the parking lot to us little people so the higher-ups have a place to park. So, we had to park at a football field across campus and ride a school bus to the office.

I felt like I was seven again. Standing in the cold, bundled up waiting for the bus. Except this time I had an iPod and coffee and my dad wasn't yelling at me from the front porch to zip up my coat.

Baby Shower

I forgot to post the pictures from Cat's shower last week. It turned out very cute and very un-babyish. Her and I are not "OOOH and AHHH" girly girls. Traditional showers are torturish.

I made her a blanket cake in lieu of a diaper cake. Diaper cakes are a sin in this family. I wouldn't be caught dead carrying one. I also repurposed some flowers I had made.



I also made a couple streamers out of train pictures I printed off.



And then there were the mangled cake bites I made with my mom.

Only 16 Work Days Until Christmas!

I left my camera at my brother and sister-in-law's house on Thanksgiving. I should have known that it would get misplaced in the shuffle of the day. As a result, all weekend I felt like I had lost a limb. We put up our tree, but I couldn't take a picture of it. I finished a scarf, but I couldn't take a picture of it. It snowed, Ringo was being cute, I went to another baby shower... No camera. Sigh... I have to get it back this week because I have a couple photo sessions with friends this weekend. My call to subjects turned up about five people who were interested in getting some Christmas pictures. I was really pleased!

I had no desire to go Black Friday shopping in the stores, and after the incident at Wal-Mart I will never partake in it again. But I did have to fight to keep my credit card buried in a basket in my office. It was very tempting to pull it out and click click click on some internet sales. Unfortunately, I've memorized the number on my debit card so that one is even harder not to use. It was a pretty stupid thing to do. Unless I'm ordering a pizza. Then it's the smartest thing I've ever done. I held up pretty well and only bought Christmas decorations, gift for my nieces and nephews and groceries. It was a record minimum spending for a four day weekend in my house.