6 Random Things
Kathy tagged me & I thought this would be a good way to get reacquainted with the blog! It will be hard to think of 6 things not already in my 100 Things list…
The Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
number 1:
I sleep on my stomach – unless I’m on the couch then I can sleep on my back but only when on the couch.
number 2:
I have really tiny fingers despite not being a small girl. My wedding band is a size 4 1/2 & fits inside Kenny’s wedding band.
number 3:
I hate to wear socks & avoid them even in the winter.
number 4:
I touched a human brain (while wearing gloves) when I was in 4th grade (one of my classmate’s father was a neurosurgeon & brought one in).
number 5:
I am allergic to wasps.
number 6:
I have a mini lava lamp at my desk here at work that I turn on every day. It makes me happy. 🙂
okay… my turn to tag 6 people:
Slowly Tweaking
So I am slowly tweaking things around here…
> Cleaned up my blogroll, added a few new friends.
> Updated my 100 Things Page
> Updated my About Me Page
> Updated my Photography Page (still needs more work)
> Tweaking the right-hand column – please excuse the mess!
Change is coming…
Inspired by the recent elections and my desire to re-start this blog, I will working on giving this place a new look in the upcoming weeks…
See you then!!
Mid-Summer Update
Yeah, yeah, yet another month has flown by… let’s gets straight into the update!
Photography – The summer wedding season started in June and I have shot 3 additional weddings with Christine. I also had a freelance job this past weekend and set up the Fresh Photography booth up at the Caroline Collective for the Lebowski Bash. Next stop for the FP booth will White Linen Nights on August 2nd in The Heights! We will be having a 3rd photographer, Emily, join us so stop by if you can (and leave in Houston). It is our biggest booth event of the year and is a lot of fun.
With all these weddings and busy weekends, I have not had a chance to focus on my personal photography projects – specifically my Downtown Polaroid Project and shooting the miniatures – but I have a break till mid-September (don’t damn hot in Houston in August for weddings) and hope to spend some time on these!
I did get a chance to make the Assignment Houston Flickr meet-up at the Houston Museum of Natural Science a couple of weekends ago and it was a blast! Look how big the crowd was!
Social – Been staying pretty low-key. Have gone out salsa-dancing a couple of times, had dinner/brunch with friends… nothing too thrilling! Oh, yeah, the Luau Birthday Party over the 4th of July weekend was great! We had a great crowd, wonderful food (Cuban-style roasted pork leg we cooked for 10 hours) and the birthday boys seemed to be pretty content. Separately, Kenny & I celebrated his birthday pretty low-key as well, just going out to dinner at the restaurant of his choice.
August will be filled with photo fun (I hope), some more dancing and a long girls’ weekend in Little Rock, Arkansas with my old college roommate. So look for photos from that trip on the next post!
Happy Summer everyone…
It’s June but the heat here in Houston hit us early this year and has not abated. We are behind on our annual rainfall and you can tell by looking at the front yard. I just try to stay in A/C as much as possible! Here is my monthly re-cap:
Outings: Kenny and I have kept our schedules more open than usual so we can actually relax and get stuff done around the house. Still, we managed to go to Galveston for the annual Sandcastle Competition (see pic below) & went to a friend’s home for a Memorial Day BBQ. Throw in some evenings of salsa and dinner with various friends as well. Oh, we also went and saw Eddie Izzard’s new stand-up routine, “Stripped”. He even did a short Q&A after the show.
Domestic: In preparation for the big luau-themed birthday party we are hosting July 5th (Kenny’s birthday is the 8th and we have tons of friends with July birthdays), we are slowly but surely de-cluttering, re-organizing, cleaning things around the house. We are trying to make the front yard look nice with some flagstone edging & tree trimming. Now I have to find time for the backyard as well (plants need to be trimmed down). It feels good to get it done as you slowly see the results. It also feels good to drive up to Goodwill with a truckload of stuff. The second pile has already been started as we make our way around the house. Kitchen is done, my office & our bedroom/bathroom is next. I’ve started working on both of them.
Work: Travel has concluded for the time being. I made my rounds to all of our facilities, reviewed files, trained new directors. I should be staying in Houston for a while at least, especially since our upcoming new accounts are in Houston. I also reached my 2 year anniversary here at work this past weekend. Yay me! Now I anxiously wait to hear how I did on my review. It’s been submitted and is waiting for HR approval. Eep.
Photography: I’ve shot 3 more weddings for Christine since my last entry. All in Houston, all lovely celebrations with wonderful couples. We also had a chance to participate in the June Yale Street Art Market. We hadn’t been in a couple of months because of scheduling conflicts with weddings. It was great to see everyone again though. We won’t be there in July but plan to be there for the huge White Linen Night event on August 2nd.
Upcoming events include the awesome Lebowski Bash this Saturday at the Caroline Collective (we’ll have the Fresh Photography booth set up from 4-8 PM) and a wedding in Beaumont, Texas at the end of the month.
Until next month when my adventures continue…
Another monthly update!
Argh!! Another 5 weeks has flown by and not a word from here! I am so sorry! I am, of course, still here just continue to be extremely busy!!! Here’s a recap of the past 5 weeks…
Work – I continue to travel for work. Short 1-2 day trips, nothing major. I have been to Dallas on a couple of day trips (we just opened an account there) and a longer trip out to Tucson. Heading to Austin for a day trip tomorrow and that should wrap up the business trips for a little bit. Next month is my 2 year work anniversary and a review time so I am hoping all these efforts pay off!
Photography – I shot my first newborn session last month & I am really proud of the photos. The baby was 4 days old. I also shot a lovely couple who simply wanted some portraits as well as two weddings with Christine. One was out in New Braunfels with the gorgeous Guadalupe River serving as a background and absolutely perfect weather. We have been unable to attend any art markets so the Fresh Photography booth remains packed up but we hope to set it up next month once again.
Social – Besides work & photography, I have to off course find time to see friends! Highlights include a lovely (but hot) day with Flickr friends on the Buffalo Bayou and at the Art Car Parade; a Twitter meet-up at The Corkscrew; a dinner gathering of Houston area wedding photographers; a surprise 30th birthday party for a friend and Hanna’s MBA graduation (congratulations again). I also caught up with various friends over lunch and dinner…
With all this going on the house has become a mess so Kenny & I resolved to stay in on Sunday and get it all cleaned up. Yeah, well, that didn’t happen and instead we had lunch at The Grove in the new gorgeous downtown park, Discovery Green. After wandering the park for a little bit we did some shopping and capped the day watching Iron Man at the Angelika. Oh well. I much preferred spending time with Kenny and catching up with him as well. Much more enjoyable and satisfying!
I am looking forward to the 3-day Memorial Day weekend – I’ll be shooting a wedding with Christine, heading to some friends’ for BBQ and simply enjoying that Monday off…
Spring is here… ah-ah-achoo!
Hello lovely readers… April is here and spring is in full bloom, aggravating allergies everywhere. I am doing surprisingly well thanks to Zyrtec but still am feeling some symptoms, just not severe and I am very thankful for that.
As promised in my last entry, I have been very busy…
Last week in March – Christine & I shot a lovely wedding down in Galveston. Liz and David are a beautiful, fun couple (Aggies too! Whoop!) and we wish them the best! That was on a Sunday and the following Monday I headed to West Monroe, Louisiana for work. Trip went well and I got done what I needed to do.
Beginning of April – We flew out to our nation’s capitol, Washington, DC on Thursday, April 3rd. We had a great time visiting an old college friend of mine and his family (wife and 3 kids). He went to Texas A&M for graduate school as an exchange student from Paris and is currently living in Bethesda. They were gracious enough to open their home to us for six days and we really appreciated it. We took the metro daily into DC and explored the Mall, hit several museums, saw the cherry blossoms (which made me sneeze a lot) and most of the major monuments. We walked miles every day, exploring the city’s neighborhoods. We unfortunately never saw the sun – the weather stayed grey and overcast the entire time we were there – hardly getting above 50 F – and you can tell from my pictures. Sure glad I brought my scarf! We were typically out for over 12 hours each day so you can imagine how well we slept each night! We got back home last Tuesday and have been laying low since then.
I am still editing photos from the trip but below is a slideshow – new photos I add will show up in there.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
This past weekend – We had no concrete plans and the weekend was pretty open which was a nice change of pace. We filled it with close friends and were able to catch up and really enjoy the time with them. Friday, Saturday and Sunday night was each spent with a different couple and it was really wonderful to just casually visit and chat. With my helter-skelter schedule lately we have been unable to do this and I was missing it.
The rest of April holds a few more business trips but then my travel for both work and pleasure should taper off by the end of May. I head to Dallas this week for work and I still need to hit Tucson and Austin in the upcoming weeks. And as always, I’ll have camera in hand…
Shreveport & Las Vegas in 1 month?
Didn’t I warn you about the once-a-month posting?? I am barely squeezing this in!! Let’s just go straight to business…
1st week in March – We went & saw They Might Be Giants with friends, I shot a wedding with Christine and went on a lovely GHPA tour of Glenwood Cemetery. Not too bad of a week…
2nd week in March – I headed northeast to Bossier City/Shreveport Louisiana for a two day business trip. I drove since it is less than a 4 ½ hour drive and was able to get in some photo adventures that included TTV fun in a historic cemetery (huh, two historic cemeteries in as many weeks).
3rd week in March – I flew out to Las Vegas Friday night to meet Christine for the WPPI convention – the largest gathering of wedding photographers in the nation (if not internationally). The convention was good and I met so many wonderful fresh new faces in photography, many who are right here in Houston. I especially enjoyed meeting the Dane Sanders‘ Fast Track Photographer group (Christine and I are Founders). I also went on a photo shoot out at Red Rock Canyon, learned what my personal pDNA is, won a copy of Lightroom, saw the Bellagio Fountains in action (see photo), learned all about working in Lightroom, was inspired by Jerry Ghionis’ talk, walked part of the Strip, ate too much, only spent $3 on the slot machines but won about $20 and caressed more wedding album covers than I care to discuss. By the way, we stayed at Paris Las Vegas and I must say that was a nice place!
Only downside was weather in the Houston area forced Continental to cancel my return flight Tuesday afternoon so I had to stay another day & miss another day of work. I finally made it home Wednesday evening… It was a long trip… overwhelming at times but a good experience. I am truly appreciative of Christine for sending me and I look forward to going back next year. I am still undecided on whether or not I liked Las Vegas though (it was my 1st time out there). I didn’t dislike it but I was also not as impressed with it.
I stayed busy upon my return but enjoyed the half-day off on Good Friday. On Saturday I caught up with Kathy who was in town from Dallas then shot a lovely couple’s engagement portraits in Hermann Park. Easter Sunday was spent relaxing at home with just Kenny. We did end up working our tails off in the front yard that afternoon but it was much needed and we actually enjoyed the time together out there.
So are you feeling tired yet? Well, I am not done yet! I shoot another wedding this weekend, head back to Louisiana next week for work again (flying + 2 hour drive = woo-hoo) then we finally head to Washington, DC for a week-long vacation!! Now the stress of getting the house cleaned up for the dog/housesitter begins! Ack! Come back in a few more weeks for the continued adventures of this haggard toad!
More catching up
So this is sadly becoming a once-a-month blog. Sorry, but it just crazy and I have no motivation to really write something up. But everything is going well, just busy and down-time is hard to find. Actually, I lie, I get down-time but then I spend it editing photos! LOL
So here are the events over the past month…
> Weight Watchers – I have been more active over on my diet blog and I am happy to say that I met and exceeded my 1st goal! I wanted to lose 10 lbs. by the end of February and I actually managed to take off 12 lbs! Yay me! Read more over at my diet blog.
> Photography – I am enjoying a creative resurgence with my photography and finding a few new projects that I am really enjoying. One is the TTV series. The pic to the right is one of my recent ones. I had a blast taking shots of some rusty classic cars during our trip to Fredericksburg a couple of weeks ago and made a new contraption that will make it easier to travel with for my upcoming trips. I am also slowly starting a series of miniature scenes… check out my set here. These little guys are less than ½” tall but so fun to shoot in various settings. The Valentine’s post I made featured one of the photos…
> Fredericksburg – Speaking of which, the photo excursion out there was a blast. The TTV to the right is from the trip… I really enjoyed my car mates, my Flickr mates and got some shots that I am proud of. Click here to see my Flickr photo set.
> And speaking of travel, March is going to be so busy! It looks like I am heading to Bossier City, Louisiana for work for 2 days next week (driving) then I head to Las Vegas with Christine for the WPPI Conference. That will be my 1st time in Vegas and I am excited to have the opportunity to go! The week after I return I head to Tucson for a quick business trip and then a week after that is our trip to Washington, DC. Yay for traveling! Boo for tiresome business trips.
> Taking time for myself – something I have been trying to do, especially last week while Kenny was out of town for work. I tried to tidy things up around the house and this weekend I tried to get of the computer. I did have the Yale Street Art Market that took my whole Saturday but on Sunday we had a nice, casual brunch with friends, ran some errands and relaxed at home with a movie, which I actually paid attention to instead of watching it over my laptop screen!
And now we are at the beginning of March and my weekends are quickly getting full of activities (besides traveling). I have two weddings to shoot, corporate portaits and an engagement session to shoot! I’ll drop in here when I get a chance to come up for air! LOL!
In the meantime – I can be found much more easily over at Twitter and Flickr…
I’m here, I’m here!! Please come back!
Yes, yes, I am still around. I simply find myself over at Flickr and Twitter much more often and it’s hard to concentrate on writing out a longer blog post. I am sorry to the handful of readers I do have and thanks to Kathy & Christine for poking me into writing!
So what has been going on with me? Well, the last time I wrote was almost a month ago! Eep!! I think I’ll just go into my standard summary by topic…
Weight Watchers – I started this a little over a month ago and after 5 weeks have lost 8 lbs. It is very slow but steady and I continue to stick with it. You can watch my progress and read my thoughts about it over on my diet blog, “Toad Lite“.
Photography – I shot another wedding with Christine at the end of January, attended a workshop with her and set up our Fresh Photography booth at February’s Yale Street Arts Market where we were the featured artist for the month! Click here to read a story about us!
Christine and I will also have our photography up at a local optometry store in The Heights called Eye to Eye. Christine will have her images up this month (February) while mine will be up in March. I will get you more details when the pictures are hanging which will be hopefully by the end of this week for Christine.
Social – I have been getting closer to a handful of wonderful new friends I found through Flickr and we have been out on a few social adventures together. We have a trip to Fredericksburg planned for the end of this month that I am really looking forward to.
Travel – Thanks to a friend I know who l lives in Bethesda, Maryland, Kenny and I decided that a trip to our nation’s capital was a perfect spring getaway for us. With a free place to stay and cheap airfare we are heading to Washington, DC during one of the city’s most beautiful seasons, the National Cherry Blossom Festival. My camera is ready and I am thrilled to get to see the blossoms hopefully at their peak season. We leave the first week in April! Yay!
Work – Work is going well. My department is growing and it is keeping me busy. Kenny’s company just started a couple of new projects so he is busier than usual but it’s all good – it means we have paychecks which is always a good thing! LOL
And that wraps it up for me. I will really make a more concerted effort to jump in here more than just once a month but sometimes I lose track of time and a month flies by without me noticing!! Hope all is well in your part of the universe!
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