Coal

His coat is jet-black.  His eyes are the warmest brown.  He can give you a look with his head tilted that will melt your heart.  He snores when he sleeps on the couch.  He cries when his 'daddy' leaves the house and doesn't take him along.  He can sometimes be a pain about getting his way - but we love him despite his penchant for digging out our landscape lighting or his uncanny accuracy for delivering a gut (or a little lower) shot when you aren't paying attention.  

No Peeking!

Just a friendly reminder to all - No Peeking until Christmas!!

Cha-cha-changing

The leaves have changed colors and have fallen from the trees. The Halloween decorations have been packed away and the Christmas lights are starting to pop-up all over the area. The warm weather is fading fast. Things are changing all over.

My blog is going to be under going a change soon too. After years of talking about it, I am finally going to try to do something with my love of photography. My recent photo shoot with my BFF and her daughter sealed the deal. Despite being nervous as h3ll, I got into it quickly and started to have fun with it. Having super models made it easier, but I was pleased with the overall results. And it seems like others were too. The word of the photo shoot spread around the office and I have already had several people approach me to take their photos as well.

So, I have been doing my homework - pricing, to have a website or not, model releases, to find studio space or not.... the list goes on and on. It is all a bit overwhelming when you try to take it all in, so I am going to take baby steps. My first "official" step is to redesign my blog around my photos and my quest to become the next Annie Leibovitz. Drop by every once in a while and see what is going on in my world.

Feeling Ducky

What a weekend! It was a long 3 day weekend for me so I was hoping to get all kinds of things accomplished. While I didn't manage to get my house sparkling Martha Stewart clean, that was a fantasy that will never happen anyway!

Friday's Accomplishments:

• Steam clean the living room and dining room carpet. I wanted to do this for a long time and I always seem to get the living room done but never get to the dining room. I can't remember the last time we actual ate in the dining room but Coal's favorite spot to hang out is in front of the dining room window. He isn't a stinky dog, but you could definitely tell where he likes to hang out!
• Steam clean the family room rug. With the unbelievably wet October we had, it was covered with dirty paw and foot prints. Thankfully, the pattern hides most of the offending marks!
• Taxi service of my BIL. He had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon and I volunteered myself as his personal driver. Everything went great and his doctor took him off of his insulin shots and may end up taking him off the medication as well!

Saturday's accomplishments:

• Hanging out with friends, chatting, laughing and planning for our annual escape in January. Oh, and we might actually crop a little too! I am working on a baby book for our granddaughter and the theme of the book is rubber duckies. I got a brilliant idea to create a Franken-duck (complete with stitches and a bolt in his neck!) and that spurred my creative juices! I also crafted a durkey (duck+turkey) and a pilgrim.
• Deliver my MEF to her personal costume fitting. She had the greatest idea to dress as an elf for her annual holiday charity festivities and my momma agreed to craft her ensemble. She was amazed at how fast my mother sews - she took measurements in the morning before the crop and by the time we returned, she had finished the pants and had a partially finished jacket to try on. It is going to be so cute!
• Mr. Monkeygirl took Coal to the kennel for a bath and a pedicure. He was so sweet smelling when he got home and looked dashing in his camouflage bandanna!
• The most important thing we did was spend some quality time with our granddaughter. She was in a good mood and was awake and smiling for our visit. Of course we got some photos and snapped some pictures of her first bath in a kitchen sink! She is such a sweetheart despite the fact that she has a chest cold - poor baby.

Sunday's accomplishments:

• Back to the duck grind stone! I was on a mission to finish the duck creations for the album today. I managed to create 8 tiny rein-ducks and ruddy the red-nosed rein duck, Santa duck in his sleigh, Frosty the snow-duck and his snow friend, cupid ducks, a lepra-duck and his luck friend, bu-duckies for Easter, may flower ducks, graduation ducks and patriotic ducks before I ran out steam.

All-in-all it was a good weekend and the next "weekend" will come quickly since I am only working one day this week! I promise to post pictures soon!

I need your opinion

I survived this weekend's photo shoot without breaking my camera or making my models cry. I did give myself a slight concussion trying to get some props out of my car. I need to be patient and wait until the door is completely open before I lean in looking for umbrella's stashed in the center console!

I have to admit that I am really happy with the results. It really helps to have gorgeous girls to shoot who love to smile! They made it easy for me and helped me calm down and get into the flow. We made the most out of our afternoon and a half-mile stretch of my hometown.

So let me know what you think.

Wish me luck

Overall I have been pretty pleased with my photos. I am so proud of some of my shots and completely embarrassed by others. But I am probably my harshest critic.

This afternoon I am about to embark on my first photo shoot for someone who specifically asked me to take pictures for them. I am a nervous wreck. What if they don't like the pictures? What will I do if my camera doesn't work? What do I do if some tree branch ends up sticking out of their head? AACCKKK!!!

I know deep down it will be fine. They are really good friends so there isn't that stranger factor to deal with. I'm doing this for free (no, you will not pay me!) so that eliminates a lot of the pressure.

Ok, gotta run now - I will let you know how it turns out later!

Check Please!

For the past two days, I haven't seen the inside of my office. I'm not sick or playing hooky, but taking part in some planning meetings for the upcoming year.

I have determined that whomever schedules all day meetings must think that the attendees are all 5 years old and need to have food every couple of hours to keep the attention on the topic at hand. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat and I am a bit cranky when I am hungry, but these hourly feedings need to stop!

I have eaten more junk in the past two days than I have eaten in the previous month. I am a carboholic. If there is any kind of danish, pastry, bagel, bread like substance around, I have to eat them. They sit there and call my name from across the room. "Please eat me, we long to be in your belly" they cry from across the room and I feel the need to comply with their dying wishes.

Then they have to give you some kind of decadent dessert with lunch. Cookies, cakes, pies fight to draw my attention away from any vegetable in the room. It is a sickness and I have to give in. Feeling stuffed to the brim and ready to explode after satisfying my sweet tooth, we head back for the afternoon sessions.

Of course, you need a boost mid-afternoon so they always offer some kind of mid-afternoon snack. Chips and cookies beg me to bypass the fruit and fill up on their caloric goodness. How can you resist the chocolate chip cookies sitting there giving you their sweetest smile?

After two days of meetings, I feel like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. A wafer-thin mint will do me in. Check please!

Firty-nine, Eighty

Attempting to pass the time on the way to gymnastics tonight, the M & M's decided to start counting as high as they could. Taking one number at a time, they started counting as high as they could.

. . ."Thirty-seven" rang out from the little man. His little sister answered back "firty-eight". "Thirty-nine" little dude confidently replied. "Eighty!" came the answer from the princess. Apparently 80 is her favorite number. A couple of weeks ago, I received a text message asking if I was free because the princess wanted to come over and stay only for "80 minutes". She got 80 pieces of candy for Halloween. Everything ends up being eighty with her.

As older siblings often do, her brother was frustrated with her obsession with the number 80 so he made her start counting all over again. They patiently took turns counting up one at a time. We got to a critical point - "seventy-niiiine" prompted the brother. We all held our breath waiting patiently for the princess to produce her favorite number. Silence. Finally, her little voice rang out - "Ninety"! Oh no, what happened to the most favorite number in princessland? We tried to get her to say it and she wasn't having anything to do with us. We finally gave up and told her the next number was eighty - her favorite number.

For the record, it takes counting to 200 to drive from my house to gymnastics. At least it passed the time without any arguments!