Its really Friday

I’m saying that to all of you who believed yesterday was Friday. Ok, I’m saying that to me. I could have sworn Thursday was Friday, and oddly as I sit…I mean sat (since we will all believe I’m writing this at 6 o’clock on Friday morning) writing this post, I had to remind myself its not Wednesday!

Something is mildly wrong with me. I blame it on the fact I didn’t post two days this week. A rarity to be sure. So technically its my third post of the week and my little fingers believe that its Wednesday because of it.

This week has been a pooped kinda week. Super exhausting and busy with work, plus lia sophia, plus editing all those pictures of the wedding. Which by the way I finished at midnight Wednesday night…errr Thursday morning.

Here’s a sneaker peaker

I could tell you how difficult it was to keep the rings on that blade or how the weight of the rings kept bending it or that they kept sliding down or that I was holding the tip of the blade steady with my left hand while taking the picture with my right…but that would be revealing the behind the scenes/secrets of a “photographer” and the not so glamorous side, and we can’t have that now can we!?

I instead will continue to let you think it was all done by magic.

Tomorrow is exciting. No. Terrifying. I’m getting my hair trimmed by a new girl. A girl I’ve never met. Scary!! The last girl did a ho hum kinda job, so I placed an ad in the paper for a new stylist. This is what it said:

must love hair
must know how to cut hair
must not botch hair
call me, maybe

Ok, that wasn’t real. Obviously we all know you can’t put commas in a newspaper ad.

I’m taking a chance on a girl’s, who’s hair I thought looked cute, stylist. I don’t even know how much she’ll charge. This could get interesting. You might not see my face around here on the blog if its bad…wait, you hardly see my face here on this blog any way. Posting pictures of other people is more fun, any way.

And because I say, why not…here’s another.

Its Labor Day weekend!! So for all you luckies who get a 4 day weekend, ENJOY! For all us suckers hard workers who get a 3 day weekend, woot woot for 3 day weekends!!

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Flashback to May

I’ve been an editing fool this past week and a half, doing everything possible to finish the wedding pictures I did in May by today. It won’t happen no matter what I do. I have over 60 left to edit and working on them the moment I get home from work, I’m getting maybe 10 done a night.

I’m exhausted.

Before I helped shoot the wedding, I did my friend’s family pictures in an orchard. I also never got around to editing their pictures until right before I tackled the wedding pictures, so I thought I’d share today. She’s such a fun friend. Real straight forward, no fuss or muss, just tell it how it is, kinda gal.

Naturally, we get along just fine. When I texted her telling her I finally finished the pictures and asked if she still liked me, she replied it was no big deal since all she’d been doing over the summer was staying out of the heat while preggers.

This is how I learned she was expecting baby #3.


I have to appreciate her patience with me for getting these to her, ok truthfully I haven’t even gotten these to her yet. You’re seeing them before she will!

don’t tell her

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The most lucrative lunch I don’t recommend you have

I had a choice to make Sunday.

Write Monday's blog post or watch The Hunger Games. I think you can probably guess what I chose. Sunday was a crazy day. Just about non stop busy from the moment I woke up. My neighbor and I agreed to meet at my place to watch the Hunger Games once we both got done with our crazy afternoon plans.

Only problem was, my crazy afternoon plans kept going well into the evening. After it was all said and done, and I finally had a moment to sit down, it was almost 9pm! It was too late for my neighbor but being it was a redbox rental I had to watch it before the morning. It took awhile before there were no interruptions but I finally watched it from beginning to end and I have two words for it: LOVED IT!

Even though it went a bit away from the book (what movie doesn't) and it was fairly vague about a lot of details, I still thought it was well done...minus the shaky up close camera work. Not sure when this style of shooting was deemed 'cool', but is it so hard to pan back and have a smooth non 'in the moment' shot? I can still feel like I'm part of the movie without it... - I digress.

That may or may not be a sign of my growing age.. “edgy” camera work making my head hurt.

In other more scintillating news, yesterday while I was enjoying my peanut butter and honey sandwich in my car during lunch, (as I do), I felt my car move.

Someone hit it.

I watched her back up and quickly jumped out of my car (barefoot) and walked right in front of her with my hand up to stop her...because you know, she was going to drive away. This is how it went...

Me: you hit my car
Her: I did!??
Me: yes, you hit my car
Her: oh no, {bad word} I didn't know! (frozen behind her wheel) the stopping of forward motion must have been lost on her
Me: yes, you did.
(still not moving from behind her wheel)
Me: park your car, get out and let's take a look at it.
(as I walk back to put my shoes on...)

After she parked and I showed her the nice scratch she put on my bumper, she immediately begged me not to get insurance involved and offered to pay cash right then and there. After a bit, I told her how much I wanted and she gave it to me.

done and done

I gave the motherly advice of, "you need to be more careful!" as we parted ways. I think that's the most lucrative lunch I've ever had. Though I don't recommend having someone scratch up your car just to have a lucrative lunch. Ever since I started this job and parked in the shared parking lot, I've noticed substantial damage to my car. Major scratches on the passenger side...and now bumper. Makes me want to cry a little, I take pretty good care of that thing to have other people bang it up.

All and all, I'm just happy I was there when it happened. Otherwise, she would have driven away without taking responsibility for it!

-Reason #57 I eat lunch in my car-

In other more tastier news, I got basil plant #2 over the weekend. Who does #2 work for!!? {movie, anyone..movie?} I don't know what's happening to #1. It's slowly and sadly fading away into the abyss. I've placed #2 in a new location and will give it a completely different way of living. I'm going for a more pampered lifestyle for the bushy guy, so hopefully he'll enjoy being spoiled and flourish.

Oh and to set the record straight from Friday’s post. I did eat that many burgers last week and I am in fact very sarcastic. Like very… oh and I am addicted to cheese, which is why I don’t buy it and of course leave dead ant bodies lying around…though they clearly aren’t heeding my warning of immanent death.

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Double the blog awards

Before I begin.

Did you know if you spell a word incorrectly, all you need to do is right click on it? Instantly (provided you aren’t too far off on the spelling) it’ll give you the correct word to click on and auto correct. You can do it anywhere. In word document, an email, google, internet, blogging. Anywhere you’re typing. Right click, bam! correct word.

I do everything possible to not use this magical tool. When I transferred to the 2nd prison I used to work, I joked about how dumbed down I became. The 1st prison was very strict. I knew the rules, I enforced the rules, and I was a sponge learning and applying so much to the job. The 2nd prison was 180 degrees opposite. Everything willy nilly, very few rules applied. They ran it their way..not the 1st prison’s way. Over time, I forgot rules, enforced very little, and reluctantly fell into their way of program. By the 3rd prison I was dumber than a box of rocks.

So anything to bring myself back to intelligence..even something as small as making my brain work to spell a word correctly on its very own, I’ll do.

It took me (because I’m tired, promise) 8 times to type the word: possibility. 8. A word, that if you’ll notice, isn’t even in this post, but coincidentally sparked my little story.

I really should start going to bed earlier.

NOW! Sadly, almost a month ago (I’m slow), my bestest texting buddy in the world, Tabitha at My Cliffnotes, gave me a blog award. Which blog award? I’m not sure…she didn’t say. But a blog award none the less. Hooray! *cough* I rhymed

And the sweet Stephanie at twenty something gave me the One Lovely Blog award too!

Big huge monstrous thanks to both of you. I humbly accept both awards. They both gave me huge lists to do, so allow me to pick and choose from both lists. {I just said “both” 4 times in 2 sentences.}

Actually instead, I’m going to play 3 truths and a lie. - sorry, ladies -  You get to guess which is the lie.

~ I’ve eaten a buffalo burger 5 out of the past 6 days, plus fried cheese globs.
~ I still won’t buy cheese due to not being able to control the addiction.
~ I’m not a sarcastic person.
~ I like to leave dead ant bodies on my floors as warning to all the other ants who dare to take me on.

Can you guess? Let’s see how well you truly know me.

Thanks again ladies for the awards!!
Have fun this weekend, my friends. Mine is jam packed with busyness with lots of editing in between. Oh oh I get to see The Hunger Games movie Sunday, too…can’t wait!

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Love is in the air

Aahhh, the day has finally arrived. My friend waited a long time for this very day. She had been through quite a bit before meeting her husband, so for me to see her finally with a man that loves, values and who’s truly devoted to her, was seriously a sight to behold.

I had partial intentions of getting my camera out and taking a ton of pictures, but as the day of the wedding wore on, it felt better not having it. After having breakfast with G-man, I met with all the other bridesmaids to arrange the flowers. If there’s one thing I know I’ll never ever be, is a florist. Standing in a room surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of flowers left me with a slight panic attack.

Imagine a bagillion more of those. Thankfully two other girls saw the wild frantic look in my eyes and called me over to pull rose petals off for the aisle. Now that I was able to handle.

By 12:30 we were to meet up in the suite to begin getting ready. By 1pm, it was a mess. The bathroom floor was so sticky from all the hairspray, the soles of our shoes were stuck. Every inch of counter space, floor space, couch, desk, bed…every inch was taken by a piece of clothing, shoes, food, makeup. It was as if a bomb had gone off. But my friend calmly sat in her chair, getting ready.

For us to be able to pick our own dresses, I think we all did pretty well.

We had all finished getting ready and waited for the moment the bride got into her dress. So it was picture snapping time.

The time had come for everyone to change.

The pictures were quickly taken by the photographer and we rushed off to the ceremony site. It unexpectedly rained that day, and thankfully a big oversized umbrella was waiting for us all to huddle under. Not to mention shiver violently. I had the honor of being first to walk down the aisle. I say honor (and it was) but I’m not the best at being so noticeable. I realize they weren’t there to see me, but knowing 220 pairs of eyes were on me for 15 seconds was enough to have me wanting to walk briskly so the next bridesmaid would come out.
G-man’s view..

Beautiful ceremony complete, it was time for the reception. I still didn’t have my camera and even didn’t have my cell phone. *gasp* so the only pictures I have so far are from bridesmaid’s cell phones. I could post from the photographer’s website, but given my friend’s feeling about the work, I think its best I stick with what I have. Which are…

If you’re thinking this is it…you’re cute.

I’m waiting for a bridesmaid to mail me a cd of pictures she took of the reception, so look out! There’ll be sure to be more. But at least I’ll have given you a little wedding break.

HTC users…why are your pictures so grainy? I mean really!? iPhone pictures are crystal clear…I just don’t get it.

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Abracadabra alakazam!

Believe me when I say, I have a long way to go with learning the ins and outs of editing. I’ll learn a new trick, only to not edit for months and forget it. Or I may tend to get a little sloppy if I find myself editing for hours.

Last week, my friend called my upset over her professional wedding pictures. They weren’t anything what she thought the photographer would produce and was more than disappointed in the results. I had taken a few the day of, and thought editing and sending them to her, wouldn’t be a cure all, (I wasn’t exactly in photographer mode) but I figured she wouldn’t mind having some extras to work with.

This ultimately is what started the guilt over the weekend, working on her pictures over all the others.

Any way, one particular picture I took of her was great! except this guy was standing behind her. I didn’t necessarily want to send it to her, given her unhappiness and all, so I went to work. Painstakingly slow work.

If you remember, which its ok if you don’t..a week and a half ago, I posted the picture within my post.

Again, has great potential but he’s kinda ruining the shot. Like I said before, I wasn’t in photographer mode. Just bridesmaid with a camera mode, so I wasn’t worried too much about my background.

But after a lot of time and effort, I managed to get him out.

What do you think? I know its not perfect, and I’m sure you can find mistakes but I don’t think its too shabby. Here’s a side by side for easier comparison.

Sometimes its fun to see just what you can do to an image. I’m not really for drastically altering an image or the person, but in these cases, its necessary to get it just right. I know I’m tooting my own horn a bit, and I know there are far more skilled photographers than me who could look at this and scoff or not like that I’m toot tooting, but toot! 

Hopefully she’s happy with it.

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Spray me happy

The day before my friend’s wedding was a crazy one. If you remember, the night before was the bachelorette party. We stayed up past 1am talking about all things girl and just about none of us slept throughout the night. There were some who didn’t have their cell phones on silent, so it was a bit painful to say the least. After chowing down on a less than stellar hotel breakfast, the bride announced she was getting a touch up spray tan and asked if anyone wanted to join in.

Knowing how white I am, I immediately jumped on board along with 3 others. The big debate was: to shower or not to shower before.  The debate didn’t last long when I looked in the bathroom, only to find every single towel on the floor, used and abused.

No shower.

My greasy smelly self…along with 4 others, hopped in our cars and drove the 45 minutes to the woman's house to get our tans.  I was excited! My first real true all natural spray tan! We all waited our turns as each of us got sprayed down by her. A few things you may like to know going in…

- you have the option of getting your birthday suit sprayed in its entirety
- upon said spray, you have to stand in your birthday suit for at least 5-10 for it to set
- if you’re with your friends, you and your friends will be standing around in your birthday suits making jokes
- wearing elastic, underwire or anything binding is prohibited as it will ruin the evenness.
and what could be the most important
- you can not shower for at least 4 hours after getting sprayed

So that means you will be walking around town as your tan sets darker and darker, because you have errands to run for the bride, with a nasty grease mop on top your head, in loose clothing, without deodorant. I’d say that’s a win win for everyone involved.

We did get to hide for the first 2 hours in her sister’s bedroom at their parent’s house. But afterward had so many things to do, leaving the confines of the room was necessary.

We finally rushed to the lodge where she was getting married and had 20 minutes from the moment we arrived to shower, scrub off as much as possible and be at the rehearsal. As I was relishing in the fact I was about to shampoo my hair, I realized there was no lather. I squirted more in my hand, rubbed vigorously on my head and, nothing.

I put conditioner in both the travel bottles.

Precious minutes were ticking by as I frantically grabbed the hotel supply and washed away the grease. Even though I pride myself on putting on makeup in 8 minutes flat, I did it even quicker that night as all of us bridesmaids were running late.

We ran up the hill to everyone waiting for us and the rehearsal finally began…with my hair dripping wet…in the cold Carmel Valley evening. I scraped that puppy back in a bun and didn’t think twice about it… ok, that’s a lie. Who doesn’t worry about the lumps and bumps when you don’t have a mirror?!

The rehearsal dinner was set to take place at a local cantina and after we practiced walking, we headed out for some great food. The food was amazing. The best chili rellenos I’ve ever had and of course I ate way too many chips and salsa to fully enjoy my plate.

It was a chilly chilly night, but thankfully they had heaters every 4 feet of each other. I’m pretty sure we all would have frozen to death without them, but the evening was wonderful. Everyone around were so great to talk with. The other bridesmaid and I were thoroughly enjoying our ‘glow’ after our showers.

The evening got only sweeter when they brought out the best ice cream any of us had ever had. Our bellies were stuffed to the brim but that didn’t stop any of us from indulging with knives, we were too eager to wait for spoons. And of course the evening was beautifully topped off with G-man’s arrival with a hug that lasted 5 minutes straight in the middle of the parking lot.

A belated apology to all cars who had to go around us and for eliciting many awkward stares.

But it was worth it.

The tan was worth it, the hug was worth it…everything was well worth it. Pin It Now!

A thankful me - 32

Do you ever look forward to something and count down to it? Of course you do! Who doesn’t?!

I realized last Friday that Labor Day is in 2 weeks. When I saw I was getting that Monday off, I was so excited and proceeded to count down the days. 2 Mondays away, my friends…2 Mondays away.

I had a pretty decent weekend. All went well with it ending with my neighbor coming over with wine in hand. Though I must admit, I was having some major guilt going on all weekend long. How much less would you think of me if I said that I’m still editing my friend’s family pictures…and the wedding I helped do…from 3 months ago? That truthfully, I haven’t even touched the wedding pictures and up until yesterday, had only edited 5 of my friend’s family pictures?

I finished the family pictures last night. see…

…and as I was sipping wine with my friend, all I could think about was the fact I haven’t even gotten to the wedding pictures yet. And not only that, but it struck me that I took the groomsmen pictures… not the other photographer. I completely forgot that I was the only one to take those.

Have I been really busy these past 3 months? Yes. But have there been moments where I sat on the couch not moving for hours? Yes.

The guilt deepened when out of the blue, the bride texts me. As soon as I saw her name, I knew it was over the pictures (obviously), and sure enough she was asking for them..or at least the grooms pictures. To say I wanted to crawl under a rock is an understatement. What a let down I’ve been!

I now have a very tight deadline to get them done. Ironically, I have just about no time to do them this week, my schedule is jam packed, but I can’t really feel bad about that since I’ve put it off for so long. I don’t know when it happened but I’ve noticed I’ve become a last minute girl. Putting projects off until the last minute at work. Projects I have 30 days to complete that I’m doing from start to finish on day 30.

I tell myself repeatedly how I need to get on it, but still manage to ‘find other things’ to do. SO if you were thinking of me for your family pictures (you locals who read my blog), uuhh you may wanna consider someone else.

whoo! Didn’t mean to be so long winded about that but when your weekend is fraught with guilt, guess that’s all a person can talk about.

I will say I’m thankful I got one group of pictures done. Relieved is a better word for it.

How was your weekend? Hopefully nothing filled you with guilt, cause it’s a bit if a weekend killer, ya know…

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When sharks and jellies attack

Ok, no sharks or jelly fish attacks actually happened. Sorry.

I’m jumping ahead of the remaining wedding posts {for the moment} to share the post trip to Monterey that G-man and I took. He’d never been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium before so we were set to make a little stop before making the long drive back to my place.

I’ll let you enjoy the pictures today…

I hope your weekend goes swimmingly. *har har

Until Monday, my friends!

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I wish you sick

All last week I had to work and if anyone knows, working while you have a visitor..a visitor you haven’t seen in 5 months isn’t all that fun. I made sure to keep work out of the know with G-man being in town, even though I got asked daily where my car was, I was able to skirt the question each and every time, citing my generosity to others who were in need of it. you didn’t know I was so humble, did you?

So as the days went on I sort of kind of schemed a bit. …just a little bit.

By Wednesday, I had this crazy secret idea to maybe call into work Thursday to spend an entire day with him. This was going to prove a bit difficult since I’m the only one that does my job and they always comment on how hard it would be for them if I wasn’t there. We had gone out to eat with friends and their 1 1/2 year old (who was sick) and as we were walking out to our cars, she called out, ‘this sounds mean, but I hope you get sick!’ My first thought was, that that wasn’t very nice of her to say, but then the mice started running and I figured out what she meant…and laughed back.

But as the night progressed I was starting to have second thoughts and feel guilty about it all. especially when another girl had just been fired days before for always calling in… It’s one thing to call into prison whenever I wanted. I had 100+ co workers to fill in for me, but here there’s no one!

I was still on the fence about it all when I went to sleep but then 3am hit. I was rudely awoken to being sick. Honest to goodness sick. Went to bed feeling great, woke up barely able to breathe! - Let’s pause and thank God for that one! - You can bet I picked up that phone at 7am to call my boss saying I wasn’t coming in. It got worse throughout the day but we still went out shopping…even though I wanted to lay on the floor at Best Buy, I was so weary.

All throughout the day I couldn’t believe I actually got sick but knew no matter what I had to go into work the next day. How bad would that be calling in 2 days in a row!? As my co workers began arriving they were stressing to me to go home. (its always good when they see that I was telling the truth, you know?) Finally the boss showed up and (though reluctant) let me go “home” at 1.

Only, I didn’t go home. >>evil laugh<< I drove to San Francisco to meet up with my love who was already there to enjoy our last weekend together, and if you follow me on IG, you’d know I showed the first ‘face’ picture of him. Cause I’m generous like that.

crossing over the bay bridge


It may be odd, but I’m thankful God gave me sickness to spend a few extra hours with G-man. It was needed and appreciated. Pin It Now!

Facebook official

I got the official word that my sister’s news has become Facebook official. And if you know, NOTHING’S official  unless it’s Facebook official. So I’m extremely excited to finally gush, myself.

feel free to note my nephew’s oddly swollen right foot…

#4, here we come!! My dear sister is beyond sick with this one. I think sicker than she’s ever been with any others, so my heart’s going out to her.

This little one will make number 11 for the family. 11! craziness! They’re taking care of me not needing to have any… kidding. but really, by the time I have some kiddies they’ll all be, ‘meh..been there done that.’ but I hope not. or maybe to stand out, I need to get them to a big number. Say like 20!

Ok, so that would mean I would need 3 sets of triplets...or 4 sets of twins and a single...or 2 sets of triplets, 1 set of twins and a single…but that single would always feel left out..so maybe 2 singles, 1 set of triplets and 2 sets of twins.. yes! yes! that’ll work perfectly!

aaaaand I’ve returned to planet earth.

I have to say, I’m eternally grateful and flattered that quite a few friends and family entrusted me with their expectant news before announcing it but I need to tell you all, it was difficult stuff keeping it under wraps! You know who you are.. with that said, for all you secretly expecting ladies out there, this is a testament to me being an EXCELLENT secret keeper so feel free to gush to me your exciting news.

You’ll be in good hands. Promise.

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