guess what i won!!

its been a rough few days.  really sick and feeling pretty yucky all around.  but then i got online and was reading through my favorite blogs and discovered that i had won a $60 gift certificate to csnstores.com from jen of createoften.  so i've been searching over there and found the perfect laptop bag.

now, im just waiting for the e-mail letting me know its back in stock.  im so excited about it!! 
and you really should check out jen's blog.  she has so many inspiring posts and interviews with amazing designers.  and her blog layout is too cute!!
thanks again jen! 

eight questions

my blogger friend jamie posted this on  her blog and i thought i would be fun to play along... im just gonna answer her 8 questions...

1. What is your favorite day of the year?
my wedding anniversary.  it was just a few days ago, and i love to celebrate the love chris and i share. 
2. If you could have dinner with 3 people, who would they be?
elizabeth gilbert, nancy doren and my mum.  now that would be an inspiring dinner party! 
3. What's your favorite song right now?
i keep listening to kelly clarkson's  "all i ever wanted" album.  loving the whole thing right now.
4. Name the last 5 things you purchased.
coffee, gray tights, dear lizzy scrapbook paper, new pens and sunglasses for my hubs. 
5. What do you order at McDonalds?
usually a mushroom swiss angus burger, but lately i've been craving nuggets! 
6. Are you a hugger?
oh yeah...  
7. Would you rather get a shot from a doctor or a filling from a dentist?
i've never had a filling, and shots don't bother me at all.
8. What is your favorite type of exercise?
i love to swim...  after my car accident, that was the best therapy for me and i've loved it ever since then. 

i hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  im going to be scrapbooking and eating steak with friends.  :D

eat, pray, love

during our road trip i read this book. well, i more like devoured, savored, indulged in and cherished this book. i am going to start it again... probably this afternoon. it was moving, heartfelt and inspiring. i cannot wait for the movie this summer. i know that there is no way for it to be "as good" as the book, but i have tingles just from the trailer. enjoy. and please, read the book!! 
"Eat, pray, love" by Elizabeth Gilbert 

we are home

we arrived home last night at almost exaclty mid-night.  the remnants of a long trip are now scattered across the living room floor... and all over my arms, in the form of mosquito bites.
i wish that i could say "this vacation was exactly what we needed.  the most refreshing trip we've ever taken and now we feel all rested and stress-free and ready to attack life with a renewed vigor"

but i can't say that.
because it is far from the truth.

i return home with a heavy heart and a deep pain in my gut.  i have a hard time letting go of things that i know are beyond my control, but i feel like i caused.  i am more stressed out now then when we left.  wondering the proper way to proceed, or whether or not i should take any action at all. i have learned that people aren't always who they seem, that people who say they are christians don't always act christian, and that a lot can change in 2 years. 
i cried a lot this week.

but honestly, not for all bad reasons.
the convention was a complete blessing that made me cry too.  i am planning on sharing some of my favorite points from it in a future blog post.  and it was so nice to see old friends and people that i knew growing up.  i got to introduce my husband to friends for the first time.  and i learned that there are many out there reading my blog that i didn't know about (this is your shout-out Ida!!  thanks for reading and for saying hello).
we did enjoy the driving part of our trip.  which was about 14 hours both ways.  :P  spencer came with us and he did sooo good in the car.  slept a lot and entertained himself in the back seat.  im proud of him.  our little family loves road trips.

and we celebrated our anniversary on our trip.  we told each other "happy anniversary" more times than humanly possible, and told each other again and again of our love for the other.  we talked about how we felt 3 years ago and how we feel now.  and how in love we still are.

i try to focus on the good things... even though, honestly, i need another vacation to recover emotionally from our vacation!!  chris and i have decided next time we need a getaway... we're really going to GET AWAY!  go somewhere no one knows us and relax.  a cruise maybe??

so now its back to our lives here.  and i am so happy to be home.  in my own bed, in my own house, in my own little town.

and just because i can't post without at least one picture... here is one of spencer that chris took.  he is getting to be such a great photographer!! 

quote of the day

"love is the weather being good every day... because wind and rain are just another kind of good weather.  that is love."

for three years...

this is the face i've waken up to, fell asleep next to, kissed, laughed with, cried with, argued with, dreamed with and loved.  and i wouldn't want it any other way....

thank you husband for coming into my life, for loving me for me, and for wanting to make this wonderful, amazing, crazy, beautiful life with me.  these last three years have been the best years of my life.
i love you to life.

i just had to share

i know i said i was taking a blogging break, but i am so excited for our vacation... and since we're going to be seeing so many of my friends from my childhood i felt that i just needed freshly done hair.  so i got ahold of hannah last minute and she did my hair last night.  so here is my before and after!!  (i love doing these!)

the color that she used is new and has microcrystals in it that makes my hair glitter in the sunlight.  i love how it turned out.  yay for new hair color!  :D

taking a break...

im going to take a little blogging break for a few days.  its been a really rough week and i need some space and time to get my head around things.  isn't it so true that just when you think things are calming down and you're feeling good it all comes crashing down around you??

so here i am.... post crash.

but there are things to look forward to.  chris and i are leaving wednesday for our little road trip / vacation / anniversary getaway.  we're heading up to prince george, bc canada.  its going to be a 14 hour drive.  and we're taking our puppy.  and we are sooo excited.  i promise to take lots of pictures and maybe share a few. ;)

i think this trip is exactly what i need right now.
im eager to get on the road.
be back soon....

{source}

the good and the bad

sometimes life sucks.... like really sucks.  but there are other times when something good comes from the bad that has you smiling so big your cheeks hurt.

chris and i had one of those moments yesterday.

ever since chris got hired at Consolidated Disposal he's been leaving at 4 in the morning in our one working car.  that left me stranded and begging rides from neighbors and friends for almost a month.  finally i had it.  i said, okay, we'll take what money we have and get one of the other cars up and running, cuz i can't keep doing this.  so we did.  we bought a new battery, changed the oil, replaced this, fixed that (you can tell im really good with cars...lol) and got chris' old car working again.

except for the tires.  one was completely bald.  like the steel was showing through.  so we pulled it off and put the spare tire there.  then we'd had this problem with one of the other tires going flat because it had a bend rim.  so we bought a new rim.  problem solved.  or so we thought...

last week the tire went flat again.  assuming it was the same problem i just filled it with air again and drove home like normal.  chris bought some fix-a-flat, which the intention of using it once the air was all out of the tire again.  so tuesday morning i woke up, checked the tire, which looked the same as the day before and got in and drove to the post office.  3/4 of the way there i felt that horrible "thud-thud" feeling and knew i was completely flat.  bummer.  so now im stranded at the post office. a nice couple gave me a ride home and i waited till chris got off work.  we headed to the post office and tried the fix-a-flat.  and chris found a sizable puncture in the tire.  apparently that was the problem!  :P

so we pulled the tire off and headed for Les Schwab to have them patch it, which they will do for free.  but once they looked at it, i had ruined the tire by driving on just the rim the remaining way to the post office that morning.  they said we would have to buy a brand new tire.  and we dont have the money.  we got this news while we were out running other errands and we both felt just deflated.  after spending money getting the car running, it seemed as though i would be stuck again without a vehicle, at least until payday.

so we went back to Les Schwab to pick up our lonely rim.  i stayed in the car while chris went inside.  and he was in there like 15 minutes.  i was beginning to wonder what was going on when out the door he came with the biggest smile on his face and a brand new tire on the rim.  he caught my eye and mouthed  "FREE!!"  apparently the tire was still under warranty since it had almost full tread and so they just replaced it for us!!  i haven't seen my boy smile that big in a long time.  it made my heart so full.

so home we went to put the new tire back on the car.  and i got to work just fine this morning.  :)

  yay for good customer service and happy husbands.  :) 

my anniversary present

it has arrived!!  husband bought me some "new glass" as my anniversary present for our 3 years together.  (i got him a new phone!)  we ordered it early so we would have it in time for our trip and it got to me in 4 days!  that was crazy fast shipping.  we also ordered a remote which will make my self-portraits so much easier!!

previously i borrowed my friend marta's "nifty-fifty" lens when doing shoots (like my friend tracy's maternity shoot) and fell in love with the magic that is f/1.8.  i knew i just had to have one of my own.  we've been trying to save to buy me a professional camera, but you know how that goes... something always comes up that needs the money more.  but, my friend marta recently got one herself, and is now letting me borrow her rebel!!  she is so kind to me.  that made it easy for us to just buy that one special lens for this camera.  im in love!!   

oh yes, i am a very happy girl!!
ps. the flowers are from my mum.  she got some from her garden and some she stopped along the side of the road and picked them for me on her way to visit.  she is so thoughtful. :)

quote of the day

"the most progress is made with the fewest steps when what you are looking for is right in front of you."

my 'lil sir

spencer and i did some photos together this week.  i wanted him to be in my picture for my 52weeks project.  this is the final shot.  how cute is this boy??  :)

and here are some more of my little puppy.  i just cant get enough of his cute boxer face.  i am smitten for sure!!

spencer gets the hiccups a lot, and its so cute.  he got a little ball from chris' mum that he just loves to chase around the living room.  he likes things in pairs... socks, shoes, toys.  we gave him one old sock to chew on and play with and he found another one too so he would have two.  he likes music a lot and calms down when chris sings to him before bed.  he is having fun exploring his back yard and running around as fast as he can.  he is afraid of rain and refuses to go potty outside when it is raining.  with all the rain we've been having recently, that is making it very hard to house train this boy.  he loves to cuddle with me, but loves playing rough with chris.  he bats at things with his paws like a cat does.  he has never been in the kitchen, and has learned that we don't want him in there.  so he just sits in the dining room right at the threshold to the kitchen when we're in there.  he loves to be with us wherever we are.  he makes me so happy.  i am glad to have a companion for my days.

hop on over to my other blog to read the poem i wrote for this week's picture.  you can see it HERE.
so, im a very happy puppy mum.
i can't wait to scrapbook all about my boy!!

things i love thursday

i have always been, and probably always will be, drawn to that perfect spot of light in a photograph... a sunflair.  it is magical and special and adds such whimsy to a picture.  that is my theme for today's post... my love for the sunflair!!

to start with i have my Flickr collage.  there are so many great ones, it was hard to narrow it down.

1. Rooftops and Treetops, 2. You took my hand, I took your heart, 3. dream, 4. twins, 5. sky fell over me., 6. Retro Love

see what i mean??  as a photographer myself, i love to use sunflairs in my own photos too.  here are a few of my favorites that i've taken.

these are my favorites.
these make me smile.
sunflairs on a thursday... what more could i {love}??

how you're having a wonderful thursday!!

quote of the day

"life is short~ break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile."

MAY 2010:   this month chris and i brought home our puppy, spencer, i was a blog sponsor over at kylaroma.com, i enjoyed the lilac bushes surrounding my house, THe CrEatiVe TyPe was featured over at ScrapStreet.com magazine, i played along over at the cybercrop @ Scrapbooking from the Inside Out and won one of the challenges, i redesigned my blog for the first time in a year and a half, i did a guest blog at Amy Lapi's blog all about my 52weeks project, fell deeper in love with purple, gray and yellow, took lots of cute pictures of my new puppy, learned how to create a widget for my new blog design, supported my husband at the karaoke contest, fell in love with hazelnut flavoring in my coffee, had happy photography "customers" who loved their prints, got the other car up and running, laughed at the things chris has been saying in his sleep, fell in love with pictures printed on metallic paper, had our final performance of Razia's Shadow, got an amazing phone call telling me that i am one of the newest members of the Design Team over at Scrapbooking from the Inside Out!! failed one of my quizzes and had a breakdown about my course, scrapbooked with paper and scrapblog.com, planned for future photo shoot collaborations for my 52weeks project, was a shipping middle-man again, started doing special quotes on my blog and finalized plans for our vacation!!