I can also sell ice cubes to eskimos!

I have come to the conclusion that doggone it, I can sell anything.

Last fall, we had a foundation put on the house. Trust me it needed it badly. In the process of doing that, we had to move the deck away from the front of the house, so the contractors could get access to the house.

We cut the legs, and pulled it out about 10 feet (our neighbor helped with his bobcat) and intended to move it to the back of the house and add it to the small deck.

However, a year has passed, and I realized that I really couldn't make it work the way I wanted and it seemed like a lot of work for one little volunteer bobcat to do.

I contemplated a match for a while.
No really.

I also contemplated tearing it apart and using the wood for another project.
Gene nixed that.

Then one day, I suggested to Gene that we sell the deck on a local classified. It's in good condition, just needed a bit of TLC, some new steps and a power wash. Plus the price was right! *fairly cheap, 1/6th the cost of a new deck that size*

I'll be darned if we didn't have SEVERAL calls on it and we sold it!! I actually sold, a 10 year old deck, that's going to get moved on a trailer about 20 miles from here.

I say it's recycling at it's absolute FINEST. Go us. *pat self on back*

The guy that bought it, is a still working, elderly guy, so it's continued to sit in my front yard. I'm starting to get anxious, because it has to go before we can start the new deck on the front (which we will not finish this year obviously now). I told Gene I just wanted 10" done so I can get in my front door! We've been using the back door exclusively for a YEAR.
No lie.

So finally his helper came around the other day and I kinda laid down the law. It has to move, because first, the rain is coming and they're not tearing up my front yard, and also, I need to build my new front porch (which eventually will be the full length of the front of my house.

Minutes before the rains come. Literally minutes... 2 trucks show up, back up into my yard, hook it up and start pulling. This is something you don't see every day.

About 3 minutes later the deck was wet from rain.

Nothing like cutting it so close.

So anyway, since that was such a huge success I have for sale the following items:

1. A bridge
2. The Eiffel Tower
3. A large jar full of air
4. A box of walmart sacks

Best offer!

Project 365

Ain't he purdy?

Warning: Potentially icky photo ahead.
I warned you.

Update on gimpy the glass man!

(he was mad I took my camera to the ER)

Remember last week me telling you about Gene falling off of a semi? Well, Saturday morning, we woke up, and he was complaining that he was in pain, I asked him if he wanted to go to the ER, and he said yes! So you know it had to hurt if a man was actually WILLING to go to the dr. No lie.

They did x-rays on his wrist and elbow, it is not broken! Yay!

So they cleaned up his elbow (icky photo below) as he'd really ripped a chunk of skin off his elbow when he fell, and then put the wrist guard back on him and went out the door. It was much more "enjoyable" (by me at least) than the last trip to the ER 7 weeks ago!! We even got the same nurse. I think she got just a little too much enjoyment out of giving Gene 2 shots in the rear.

Saturday we had a wedding and I told him he didn't have to shoot, I'd be ok on my own, and he insisted. I let him because he rotates the camera the exact opposite of me, and so the weight was in his left hand, not his right hand.

By the end of the night, he said it actually felt *better*. Not what we expected. That night we stayed at his mom and dad's and when he was rubbing it, it popped so loud his mom heard it across the room. It's feeling better, which makes me think that he potenially popped it out of place when he fell.

Monday, he went back to work, and actually installed glass. He was actually the only glass guy there as everyone else was sick.

Irony.

A scuffed up elbow!

I told you it was icky.

In the end, he's gonna be ok. Thank goodness. I really think he kinda wanted to lay in bed for 8 weeks while it repaired itself. Watch him fall on it again on purpose. lol.

However, I'm glad that did not happen as I'd be up on murder charges in about 3 weeks!

I need to introduce you to my new love

Hello.
Meet the new love of my life, Mr. Canon 50D.

Ain't he handsome?


I really needed to upgrade, as I was really maxing out my 30D at wedding ceremonies in dimly lit churches.

The feature I was most interested in was the ISO capabilities of up to 12800 in the custom functions feature. If you don't know what that means, it's basically, the higher the number, the darker the place you can take a picture in. 12800 is 8 times higher than your standard 1600 ISO on most slr cameras. (I honestly don't know if you get 8 times the light tho.).

Down side to that is that it's got a lot of noise at 12800, however, if you invested in noiseware software, that would take care of a lot of it.

ISO 3200 is standard on the dial, without going into the custom function feature and it's low in the noise dept. Lower than my 30d at 1600. I'm very happy with that. I can put a 50mm f1.8 lens on the camera and walk around a dark reception taking photos that are virtually all sharp. That's super awesome!

The next feature I was interested in, was the 15.1 megapixel resolution. I feel a lot better making a 16 x 20 image now.

And lastly, I really wanted that larger LCD screen. 3", it's almost a mini tv!

Over the weekend, we shot a wedding at Tiffany Greens in KC. I took the 50D most of the time, Gene took the 30D (once in a while we traded off) and I could really tell a difference in the photos.

It helped that the bride, groom, bridesmaids, food, venue, cake, rings, blah blah blah were all beautiful, but the photos were so awesome. I will share very soon!

My end goal is to slowly upgrade and eventually, I'll be the proud owner of a Canon 5D MarkII. Which shoots video even!! *I want* I have seen nothing but beautiful photos come out of that camera.

In the meantime, I have an XT for sale. It's 2 years old now, and I've probably taken around 15,000-20,000 photos on it. Never had a problem a day in my life. Comes with the box, all the paperwork, a memory card, battery charger, etc. I believe I even have a book that I bought just for this camera if I can find it, I'll throw that in too! $300, if you want an 18-55 mm lens to go with it, $350, which is cheaper than ebay! email me if you're interested!

And no, I don't take money orders from Nigeria. sorry :p

Cuh-RAzYiNeSs.

Our crazy world, at a glance

• Gene and I are both a huge mess. He's just getting over some sort of cold/bronchitis thing, only for me to pick it up. I'm fighting it tooth and nail. I'm hoping to get over it asap.
  
• Speaking of illness and malformities. Not only do I still have a tender ankle (btw, I'm out of my walking boot now), Yesterday, Gene was installing a windshield on an old semi, slipped and fell about 4-5 feet in a gravel parking lot, landed on his back/elbow/wrist. He can't move his wrist at the moment. We went to the ER and they said no breaks, but we'll have that double checked on Monday. Either way, he probably won't be able to work at least a couple weeks!! Lord help me.
  The chick at the emergency room remembered us. We were a little more light hearted this time than last time. I think she enjoyed giving Gene a shot in the butt just a *little* too much.

• I'm slowly matching all my shoes back together. Rights here, lefts EVERYWHERE. Sometimes there's a shoe "emergency" that calls for drastic action tho. Just sayin.
  
• Had the most awesome engagement shoot this week, such a CUTE couple. I won't be able to shoot their wedding as I already had that date booked, but sooooo flattered they wanted me to shoot their engagements for them anyway.
  
• Have a wedding tonight in Kansas City. I'm excited (and kinda glad it's a shorter gig too since we're both gimpy now). That hasn't stopped him from wanting to hit the antique stores on the way home. He has issues.
  
• As you can see from the past few days, all I've done is edit photos. I am in prime wedding season for me, and I reallllly feel like I need help but I don't know what it would be that I could delegate. Yes, I have control issues when it comes to stuff. Ironically, it's the editing that I'm considering farming out.
  
• Bridal fair coming soon!! October 18th at the community center in Maryville, from 2-4 p.m. Please be sure to attend!
  

Tree update!

It's been a while, since I updated you on the status of my 3 royal empress trees. I started out with 2 trees, one tree was left out when it was too cold and it died, so I received a replacement tree and then on earth day, I got a tiny free one when I purchased a maple tree.

All of the trees went into pots for a while as I was worried about having them in the yard and they'd get mowed over.

Two trees went into the yard in mid July, the third didn't make it in until early september!! (oops).

You can DEFINITELY see the difference.

One of the first 2 trees is around 18" tall, which is not bad, about double what it was when I put it in the ground.

The second one is 45" tall! The above photos were taken on August 31 and it was 24". So, in a little over 3 weeks, it's grown 21 inches! Almost one inch *a day* I'm very impressed.

They do however, look a lot like a sunflower with no sunflower. They are supposed to bloom out and get wide quickly so we'll see in the spring! (they have been known to grow up to 20 feet in one year).

The third tree is only about 9" tall, and it was a huge mistake leaving it in the pot so long. It also did not get a fertilzer spike, as I was nervous doing that so late in the season.

So, my advice? Plant sooner than you think (I should have went early June) and fertilize well.

Fall's here. *sigh*

It's that time of year again. Fall.

I used to love fall, and well, I still do, but it's for different reasons now. It's just now that it's the end of the summer and the reminder that snow and ice is coming soon, and frankly I'm not feeling that at the moment.

In the meantime, there's tons of beautiful dewy flowers, clover, *weeds* here, and in the morning, when the light shines through the dew it's so beautiful.

I love the dew. It's like tiny specks of light every where you look.

Sadly, that dew is going to turn into frost soon, and frankly, that's not all that exciting to me.

Oops.
I feel like I've intruded on a private moment.

Dew!! We were talking about dew.
Dew's great
herm.
Uh.

Yeah.

How a woman's mind works, vs, how a man's mind works.

Task: Take a shower.

Man: "Ok, I'm gonna take a shower." He takes a shower and is back 7 minutes later.

Woman: "OK, I'm gonna take a shower."

1. Stand up and get read to walk to the shower.
2. Notice the trash can is full.
3. Think to self that today is Thursday and that the trash should be on the curb.
4. Cuss because husband forgot to take out the trash.
5. Must take out trash because the trash man will come while she's in the shower.
6. Realize that the cat boxes must be changed and go out in the trash too.
7. Move recyclables off top of litter box.
8. Bag up some recyclables while thinking about it.
9. Empty cat boxes.
10. Remember that the cat litter was never brought in out of the trunk of the car despite the fact that it's 40 pounds and you shouldn't be carrying forty pounds of cat litter with a still painful foot!!
11. Go to car to get cat litter. Decide to take some recyclables to the car with you.
12. Notice that the old sink is still on the deck and probably should finally make it to the trash.
13. Take the old sink to the curb.
14. Tote 40 pounds of cat litter in the house, one baby step at a time.
15. Refill cat boxes and return to their locations.
16. Take cat litter to the trash.
17. Notice that there's some construction waste that needs to go to.
18. Make 2 trips to the curb because it's all too heavy to carry at once with a still painful foot!!
19. Come back in, take more recyclables to the car.
20. Come back in, notice there's more cans that need to be recycled and say SCREW IT.
21. Go take a shower.
22. Note that the shower is really getting icky.
23. Grab an extra wash cloth and jump in.
24. Scrub shower while taking a shower. (2 birds, please meet one stone).
25. Wash, shave, scrub hair, feet, elbows, armpits.
26. Rinse self AND the shower.
27. Get out and realize that the wash cloth that you used is icky, probably needs to dry out on edge of laundry basket.
28. Remember that eldest son is now living with his buddies and probably doesn't have a laundry basket.
29. Take the extra laundry basket and fill it with goods from around the house that 19 year old boys SHOULD use but probably won't. Like towels, plates and deodorant.
30. Remember that was in the middle of a facebook conversation.
31. Answer the response from an HOUR AGO.
32. Get dressed.

True story folks.

Sean + Amanda = Getting Married!

Catching up with some editing, this is what I've been working on the past couple days! These two beautiful people!

Doesn't Amanda look like a 1940's movie star here? I love this photo, she's so beautiful.

I could take photos of the corset the entire day. I don't know why, but this is my favorite moment to photograph! Someday I'm going to do a corset album. lol. (for me, who wants 90 photos of the back of their dress???). I'm always a bit disappointed when my bride has a zipper instead. *sad*

Ever see Father of the Bride? With Steve Martin?

Remember the part where Dad makes the bride to be a pair of wedding sneakers? Well that is what Amanda's dad did for her! *aw*.

When Amanda was little...

Dad says: "Amanda, T is for Tigger..."
Amanda says: "Who loves to bounce high!"

I think Amanda might be Daddy's girl. Just a crazy wild guess.

Amanda and Sean agreed to a "First look". This is where you have a little traditional, mixed with making the day more simple. Before the wedding, Sean and I met up and Amanda came along and "discovered" us on this beautiful little gazebo in the middle of the grounds. He turns and surprise!, gets to see her dress for the first time.

It's one of my very favorite moments of the day. It also gives them a quiet moment together alone, which is probably the last one for the day. We take this opportunity to do a mini shoot of the couple.

We got on a bus (thanks Amanda and Sean, that was a nice ride!) and went down to the Liberty Memorial for our bridal party photos

An attempt at throwing some gang signs. No, they're not very good at it are they? Hello... they're not gangstas.

My husband took this photo and he was so proud of it!! This is the first wedding he's picked up the camera and started shooting too. My philosophy is that if he gets a great shot, wonderful! And if he doesn't then it's ok. He's learning new things every single wedding and getting much better.

Gene also took this shot which was dead on. (this is a very hard shot btw, black and white contrast is easy to get under/over exposed)

Wait! He took this one too!
I think he's trying to steal work from me. grr.

The whole ceremony and reception were at the Hawthorne House. This venue is so awesomely beautiful. If I had it to do all over again, I would take this place into serious consideration. I'm sure Sean agrees as he used to work there years ago.

Everything is handled in house, clear down to the DJ. You can tell he's been doing this for many years as he'd just nailed the night and people were dancing like crazy.

I love the groomsman in the middle. He had the best espressions and I can't help but think every time I look at him that he is a much better looking version of Henry Winkler. Sorry guys.

Gal on the right really rocked it, until she saw me coming closer. heh. oops.

Congrats Amanda and Sean, and thank you so much for letting me photograph your special day. I loved it, and I wish every wedding was as easy and as beautiful as yours was!