Another year older

I love my birthday. :o) And yesterday was no exception!

My brother was the first to call to wish me Happy Birthday. He always calls at the stroke of midnight just so he CAN be first. Even when he was in Iraq he would. Unfortunately this year, I didn't hear the phone ring. HA! But pesky...uhhhh...persistent soul that he is, he called back at 7 in the morning, and was still the first!

My mom then called and sang(?) a little piece she put together on the fly, much to her coworkers' dismay. :o)

I got two original birthday songs from Meredith, which is a tradition between the two of us. Her Birthday rap she left on my answering machine this year will go down in history, hands down, as the most creative of all time. What a riot. Then she had a short little song to sing to me on my way to work, that went like this (complete with a country twang):

Fried Chicken
Country Hog
It's your birthday
HOT DOG!!!

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For dinner I went to Bonefish Grill, it was delicious! I went back to Mom's house after dinner and got PRESENTS! WOOOOOOOWOOOOOO I was spoiled more than I deserve, once again, and got some fabulous gifts. Mom got me some antique cameras, an old photography magazine called "Kodakery" (sounds like a fruity frozen drink to me!) a purse, candle, money (which I'm using for a fabulous new lens!!!), and a popcorn hamper HA!!!

Destin had mom get me some beautiful flowers. He said we would celebrate each others' birthdays the next time we see each other. Now, Chelsea Grace LOVES flowers. Anytime I bring flowers in the house she starts singing away. I can just hear her saying, "OH MOM!!! They are so beautiful!!!!!! Let me eat them!!!!!" Well when she saw me bring them in last night, she let out the longest and loudest kitty aria I've ever heard!! It was hysterical. The pictures above are of her singing to the flowers (and she won't take her eyes off them, as you can tell in the first one).

I would say it was a stellar day! Thank you Lord for these blessings: Mom, for always making our birthdays so special; Destin for being such a fantastic brother; and all my dear friends who always make me feel so loved. I adore you all.

This morning I had a photo shoot. I took some pictures of a precious 15 week old baby boy. I can't wait to get to work on those pictures. I'll post a sneak peak soon.

The accused...

Sure, she looks innocent enough, but don't let that fool you. She tried to kill me this morning.

A little background: For as long as I have owned this house, (going on 5 years now) Chelsea Grace has had this game of trying to figure out where I'm walking in the house, and beating me there. It's really adorable.

Except when she's wrong.

Which brings us to this morning. I was walking back to my bedroom after being at the front of the house. My hallway kind of "forks" at the end; my bedroom on the right, my scraproom on the left. Chelsea Grace must have thought I was going into the scraproom to check my email or something because she took off that way. But when she realized I was zigging while she was zagging, she whipped herself around and ran right in front of me.

And then she just....

STOPPED!

Right as I got to the doorway she stopped dead in her tracks. Now I always sucked at physics, but the one thing I did learn was that an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

Which is what I did.

In order to not step on her, I tried to take a bigger step to step over her. Well this freaked her out, so she took off running again. And that totally threw me off balance, because once again I was about to step on her! I ended up grabbing the door frame to stop from falling, which jammed my wrist, and as my leg went down I hyperextended my knee. Good grief.

And what does Chelsea Grace do while all this is going on? While I'm trying to not only save her life, but my own?????

She bathes.
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I guess when you have 9 lives, using one up isn't such a big deal.

Hot Springs, Virginia

This is a shot I took as we were coming back down the mountain the day after the wedding we were hired to shoot. There were so many picturesque farms, and beautiful landscapes. This scene looked like a painting to me, so I tweaked it a bit to make it look like one. You can click on the picture to see more detail. I took the shot pretty fast because the road was littered with dead snakes, and as we later found out the place was crawling with ticks! ::shudder::

Just playing around

Things are finally settling down a bit around here. All my spring weddings are shot, edited and uploaded for client viewing. All my work is done on the extra job I picked up for a little extra money, and that has been turned in. My house is still a disaster, but hey...baby steps.

So what's a girl to do with a little free time? Find a new endeavor, of course! My sweet friend, Melinda, and I are pairing up on a new project, I'll keep you posted as new details emerge. I think it will be fabulous, and creative and FUN!

I have so many pictures that I've taken in all my traveling in the last year. With everything so crazy, I haven't had time to work on any of them, I've done all our "paid" work first and then there never seemed to be time for the other stuff. This morning I forced myself to pick just one picture I would want in my house, and play with it. This is the picture I came up with.

This is a tree in Bay St. Louis, MS. I love this tree so much. I adore photographing trees, anyway, almost as much as I love photographing feet! ha! The older, more gnarled the tree, the better. Imagine the stories they can tell. This tree especially. This tree survived Katrina. As you can see it's right on the water, and that bridge behind it is a bridge that didn't fare as well. When I was there in December, they were rebuilding that bridge. Everything around this tree was demolished, there was so much damage. Concrete was ripped from the road; a tree trunk the size of a Ford Expedition was uprooted and lay in the middle of the street, roots and all. And this tree saw it all happen. I know I'll never know the reason this beautiful tree still stands there.

But I'm so glad it does. :o)