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mad hot ballroom

i've escaped to mary's house to work again. processing photos, organizing and uploading them for my clients. i love mary's house. and her mom. and the pumpkin pie and bucket 'o chocolate sitting next to me.

since we're both so busy, me with the computer and mary with the chemistry, we tend to pop in a movie. tonight mary rented mad hot ballroom.

listen to me. you must go see this documentary about a group of new york 5th graders who learn to ballroom dance. you will smile and laugh the whole way through. you will smile and laugh harder if you have children.

10 stars.

stupidist thing i've ever bought

and it's for the dog, no less. 'cause, despite the sunny texas afternoon, the evenings are cold. i'm totally wearing a tobogan on my head as i type this 'cause i'm just that cold. and my glasses. maybe the combination will distract the world from my recent stress and hormone induced break-out.

so it's cold, and i totally want the puppy to sleep outside. he has a fancy new dog house given to us by the neighbors, but he's so damned cute. and little. he got last night inside. and i got poop in my living room this morning.

the gate is to keep the puppy in the giant dining room where he can mooch off of the cat's water and i'll know where to find the poop. but it's a dumb gate. it took both benji and i to open it all the way, only to find that our doorway is too wide. back to target tomorrow. maybe i'll buy myself a cold cold heart to endure putting the puppy outside for the night.

progress: the puppy who, for a week, balked and tormented the evil leash, finally gave in tonight and walked a mile with me!

totally the best thing i bought.

carissa byers photography: engagement portrait

love is a rare and sometimes fleeting thing in this world. which is one of the reasons i've grown to enjoy engagement portraits and weddings. i'm surrounded by it!
i get to hear so many how-we-met stories and witness the lighting up of so many eyes. it's neat.

all the relationships i've come to encounter vary by so much, and yet they're all on the same path to marriage.
of course, all of those marriages will be different too. what is marriage anyway? but this couple? so. much. fun.

i've worked my ass off the past two weeks. i've worked more the past two weeks than i did all of last month. the timing and income couldn't be better. more on those goodies later.

trying so hard not to puke

oh. my. god. mary's 19 year old cat just puked in front of me. i am so disgusted.

and now mary's doing a little dance on a little towel on the white foamy cat vomit. equally silly.

so fucking tempting

i'm a geek. mary and i just spent two hours on the phone (when we live a block away from one another) discussing world history and comparing maps.

there was also the regular venting on the crazy people in our lives, bin laden, why we should be president, a little bush bashing and a really long discussion about religion.

and because i am am becoming more certain each day that i was born to push that big red controversy button, i wish right now that this wasn't such a public display of my thoughts that just so happens to be connected to my photography website.

sometimes, in the big big world opinions and business do not mix. sometimes family and the public don't mix. which really sucks because i've got my finger out about as far as it will go and i can't bring myself to push those buttons right now.

a little piece of published

i was looking on renee's website to check something out before i mailed her photos out and was happily surprised to see that a photo i took for her made it into marie claire! unfortunatley it was for october, 2005. i don't even have a copy.

renee rouleau

i haven't posted a lot of work lately. 'cause i've been too busy working. i even checked out a daycare for the pennster today to try and gain a couple hours during the day and eliminate this 4a.m. stuff. i'm such a night owl.
fun stuff planned for tomorrow. in the meantime, this is renee rouleau and she is fabulous.

i won't tell you the things i can't say

my brain is bulging. bursting at the seams of my skull. there are some phenominal things happening for me right now that i just can't share. yet.

to be vague, i'll say i'm honored at the popularity. i'm honored at all the people that have gone out of their way to contact me and share with me and have opened their doors for my art and for my thoughts. i had no idea i'd actually have a chance to go 'round making dreams come true.

i 've lost count of how many phonecalls and e-mails i've gotten just this week that have me looking down from cloud 9.

the long lost friend from way back when that i will soon have the pleasure of reuniting with, well, that's just damned exciting and so fitting in the glorious carnival ride that is my world.

though that planet is right now turning on a rainbow axis, it is not without its darks spots. but the place to air, clean and inspect those thoughts is not the internet. that place is my friend mary's house at the end of the block, that i run to at every opportunity so that i may continue in the realm of sanity, hope and production. there i can say anything i want, as loud as i want, smoke a lot of ciggarettes and without fail she will see it the way i do and help me make bombs.

i'm kidding.

i have a key to her house. if i could marry that key right now i would. god. mary is like the keystone of my functionality sometimes.

i am so many things right now, including busy, excited and busy. but for now, i'll have to follow my wisebaby son and keep a lid on it. damnit.

meet ringo

2:00 sunday. dog park. little girl runs past screaming, "free puppies! one more left!" within seconds i locate a shady looking man standing by a basket marked "free puppies." i find the "one left" surrounded by puppy hungry eyes, break through and nab it. i ask the shady man what kind. "lab chow mix. this tall. seven weeks old." i look at benji and he says, "as long as i don't have to clean or pay for anything."

in the same manner one would yell bingo i said, "we'll take him." i don't even remember if i consulted shady man, really, but no one stopped us.

i have been craving, debating and stopping myself from getting penn a puppy for a long time. the mess, the hair, the maintence, the begging, nevermind, no thank you. i can't begin to explain the quick and spontaneous nature of us bringing this puppy home.

but some things just feel right and COME ON! this puppy is absolutley, 100% perfect. he looks like a toy. like he should have a mattel tag on his butt. like you should be able to insert double A batteries somewhere, wind him up and watch him do flips.

he and penn are falling in love. the puppy sleeps most of the time, if he's not playing chase with penn or taking a ride in the cart to "home depot." (according to penn we have a large home depot in our back yard where you can buy wood anytime you want!)

meet ringo, the newest addition to our family. so far he attracts more company than we do.

potty in the house vs. yard: house 0, yard 4.

my hair's getting fan mail

the response to my hair cut news has been surprisingly overwhelming. there are e-mails coming in requesting photos. whether or not i just didn't try very hard or i suck at self portraits, you'll never know.

here for all the internet to see is my hair. a free cut under the directions: wack the back off, uneven, choppy, totally punk, don't touch the front. kinome cuts my hair. i adore kinome. she's amazing, but i couldn't resist a free cut. i am honestly really really happy with it. total wash and go. short hair has quickly fallen into the same boat as tatoos and piercings.

addictive.

i said it: a comment i made on another blog

it is totally a field trip. it is totally disney world. and if you had a big ass extended family (or even one small tot) you too would revel in the lump that would lodge itself in your throat when someone announced they were going to the Big Ass Grocery store and everyone would cram themselves in the tiny car that can barely hold all the people, much less the food they were about to buy.

i'm just saying.

my son calls her kite and we don't know why

i love my mary. i think mary was one of the pulls that brought us into this neighborhood. and now she lives at the end of my block. she's fabulous and pulls the gamut from giving you the shirt off her back to giving you the finger.

and i love mary's very long hair.

but i really love mary's new do! and i'm sure the cancer patient who recieves her hair in a wig, courtesy of her donation to locks of love will love it too.

amazing, i tell you, how different she looks. hot mama. and, well, it just sort've happened for me, and now i don't have any hair either. ha.

the year of the dog

we gave penn away to the little gym so we could ring in the new year with the poster couple for perfection, kinome and collin in their new abode.

penn partied till 1 in the a.m. god knows what they did, but when we picked him up he was one of the few still-awake kids laying on mats watching "toy story." when we got home he asked to watch "bugs life." seriously? oh hell, why not. it's new years. so benji went to sleep and penn and i watched bugs life and then slept until noon.

this picture represents 2005.

for us it was just a long ride. filled with bleary eyes and indulgance. it resembled every other year in that it seemed to just fly on through, but it came with definite distinctions. we bought a house, i got a business going, penn turned into a toddler with words, we traveled to memphis, canada, michigan and all the places inbetween. we added a cat, a tivo and a big screen tv to our family. benji and i experienced the never-before-seen-by-me dramatic ups and downs of being in a relationship and being a parent.

it's probably been one of the harder years in facing who i am, but that's probably because i've never been so challenged to define who i am than i was this year. i've come across new questions and obstacles and new answers that i never thought would fit into my life.

i'm still stupid grateful for every aspect of my life. for every thing and for every person, including you. i feel like 2006 will be a time of renewel. for myself and for our world.

into 2006 i bring with me my one constant: i am happy. good and happy.