iHeart Faces week 50 photo contest 'Pets'

This week at iHeart faces, a photography blog I follow, they are having a photo contest on pictures of your pets. Normally I would enter a photo that I feel is really 'good' or one that I really like my post production, but today is the deadline (alright I just checked, it's tomorrow but I know when I get home I am not going to want to sift through my pictures, it's monday...) for entry and I have failed to find that perfect photo over the weekend. You see, I don't have internet at home, so all blogging, facebook, or flickr photos I want to upload I have to pick out in advance. Luckily I still had a CD at work from the last round of pics, and one of my puppy - Sig, was on there. So for lack of a better planned photo - here is my entry - The song "All I want for christmas" comes to mind for some reason...

Oh - and my husbands a mechanic just in case your wondering...

The other side of the lens

I am not often in pictures, which to be frank, I am not that sad about. Once a year though we take our beloved Christmas photo. This year we had put it off until last night, and boy, we should of given ourselves more time...If it wasn't the lighting not cooperating, it was the dog trying to eat the sign, or one of us had crazy eyes/faces ect...It took us about 2 hours and the full life of charged battery, but I think one of these will do...

I edited these photo's in my photoshop program. I am trying not to lean so much on iPhoto, so I have been doing hours of training trying to figure out how to use the spiderweb of editing software that photoshop is. I'm not sure I can really tell you what I did to achieve these finished products. One thing I did learn though, is that it is very hard to adjust color to match skin tones when you have a very pale person, me, sitting next to a naturally tan person, Brad. After about 3 hours of editing these I am somewhat happy with the outcome although I can visibly see the difference of hue in each picture. Please enjoy them none-the-less, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

A spoon full of memories

You don't often hear what people actually get as wedding presents. Maybe this is due to people mostly giving cash or gift cards now a days, and it's just not that exciting to gloat about. We only got about three actual presents, and the rest falls in to the last category. One present really sticks out to me as special though, a spoon.

Now I can imagine your thinking the same I did when we opened it ".....A spoon? Sweet...." We went on to read the letter attached and soon found it to be the most heartfelt gift of all. The present was from my Grandma & Grandpa. The card explained that it used to be a tradition back when they got married over 65 years ago, for a new bride and groom to receive a new set of silverware. They jokingly explained how expensive a new set of real silverware was today, and hoped that we could settle with this. It was a spoon from the set they received on their wedding day. Could we settle, of course we could settle. This was such an amazing thing to get! I am sure Brad was a little more excited about the Cabela's gift cards, but I will always treasure this as my favorite wedding gift. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa.

The Culvert Fairies

For the past couple weeks, and a few months to come, I have been taking two little girls two and from the Pre-School I work at. One is Two - Cassidy, and the Other five - Lupine. This has been an interesting learning process. You see, I am not a morning person, AT ALL. I am one of those, don't-talk-to-me-before-my-coffee sort of people.

Like any typical two and five year old, they love to be told stories, and the first thing they ask when they get in my car is "Can you tell us a story?" Me being the morning grinch that I am, I instantly in my mind yell "NO - I am freaking tired and I don't feel like using my imagination until noon!". But you don't want to crush the dreams of little girls, so I take a big gulp of coffee and ask "what should the story be about today?". I tell myself its good practice for when Brad and I decide to have children. At least someone else's kids can laugh at my not so up to par children's tales. I did come up with one I thought was blog worthy though...

After I ask the girls what they would like to be in that days story and they generally give about five or so main points. This day, they wanted fairies, two little girl fairies named Lupine and Cassidy to be exact...go figure, that live in tunnels, and hidden treasures that are purple. So naturally, my first childrens best seller is about a fairy family living in a driveway culvert (Hey - THEY give me the outline, I just fill in the details) we'll call it 'The Culvert Fairies'.

It starts out with a fairy family whose home is danger of being wiped out by the winter rain that will create a stream right through their living room. They srcamble for ideas on what to, and decide to create a floating home that attaches to the top of the culvert. They would gather twigs and tree bark, and tree sap of course to make it all stick and stay together. After days of work and just a few hours shy of the first winter storm, their new home was finished and they were elated! They could see all sorts of new sights, they wondered why they didn't so this sooner?

One morning Mrs. Fairy was drinking her morning coffee, and something caught her eye in the field outside the culvert. She pointed it out to Lupine and Cassidy, and when breakfast was through they all ventured out to see what it was. As they drew closer to this glowing hidden treasure, they realized it was a huge purple crystal. It was so big, that they couldn't even move it. Each day from then on the girls would visit this crystal and admire all the little crevices that sparkled in the sunlight.

On a cold winter night, when there were no clouds in the sky, the two little fairies were snuggled in bed and rolled over to see the crystal sparkling in the moonlight. They jumped out of bed and ran to their parents room to show them, Mr. and Mrs. Fairy were just as excited. That night they all dreamt of the sprakling crystal. In the morning Mr. and Mrs. Fairy told the little girls they would all go to the crystal today and try to collect little pieces of it. The little girls were a little confused as to why, but went along anyways.

When they returned home, Mr. and Mrs. Fairy placed all the little chunks of crystal they had collected in various corners of their home. When it got dark enough, they placed a flashlight pointing directly at a crystal hanging over their dining room table. When they flicked it on, the light beams illuminated all throughout the house bouncing from one crystal to the next, creating a beautiful warm purple glow from room to room.

For years to come, The Fairy family would collect more chunks of crystal as old ones would 'burn out' and lived happily ever after!

Nifty Fifty

THE DOG DAAAAYS ARE OVVVEEERRRR!

I love that song, and it was exact feeling I felt when I opened my christmas present. Yeah, I said christmas present. I have no patience and either does Brad when it comes to me nagging him… For some reason I am not seeing this a bad thing? Anyways - Brad went black friday shopping this year, and mistakingly told me he was going to look at camera lens's for me. Then he proceeded to get a wee bit tipsy and banned me from looking in the trunk of my car. Bad move, All I proceeded to do was give him all the reasons I needed it now, and just could NOT wait until christmas. Turns out i'm a good salesperson.

Please welcome to my collection…….THE NIFTY FIFTY!

I am SO Stoked, I have more Bokeh than I even know what to do with! In gearing up for this blog, I thought I would say goodbye to my old standard 18-55mm lens and hello to my new little 1.4, and how better to do this than to snap a photo of each?!? In doing this I saw an immediate difference in the quality of glass.

This photo taken with my standard 18-55mm @ f/ 5.6 ISO 400

This photo taken with my 50mm @f/1.4 ISO 400

SEE how much more light this little beauty lets in? I can't wait to keep learning!!!

Hibernating

Please excuse my absence, as I have been avoiding all that takes anymore than basic energy. The past year was a whirlwind of planning each day down to the last detail, and I have been enjoying my freedom from conformity and excess budgeting. I often review my days in my head, pre-writing paragraphs for awesome blog ideas, only to follow up the next day with nothing more than "Ugh, I suppose I don't really care to write about it, I'd rather live bi-caressly(sp?) through other's facebook pages".

It's not that I don't have a life, in fact I feel my life has been pretty exciting lately. We got a new puppy named sig (maybe this is the main reason for my lack of energy)

He is a Jack Russell TERROR. Seriously. I am working vigorously to kick the demon out that is living inside his little 10 lb. body. He does have good moments, he is actually a smart little puppy who loves to cuddle. But as you know, with one extreme, comes the other.

I plan on being domestic this weekend. Doing run through's on Thanksgiving recipes and catching up on my volcano of a laundry pile. Maybe in during the process I will take a few photos and moments to write about them. Until then, please update your pages, they provide me sanity throughout work days...

August 21, 2010

The night before the wedding I stayed at my friend Monica's house. Two more of my bridesmaids accompanied us, Crystal and Randi. It was nice to be surrounded by my ladies on the eve of a crazy day to come. When we first arrived there I was rushing around to fix my hairpiece for the wedding, which had broken when I was showing it to Karlee, Brad's sister, also a bridesmaid. I figured it to be a pretty easy fix, it was just a strand of crystals on a piece of wire. What I didn't know, was how hard it is to do beadwork with acrylic nails. And hour or so later, and beads all over Mo's living room, it was fixed. I could finally relax. Somehow I managed to fall alseep. I had a few minor 'pre-sleep' freak outs. Brad and I had not practiced out kiss, I mean HOW DO I KISS? Suddenly I felt like a middle school awaiting her first kiss.

My next freak out was about tying of the knot. No, not cold feet. Both Brad and I are just not very religious people, so we were a little stumped as to what to do during our ceremony. Myself being a huge supporter of Google, I 'religiously' searched for all sorts of wedding ceremony traditions. I came across 'tying the knot', I liked this for a few reasons. First, obviously the name of it is just cool. Second it is a modernized tradition of hand fasting. Hand fasting was practiced in the early days of Celtic weddings (it is also a neo-pagan ritual, buuut lets not focus on that). Being Irish myself, I found this to be somewhat sentimental. Traditionally, in a handf asting ceremony, you would choose different color ribbons, each color representing different well beings in your new life together. The officiant would take these ribbons and tie them around both the bride and grooms hand, forming a circle around them. The ribbons would stay on their hands throughout the rest of the ceremony. Brad was not keen on this idea. So I did a little more research.

I came across a blog about a DIY wedding. A couple had kind of put their own twist on this hand fasting idea. They had two piece's of ribbon, and before the ceremony gave one to the mother of the groom, and one to the mother of the bride. When it came time during the ceremony the officiant asked the mothers to present the bride and groom with the ribbons. The bride and groom then tied a knot together. The idea was to tie a new knot each anniversary there after. Perfect. I loved it, Brad loved it, we were gonna do it, done and planned. So what's the freakout? Well...we didn't practice tying a knot. Trying to picture in your mind how to tie a knot is it not easy. After about 20 minutes of ribbons flying around in my mind and tying my brain in a knot, I managed to hit the hay.

I never sleep well. I always wake up throughout the night, and this night was no exception. I woke up a few times to daylight, but wouldn't allow myself to look at the time, knowing I would only start to count down the hours. About the 5th time I did this, I heard Monica's dog, and very old pug with definite breathing issues, come down the hallway into the living room where Randi and I were sleeping. I could here her gasping for air at the foot of the air mattress, thats it. I am awake. It's 5:30 am, Damn. We had five alarms set for 6:30 am. The count down begins. After staring at the ceiling for an hour waiting for other people to hear this dog too, Randi did her early morning stretch. She barely opened her eyes before I said "Good Morning!" She laughed. One by one we all got out of bed. We had to be at the hair salon by 8:00 am, I think we got there at 8:03 am, not bad.

Kristi, my new sister in law, and hair beautifier for the day, had mimosas and bagels waiting for us. We allotted about four hours to do four girls hair, I think it took about two and a half. It was nice though, it gave us all time to chit-chat and run a quick errand. After that I went and got my makeup done, and a few of the girls went back to do their own. Johnny, my maid of honor's boyfriend, was nice enough to be our driver for the day. He picked Randi and I up from my makeup apt, and drove us to pick up the wedding cake at Sweet Life. Yum.

After a nice slow morning of getting ready and just hanging with my ladies, I had no idea what I was about to enter. We headed back up to my house, where we were having this whole shindig. Driving down the driveway I did a quick one-over on everything to ensure I somehow communicated everything I wanted done. It looked good so far.

I snuck in to the house, and was officially in hiding. There was probably about 30 people buzzing around outside doing random things for Brad and I. Things I didn't even plan. I mean who pictures how they want the food table to be set up, let alone to even plan on having serving utensils. Whoops. Luckily we stock up on everything in the country. The next couple hours were a whirlwind of:

"Laura-does this look good?

" Laura- How do you like this?"

"Laura how should I tie this bow, do you want two or should I just drape it?"

LAURA - LAURA - LAURA

Ugh, Can I change my first name too? Just playing, in retrospect, I really appreciated every question, and every person asking. It's just a lot to think about when I am trying to focus on getting married itself. I stopped for a minute and stood in the kitchen, watching people running around like chickens with there heads cut off. I had to take a moment to appreciate it all. People were doing this all for Brad and myself. This is my wedding day. I am about to get married. I quickly blurted "Where's that lemon drop I asked for??" I think two people came running one with my cocktail, and another with pink champagne. Agh. Instant relief.

4:30 pm. Time to put on my dress. I had avoided to do this till last minute. Mainly because I am a 'nervous pee-er' for lack of a better description. Not that it mattered anyways, I ended up squeezing through the bathroom door two minutes before I made the walk down the aisle. Thanks Randi for holding my dress.

So here we are time for the walk. I had hired two violinists to play for the ceremony, among many things I just had to have, this was my number one. It took a minute for them to start up 'Here comes the bride", and I was off. First thing I looked at, obviously, was my husband to be Brad. We both had on huge smiles, that only built off each other as soon as we saw the other one doing so. Being short though, as soon as I got behind the crowd I couldn't see him or any of the wedding party anymore. My eye's turned to the crowd. I saw my new dear friend Caitlin and her husband Chris. It meant a lot that they made it, seeing how Caitlin was 9 months pregnant and due two days later. We had a quick hello and I ventured into the middle of the guests.

One thing I did not expect, was for the paparazzi to show up. Seriously. As soon as I turned and made my way down the aisle it was nothing but camera after camera. Each end seat was taken all the way up to the aisle and each person had a camera. Pointing directly at me. This was really awkward. I had to remind myself I had done this to others, so now it's my turn for a picture from every angle.

I did it, I made it all the way to the alter. Everyone is behind me now, it's almost like the don't exist. I listened to every word the minister said. Soaking it all in, this is it. I don't know that I looked at much other than Brad and Bill - our officiant. Who by the way was awesome. He directed us through that whole ceremony like a children. I had everything planned, and then in that moment my list flew away in the wind. I needed directions, and he calmly held our hands throughout it all. He kept us calm, made us smile, and we were married!

Ok, I know your all asking yourselves, "How did the knot thing go??" Well right as we were waiting for the go ahead from bill to tie it, Brad whispers to me "I will just make a loop and you tie a knot around it". I laughed. I was glad I was not the only one who realized we completely spaced practicing this most prized 'act' of ours. The whole ceremony to me, lasted about 20 seconds. About 19 of me crying, and a kiss is all I really remember. The hard part was over, and I could really let loose and party with the rest of them!

Well first we took pictures...

After pictures, I made my way to the food table. Throughout the day, everyone kept demanding that I eat. I think I had like 7 meals. I filled up my plate, and got stopped by someone congratulating me. I was about to walk off when....It happened. Someone (I will leave there identity secret) bumps my arm....which I was holding my plate with.....and.....BBQ chicken grease all down the front of my dress...About five women, I don't even remember who, swarmed around me patting away, trying to console me. My photographer Mariea, and also new sister in law, instantly grabbed my shoulder and reminded my "You already took your photo's".

I am SO thankful for these words. I think it was what stopped me from picking my plate back up off the ground and throwing it at the person who flipped it on me. Or just hysterically crying. I had a lot of scenario's running through my head. I wasn't going to be upset at my wedding for anything though. I went and gave myself a moment at my table and someone had delivered me a new plate of food. Demanding that I sit there until it is gone, and not let anyone talk to me in the process. In a moment the memory was gone. I was gleeful again, it was my/our day, I had to be. We went on with the traditional things, cake cut, bouqet toss, Garter toss...

The garter. So, let's back track a day. Randi and I were out getting mani/pedi's, and she asks me what my garter looks like. What, what do you mean? Garter....I don't even have one. How the heck did I not even think to get one?? I mean, I thought about it, I saw them all the time. Always saying to myself, I will get it another day. Or, that's ones sooo ugly and cheesy I will find a better one. Well needless to say I completely forgot. We ran to the Dollar tree and bought one of the four ugly options they had and voila, problem solved. Right. The next day, while getting dressed, we couldn't find the freaking garter. Sweet, now what. Someone came to me with this sequin elasticy rope and a safety pin. Normally I would laugh at a person with this offer. But in that moment I was exhilleratted we had any sort of solution. So there you have it. My Garter was a bright purple piece of sequin elastic, held together by a safety pin.

The speeches our Maid of honor and Best man gave were perfect. They made us cry, so I guess you could say they did their jobs. We love and value you both, as well as the rest of the wedding party and all the guests that attended, and thank you all so much for being a part of our special day. It's something we will never forget.

"Hi, my name is "

Laura Os---err Anderson? Weird. Still processing that one.

So here we are. 8 days before Brad and I 'tye the knot', and oddly I am finding myself to be pretty calm. This is a far cry than how I felt 10 days ago. Maybe I have gone so far off the deep end in emotion that I am numb to my own feelings at this point. Or maybe life is playing a sick joke on me and I will wake up the morning of, sobbing, laughing and histerically calling everyone I know.

The whole process of wedding planning is excitingly awkward. It kind of reminds me of highschool assemblies. Everyone can't wait for them, but the second they ask for a volunteer, no one wants to raise their hand. I envision Brad as the principal out there with a microphone asking for a bride, and I spring up fist pumping like a champ. Only to feel my legs give out two second later when I realize, I will have to be the center of attention. This whole event now is about me. Okay maybe a little about him too, but I have never heard the word groomzilla, have you?

Cake, flowers, dresses, decorations, guest list, music, location, wedding invites. Seriously, the list never ends, and soon as you remember something you had forgotten, well, you can just go ahead and tack on two more things. It's ridiculous. I often found myself at the craft store, spending $100 or more on random wedding decorations, such as sticks, or paper, and thinking to myself, really? Am I really spending this much money on this? I argued with myself all the way to the check stand, my wedding plans always won, and I was left with an empty bank account once again. Looking back at these times, it makes me realize that everyone should go through a wedding process of some sort. There are few things that I have learned throughout that I have found the be pretty important.

First being, we would all have a lot more money if we didn't spend it on stupid things we don't really need. Now, I can't say that I will always refer back to this little life lesson, BUT, I am acknowledging it. There were many times I went a little over board in my decorating ideas, only to realize it would add $200 or more to my already inflated wedding total. My final decision was always "Ok, I will do it, but only this one time, and ONLY because it is my wedding". Like every other human being though, I am really good at contradicting myself.

Second, which really should be the first, seeing how I will reference it a bit more, is the value of all of your relationships. Whether it be with your groom to be, family, or friends. A co-worker said it best to me "Your relationship with everyone you know, will change". Can you argue about ribbon color and at the end of the day not want to hang each other with that very ribbon? Can you ask for help, when you really know you don't need to ask in the first place? Can you cry to a friend and know they are secretly laughing at you because you are upset about a cake flavor, but let you cry anyways? The point I am getting at, is that you realize who is there for you, and who isn't. I think ultimately this is what a wedding is truly for. You are, after all 'building your life together'. Who will be part of that life? Who values your day as much as you do? Who can you lean on when you need to, who will return your call when they couldn't stand listening to your voicemail. You will be amazed who comes and who goes.

For now though, I am going. Going on vacation, and will come back asking that you now call me a 'Mrs.'

The Messenger

I think I need to start pulling Carrie Bradshaw's and just write my blogs at night in my bed. I am one of those people who re-cap their whole day, and maybe a few before it, before falling asleep hours later. I come up with these great ideas for blogs, words to match my feelings and pictures I will use in them perfectly. Often smirking and shaking my head as these grand plans flow. Only to wake the next morning with nothing to write. Well, not nothing, but not quite as clever as it sounded the night before. Maybe it's daily events that spark these ramblings. Wednesday was a roller coaster of emotions. One of my 'night thoughts' was the title of this blog, referring to the saying 'Don't kill the messenger'.

My day started rough, I was the messenger. In fact, I am always the messenger. I work as a Office Manager for a non-profit pre-school. I handle all things accounting, keeping in constant contact with all the families enrolled. Often times people get behind on bills, and I can relate, BUT like I said, I work for a non-profit. Which means just that, no-profit. We don't get a lot of money each month. It may seem that way, but it costs a lot to run the joint. So when these families get behind I have to 'set guidelines' in order for continued enrollment. Most families abide and get their shit together, for lack of a better choice of words. But some shoot me down like a heartless bitch trying to worsen their already crappy lives. Sorry. I know cussing isn't a good way to express myself, but in this case it just works perfect. No, I am not being rude, I am being direct and to the point. I understand no one else in your life does this, constantly bailing you out and not letting you fall. But understand me as I am trying to help run a business, with our own bills to pay and frankly we don't want to be in the same boat as you. PSsshhhh, whatever crazy.

In the words of Men at Work, 'Aint nobody gonna hold me down, Oh no'.

So, in going with my new saying, life is pretty good and has been for a while. I feel like I could make this blog about 5 pages long, but for your sake I will cover two topics and leave the rest for another day. Every thing in my life currently pertains to one thing, my upcoming wedding. A topic I am so tired of talking about at this point, I feel I am beating the subject in to the ground every time the word comes up. Don't get me wrong, I am totally stoked, so stoked I don't want to talk about it for fear I may pre-maturely explode with glee. Sometimes though it's hard to avoid the subject, times like bridal showers. My co-worker, Pammie, threw me one a couple weeks ago along with all my other co-workers. It funs really fun, and I appreciated it very much so. It was a garden theme, I got lots of plants, organic fertilizer, gift cards, gardening gloves, and yeas worth of horticulture magazines. Awesome. My friend/co-worker Kacie (who is also getting married this sunday-CONGRATS!) offered to take pictures for me and it was nice to actually see myself on the other side of the camera for a moment. To be honest, there was a lot of pictures and I have yet to really 're-touch' any of them, so for now, here is a group photo of us all..

Thanks Ladies for being a part of this day with me!

Other exciting news, we finally painted our house! Here is a before and after....

BEFORE

AFTER

Well I am tired of hearing my own voice, so, peace.