11.30.2009

photographer










This photographer, Angelica Glass, shoots many different things, product stuff, weddings, boudoir...but I really enjoy these particular pictures of babies and kids. They're so cute!

11.29.2009

sister





My Thanksgiving is always crazy busy. That's what happens when your parents are divorced, you have lots of families to see on every holiday. So I always start out driving an hour to a noon celebration with my mom's extended family, and then leaving by two to drive another hour to my dad's house for Thanksgiving at three with his girlfriend's mom and sister and sometimes some of my dad's family too. So, by four, I've eaten more than any person should eat in a week.

Normally, my exstepsisters(yeah, long story) have Thanksgiving at their dad's house right up the road from my dad's house. After my dad and their mom got divorced, they didn't like each other a whole lot, but their dad and my dad got along and I spent a lot of time with them at their dad's house. Through that time I got to know their extended family on their dad's side pretty well. So when they're all there on Thanksgiving I like to go see them.

After all the visiting, Katie, my youngest sister, always comes back to my dad's house with me and we go upstairs to my room and giggle and talk about family and boys and anything that's on her mind.

It rocks. I am so thankful for the time I can spend with that little girl. Laughing together about the craziest things, her stealing my phone away from me to text message Phil and tell him that I don't like cold feet on me while she's trying her hardest to get her feet through the covers to my bare legs. Being a big sister and listening as she talks about the hurts in her life and wishing more than anything that I could take them away.
A right-now resolution of mine? Spend more time with my sister, just listening.

11.25.2009

hair

Last year, for Christmas, my father wanted a calendar full of pictures of me doing things I like to do. Well, I couldn't just take it at that and put pictures up of things I like to do, I had to put together a collection of images and add words to them to accurately explain the pictures.

It was actually kind of hard to come up with 12 things I really like to do that I could accurately portray in photographs, but it was a fun project to do, and perfect to do in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Brought up all sorts of things I was thankful for.

I was looking through old images a couple days ago that I'd used in that. One of the months I wrote about how much I love clothes, and makeup, and hair products. Basically about style. And I'd used this picture for that, along with a shot of some of my jewelry and a shot of my makeup brushes.




When I looked at this picture, I was like, oh! I miss my long hair!

I get sick of my hair being one length or one color, so I'll chop it off and dye it. But now I'm thinking I'll hold out on cutting it for a while and go back to long hair for a bit. Change things up.

I was considering adding some honey blonde to it too...but that'll have to wait til after Jilane and CJ's wedding in March. I'd rather not try anything too drastic before I have to be in lots of pictures!

jamas

Every single year, no fail, when Victoria's Secret starts advertising their pajamas at Christmastime, I WANT THEM. They always look so comfy and look like if you just put them on you'll look as great as the models. Haha, okay, so maybe not really. But seriously, they look amazing.

11.23.2009

photographer











This photographer is actually the new sister-in-law to a photographer I already follow. She's an artist it seems, her blog has a lot more than just photography on it, and some seriously amazing stuff. Here's some of just her photographer work though, check out Promise Tangeman.
I love the eighth picture! I want to a) take ones of people like that and b) get one taken of me like that. Old cars = awesome props.

11.22.2009

thankfulX2

So I'm doing a combination post today. Combining two people I'm thankful for in one story.

Side note -- I'm entering this to ModCloth for a chance to win some free clothes, but that doesn't lessen how thankful I am for these two. I had this post written up and then realized that the offer for ModCloth ends today and thought it was all just too perfect. Anyway, moving on...

I'm officially on day 22 of working out. Straight. Which has got to be some kind of record for me. But I really do enjoy it. Problem is, after 14 days of working out, I weighed the same and my clothes fit the same and I was ANNOYED. And I know it's only 14 days straight, but I'd been working out considerably before that and nothing was changing. I figured it came down to what I was eating. Because of this, I decided to talk to Phil.

Phil is this wealth of knowledge. He loves learning stuff, and he doesn't forget things. He soaks up information about languages and cultures and astronomy and music. He also happens to have soaked up knowledge about fitness stuff. I decided to take advantage of it, and asked him to help me figure out what I can and cannot eat. I had requirements. They had to be things that are easy to make, because typically I don't like spending a lot of time preparing food. And some of the food had to be things I could buy on campus for the days that I eat lunch there, because if I had to pack something I probably wouldn't do it.

So Phil took the time to figure out how many calories someone my size should consume in a day and how many of what kind, and how eating too less is bad just like eating too much is. And took the time to explain it all to me, which could have possibly taken longer than the research did. My favorite part about what he told me...I can eat peanut butter! Apparently it's a slow burning carb, so the occasional spoonful before bed is actually really good for you.

Meanwhile, I'd been talking to my Mom about this too. I knew that I wanted to incorporate fish into my diet, because it's good to eat and good for you. But I have no idea how to prepare fish. So I mentioned it to my mom, the recipe queen, and she went and found me various recipes for different kinds of fish off the internet and printed them out for me, writing little notes with various ideas to mix up the recipes a bit.

This is the best part about that. Back when I moved into my townhouse with the girls, my mom gave me a bag filled with goodies. Things like a bread knife, a flashlight, batteries, tooth brushes...general necessities in life. One of the things in the bag, though, was a binder full of recipes of things she makes that I like. So, when I got my fish recipes, I wanted to put them in the binder, but I realized this when I got back to my townhouse and was disappointed I hadn't remembered to punch holes in them at home, because I don't have a hole puncher at my townhouse.

Then I pulled the recipes out of my backpack to find that my mom had remembered, and punched holes in them, knowing that I'd want to stick them in my binder.

---------------------------------------------------

So thanks God, for blessing me, for now, with a boyfriend who is willing to take the time to learn about something that matters to me, and has ulimate patience teaching me things I don't understand. And thanks again God, for blessing me, for now, with a Mom who is always a few steps ahead of me, even if it drives me nuts sometimes.

11.20.2009

philosophy

My Philosophy of Religion class is driving me nuts.

Correction. My Philosophy of Religion professor is driving me nuts. He's all about presenting arguments to us and then letting us either accept or reject them, with reasoning for why we accept or reject them. That's fine. That makes sense. That's a good way of sharing different ideas without forcing any ideas down anyone's throat.

However, some of his arguments are, in my opinion, insane. And therefore he's driving me nuts. We're talking about evil right now. We've already established that God exists. My teacher believes that God exists. He also believes that God is an infinite being, that's He's omnipotent(he can do all that is possible for a God to do, ie, can't make something that's nonsense, like a square circle, but can do all possible things) and omniscient. We've also established that we as humans are finite beings. We are limited. My teacher also believes that God is smarter than we are as humans.

So, onto evil. We've agreed that there's evil in the world because God gives us free will, and therefore, humans will do evil things sometimes. And sometimes some evil may be necessary for the greater good. But my teacher has an issue with "pointless evil". To explain pointless evil, he uses the hypothetical situation of a fawn being injured in a forest fire and not dying right away, but suffering for a few days and die. My teacher thinks God should just give the deer a heart attack and not make it suffer, because he doesn't understand the good that comes of that. Another example is a person suffering of an illness for many years. My teacher doens't understand why they can't suffer for 10 years instead of 20.

Okay, so I, along with other students, say, what's to say that God isn't already reducing the amount of evil to the smallest amount possible while still striving for the greater good? And my teacher says, "That's insulting my intelligence! I can look around and see all this pointless evil! It's insulting my intelligence to say that it's happening for a reason!"

Well, excuuuuuuse me. Sorry, but I'm insulting your intelligence by mentioning that you might not be able to see it because you're not as smart as God? A point which you've already agreed to? Well, aren't you a humble man.

hot




Seriously, I want to be this hot pregnant. One of the photographers I blog stalk, gabriel.ryan, shot these images of his wife. She's gorgeous.

people

Every year I buy one People magazine. Their Sexist Man Alive Issue. I can't help myself.

This year, this image was my favorite.



Surprising, I know, but I think it's fantastic. It's part of an ad for GMC, and on the page next to it it says "IDEAS ARE SEXY TOO." Cracks me up.


I also, however, happened to enjoy the pictures of Ryan Reynolds, Matt Bomer, Tim McGraw, Chace Crawford, the Glee boys...you get the idea.

santa


I opened my email this afternoon to find this message from Urban Outfitters. I think it's hilariously naughty.

11.16.2009

dogs



These videos are both of when these dogs see their owners for the first time since they've been gone to war. They make me want to cry, and really, REALLY make me want a dog. Oh how they love you!

clothbound

It's getting to be the time of year where I'll have to renew my magazine subscriptions. Right now I get Allure, Glamour, and Lucky, plus one photoshop and one photography magazine. So I'm trying to filter through those three fashion magazines and figure out which ones I really want to renew. Up until I got my last Lucky, I was figuring that would be the one. And then, as I was flipping through the latest issue, I dog-earred about 20 pages and figured maybe I do like that magazine quite a bit. It's all shopping and style. Clothes and accessories and fun stuff. I love it.


One of the things I dog-earred in this issue was those books. They're clothbound classics from Borders.com -- Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights. I'm going to start collecting them. They're $20 a piece, which is more than I like to pay for a book, but I can't wait to have a home where I can display these beauties! Decor and reading entertainment, all in one! And no better books to be clothbound than the timeless classics.

photographer

Today I hit the jackpot for finding new photographers to love. I follow wedding blogs because they pretty much always post wedding photography to show off the details or the dresses or whatever it may be about that day that they're focusing on, and I'll always click on the photographer's link and see if I think they're worth following or not. Today I added like six new photographers, one of them being sheenajibsonphotography. I love the looks she captures on the guy's face in the second one, and the cool ways she uses the location in the umbrella one, the tunnel, and the mountain one.








And she's got some super awesome non-wedding stuff too...the last three are from a family vacation. They look like they had fun, don't they?


finest

Matthew West. Finest Hour. Excellent, excellent song.

The king of contradiction strikes again.
You said the last to cross the finish line will win
and the beggars will be millionaires someday
and humble ones are gonna have their say.
Well all my friends are gone now,
all my money's gone now.
And all my pride is gone now,
and if what you say is true now,

this will be my finest hour,
this will be my finest hour.

Well everything is opposite down here.
The strong survive and the rest just disappear.
But Your philosophy is more unique,
You say I'll be stronger when I'm weak.

This will be my finest hour,
this will be my finest hour.

It's 2am and sleepless,
I'm wide awake and restless.
I don't know what my deal is,
I've never felt so helpless.
I don't understand it,
I don't think I'll ever comprehend it.
It's so hard to conceive it,
so I guess I'll just believe it.

This will be my finest hour,
this will be my finest hour.

50

This Saturday we celebrated my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. Grandpa threw a party at a golf course nearby and we ate lots of appetizers and sweets and chicken and tips and fish. We met all their friends, and Grandpa talked about all of us and cracked jokes.

This morning he went into the doctor for his heart surgery. The surgery was successful and the nurse's reports since then have been good. Thanks, God.



eavesdropping

I've noticed that I kind of eavesdrop a lot. In the coffeehouse. I'll be sitting and working and trying to get stuff done...and I'll get totally distracted by all the conversations around me. And then I'll feel bad for eavesdropping. But I'm kind of getting over that, because really, if you're having a conversation in the coffeehouse with people all around you, you should know that others could potentially hear what you're saying.

holiday

So, when Christmas rolls around I get really excited to figure out what I'm going to wear at all the different Christmas events I attend throughout the season. Due to the parents being divorced thing, I have a lot of Christmases to attend. This year it'll be eight. My mom's family, Joe's family, Joe's extended family, my mom's extended family, my dad's family, Cheryl's family, Phil's family, and our roommate Christmas.

The only one I get dressed up fancy for is my dad's family Christmas on Christmas Eve. We go to church that night and I usually wear a skirt or a dress.
I won't actually be able to wear the perceived outfit I'm putting together in my mind right now, due to the fact that the inspiration for the outfit--these adorable red ankle boots--are $430. But it's fun to dream!
I'd wear them with this super cute classic black dress with a red cardigan on over it to keep me warm and black opaque tights on underneath, because that much bare leg is too much for Christmastime. Eee! So cute. I'll have to try to replicate a cheaper version.

11.09.2009

carving



I didn't dress up this year, but I did manage to carve a pumpkin, something I haven't done in a long time. Phil and I made a owl! And then made fancy pumpkin seeds with the seeds from inside, and proceeded to eat A LOT of them. It was a good day.