Crazybananas

Every year it happens. I slowly stop posting as much to the blog. I fade away from Twitter and Facebook and my Google Reader. I should really just put it on my calendar. And yet, every year, I’m surprised when I realize I need a break from it all.

Though the interweb gives me so many good things, so much inspiration and happiness and joy, it can also tend to suck me in when I am needed elsewhere. And right now I am most definitely needed elsewhere.

This next month is full of exciting, incredible things. A first ever girlfriends vacation (and a first real trip away from Lucy). A baby shower for a good friend (and possibly a baby!). A family vacation to the beach. Seeing our new baby and finding out if it’s a boy or a girl. Life, man. It’s just nutso.

So, until mid-August, I’m out. Inspired by the lovely Gwen Bell I am taking a digital sabbatical. I’m closing down the Google Reader. I’m deleting TweetDeck from my laptop and my phone. Ditto with my Facebook app.

What will I be doing. Well, I’ll still be answering emails, as work and life insist on it. I’ll still check in to my IM once a day, but only for 20 minutes each time. I’ll occasionally post pictures to Flickr (which is linked to Twitter, so there may even be a Twitter update here or there). I will answer texts and phone calls. So I guess I’m not totally gone, just a bit harder to reach. Although, being hard to reach isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if you need me, you can find me. And if it’s not worth the extra effort, you obviously didn’t need me that badly anyway.

Other things I intend on doing:

- Reading two novels.
- Make a storybook with Lulu.
- Spend countless nights/weekends swimming at the pool.
- Get in some much needed girlfriend time.
- Trade jokes with friends.
- Drink cherry limades.
- Laugh my ass off.
- Grow a new baby.
- Teach Lu to ride her two-wheeler.
- Have several movie nights.
- Do yoga weekly (or more…hopefully more!).
- Journal in a real book.
- Create something.
- Cross two things off my life list.

Until August, my lovelies!

Ready. Set. Live!

Just so you all know, no one is getting presents this year. I’m gonna be a little busy.

Baby Project 2.0 is due on December 23, 2010. Here is a picture of it at 10 weeks old, looking remarkabley blob like, just as Lucy did at that stage.

(You can see Lulu at around the same age here. She’s more of a “I’m way cool and just hang out in the corner” kind of girl, while this one is all “BACKFLIPS!!! I AM ALL OVER THE PLACE WOOOO!” At least, sonogram-wise.)

Luckily for you, the morning sickness phase passed a few weeks ago, so you won’t see gems like this one this time around. This pregnancy is different from mine with Lucy in so many ways, it would be idiotic to list them all here. All I can say is we are thrilled and excited and Lucy has set aside her old tricycle for the new baby. She also gets on Trent daily to build out our new room in the basement so the baby can have the one that’s currently his office.

Really, kids are great for assisting in the household nagging duties. You should get yourself one. Or two.

OMIGOD….two.

Me: Oh, new Netflix movies came today. That one that you asked me to put in the queue is there.

Trent: I actually got a movie?!

[Insinuates that most of the time I manage the queue so the movies we get are always for me…mostly true. Leaves the room to check said movies.]

Trent: Wait, which one is for me?

Me: I dunno, the one that you emailed me and told me to put in there. I don’t know what it’s about.

Trent: So the other two are for you?

Me: Yeah.

Trent: You rented the entire season of Firefly?!?!

Me: So?

Trent: Well, that’s taking your geekiness to a whole new level, babe…actually, I would watch that with you.

Me: Seriously?!

Trent: Sure, you know what it’s about, right? Didn’t they make a movie after the season was over?

Me: Yeah, Serenity. Already seen it.

Trent: Wow. How in the world did you ever start watching this?

Me: Well, it’s made by the same guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer! And Dollhouse! And Dr. Horrible! And it stars Captain Hammer!

Trent: There it is….

A few months back, a lovely reader (I know, right? I can’t believe anyone reads this thing either, but apparently they do!) emailed me out of the blue. She had been following my site for a while, and wanted to know if I ever did any photography on the side. She was getting married in the summer, and wondered if I would be interested in shooting her wedding.

And then I passed out. Blam. On the ground.

When I woke up, I wrote and re-wrote an email to this dear reader, explaining that, sure, I have an okay camera and yes, do from time to time take pictures for friends or whatever, but I am NOT (NOT NOT NOT) a professional photographer. Or even an unprofessional one. I mean, I would call myself a novice at best. Mostly, I’d just call myself a faker. Because I have no idea what I’m doing.

Well, the email was a bit more eloquent than that, but those are the main points I tried to get across.

The lovely reader then responded by saying she totally understood my stance, but really liked my snapshots and wondered if I’d be interested in photographing her wedding anyway.

I thought about it for a long time. I mean, as much as I love taking pictures, someone’s wedding day is a pretty big deal. And messing up one’s wedding day. Somehow screwing up the only photos one has from that day. Ooof. That’s some pressure I’m not well equipped to handle. But after some Venn diagrams and pro/con lists, I decided to give it a shot. The wedding was outside, which I was comfortable with. I don’t use a flash (blech) so I don’t take as good of shots indoors, but the lovely bride knew that and was still pumped for me to shoot her beautiful, outdoor, June wedding.

Can you see where this is going?

Yeah, so it’s apparently monsoon season in Kansas and on the Sara and Kris’ big day, you needed a boat to get to the marriage site. Crap.

The ceremony was moved in to a very dimly lit chapel. And all the while Sara and her husband to be seemed calm, cool and excited. They really are the best couple ever. And I tried to maintain my cool as well, although inside I was scared to death.

Sara and Kris, thank you for trusting me when I wasn’t sure I trusted myself. I hope I can do your day a bit of the justice it deserves. You two are an amazing couple and I hope the honeymoon was incredible. Special thanks as well to Miss KT, who came with me and held an umbrella over my head. We joked that she was like P. Diddy’s umbrella-assistant, Mr. Farnsworth. Well, she was joking. I obviously, was quite serious.

(Sidenote: This past weekend, my little family and I had the amazing opportunity to do a shoot with the wonderful and talented Nicole as she preps for a brand relaunch. When I was telling her my story of shooting this wedding, she was all, “That’s what I get a rush from, taking a situation and just making it work.” Apparently I do not have the brain or heart to be a wedding photographer, because to me, that’s just terrifying.)

To all you dads out there, I hope your weekend is full of golf, bourbon, a beer or two, maybe even fishing on a lake. I hope your kids tell you how much you are loved. Because you totally are. Dads are the best.

To the dad in our house, Lucy is so lucky to have you. And she knows it. And so do I.

And to you grandads out there, you have a good one too. May your day be full of homemade cards and envelopes full of special rocks (to the grandpa’s pictured, I hope that doesn’t spoil the surprise). I never knew either of my grandfathers, so watching Lucy with her THREE grandpa’s has been quite an experience for me. Seriously, this kid is ridiculously lucky.