romance

Fall makes me think romance. It's the bundling up and snuggling thing I think. I would be cheesy and say it's because that's when I started dating Phil, but I've always felt that way in fall, so sadly it doesn't specifically have to do with him. Though he does help.

Lately I've been listening to romantic music to go with my fall romantic mood, and looking at other photographer's wedding and engagement pictures. Soaking up a little wedding bliss bundled up at my desk. Most photographers have music to go along with their portfolio online, and one of them had this song. I downloaded it immediately. It's beautifully romantic and perfect for wedding pictures.

We Are Man and Wife, Michelle Featherstone

Apparently it was on One Tree Hill when Nathan and Haley got married, but I don't remember that--oops! All the videos I found include pictures of them.

revolutionary

Today I made a revolutionary discovery.

Okay. No. Not so revolutionary. More like a tale as old as time, rediscovered in my own life.

So the last two days I haven't felt so hot. Kind of getting a cold, just felt icky, stuck in a bad mood.

On Monday, instead of doing kickboxing, Amanda and I came home and did pilates because we got out of our class early and didn't want to wait around. And Tuesday, when my alarm went off I ignored it and went back to sleep, because I didn't feel good and it was like 40 degrees outside and I figured running in 40 degree weather while I was obtaining a cold probably wasn't the smartest idea in the world.

But today, today I did kickboxing again. And I am HAPPY. Bountifully happy.

Whenever I'm whining about working out, someone please remind me what it does to my mood.

dress

This blog shares two things I love. One, erin jean photography. And two, this wedding dress. Pretty much my dream dress. Or something similar. I know I want lace. And I love the low back on this one. By the time I get married I'll probably want something totally different, but if I were to get married tomorrow, it would be in a dress just like that.

homes

My good friend Jilane turned 22 early this month, and her whole family was in Disney for the occasion(and for her mother's birthday). Because of that, and both of our busy schedules, just this weekend we got around to celebrating.

We have this crazy fun habit of going to the Showcase of Homes. We like going into all the pretty new houses(new houses smell so good), big and small, and picking them apart to decide what we'd like in our houses one day. This year the houses were full of original ideas. There was one styled after Frank Lloyd Wright, and another embracing some seriously cool art deco. We both wrote down a ridiculous amount of ideas and saw some incredible homes.

In one of the most impressive homes I found something that would drive me nuts. In the master bathroom there were steps leading up to a huge bathtub with a fire place behind it. A shower of tiny glass tiles that covered an space as big as a normal bathroom, with all sorts of different massaging faucets coming at you from all directions. Two sinks, and between them a space to get ready with a mirror. Now, my problem with that area that sounds like perfection is the lighting by that mirror is awful. Awful. You can't see yourself well. The light is more flattering than full on light...but when I get ready, I don't want super flattering light. I want crappy light that exposes all the makeup things I need to get right before I leave my bathroom, because let me tell you, most light is not nearly as flattering as that bathroom had!

Oh, and yes, I am aware that most normal people never think of such things. I'm a loon, I know.

blustery

I love fall. All the snuggling and the pretty colors and the smell of falling leaves. I always get excited for the seasons to change. This year, however, it was a little abrupt for me. Two weeks ago we were enjoying the 80s. Today there's a wind advisory, and it's 58 degrees and raining. I'm looking forward to the fall days where it's still enjoyable to be outside. Like this one, from October a few years ago. My friends Ben and Colleen got married that day. I want to get married on a fall day as beautiful as theirs was.

deschanel

Okay, I like Bones as much as the next girl, really, I do. And both of the Deschanel sisters are great actresses. But this site is just a little much for me. It would seriously freak me out if someone had nothing better to do than to look for every single picture ever taken of me and put them on a website. Good thing I'm not famous.

darcy

Phil and I just watched Pride and Prejudice. No, I did not force him. In fact, he sort of chose it. He said he wanted to watch one of my movies, knowing they're all chick flicks. And I threw out some possibilities from this mess of chick flicks, and he picked Pride and Predjudice.

And proceeded to very politely try not to laugh as I sighed with every word that came out of Darcy's mouth. Oh, the language. I've always loved the movie You've Got Mail, and they talk about Pride and Prejudice in that one, and how Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks's characters both get swept up in the language of the book. I do too. Both in the book and the movie. The movie's almost better because then I hear it all with the English accents, and oh the English accents! It makes the witty lines so much better. It's not even just about the old English way it's written, but about what they're really saying. The writing is fantastic.

Both Pride and Predjudice(in book or movie form) and You've Got Mail come highly recommended.

coffeehouse

Our coffeehouse at school is a haven of sorts. It's rich, warm colors, natural wood and stone, huge windows and soft couches. It's like this place that's just a little nicer than any other place on campus and this place that makes me feel more like an adult than like a college kid.

I like that feeling. The feeling of being on the brink of something new. When I can walk into someplace I've never been before and feel like I could belong there. Like the first time I met Adam, I walked into Cheesecake Factory...a new, slightly more mature setting than my usual hangout, and sat down and had my first 'interview' for something I really cared about, not just any old job to get me through college(even though I've loved all my jobs). And I sat there and listened as he said everything and so much more than I was hoping to hear. And it was so exciting and new and more grown up than almost everything before it.

I love growing up. They tell you with every new season in life that those years will be the best years of your life, and while that would seemingly get monotonous, it's so true. I loved aspects of high school. High school was choir, was something that I was good at that taught me how to be confident, with the help of some of the best mentors in the world. College brought a few day-long breakdowns as I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, but it also brought the beginnings of friendships stronger than anything I had in high school, and eventually did help me figure out who I want to be, and gave me confidence about myself as a whole, not just in specific abilities. And then there's the years that I'll be working, and the years that I'll be getting married and the years that I'll be having kids...see what I mean? There's best moments in all those years.

science

By some sort of miracle, I'm starting to enjoy my Energy and Society class. I probably only enjoy it because up until now I was super naive about energy saving strategies. But I'm learning things like unplugging your cell phone charger when you're not using it saves you electricity. And iron cookware heats up faster and transfers heat to your food better. I didn't know that stuff before this class.

Even though I'm not someone who's really big into environmental stuff, it's still good to be aware of how what we do daily effects the environment. And now I know how to make little changes that are better for the environment and not that terribly inconvenient to me. Plus, any inconvenience is made up for by the warm, fuzzy feelings I get by knowing I'm helping the environment!

photography

This will probably be me in sixty years.

I am so okay with that. The last few days I've had photography opportunities popping up like crazy, and I'm feeling quite blessed because of it. So I thought I'd share this picture that I just can't help but to smile at.

football

Football has started! The real season, the games that count. I love this time of year. Two years ago I couldn't have cared less about football, but now working at Lambeau has drastically changed that. I totally get sucked in. I love all the excitement, and I love the loyalty people have for their team. I'm amused to feel that loyalty growing in me just because I'm around these people who really love their team and the game.

I still don't understand a lot about how the game works. I know the basics, but some of the calls make zero sense to me...and I honestly don't care. I have no desire to understand it more fully, I just love watching. Stacy, my coworker, and I stop and watch just for a few minutes on our way back from lunch every game. Every game, and I still get shivers when we step up to the window in the club seats. It's not even about what happens on the field, but about that scene as a whole, the fans screaming, the players, the coaches, the cheerleaders.

Maybe it's not that way everywhere, but at Lambeau, the support and the excitement is incredible.

commercials

This commercial both freaks me out and intrigues me.

This one, on the other hand, is definitely all entertainment. I love the paper weight mode line.

notes

I am an epic note taker.

Not the notes I take in class, but little reminders. Written everywhere. In my planner, in my order book at work, in a little pretty note boook I carry around just for that purpose.

My mind doesn't ever seem to stop, that's why I do it. I'll be in church listening to the sermon and hear a verse taht makes me think of what I could do for a senior campaign one year, and I'll have to write it down. Or be in class and think of marketing ideas for Adam. Or at one of his weddings and hear perfect music that I want at my wedding someday and steal a prayer request card to write down the title of the song. My phone even has notes in it, saved text messages to no one, just in there for me.

I'm even writing this blog post down on paper right now, because I'm not by a computer. At least this is more of a complete thought. Some of my notes make no sense to anyone but me. I can just imagine when I die someday and someone has to clean out my stuff, what they'll think of all my random little notes. Oh my, they'll get a good laugh, that's for sure.

girls

A while ago I mentioned the show One Tree Hill, and how I'm addicted to it despite the bad acting and the so-so writing. My roommates are equally as addicted, as is my roommate from freshman year, Whitney.

Now, I was all sad at the beginning of the semester because Whitney and I have opposite schedules and were never going to see each other this year. But we've found a solution. She lives in the boondocks, and happens to not get CWTV. One Tree Hill is on CWTV. So she's coming over every Monday to watch One Tree Hill and have a girly night with my current roommates and I, and then crashing with us overnight.

It's like slumber parties all over again! I love it. We ordered pizza to celebrate the opening night of One Tree Hill, and all ate cross-legged on the living room floor despite the fact that we have a table. We talked about school and obsessed about guys. When Nathan Scott came on screen shirtless we whistled at the screen. And then Whitty and I crawled into bed at 9:30 and stayed up talking until nearly 11, just like we used to freshmen year. It was fantastically girly.

I'm so thankful for the friendships I have with those girls, and for the time we get to spend together.

brilliance

So, remember that blog I read? dooce? Well, the author, Heather B. Armstrong, has done something brilliant. Hilariously wonderful and brilliant.

She's incredibly sarcastic and somewhat dramatic. Not dramatic in the annoying way, but dramatic in the way that makes her writing exceptionally entertaining. But because of these things, and because she's a person who makes her opinions known, she gets a lot of hate mail. Like, dump trucks full of hate mail. And people say the most ridiculous things.

So one day she mentioned to a friend that she had gotten hate mail about the length of her dog's toenails.

Seriously. Who does that?!

Anyway, the friend said she should make a website and post all the hate mail she gets onto the website and put ads all over it and make money.

So she did. And she unveiled it today.

Monetizing The Hate

She's now making money off her haters.

And receiving hate mail about it.

I love it!

baseball

Watching kids play ball is an interesting and amusing experience. I was down at my aunt's house this weekend at a ball park much bigger than anything in my town. In fact, the park itself was about the size of my town. There were kids of all ages everywhere, running around in brightly colored shirts while their coaches were yelling for their boys(and a few girls) to "hydrate".

It's hilarious watching the real little ones play. Their attention span isn't quite big enough for the game yet, and the coach kind of plays ring master more than anything. The coach pitches and hollers out for everyone to look for a kid's glove when he forgot it by the blubber when he went to get a drink, but most importantly the coach encourages the kids and reminds them that it's okay if they lose sometimes, that they're practicing to get better and better.

The older kids do their own pitching and get surprisingly serious. The coaches still yell out encouragements, but also yell out tips that the kids now can understand better and know how to take. And the parents seem to pay more attention to the game, because it's actually like a real game. There's enough structure to pay attention to.

What I learned this weekend is that God totally knew what He was doing when He made me a singer and not athletic. My mom is that embarrassing parent who hollers out encouragements and tips more than the coaches do. I would have gone insane. But thankfully, I was the kid who loved music, something my mom knew nothing about. I needed that, and I think my relationship with my mom needed that. It would certainly be entirely different today if I was the sporty kid.

women

We talked about women in the workplace in my Organizational Behavior class today. Sometimes I get frustrated with discussions like this, mostly because I really believe it's OKAY for a woman to let her man wear the pants in the family. If a woman wants to be the breadwinner in the family, and if that's the life her and her husband chose to have, I have no opposition to that and think that can be a great thing. But I get annoyed when people talk like that's the only way for a woman to be successful, or think that a woman should split herself between being a mother and being a CEO of a company.

My professor is married to a woman with a doctorate, and they have no children. Right now, she's clearly a woman who's goals have been in the workplace and not as much at home. She's also a professor and wonderful at her job. She just earned her doctorate last year, so maybe now they'll start thinking more about kids, and maybe in five years she'll want to be a stay at home mom. Or maybe they'll never have kids, and both teach, or have kids and still work. I find each one of those choices to be honorable.

Our professor put a slide up with this information on it, and said if he was a woman he'd be frustrated with it's contents.

In the United States, women hold:

• 50% of all undergraduate degrees
• 52% of all master's degrees
• and 32% of all doctorates

BUT

• they hold less than 15.7% of Fortune 500's corporate officer positions
• earn 78% of what male counterparts do
• and encounter a glass ceiling in the workplace

The first half doesn't frustrate me at all. We talked about why most doctorates are earned by men, and said it's largely because that's the age where a lot of women want to get married and start a family, and don't want to be in school any more. As I've made pretty clear, I think that's great.

The second half is a little frustrating. Not the first line about women not holding at many officer positions, that's probably also due to families, but with what they earn and the glass ceiling they encounter. That's not right, and I hope those two statistics change.

However, when my professor opened the topic up for discussion I mentioned that I don't think the percentage of women earning doctorates and holding high positions will ever be equal to the percentage of men. I feel that if you polled a sample of men and women, from age 6 to 60, more women are going to say their goals for their life involve getting married and having a family than men are. Point blank. A classmate brought up the rising of stay-at-home dads, and I know that's true. I don't think they will ever outnumber the amount of women who want to stay home though.

When I mentioned that it's exceptionally difficult to be a parent and a CEO in a company because both demand so much time, my professor said that when he lived in NYC he knew many women who would have laughed at me, and told me that they could have both, and that's what a nanny was for.

My automatic response was to ask him if those nannies were men or women. He smirked and said women.

Something I didn't mention in class but will mention here is that men are designed to provide, and women are designed to nurture. I didn't mention it in class because in some ways it's Biblical, but it's also obvious in observing humans and in science. My professor said that women have a thicker corpus callosum, the part of your brain that connects the left side and the right side. This makes them better with communication and connecting emotions to facts, which can make them better leaders in the workplace. That's true, but it's also what makes them great caretakers.

Another thought I'd had was that globally, the United States does pretty good as far as men and women being equal in the workforce. Sweden's definitely better than us, but compared to China or Japan, we're doing great. So think about globalization. Businesses in the United States want to work together with businesses in China and Japan. What representatives are they going to send to those companies to impress them and get them to join forces? Certainly not the women that aren't respected there. What about after they've joined forces, are they ever going to have a woman be the front runner of a project? I don't think so. Before the United States can truly be 50/50 with men and women in leading positions, there's a lot of other places in the world that are going to have to accept it as well.

dogs

Now, I am not the type of person who gets super attached to her dogs. I just have never been because my dad breeds and trains dogs, so they've always been coming and going from my house. However, because of this close contact with dogs, I understand how some people come to treat them as their children.

While we've always had lots of dogs at my dad's, one has always been "mine". Jeb. A black lab. A really good hunter, not that that mattered to me, but my dad enjoyed that about him. I loved him because he was pretty and he was well behaved and mellow but got excited about retrieving and he liked swimming and cuddling with me. And for protecting me. As mellow as he was, if he thought someone was going to hurt me, oh boy. He started growling at my dad once because we were rough housing and I screamed, and though he knew my dad's friends, when one of them came into the house one morning when I was the only one home and still sleeping, Jeb barked like crazy.

You've probably figured out from all this past tense talk that Jeb's not alive anymore. He died last weekend, and because I rarely get to my dad's to see him anymore it wasn't super sad for me. But I did love that dog, and next time I go to my dad's I will miss him. And because of that I felt a need to mention him.

Rudolph, my doberman who I also love, and Jeb, walking across a bridge together. They're friends.

Yeah, these dogs live the pampered life. I sleep there too.

My friend Leslie's yellow lab had to be put to sleep the same weekend Jeb died, so we were commiserating together about the loss of our furry friends. She sent me this link on facebook.

thankful

I work in a place that is about 400 sexual harassment claims waiting to happen.

As a whole, we're ridiculous. Single or happily married, innuendos fly around like crazy, everyone's checking everyone else out, there's lots of compliments and butt slapping. However, we've all got this understanding that we're joking. Well, maybe not about feeling someone else is hot, but there's no intentions behind our sexual conversation(though some of the single ones have been known to frequent the bar and then act on those conversations). It's all in good fun, and most of the time nothing becomes of it.

Now, you may be wondering how on earth this fits into something to be thankful for. It'll make sense by the end, I promise.

Mario is who I'm thankful for. He's our lead cook. He's Italian(shocker, I know), balding, and short. Like, really short. I'm 5'4", not a very tall girl, and he's up to about my nose. I don't often talk to Mario, because waitresses spend most of their time up front where the customers are. Last night, however, I was talking to him about some of the new things on our menu.

We have these fantastic new flat bread sandwiches. I'm super excited about them, because I try to only eat the healthy stuff at Townline, and I've kind of exhausted the wraps. They're really good, but more options is always a good thing. So I was talking about how the flat bread sandwiches are pretty healthy, and how that's good since the constant surplus of french fries is a problem for me.

Mario turned around and looked at me and said, "What are you talking about? Look at you, I don't see any problems." Only in an Italian accent, so it sounded cooler.

Now, in my super sexual workplace, this type of comment is not uncommon. But for some reason this particular one made me ridiculously happy and made me feel good about myself. Coming from a guy my father's age who's in love with a great woman his own age. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that, but I'm just going to take Mario's compliment and the ego boost it gave me and not over analyze myself.

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

So, thanks God, for blessing me, for now, with Mario, a great cook with a great heart.

love songs

At the wedding I was in this past weekend Phil and I were laughing at the love songs. Messed up, I know. We're just not romantic. We so aren't the type who like typical love songs. Most of the time we think they're cheesy. The whole "had me at hello" stuff? Nuh uh. Not even a little. "I live for you and you alone." No. Sorry, there's other things in our lives. We won't parish from the earth without each other. We love each other, really, we do, but our relationship alone doesn't define us as individuals. We'd live if we didn't have the other one. It'd suck for a while, but we'd live. And we'd find happiness. We just don't fit into love songs.

When we were dancing Phil was talking about when we were younger and we both were in the same youth group. He said one of the girls made a comment something like, "all the guys like Kodi". Now, this was definitely not true, and I know this. But my sweet boyfriend has to point it out by saying that his reaction to that girl at the time was, "hmm, well, I'm a guy, and I don't really like Kodi..."

I'm telling you, only my boyfriend would openly admit that he didn't care for me four years ago. And that is why I love him.

...see what I mean about us not being romantic?

wedding

Kimberly Anne and Joshua Ian are married! They got married on their sixth year anniversary. Kim and I have been planning her wedding together since she got engaged senior year of high school. I literally remember passing notes back and forth in math class about it.

They had a beautiful wedding this weekend and I was honored to be one of Kim's bridesmaids. And also shocked to discover that I was far more exhausted after being in a wedding than I usually am after shooting one! It was a long weekend, but one full of joy. :)

school

School started last Thursday. I was super excited. Woke up before my alarm went off, was ready to leave 20 minutes before I had to. And then I got into Energy and Society and was all, waiiiit...why was I excited for this again? Oh the monotony of note taking. I feel like Energy and Society might not be my favorite class. At least my friend Alex is in there with me. I told him we're going to get a huge A in that class. Working together, obviously, since I suck at science.

In the afternoon I have Philosophy of Religion. It's excellent. My professor is hilarious without trying to be and seems to be pretty brilliant about getting a room of people to discuss religion, something people are crazy passionate about whether they believe in it or don't believe in it, without creating too much anger and violence. He's this sun burnt or just always red-in-the-face redhead with glasses, his shirt half tucked in, and his tie all askew. And really, really big hands. That's what I first noticed. He likes to use them to make a point. Like saying, "This is a very serious challenge!" with his pointer finger and thumb touching and his whole hand bouncing up and down with each word. His fingers are like eight inches long(my hand bounced up and down in my head as I typed this).

My last class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is called Organizational Behavior. The professor is the husband of one of my favorite psych professors, and though this class is a business one, it's the closest to psych I'm going to get this semester. After meeting Mr. Professor, it's clear that Mrs. Professor has much more style than Mr. But as a teacher, I think I'll like Mr. just as much as Mrs.

My only complaint about this semester is that I don't have any breaks that are the same as my roommate from freshman year, Whitty. Well, Whitney. But I call her Whitty. I LOVE this girl, and she has three classes with my current roommate Laura. So the two of them get to hang out all day and I don't ever see either of them. But the exciting part is Whitty doesn't work Monday nights, and she loves One Tree Hill as much as Laura and I, but doesn't get CWTV at her house. So she's going to start staying over on Monday nights to watch One Tree Hill with us and crash here, and then go to classes on Tuesday with Laura. Hooray! We said Laura gets her all day, but I get her all night, seeing as she'll share my bed, that's a bit bigger than Laura's. The guys eating lunch with us when we were deciding this got a little excited at that announcement. We laughed!

ryley

Two of my friends had a baby Tuesday night! Well, Megan had the baby. Tony held her hand. Or hid in the waiting room. I don't know all the details yet, but I do know Ryley Anthony came into the world. And I also know I'm very excited to meet this baby boy and bring him some super adorable clothes I bought for him. Baby clothes are so fun!

Here's Tony and Megan on their wedding day, just about a year ago. Congratulations to two new parents, who will be an amazing mom and dad!