"What is this great sickness?"

"Why on gods great green earth do we have this insatiable desire to compare ourselves with others? What is this great sickness?" ---Zack Arias

Via photopol.us.

"We are not quitters."

And I think about Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina – a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom. She has been told that her school is hopeless, but the other day after class she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this room. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp. The letter asks us for help, and says, "We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters. #

My eyes well up and I tuck under the blanket a little more thinking to myself, "stupid pregnancy hormones...."

And then Daniel starts blubbering next to me, "That's good stuff," takes his glasses off to knock a tear from his cheek and I think, I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN.

Dino Scales + ramble

Daniel and Penn were somehow made for one another. Think, "Horton Hatches an Egg."

It makes me happy to see them happy.

I'm not the easiest thing to make happy these days. How is it we so easily forget that BEING PREGNANT KIND OF SUCKS. All at once I feel sexy and brilliant and elated AND hideous and morose with rocks for brains.

Montecristo

Maternity Portrait

To all of the many pregnant women out there, Angela is proof that you can be very pregnant and also stunning. Stun-ning. We shot so many and I'm only showing very clothed ones in this public forum. But I promise you, it is the not as clothed ones that would really take your breath away.

Angela, Joe and their daughters are the sweetest, happiest little family and I am so grateful to have gotten to take this portrait.

Now----I can't wait to meet the new one!!!

Hmmm

Hmmm, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

Valentines Day 2009

I didn't take a single photo. Which means I must have enjoyed myself. :)

My dad came in from Arkansas to watch the Pennster while Daniel treated us to the fabulous Dallas Fish Market and Magnolia Hotel for the night.

It was a fantastic evening, par usual when Daniel is in charge. After dinner we walked over to watch Ian Moore, but the creature in my belly is not fond of eating out it seems, so we headed back to enjoy a childless evening in the room.

In the morning we went down for breakfast and were evacuated due to a fire in the basement. My house shoes and hoodie were not quite enough to keep me warm so we walked to the Urban Cafe to wait it out. We made it up 17 flights of smokey smelling stairs back to our room and took our time checking out.

The day was wrapped up with Cheesecake Factory deserts for the women and children and good cigars and beer for the men.

I am more in love every day. And it has nothing to do with hotels or restaurants. It has everything to do with how easily I am forgiven when I iron, but forget to actually pack his nice shirt, etc. I can't wait until we're old.

2007 vs. 2009

Good vs. Evil, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

Click here for more photos.

Daniel and I caught on pixels at Cohabitat

Geek Talks @ CoHabitat in Dallas, originally uploaded by giovanni gallucci.

Everyone else pictured here. Photo by Giovanni.

Sips & Bites

Last night we had a dinner date with Rip and Gavin at Kozy. I discovered Kozy when it became an assignment for a Modern Luxury article and we've been a fan ever since. On the way we passed Sips & Bites and I thought out loud about how I wanted to go there based on the name and storefront alone.

Luckily (?) Kozy closes at 3 on Mondays. So we sauntered over and were super delighted the whole night through.

I believe a meal should be an experience. A dream concocted especially for me by a talented chef and an evening conducted by a clever server. So cheers to Sips & Bites for making that happen. Cheers to the lovely decor that kept us curious the whole meal through. Cheers to attending to details right down to the menu. Never have I been so fascinated with a menu.

I had potato flautas, conveniently pictured in the slideshow on their home page and thus here. But I'm pretty sure anything off the menu is delicious.

Vanderslice Salon

Erica Felicella and I were invited to be the guests on Vanderslice Salon to discuss photography and the topic, "Is there too much noise in our lives?"

Rick, RJ and Erica are a stellar group and far more articulate with their thoughts than I. I am a little more occupied with symbolic noise than I am actual noise.

(billboards and spam and forwarded emails and junk mail and litter and exes-who-won't-go-away and whining and incompetency and social network flair/tags/groups/pokes and vanity and dishonesty and etiquette and schedules and commercials and dog poop and soliciting and airs-of-self-importance and immediacy and fidgeting and people who don't bathe and cigarette smoke and people who take up two parking spaces and feelings and people who frown all day and impatient people and negative people and sensational headlines and tabloids and automated telephone systems and dirty fingernails and drunkenness and too much skin and my own brain and and and and)

Except for this morning when the garbage men came and gave the whole canine neighborhood something to bark at and suddenly the world whirring around my bed seemed very loud.

I HATE BARKING DOGS.

(Make your dog stop barking. Turn your music down. Take your wailing child to the next room. Stop slamming doors. Stop yelling. Stop talking about nothing. Stop talking about nothing. Stop talking about nothing.)

The new EP, now with more ...

Tito, Rex and Rose

Tito, Rex and Rose, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

Penn and I made Bendaroo bugs. (They're actually Wikki Sticks, but don't dare tell him mom got a different brand.)

15 weeks

15 weeks, originally uploaded by carissabyers.