These Days...Life is an adventure

Today I spent the day running around getting things done. I had 2 doctors appointments, I went to the court house and got the marriage license, I signed the loan for my car, I picked up the u-haul truck. I ate lunch with the wonderful Debbie :-) She tagged along for the second half of my day and was a joy to be with. After that I packed, packed and packed some more. I am ALMOST done packing. I wish I was completely packed but I am not. I have to finish packing my clothes, my crafting and office stuff, my shoes, and my movies and then I will be finished. It seems like a lot but I've gotten at least half of my clothes and office stuff packed and my movies are in a binder I just need to make sure they are all in there. I load a bunch of stuff into the truck so that tomorrow I don't have too much work to do. It was an extremely productive day. Tomorrow is looking much the same. I have to get up early and pack, then I have to get the title and registration sorted, then lunch with Mandy and hopefully a good afternoon with her as well. Then dinner with Sarah Patch in Friendship heights. Then hopefully last minutes things like shower stuff with get packed and I will be in bed before 9 pm. Its a difficult schedule but I believe I can accomplish it all. This moving stuff has become kind of exciting. This life truly is an adventure!

Have a great night!

These Days...Sunday June 6th, 2010

Today was my bridal shower. I have to say, it was fabulous. I have the best friends and family ever. They threw an amazing party that was everything I could have imagined. Everyone who came was fun and friendly and gave me such awesome gifts. It was a perfect day.

My morning started with the hairstylist coming over to test run my hairstyle for my wedding. Next my bridesmaids came over to pick things up. Then they went to Tom & Ray's restaurant in downtown Damascus, while I finished getting ready. I showed up at Tom & Ray's and everyone was arriving. I started to get a little nervous, I wasn't sure what to expect. But like I said, it was fabulous. I had such a great time.

After the shower my best friend and Matron of honor, Mandy went out and got coffee. It was wonderful to get to sit down and talk to her about life and everything. Its been a long time since we've had the chance to just sit and talk one on one. I am very grateful for that time. Because she is amazing part of my life here that I am so sad to leave, I decided to use her as my subject today. I wanted to take photos of her that really show who she is. That is why there are 2 photos of her, one to show her silly quirky side, and the other to show her thoughtfulness and intelligence. She is a wonderful personm and has been like a sister to me and I will miss her dearly.

I have been thinking for sometime that I needed to go over to the old broken down laundromat in Damascus and take some photos. the laundromat has been there since as long as I can remember. My mom and I would go there anytime that our washer or dryer broke at home and we needed to do laundry. It had these awesome like yellow and orange colored washers and dryers it was very 1970s and I use to LOVE it. There was one time when I was maybe in 9th grade that we needed to go there and it was still open but extremely rundown. My mom and I were there at like 8 o'clock and it had gotten dark and we were the only ones there, it was SUPER creepy and there was this backroom with the door just cracked open but it was completely black in there and i kept thinking I heard noises in there and I wanted to leave and so I saw the door MOVE and freaked out and so my mom was like well its time to go anyway and we go to the main entrance and all of a sudden a man just appears at the main entrance door, like out of no where, totally freaks me out. We haven't been back since. But that's the time when I originally got the idea for doing a photo shoot there. At the time I thought a photo shoot inside would be rad, but since it has closed since then, an indoor shoot would be impossible. The outside has gotten more rundown and I wish desperately that someone would restore the building to its original splendor and make it a historic landmark. I dunno, I would just hate for it to get torn down. Its such a cool place. It even has a self-service car wash behind.

So today I decided that it may have been torn down by the time I'm in Maryland again and so I wanted to at least get a few photos of the place. I was way to chicken to wander too far from my car since a sketchy van was sitting in the parking lot as well. But I got a few shots. I hope to go back there with someone else during more daylight hours and get some more shots. But with all the packing and things I have to do, who knows if that will happen.

So without further ado, here are my photographs for today:

I have to say, that I am a bit frustrated with the change in saturation and color between the version in lightroom and the jpeg I load onto picasa. I am too tired to go back and over-sat and re-load it to post so enjoy the "not quite right" versions of these photos :-/

These Days...

My photograph today, makes me feel like a Cat-Lady. I'm not by definition a Cat-lady, I mean I'm engaged and I have a social life. I most likely wont live my life out knitting at home alone with 7 cats. But, my photo today is of my cat. Her name is Princess, my family has had her since I was in the 2nd grade, which makes her something like 16 years old. She has been a loyal, calm, gentle and loving cat her entire life. I will miss her more than words can express, when I move. The past 2 weeks she's been having some issues that frequently occur in older people, she's a cat and we've never had a cat live quite this long so we are unsure whether this is a normal "old cat" problem or if its indicative of a more serious problem. But, we're worried, and the thought that I might NEVER see her again, is down right devestating to me. So, my photo today is of her.

Have a good night.

These Days... meets Wordless Wednesday (for real this time)

These Days... Tuesday June 1st

This evening we worked on finishing up the little details with the Jam for my bridal shower, so my photo today is of that. Its WAY to grainy for my taste but I didnt have the chance to take a better one.

So here it is.

Tonight was the last night for Monday night 24 crew for me. It was so much fun but so sad at the same time. I am going to miss these girls SO much. Monday night crew has made mondays something i look forward to, instead of something I dread. I wish I could just teleport all my amazing friends from Maryland to Austin so I can still do these kind of things. So my photo tonight is of this Monday night. Its maybe not the strongest image but it has people I care about in it so its good in at least one way.

These Days...

Let me say that I am pretty excited about these days... today. I had an amazing day today. I went to church and learned a lot. I got to stop by and see the family I babysit for one more time before I move (because I left one of my lenses at their house last night), My sister and her daughters came over and we made homemade jam, and listened to music and had a water gun fight, and had dinner together, outside and ate delicious kabob that my Dad cooked on the grill, AND we got Jimmy Cone for dessert. When I think about today, all I can do is close my eyes, smile and sigh in happiness. It was like every perfect summer day of my childhood years. I wish all Sundays could be so great. I know I've posted before about how much I love clothes-lines, it reminds me so much of summer and of my grandmother and of happy things. Well my mom had hung some sheets on the line today to dry, for the first time this year I believe, and it made me so happy. It made me wish I was like 8 years old again, and could run through them and smell the freshness. Since I'm not 8 anymore, I decided to take some photographs of it instead.

I have 2 photos for the These Days... Project, one of the laundry and one of the cute little table setup we had for dinner in the yard. Maybe not the most breath-taking photos but they will certainly remind me of this wonderful Maryland summer day.

Enjoy!

This mini post is for Francie

So it is early and I have decided to post a few of my finished shots here for Francie because she has been patiently awaiting her engagement photos that were taken last weekend. I haven't finished editing all of them but I thought a sneak-peak was in order.

Enjoy! And have a great Sunday!

the half blood prince

So I said I was going to post about going to see Harry Potter 6, but I lied. I was busy photo editing from some portrait shoots I did and didn't have a chance. As much as I know everyone was dying to hear about H.P., I feel like posting some stuff from those shoots.

So I went to the beach the weekend of July 18th, and my Aunt Cathy asked me to take some good pictures of my cousins because she doesn't have many of them together. I felt nervous and I felt a lot of pressure because I haven't really done much portraiture. I think that nerves and awkwardness aside it went well. Here are two of my favorites from that shoot.

My Friend Francie got engaged that weekend when I was at the beach and She asked me if I would do her engagement photos and I excitedly agreed. After I had some time to think through my decisions I freaked out a bit. I was afraid that I would disappoint them, and that the images would be boring and they would hate me forever. Obviously this was a bit disproportionate and dramatic, but all the same these were my fears. These fears prompted me to ask my parents to go with me to the locations of the pending shoot and do a mini test shoot with them. Well to my immense surprise, I got some great shots of the parentals. My parents have very few pictures together, seeing as my dad does not particularly enjoy having his photo taken, so I was glad to have some good pictures of them for my mom and family. Here are a couple of my favorites.

So I know that these aren't those most blow you away images, but I think they are pretty good considering I don't have much experience with taking pictures of people. I know that with each shoot I get better.

Well, its off to bed for me, because in the morning I am going along with my close friend, and seriously talented photographer Sarah Patch to do an engagement shot for my best friend Mandy and her fiance Joe.

I will post a few of the shots I've finished from the Francie + Aaron engagement shoot sometime tomorrow.