my new business cards

the designer who created my logo (the crazy talented rob of rob and damia design) sent me proofs of my new business cards. we are going to print two sets - each with a different photo on the back. i still have to get permission to use one of the photos, but check them out. i love them. adore them. i can't wait to hand them out. it makes me feel like a real photographer.



(click to see bigger)

next generation

jack loves cameras:

what kate said

we were playing in the plastic pool in the backyard today when kate let out a big fart. i heard her say 'scuse me' and then she turned to me and said 'mommy, my bottom burped but i said 'scuse me.'

i couldn't stop giggling. even now it makes me smile.

holiday haiku

memorial day
plastic pools and bar-b-que
summer has started

this makes me smile

oy.

so scratch the aforementioned beautiful day.

i'm a dolt.

just got a call from a friend of mine. she was expecting me at 4pm to take photos of her family for her mother's 75th birthday. somehow i put it on my calendar for tomorrow. i have the babysitter lined up and made sure it was on jeff's calendar. even got a new memory card and a back up battery for my camera so i wouldn't miss a shot.

and now it's fubar. her family is from out of town so i blew it. and she was gracious and kind and assured me that it was fine but i feel awful. just awful.

oy.

right now

i'm sitting on my front porch while kate is inside napping and jack is playing in the yard. the air is warm with only a hint of humidity and a light breeze is blowing bits of white fluff in the air. i have my laptop open and am listening to the weepies.

it's a beautiful day.

deadbeat mom

kate didn't have preschool today so a bunch of the moms were going to get together at a playground. i held the promise of the playground over the kids all morning ("clean up your room or we won't go to the playground" "put your dishes in the sink or you won't get to go to the playground"). we finally got the house picked up, the dishes put away, everyone dressed and bandaged (all of kate's imaginary boo boos) and as i opened the garage door, the first rain drops fell.

now its pouring and the kids are on the couch watching a movie while i doink around on my computer. i know i should be doing something with them...coloring, painting, baking, anything really. but i'm letting the kids fend for themselves. i'm not one of those moms who feels the need to always be doing something enriching with my children. i believe in letting kids play alone and use their imaginations.

but today i feel like i should be doing something and i just don't want to.

d.e.a.d.b.e.a.t.

my new logo

(click it to see it bigger)

this is the new logo for my photography business. our good friend, rob, at rob and damia design created it for me.

i love the logo. my new (flash) website and all my marketing materials will have the same look and feel. i'm beyond excited. it feels like i have a real business and i can't wait to place my first ad! the only thing left is to find some paying clients :)

ellie and steve

we had some friends from seattle over for dinner last night. these friends have a long history with jeff and a slightly shorter history with me:

jeff worked with steve and ellie at an ad agency in baltimore when he graduated from college (steve actually hired him).
steve and ellie moved to seattle.
steve offered jeff a job in seattle.
jeff moved to seattle to work for steve.
i worked at a different ad agency in seattle with ellie.
they thought we might like each other and arranged for us to play on the same softball team.
jeff liked me, i thought he was sort of a dork.
we dated, fell in love, got married, moved to maryland and had two kids.

throughout the years, we've all stayed in touch and managed to see each other when we can. the last time we saw them was about 3 years ago so this was their first time meeting jack.

it was great to see them. every time ellie and i see each other, we laugh because when she first met me i was 24 years old and swore up, down, sideways and backwards that i wasn't getting married and i certainly wasn't having children. now i'm a stay-at-home mom who drives a minvan and lives in the suburbs with her husband, two kids and dog. but i'm happy and she's happy for me. (but we still laugh about it)

we ate dinner on the back porch last night. we drank and ate and laughed. i like that i'm old enough to have 'old friends' (not that they're OLD, just old friends. you know what i mean).

new photos

posted some new photos on my other site.

kate's ballet recital

jeff posted the video here

(it takes a few minutes to load and it's hard to see. watch at your own risk) :)

rough day

i woke up in super bitch mode today. no idea why, but from the moment my feet touched the ground this morning, i was in a piss poor mood and i took it out (of course) on jeff. gawd. poor guy. why he puts up with me, i'll never know.

somehow we managed to make it to kate's ballet performance this afternoon (that in itself was an ordeal. jeff was kind enough to let me take a nap but only gave me 15 minutes to get dressed, get kate dressed, gather all the stuff we needed and get out the door before heading to her performance. didn't help my mood much.).

but kate's performance was great. you know how there is always that one kid who doesn't pay attention and talks to their parents in the audience and is all over that place? that's my kid. yep. it was wonderful. embarrassingly wonderful. jeff is putting together some video footage so hopefully i'll post that sometime this week.

it's days like today that i'm grateful for my husband. i was awful and moody and mean and he is still asking me if i'm ok and if there is anything he can do for me.

maybe he's just scared. :)

me and chuckles

chuckles and i had fun on the kitchen floor playing with my new camera.

thought for the day

saw this yesterday on a blog i read daily. the quote is from eve ensler (of the vagina monologues fame): she suggests if women spent more time trying to change the world, than trying to change their bodies, we would be empowered in ways we cannot imagine.

that made me think.
that's all. just made me think.

MS

jeff just found out that one of his best friends has MS. he's a 34-year-old guy, married a couple of years with an 8-month-old baby. he doesn't know what's next...it could be something that doesn't make much of a difference in his life or it could progress rapidly. his doctors don't know, he doesn't know and we don't know.

another one of jeff's friends, who is only 36, had a mild heart attack last week. i feel like this is the stuff that is supposed to be happening to my parents' friends. not ours. are we old enough, now, that people we know are having 'adult' sicknesses? how did that happen?

jeff and i talked on the phone, just now, and we agreed that the changes we've been making to our diets (mostly organic, mostly veggies and fish (red meat only once per week) and nothing with hydrogonated oils or trans fats) is something we'll need to keep doing. we started it just to see if we could and now we agree that we need to keep these changes. we're not not getting younger and there's no more time to say that we'll do it when we're older. we ARE older. it's time.

kate's hands

the cheesecake factory

if you know me at all, you know i have a thing about the cheesecake factory. it's not that i hate it, per se, just that i don't understand the hype. the food is decent, but it's still chain food which doesn't explain why people are willing to wait an hour (or more!) to eat there. if you went to applebees and the hostess said it was an hour wait, would you? probably not. there's always ruby tuesdays or tgi fridays or some other place with mediocre food down the street where there isn't a wait.

so why the fuss over the cheesecake factory???

jeff and i went last night. we have a new one at the mall (of course) and i've avoided it like the plague. but last night was date night and it was raining and chilly and jeff and i wanted some comfort food as a break from our recent foray into vegetarian-ism (is that a word? in any case, that's a whole 'nother post).

of course there was a 45 minute wait so we sat at the bar and had a drink. and you know what? it was really nice. it was obscenely crowded by an ecletic mix of people but it was really nice just to sit at the bar and talk with my husband instead of rushing in and out of a restaurant and then staring at each other in the parking lot saying "well now what do we do?"

so for anyone who has ever heard me badmouth the cheesecake factory, i stand corrected. i still think the food is mediocre (it's not bad, it's just not noteworthy), but it was a nice place for date night.

(oh - i have to share this: as we were sitting at the bar, a couple came up beside us to order drinks. they looked at the drink menu and then asked the bartender for "one of those 'mo-jah-toe' things." the bartender looked confused so they showed him the menu and he said "oh, a mojito." jeff and i just poked each other and giggled silently. mo-jah-toe. lol. isn't that petty and small of us to laugh?) :)

artist underpants

for the past year or so, kate has said she wants to be a princess when she grows up.

the other night as i was putting her to bed i asked her again what she wanted to be and, in an effort to persuade her there were better job choices than 'princess', i told her that if she was an artist she could paint and color and draw all day.

she got very excited and now she says she wants to be an artist when she grows up.

this morning as she was putting on her princess underpants, she looked at me and said "mommy, can i get some artist underpants?".

Anonymous

i changed the settings on my blog so that it accepts anonymous comments. i didn't realize you could have anonymous comments and still have the word verification.

so all those people who have told me recently that they lurk and don't post, now you can! (elizabeth!!!)

favors

so i told a friend i'd help her out on a project. it took me about 5 hours to complete and i did it for free (although it's something i would normally charge $25/hour to do). she spends a lot of time with my family so she knows that i'm busy with two small kids and trying to start up a photography business and with life in general. she always comments on it so i know it hasn't escaped her.

so. the favor. i told her i would have it done by the 10th (she needs it by the 11th). yesterday we were emailing about something unrelated and she sent me an email that said "is my [project] done yet?".

not, 'hey, how's it coming?' or 'i know you're busy, thanks for working on it, do you need anything else from me?' or anything equally tactful. granted, she's a few years younger than me, but still. it's common courtesy, right?

so i finished the project today and she sent me a three word email: 'looks awesome thanks'.

and that's that.

and i'm pissed. i didn't do the job so that she would thank me, but i really went out on a limb to do it and i feel completely unappreciated. and the thing that makes me the most mad is that i KNEW it would be like this. this is just how this friend is. she expects things to be done for her and usually they are. she's a nice person and i like having her around, but i also know that she is who she is.

so i guess it's my own fault for expecting something from her that i knew all along i wouldn't get.

argh.

this morning

i took the kids and the dog to the playground this morning so i could practice on my new camera (have i mentioned that i got a new camera?). i was trying to get some photos of kate but she didn't want me to. she said "mommy, i don't like it when you take pictures. i like to get pictures at the mall."

groan.

so here's a photo of jack jack instead:

party

i went to a great party last night (and i'm not just saying that in case the host reads my blog!). when i got the invite, i realized that jeff would be out of town. i figured i'd go for a couple of hours and then head home. i mean, a bunch of people i don't really know without jeff? eh.

but it was so much fun. the hosts know how to throw a party: it was catered by my favorite restaurant and the drinks were flowing. but best of all, the people there was so interesting. really and truly. i think this is (one of) my favorite thing about these friends - their other friends. there is always good conversation and i always learn something new.

so thanks party hosts - i had a great time and was desperately wishing i hadn't told my babysitter i'd be home by 9:30.


(oh! and a shout out to elizabeth who is a) pregnant and b) told me last night that she reads my blog every day. holy cow! i thought only wendy and my mom read this thing!)

jeff left for atlantic city on thursday night for his youngest brother's bachelor party. used to be that when he went out of town, it was traumatic. the kids were little, jack wasn't sleeping through the night and i was exhausted all the time.

but now.

now the kids are 22 months and 3 and-a-half. they sleep until 6:15am (which, trust me, is much better than when they were waking up at 5:30 am) and they can amuse themselves for stretches at a time. i'm sitting at the kitchen counter with my laptop, looking at photography websites. the windows are open, the breeze is blowing and best of all, the kids are upstairs napping. i can't believe i feel this peaceful with jeff out of town.

it's nice. i feel like i have my life back. it's a completely different version of my life than it was before kids, but it's a life nonethless. it makes me happy.

pet peeve

people who write checks in the express lane at the grocery store on a friday afternoon with 18 people in line behind them.

i heart my new camera

my D200 came yesterday. swoon.

i'm in love.

i have SO much to learn, though. even though it's still a nikon like my previous camera (the D70), it's considere a semi-pro camera so it doesn't have any of the shortcuts that my old camera had. i actually have to figure out the apeture and/or the shutter speed myself instead of letting the camera do it. the best thing about this camera so far (besides the way it makes my images sharp again!) is how well it performs in low light. i could actually do an indoors shoot with the this thing!

i have a lot to learn but i'm so excited. i took a few photos of the kids this morning. i liked this one of kate (and lest you think this face is a scowl that i just happened to catch on film, let me assure you that this is kate's face all the time these days. groan.)

haiku

my sweet kids are gone
replaced by demon spirits
i need a stiff drink

new camera

just ordered my new nikon D200 camera.

very excited.
beyond excited.

it's backordered so it might be a few months but i am so psyched to be getting this. hopefully i won't outgrow this one as quickly as i did the D70 (which i still love and will use as a backup).

so happy.

(image taken from www.kenrockwell.com)

today at the playground

( i really want to post some thoughts today about the immigrants rights rallies that took place yesterday but i need some more time to sort it out. it's a complicated topic. in the meantime, here are some shots of the kids at the playground this morning.)