Fish Face

Isn't that little fish face on the left kind of the cutest thing ever?

I've been staring at this picture all week - 4 of these pictures actually. Big sister Abby helped me with a project I'm working on and played around with this picture, sending me 4 different colorings and finishes on this guy. I found a sweet frame at Big Lots for $.30, and the middle of it has this weird "HOPE" thing going on, so I decided to buy it and modge podge a cute picture on top of the HOPE part.

Luckily, L.L. Bean (aka my neice Ellee) here and I decided while we were sitting at the computer with Abby one afternoon that we needed to practice our fish faces. So we took some pictures, and now I have proof that children's fish faces are the best - maybe because they can't actually do them, so it's cute to see them try to mimic the look.

I think this picture's going to look really cute on my frame. I'll take a picture and show you how it turns out. I'm super excited about it. Now to follow through and get it done...

What a Week...

Don't worry, friends, I've since recovered from my crazy Wednesday. The world is good again.

All the crazy problems I had Wednesday trying to find a flight for my boss to get out to California in the midst of a snowstorm carried over to Thursday, but in a much less intimidating, much more manageable way. I finally got him out and on his way, which was a total win for me. Plus, because the traffic was still ridiculous on Thursday morning (cars were left abandoned all over the place around DC...), we got to have 2 hours extra to make our way safely to work.

So I slept in an extra hour - a deserved hour, after my crazy night, and since I've had a cold that keeps waking me up at 5am - and when I got up, I was in a really great mood. I woke up with a smile and enjoyed my morning, then casually rolled into work. The streets were clear and the metro was rather quick. It was awesome.

And today? Today was a nice bookend, with Monday's great start, to the week. OWC took me to lunch (yup, that's right!) over on the Senate side of the Hill, which I hadn't yet seen. It's pretty sweet. You have to take a little trolley train between the House and the Senate, and I am a fan of that; it's a fun component of the trek. We went through that weird hallway with the lowering ceiling that reminded me of the movie, Being John Malkovich, and I told o-dub (that's what we call him for short around here) how I felt the 1st time I walked through it - like I was Alice when she eats the mushroom and grows bigger and bigger. He laughed at me at first, but then totally got it as we walked more through it. It was a really good lunch; I was a fan of the afternoon.

AND...our kitchen is almost complete!!! We finally got our new granite countertops yesterday, and, as of tonight, we now have a faucet with our sink, so we can use that again. Little victories. It is now in the foreseeable future that this kitchen renovation will be done. It feels so good.

So all in all, my week has been thoroughly exhausting in its ups and downs. So much so that I've lost my voice. Again. Stupid colds. Perhaps I'll catch a break and sleep through the night tonight.

Now that would be a nice bookend to the week.

Too Long...

Yesterday lasted roughly 36 hours longer than I wanted.

It was a rather rough Wednesday.

I'm not a fan of big winterstorms. Particularly when they cancel flights I've been working to get my boss on...ALL DAY, and into the late evening.

Here's hoping today goes better.

Quite honestly, I don't know how it couldn't. Thursday doesn't have to do too much to improve upon Wednesday.

Just don't hit puny DC with a stupid snowstorm again.

I LOVE Getting Mail!!

Honestly, what could be better than coming home to a piece of mail from a friend/family member?

Perhaps coming home to THREE pieces of mail from friends/family members!

Today might go down in history as the best mail day I've ever had. Today was not a holiday, not my birthday, not my funeral, not my bat mitzvah, not my appendectomy surgery.

It was just a normal Monday. I went to work, did some work, left work.

But I came home to pure HAPPINESS!

I had 3 lovely envelopes of differing sizes, my name and address handwritten on each of them (always a good sign).

I saw the return addresses as coming from AR, IA, and UT. Which means: at some point in the last week, I had been on someone's mind all over the United States. It's a nice feeling, that is.

I opened UT's card first - an anticipated envelope from my good friend, Steve Lamb. I had been so excited and antsy to receive a mix CD from him, a connoisseur of delicious music. And he did NOT disappoint. I read over the playlist and glowed with pride that I already knew and loved two of the albums represented with songs on the list. It made me confident that my music tastes are as good as I think they are, when it comes to more obscure music and lesser-known artists. Thank you Steve - You. Validate. Me.

Of course, while the CD is awesome, Steve became my #1 pen pal because of the card he sent with the CD. I'm kind of a sucker for random cards, you see. I really like getting them. And not only did he send me a "Just Because" card, but the card he sent was a musical card! YES! It was this great voice saying, "HIIIIIIIIIIII!!! HI HI HI HI! HELLLLLOOOOOOOOO!! HEEEEEEYYYYY!" over and over again. Just thinking about it is making me grin like an idiot. I might be starting each day this week listening to that card. Talk about a great pick-me-up.

The next card on the stack was AR, so I ripped open the envelope, excited at what sister Abby sent me. I'd recently received my camera battery charger from her in the mail (you always forget something when you go on vacation...), so I was surprised to see something else from her. She'd written a cute little card, which I really enjoyed reading. But the green card behind her note kind of stole the show. Ellee had drawn two interesting sorts of stick people - me and her - next to some really tall trees, Aspens, I believe they are. Abby's caption explained, "Ellee and Kate holding hands by the trees." I love that Ellee knew holding hands by trees - Aspens in particular - is one of my FAVORITE activities! It warmed my heart to receive that picture, with "To Kate, Love Ellee" sprawled on the back in her cute, unsteady handwriting.

I was on a high at this point, with IA's envelope practically begging to opened. So I ripped it open and found Ben and Laura's family Christmas card, which I LOVED! I think my favorite part in general about their 3 little girls is that each girl has such a unique, distinct personality, and you can tell that in the pictures. Confident Emilie, Shy Claire, Spitfire Grace. What a cute, fantastic family, I must say. I am a fan of them.

So now you understand why I had the best mail day EVER today! I don't think I could've asked for anything more on a bleak January Monday. There are not many better ways to start a week than with such a "welcome home" from our mailbox.

I think this probably at least once a day, but I could probably say it out loud a lot more: I've been beyond blessed in my life with such awesome amazing people. I don't think I could be related - by blood or marriage - to better, more fantastic people, and I'm completely aware of the high caliber of friends I've been lucky enough to recruit into my life.

Thanks for turning my typical Monday into a wonderful start to my week!

Go Green...and Gold!

WE DID IT! SUPER-BOWL BOUND! GO PACK!

Take that, Bears fans that I met at work on Friday. I hope you enjoyed that Happy Hour - because that was all the happy you got out of this weekend!

I'm so ecstatic, today's been just fabulous. The Packers are going to the Super Bowl, baby! I haven't stopped smiling since Sam Shields nabbed the game-ending interception.

Though my biggest smiles came when B.J. Raji, all 355 lbs of him (give or take), caught a surprise interception and somehow made his way into the endzone for a fat-man touchdown. I think I loved that he was more excited to perform an endzone dance than he was to actually make it to the endzone, however necessary that endzone was to his being able to do his dance. That just had to feel good. Well done, B.J., well done.
I cannot wait to go to work tomorrow :).

To Grace - May You Always Indulge in Eccentricities

To My Niece:

Gracie, I saw this picture of you reading in your parents' closet the other day, and I wanted to tell you how much I loved it.

I love it because it reminds me so much of when I was a child and I loved two things: playing in closets and reading.

I'm glad to know you're finding joy in the same things.

Gracie, I know you're so little right now that you don't even recognize the singular beat you walk to, but I want you to know I love it all the same.

Perhaps I'm putting too much of me into my idea of you, but I can't seem to help it - not many other children would have the ingenuity to realize that a walk-in closet is the perfect light to read by, when you can't reach other lights to turn them on, but you really want a light to read by. I feel a kindred spirit in you.

So kindred spirit Gracie, I hope you enjoy all the eccentricities of childhood that I enjoyed.

I hope you let your imagination create more than just a reading spot in closets. I hope you build worlds. I always turned my closet into an office - I was a fabulous secretary.

I hope you find absolute joy in warm, windy days. I loved taking blankets outside and getting wrapped completely in them, cocooning myself from the breeze, letting my face feel the strong winds rush past. I loved the sound of the leaves rustling together in the Fall.

I hope you talk to yourself. I hope you have as much fun playing on your own as you do with others. I found this balanced me and kept me quite happy at almost every moment growing up. I found that it does that still - though the idea that I'm not crazy has recently become a harder sell to people when they see me talking to myself at work...

I hope you explore the world around you. Maybe start with your backyard. I built rooms for a house in the cattails at the edge of our yard. And sometimes I followed the tiny stream beyond the cattails, past our neighbors houses, thinking I was a brave explorer, perhaps about to glimpse the tail of a crocodile or spot the
glint of a tiger's eyes as it waited in the thick of the weeds.

I hope you always love reading - and that you create your own stories. I used to write stories on our old computer when I was little; the computer was a new thing in our home and a novelty that I enjoyed playing with. I wish I had been better at keeping those little stories. I'd love to think up stories now with the same freedom of thought and creativity as I did when I was younger. I hope you take advantage of that.

I hope you love playing dress up - and I hope you let your mom document your many outfits. Some of my favorites pictures are where I'm in my Cinderella dress, or wearing some crazy assortment of neon-colored clothing, or trying on Mr. Potato Head's glasses. I like being able to look back and remember that I had fun being a little ridiculous.

I hope you dance around your room with all the energy you have. I always loved dancing to loud music in my bedroom. If I'm being honest, I still love dancing around my bedroom.

Gracie, most of all, I hope you genuinely smile as much as you possibly can. I hope you enjoy the things you do all the time. I hope you keep trying new things with little regard for failure. I hope you help your sisters hear the beat of that drum in your head, so that they can live in the moment like you seem to.

I hope you always find the greatest satisfaction in the smallest of things, like being able to read a book by the glow of a walk-in closet's light.

Welcome to the Bandwagon

I walked out of work this evening, and I found myself right behind a woman in a much worn Packers coat. I nodded slightly, smiled, and mentally saluted my fellow comrade.

Then, as I exited my train in the Metro 5 minutes later, I followed a quietly logo-ed Green Bay Packers beanie cap to the escalators.

Roommate Melissa - who learned the rules of football as I explained the game during recent Packers games, and thinks Aaron Rodgers is extremely attractive in a rugged, mountain man sort of way - saw a man in the store the other day who was wearing a Green Bay sweatshirt. She considered going in for a fist bump, but settled for some non-interaction and a faithful reporting of the sighting to me later that day. I fist-bumped her in proxy for the man.

Suddenly, the beautiful green and gold is taking over the capitol of the red, white, and blue.

And I am SO okay with that.

Welcome to you, bandwagon-jumpers. It's good to see you - better late than never, I say. Let's get the word out.

My landlord, a tried-and-true Redskins fan (bless him), emailed all three of us girls on Monday, regarding the current kitchen renovation we're enduring. The first line of his email?

"Hope you all had a good weekend and Kate – GO PACK GO!"
 
Amen, Landlord. I hear that.
 
Tuesday morning, co-worker Jay came up to my desk and asked, "so how does it feel being the only one in the office who's team is still in it?"
 
I responded, "It feels really good, Jay. Really good."
 
I work with a Seahawk (better known as the Osprey to bird lovers, which he is as well), a Patriot (in the football sense more than the literal sense, probably), and a Raven (though not actually a die-hard Poe reader, incidentally). It was fun, being the only girl in the office who really follows sports, to have my team advance beyond the other big boys' teams. 
 
Really fun.
 
 
**Of course, after all this, it will be a real downer if the Pack lose on Sunday...so they better not! GO PACK GO!

Um....Hi,

Technically, I went to bed a good 2 hours ago. This is me as I'm supposedly sleeping.

Stupid 10pm jitters. Gets me all excitable and awake at the wrong time. I think I'm a nocturnal being. in denial of my true nature.

I don't really have much to say tonight. My staff retreat in CA was great, but I don't feel like writing about it now. I'll have to give you a recap on the walnut factory and multiple meetings to create a mission statement later.

I just wanted to say hi. I hope you're all feeling swell. Because I am. I'm feeling rather swell, in fact. It's a good feeling. I don't know quite where it came from, but I'll take it.

That's all, really. Let me know how you're doing. I'd love to hear it. Let it out - tell me all about the pain in your back, your neck cramp, that bum knee that keeps reminding you about the winter storm headed your way. Boys in your life? Girls? Fun anecdotes? Random stories that one had to be there for, but you still want to tell about? Nonsensical thoughts? Give me the scoop. I'm here for you, friend.

Over and out.

P.S. I was just looking over a few posts from the last couple of months. Thought I'd give you an update: OWC is alive and well. This fake relationship is progressing nicely; we're now friends on facebook - by his initiative. A successful weekend, if I may say so - yes, yes I may.

Being John Malkovich...In the Capitol

Tomorrow, I'm going to California. Bring on the warm days and sunshine!

Oh wait, what? Northern California isn't the same as Southern California? It's going to be rainy and mid 50's?

Eh, still better than it is here - I'm sold!

This staff retreat trip is going to be epic. We're going to tour a walnut factory, which was conveniently on my list of things to do in 2011, so check that off the list! We'll spend lots of time talking about district issues and planning for the year. I'm going to hide in the corner of the conference room, trying to make sense of everything people are saying and rehearsing the correct definitions between partisanship and bipartisanship. I tell ya, this government mumbo-jumbo does not seem to sit straight in my brain - I like to confuse words, which significantly hinders my ability to communicate with just about everyone I meet. It makes for a fun day.

In honor of leaving for California tomorrow afternoon, today got to be official "Crazy Day" in the office, with people scrambling to get things done and wrapped up. And when I say 'people,' I'm generally accounting for only myself. I wasn't so successful, but I did succeed in finding my way through a new area of the Capitol - and then making it back. It's a pretty big deal, in case you didn't realize.

I had to go turn some papers in for something, and instead of faxing it over or emailing, the COS (chief of staff...) recommended just walking it over to the coordinating office so that we could get it time-stamped and have a copy of it - just in case.

He didn't pay much attention to the room listed on the form, but I noted that it was a weirdish area in the Capitol building, one I hadn't been to before. I mentioned it "casually" to our staff assistant, and he pondered a moment before saying he thought he knew where it was, but couldn't explain it in any way...along with some comment about blue carpet...

I told him I was going to try and find it - maybe I'd see him later. But maybe not, who knows what might happen to me in that old, hallowed building. I imagined myself getting lost forever and having to sleep in some conference room, with plush blue carpeting.

I headed out, confident that I at least knew how to get into the Capitol (it's pretty easy...), and that I knew how to get to a few places that had security personnel I could ask for help (because I've asked them before...a few times). I quickly took two wrong turns, realized my security peeps would actually be useless to me, found some blue carpet that wasn't where I needed to be, and smiled nervously as I took a third turn.

I found myself in this strange tunnel-esque hallway, with a kind of damp, attic smell, and random black-and-white pictures of the building of the Capitol, hung on painted brick walls. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I had finally found the right room coding, so I just had to walk past 50 more doors to get to the room number I was looking for. And I felt sure it would work out that as soon as I got close to the room I was looking for, the hallway would cut off, and my room would be on the other side of some wall that my hall didn't cut through to, and I'd have to go some completely different way to get there. Because hard things always seem harder when you don't know what you're doing.

As I was walking, I past a hidden cafeteria, a lot of working men, and few rooms that seemed fit for actual committees and places that would take my paperwork. The whole scene seemed wrong; the hallway didn't match my imaginations of the Capitol and its impressive rooms. It was dank and dingy. And halfway down the hall, the hallway started shrinking...

You know that part in the movie, "Being John Malkovich," when John Cusak walks through a mysterious portal, and the portal hallway gets smaller and smaller until he's bent in half, trying to walk, until suddenly he enters this room, which happens to be John Malkovich's control center, aka brain? It's okay if you don't. Technically, that's the only part of that movie I ever actually saw. And it was so long ago that I might be making this entire scene up in my mind. Perhaps it didn't happen. I could just be that creative and artsy. But I'm pretty sure it happened.

And I'm pretty sure I experienced that same feeling John Cusack experienced, because the roof of my hallway was suddenly rather shallow, and I felt like I was on my way to Wonderland, or Oz, or some random guy's brain. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least.

Then suddenly, I was thrust into a new hallway, with the same weird smell and look, but with towering ceilings and rooms that people might actually work in. I grew hopeful.

A younger guy came around another corner with a box in his hands, saw me looking at room numbers, and asked if he could help me. He was walking into his office, which I saw was HT-2. Close to my room. I said, "I need room HT-6." He looked at me a little quizzically, "HT-6? Hmmm...."

Oh no, I thought, my irrational fear that my room didn't exist is quickly turning rational. Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic....

I looked back at my paper, palms beginning to sweat - and by beginning, I mean, continuing. They'd been quite clammy all day, annoyingly.

"Oh, I mean HT-2! So, you, I guess..." PHEW.

He smiles and puts down his box, takes my papers, agrees that I am in the right place, and time stamps my papers. I apologize for interrupting him, and he shrugs it off. "We're moving tomorrow, so we're just packing things up today. Moving somewhere a little less completely out of the way."

As much as I appreciate that their office will soon be much more accessible, THANK GOODNESS I came when I did - I'd never have found them if I was chasing after their old office when they were no longer there...I would probably still be in the hallway to John Malkovich's brain, muttering nonsense to myself as I slowly went crazy.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I passed one or two people like that while I was concentrating on not scraping my head on the ceiling...

2011 - I have mixed feelings about it

I'd like to send out my sincerest apologies to my 4 dedicated readers and 8 dedicated stalkers: I've been away far too long. I've neglected you. But if it's any consolation - I've been thinking about you a lot.

Unfortunately, I've only been able to think about you for the last week, because our internet has been down at our house for most of the week. Blurgle-flurgle!

But I have a lot to tell you. My Christmas Vacation at favorite sister Abby's house was fabulous, and on New Year's Eve, we decided to make a little list of everything we needed to tell you. I don't know where that list is now, but I think I remember it rather well. Abby, you can remind me of anything I miss, deal? Deal.

But so far, I'm not so sure how I feel about this year. It seems rather balanced - but not in like a smooth-sailing, good flow sort of way. More of a "for every action, there is an equal reaction" kind of deal. Here's how it started:

New Year's Day
12:10am: Abby and I are playing our first Yahtzee game of the New Year (a new year's tradition that we started last new year's eve/day - yahtzee to send out the old and bring out the new. I'm a fan of it.), and I roll a yahtzee with 4's. We're pretty sure it's the 1st yahtzee rolled in the whole world in 2011, but since we're one of the last parts of the world to hit New Year's, we settle for it being the 1st yahtzee in the United States, at least.
NYD, 12:19am: I roll my 2nd yahtzee, in the same game, this time with 5's. Abby and I are pretty excited about this great omen of good things to come in my year.
NYD, 12:21: I roll 3 6's. I don't need 6's, 3-of-a-kind, 4-of-a-kind, or anything that 3 6's would be useful for. But it's a good roll, so I tell Abby I'm going for my 3rd yahtzee, giggle giggle. Two rolls later, I have my 3rd yahtzee - of the SAME game! - now with 6's. I've officially regained my "dice whisperer" status of my 12-year-old days.
*I end the game with 484 points, doubling my lowest score on that pad of paper. Abby and I are pretty confident that 2011 is going to be my year. After spending a little more time planning my wedding (well, it's my year, yeah?), looking at potential dresses, and trying to sell Abby on the lime green pantsuit she will be wearing with the rest of my bridesmaids, we go to bed, content with the start of 2011.

Then I have to go home that afternoon. I'm so bummed about it, and the weather is beautiful, which earns it some choice curse words from my thoughts - how can a flight home be cancelled when it's 56 degrees and sunny?

I spend my evening travelling - 2 flights broken up with a 3-hour layover to keep busy with. I'm really tired and a little bit grumpy, but all is well, and I make it home. I'm starting to feel a little better about everything, and I'm fully appreciative of roommates who were willing to drive an hour to pick me up at the airport at 11:45pm. We get some delicious Dennys for "dinner" and head home. My spirits are improving and I am once again feeling really good about 2011.

Then I walk into our house...to a disaster sight. Next to our door, our fridge stops its swing, and our microwave greets me across the front room. The stove is hiding on the other side of the fride, not wanting to be too far from the kitchen.

Our kitchen is being completely renovated, which is awesome, right? Not when you already live in a shoebox, and all your kitchen belongings now reside in your closet-sized front room, and you have to walk through the kitchen everytime you want to go to your room.

Plus, I found a giant spider in my room again - twice. Some welcome home, Nature.

It will eventually look really nice. But this last week - the week of the biggest messes, change-ups, and noisy work - has been probably the worst 1st week of a new year that I've ever experienced. The work is very slow-going, and our homeowner's dad is the person doing all the work, and he starts his work at 6am and sometimes doesn't stop until about 11:30pm. I can't be angry at him, because I really appreciate all the work he's doing to make it go faster. But I am angry in general - it just has no direction to be thrown at. I went from such a high from being at Abby's house and loving life, to quite a low from never wanting to be at my house and hating the chaos all around me. My mind feels scattered - the chaos in my house (it's so dirty, everywhere!) has planted itself in my brain, and it goes with me everywhere. So work was also a bit of a challenge this week as well.

I've been carrying that around a lot, so it feels good to really unload (sorry, I know that wasn't quite the pick-me-up you might've preferred to get...), but unfortunately, it doesn't get rid of the feelings. It just makes me feel like now other people get to carry those feelings with me. So thanks for wallowing with me a little bit, it makes me feel good having company.

Well dangit, I have so many other posts to work on, and I fear I've scared you away by writing too much here. But 2011 has started in such a strange fashion. I'm just not sure what to think of it. But I'm still determined that this is MY year. I'm going to make it MY year. I'll report back.

In the meantime, enjoy the following (below) & upcoming (to come) happier posts. Don't worry, good stuff is coming - my present to you after this mess of a kitchen brain brought you down a little.

String Cheese Theory

I don't think there's anything more peaceful and harmonious as eating string cheese.

Think about it: when you get a chance to just sit down, and have no worries, no one bothering you, no place to be, no limits on your time, and you can enjoy some cheese, delicate string by delicate string - you feel so detached from everything and all your worries are little blips in the distance.

It's a marvelous feeling.

One night during Christmas break, Abby and I were sitting in the front room. Devn was at work, the kids had just been put in bed, and we were craving some normalish food after a few days of sweet treats and salts snacks. So Abby got each of us a string cheese, and we sat peacefully on the floor, each of us encompassed by our own little worlds of quiet and non-thought.

I sat there on the ground, my legs pretzel-style, rocking slightly, back and forth, to the soft tune of my breathing, the beat from my heart. I had no thoughts in my mind beyond noticing the slivers of cheese that broke off each other, my only concerns in the world being which string I would work on between the three divisions I had inadvertantly created in my stringing of the cheese.

I was completely unaware of the world around me. It was quite an experience of relaxation. I had released any worries, concerns, sorrows, problems, frustrations, and whatever other negative energy that had previously resided in me.

I'm pretty sure I had reached Nirvana, that state so many others seek through expensive and extensive processes and steps.

If only they knew it was so easily attainable. By a simple purchase of string cheeses!

Abby dreamily expressed the same one-ness with the world - something she rarely feels with 3 kids running around.

Ironically, the same product that brings me such harmony with Nature and takes me so far out of my world is the very same thing that can cause me such stress if I'm not given an unlimited amount of time to enjoy it.

I'm a stringer of my string cheese. I cannot bite into my string cheese. I look on in horror when I see another belittle his string cheese in such a callous, criminal fashion. But because I can't bite string cheese, it necessarily takes me quite a bit of time to eat it - and when I'm given less than quite a bit of time, I feel panicked and anxious and completely stressed out. I try to pull thicker strings of cheese to eat it faster, but then I naturally pull smaller strings from the thicker string with my teeth when I try to bring the thicker string to my mouth. It's really just not possible for me to eat it quickly.

Am I even making sense? No, don't answer that...

All I know is that for a brief 30 minutes, as 2010 came closer to an end, I enjoyed complete peace and felt a total harmony with everything. For a short time, I was fully content.

And the next time I am stressed and worried, I will set aside an hour in order to give me plenty of time to reach Enlightenment through the eating of blessed string cheese, the healer of all wounds and destroyer of all worries.

Senior Portraits: Take 3

What happens when you have a dad and a sister who both like to play photographer, and have special new cameras to try out or editing software to show you?

A photoshoot, of course!

And what happens when you're the youngest, the only person around, or have somewhat decent eye color?

You get to be the subject, of course!

When I was in high school, school pictures were the normal photo-taking process for freshmen-juniors that everyone did. But when you were a Senior, you got to submit a picture that you wanted to use - and most kids went and got professional pictures taken, to pick a picture from and to cap this exciting moment of graduating high school (I explain this because I know some schools didn't do it this way).

I remember we scheduled mine rather last minute, and it was for a time really early one morning, which I accidentally slept in for, so I still look at those pictures feeling like I have slightly greasy hair and like I'm not fully put together. They turned out fine anyway, but it was a somewhat stressful experience.

I also learned from it that I'm not really a very good model. I never knew how to do anything the photographer asked me to do - my head tilt just couldn't ever get in the right spot! - and I still remember when she asked me if I wanted to try any serious pictures. We tried one or two, and after we got the photos back, my mom and I decided I should never try faux-serious again.

At the time, I thought that would be the last time I would be a high school senior taking my senior portraits.

Silly me.

I've been able to re-attempt senior portraits two more times now, thanks to my sister, Abby. The 2nd time was after our parents moved into their house in Utah, and Abby wanted to test out dad's new camera - and she chose me for her subject and our library as the background. Thinking about it, mom and dad also used me as a model once in that room, too, because mom wanted to try her new camera as well, and also get her new bookcase caught on film - so I had to "lean" against it, feeling stupid. Both times I think I felt rather stupid, actually.

And then my 3rd attempt at proper senior photos occurred while visiting Abby this last Christmas. I wanted to see some of what she did as a photo editor, so we decided it would be fun to tour Pine Bluff, AR, and take some pictures to use for her to show me what she did. We went in search of some fun, colorful walls and backgrounds, looked at some really cool murals Pine Bluff has in their old downtown, and found a few places for me to - that's right - model! And once again, I felt like an awkward high school senior again, not knowing what to do. Abby and I laughed more through this process (the picture-taking and the editing combined) than I think we ever did together growing up (which was quite a bit already). We also got some sweet pictures of her kids, who are natural models. And then Abby showed me what she did to the pictures to get them ready for print (some looked really great naturally, and some required a little bit of touch-up), and we had fun looking through them. Here are a few shots:

Taken before we left - in the car, Abby wanted to test the light, so she snapped a few pictures while I was sitting there a little confused about the camera pointed at me. Turned out to be a pretty cool picture. Best part? Abby's biggest touch-up on here was my nose hairs - on the TOP of my nose! What?! The light hit them a little better than I appreciated, but the top of my nose got a nice waxing in photoshop...how embarrassing. 

 Me with niece Ellee and nephew Will - what darlings.

 I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at a picture than I did about this - Abby and I were crying when we first pulled it up, we were laughing so hard! And the giggles returned everytime we went back to it. I still laugh when I see it. If Will grows up to be a balding, 40-year-old hick, this is what he'll look like...

 Ellee, the perpetual modeler. Though her planned poses usually include her looking at the camera and smiling really picture-taking-like. This is a pretty natural shot of her just being cute. Abby's got a ton of those types of pictures of Ellee.

 I love this picture! It's pretty fitting of Greg Bryan II - a little bit mischievous, a lot adorable. His smiles make me happy.

"You talkin' to me?" That furrowed brow is actually a common expression. I think it's just how his forehead is...

 I love Will's crescent moon eyes when he smiles. They're my favorite of all his cute little features.

 I took this photo :)

We had some great pictures from this afternoon. I honestly died laughing over some of them! And Abby also let me witness what happens when you over-photoshop someone - my teeth had never looked so radiant, and I was forced to wonder if I ought to start whitening my eyeballs. I've decided against it at present.

One day, I'll get those senior photos right. But until then, I guess I'll just have to keep practicing, and those practice sessions will probably be whenever Abby and I are together for an extended amount of time.

(*Note: I realize that I put very few/no pictures of my awkward photo shoot - that's because I feel silly posting glamour shots of myself on my own blog. Don't get me wrong, I'm somewhat vain, just not in an obvious, in your face sort of way. More in a closeted, sit in front of a mirror and stare at my giant pupils changing size in different lights sort of way. I like mirrors, what about it?)

Christmas in Arlington/My Place of Residence

Have I not shown you my beautifully Christmas-ified home from before the holidays? For shame!

For my first real Christmas on my own (sort of), I really enjoyed getting to decorate my house. Roommate Melissa and I had a nice time putting everything together, and while I still don't really enjoy the actual decorating part - I tire quickly - I really felt its worth this year. I sat engrossed in our decorations every night, from the first night they were up to the day that I left for sister Abby's home. I was pleased with it all.

So here are some pictures of our home - mostly just our front room, actually, since that was the only place we really decorated. At any rate, here they are:

 Our cute Christmas tree, before and after Santa sent presents via the US Postal Service. Those are my presents from Ma & Pa. Thanks you guys, I love it all!

 This was a super sweet purchase on my part. I saw this banner in the party aisle and figured it'd be good for something. Turns out I was right; it was a great addition to our otherwise bare window.

 I also found these 3-D snowflakes in the party aisle, meant to hang from the ceilings. I just unfolded them until they had 1/2 put together and 1/2 still flat, and then attached them to the wall. That wall is so bare, it was a welcome burst of color and decoration. I think it was my favorite addition to the decorations!

Melissa and I wanted the 3 of us to have some sort of fun roommate ornament. I found these little dolls on clearance at Target, so we picked out 3 different girls for each of us, and then we all decided which ones we were. My roommates decided I should have the ones with braids - sorry Ma & Pa, but I love her, braids and all!

We also had lights in the windows and around the stairwell, so we were festive inside and out! I loved it!

Know what else I loved? That it was all taken down already when I came home from my holiday vacation. I loathe taking decorations down, so that might've been one of my favorite Christmas presents of the year. Thanks Melissa, for making Christmas fun in our home, and then for cleaning up after its mess!