Got my hair cut and colored this morning. Go here for pictures

T*’s mom sent this to me. She made this cake for his birthday.
Awesome, yes?
One more thing I’ll have to get better at before I have kids….

I meant to post this earlier thsi week, but then, forgot. But here it is.

As predicted, the weekend was nice and relaxing. Our camera is broken (and was shipped out last week thanks to the warranty), but CPH’s parents had theirs. You can see their pictures here.

Also, an old friend from EKU has started a blog. Let’s see if he can keep it up.

I talked to my friend C* last night. He and his wife have been out of the country for a year and half. They are starting their trek home in November. I’ve never actually met his wife, but i’ve talked to her a few times and I’m uber excited to finally get to meet her. I think they’ll only be living about 2 hours away from us. I have dreams of the CPH and I going to visit them and our babies playing with their babies. It’s a nice dream to have.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend. All the pictures from our trip to DC and back can be found here.

I wish you all could have heard R*’s scream for glee when the CPH showed him this picture. That boy is a salad fiend.

R* looks like he is getting caught smoking his cigarette. This was on our walk back from a nice little Thai restaurant.

A few of us stayed up fairly late on Sunday night and played The Farming Game. Have I mentioned how fun this game is?

This is at Ben’s Chili Bowl. It was yummy. I had a chocolate shake and a chili dog. I felt like a true Washingtonian. Or is it DCist? Notice Nathalie’s shirt. She got soooo many comments on this shirt that she had to zip up her sweatshirt. Did she really expect anything different?

An amazingly fantastic picture that the CPH took at the National Gallery of Art.

Rod trying to steal the CPH’s Canadian Citizenship.

Can you see the annoyed look on R*’s face. The person on the left of the picture is N*’s sister. She came along and helped. She was quiet. And very tall.

Tomorrow, the CPH and I are driving up to DC with R* and N* and N*’s little sister. We told them we wanted to help them unload many years worth of stuff into a basement apartment. The plans have been made and the girls (in a minivan) are following the boys (in a U-haul) and then we’re all heading back in the minivan (they’re coming back for a few weeks of visit time with the family before they move far far away.
I’ve been wanting to write a post about these kids for a while now, but everytime I sit down to do it, I get frustrated by my inability to express my feelings.

R* has been in school with the CPH for the past two years. Both are (almost to the end) getting their master’s degree at a place that was not their first choice, but both are feeling grateful that they ended up at a place with professor’s that care so freakin’ much. I don’t remember my first real meeting with R*. But I do remember finding out, near the beginning, that R* enjoys a smoke every once in a while and I distinctly remember how excited I was to finally find a smoking friend in my new hometown.

N* is a doctor. She JUST became one a few weeks ago. I don’t remember the first time I met N*, but she says it was a fast greeting. We were on the way out to a movie and she was just coming into their apartment. What I do remember is the first time we went to Hollywood Bar and Filmworks. I remember sitting outside the theatre on the smoky black couches and N* and I were talking about normal things and I knew she was studying to be a doctor and I didn’t feel intimidated by her. She was just a normal girl who liked to look at blood and guts (but not vomit). The SMWB, in a email just now about someone else, said “i like it when people don’t assume they’re terribly interesting and are upfront about it. it’s relaxing”. That’s how I feel around N*. Relaxed.

We’ve hung out a lot with R* and N* these past two years. When they went away last summer, I was sad and I missed them like crazy.
Its just been in this last year, I guess since they came back from summer vacation, that I’ve started to consider R* and N* our good friends. You know the kind. The kind that you want to see more than once a week. The kind that you’ll drop other plans with other friends so you can see them instead. The kind that you’re willing to drive 9 hours to help them move in.
The kind you wish you would have had more half price margarita nights with.
You know the people who you can hear and see in your head at all times. N* with her hands stretched out in frustration, screaming about something insignificant. That’ll always be there. R*, when he gets embarassed by something that N* says, his head in his hands saying “oh dear”. Can’t get that out of my head.
Sheesh, I’m going to miss them.

I’ve been trying to post from Flickr and it’s just not working. But it’s not working in a very non-sensical way.

Sometimes, I get so frustrated by programs that are supposed to make things easier.

Here’s a photo I took this weekend.

I like this picture because it reminds me that sometimes when we look closely, things look all fuzzy and confusing. But if we look beyond the confusingness of that exact moment, we can see things pretty well.

The SMWB asked the CPH if he would be able to locate the pictures that were taken at our Wes Anderson Film Festival Party we threw a few years back.
He did and you can find them here.

At the end of the night we gave a prize to the best dressed female and male character. You can see them both in this shot ( A* as Margot (when she ran away to find her real parents) and S* as Dudley).

Art vs. Art turned out not so fun as I watched my friend’s smile turn to a frown when he found out that his piece didn’t even make it to the competition (the art had been voted on before that night and only the top 20 or so actually made it). We made it into an alright night as we stood outside the venue taking pictures of friends taking pictures.

This is my friend, P*. P* grew up in the same town that I did, but when he talks about growing up there he adopts this horrible eastern kentucky (um, we’re in the western part of the state, P*) accent and he talks about new laws prohibiting barefootedness. He makes me angry when he makes jokes like that.

Saturday, the CPH and I picked up some pizza from our favorite new pizza place (it’s no Lupis, but it’s special in its own way). It took a really long time and we had some friends waiting (we were introducing some friends to Maria’s), but it was totally worth it. The sauce and the crust is freshly made every day and they get their meat locally.

We took the pizza back to the A*’s and ate dinner with a small group of friends who had never had Maria’s Pizza before. I’m pretty sure they were all impressed. After pizza, we all just hung out for a while. That dinner and the hanging out was one of my favorite times of this year.

Here’s the boys on the porch after pizza. I’m guessing they were either talking about Norway, Zombies, or Music.

The famous (even if voters at a silly little Art vs Art Challenge don’t think so) K* and his little friend M*.

These are the K*’s. They are super cool. They are thinking about moving away in a year which would be really sad, but could be really good for them.

A*, L* and T* making up some strawberry shortcake. Yum!

J* and M* playing in the foreground. C*, M* and N* sitting on the couch.

Ok, enough pictures. Well, almost. The CPH and I left the A*’s around 8:30 because we had tickets to go see Jon Stewart. He was fun, but I like him bettter on the daily show. Because he wears a suit and tie and he doesn’t talk about pinatas. Blegh.

Us before Jon Stewart.

I’m working on some new flower pins. I want to sell them on ebay and make enough money to make more so that I can sell them at craft festivals. And then I can travel all over the states on weekends and meet lots of fun people. I’ll be like a carnie, but better. I’ll be a craftie.

Friday night, HHC put on a concert in a one of the galleries at the Harrison Center for the Arts. It was a wonderful show and he was well-received. I like it when my friends like my other friends.
See pics here.

R* and the future Mrs. R*
Friday, near the end of the workday, there was a delivery for my friend J* that consisted of roses, a card, and a pair of binoculars. We proceeded down to the window that overlooks the circle and watched as J* read a huge posterboard proposal.
Luckily, I knew of this before it occured and was able to capture it on film. See it happen here.
Earlier this week, CPH told me he was sorry I didn’t get a proposal like the one that R* was planning for J*. See, CPH and I just decided, while on the phone one night that it was the right time to get married. In fact, I didn’t even get an engagement ring until we were both home for summer break.
But, honestly, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. There’s something so comforting about deciding to marry your best friend, really.

Although I had an overall gut wrenching, dont want to leave here ever again kind of weekend while CPH and I visited friends in Tennessee, I would have to say that Saturday was my favorite day of the visit. We didnt start Saturday until well after noon because, admittedly, Friday night was so much fun with all the drinking and all the secrets divulged and all the many times the words I miss you so much were intertwined with tears. Around half past one, we headed about 30 miles north to the little town where CPH and I began our lives together and where our host had grown up. We were headed to the north side of town to D*s parents house. We had apparently talked our friends with whom we spent the night before into coming along, although none of us remember convincing the male half of the couple (thinking, as we knew in the past, that even though we were inviting him, he would not show). We were pleasantly surprised when they called us for directions, although according to him (the male half), he had told us the night before that they would be there. Regardless, the M*s showed up relatively early and we started the day. I hadnt seen the eldest two boys (or their parents) for over a year and I was amazed at how much they had grown. When I had left, J* (the youngest) wasnt talking much and T* was in that my brother is still a baby and I like to push him around stage. The boys didnt recognize me, which made me a little sad (I understand that it was impossible for them to remember me what with all that is going on in their little brains, but I was sad nonetheless -I was a regular at their house when we lived in Tennessee, saw them at least once a week). But soon enough, we had made each others acquaintance and were playing like old times. CPH spent a lot of time with them and you should ask him to tell you stories.

Halfway through the visit, the boys were getting restless and the big boys were holed up in a room with a newly acquired xbox, so J* and I took the boys into an empty room and grabbed a box of building blocks (generic jenga) from the game shelf and set the boys to building. We noticed there was writing on the blocks and were appalled as we read them aloud, wondering if this was a game the parents had made themselves or if we had uncovered a deep dark secret of our dear friend D*. After reading Every. Single. Block, J* went to let D* know of the filth in his parents house (please understand the jest in my voice). He denied the whole thing, brushing it up to a sick game that either his little sister or little brother had come up with. I think he was a little embarrassed because he quickly started putting them away.
But not before CPH snapped a picture.

After the M*s had left, D* pulled out his Settlers game and we had a rousing game (of which I won, of course).

What I love most about the T*s is that they are constantly giving compliments to people. D* says that his dad is not that great at leading a company as far as eloquent speaking, but I think you could ask any successful person the most important thing to do to motivate your employees and they would say that it is important to always tell people when they are doing things right (take it from me, I have a masters degree in management).

Went to CPH’s parents on Thursday night, which was supposed to be the family’s Christmas Eve, since we were celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve because CPH and I were supposed to drive to my mom’s in KY on Christmas Day.
shew.
So, on Christmas Eve Eve, we went to the in-laws for a make your own pizza party. Mother-in-law, year after year, puts up a Canadian Outdoor Adventure (we, in America, do houses, she does outdoor activities, because as we all know that Canadian’s do fun things outside even in the dead of winter). Father-in-law decides to do a creepy (but fun) cut out of a family portrait that was done on Thanksgiving and set it in the middle of the village scene.
I tried to take a picture of the family without the flash but it was, of course, too shaky. So, father-in-law unwraps one of his presents early and shazam – a non-shaky, natural light picture of the Beeler family in the Canadian Outdoor Adventure Village.

Now, I have no idea if CPH took this picture or if I was the photographer. I have no idea, because we both loved playing with Father-in-law’s tripod so much that we took nearly 20 pictures of the village.
Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law had originally planned on driving in on Christmas Eve Eve, but because of Blizzard ‘04, they stayed put until Christmas Eve morning. They arrived around 3pm on Christmas Eve. Here they are. Brother-in-law, at this point, is telling, I think, his third religious joke.

We had a good Christmas, even though we couldn’t make it to Kentucky.
Biggest surprise – opening a tripod of our very own. Yippee!

Didn’t make it home to Kentucky this year. (Thanks, biggest snow in southern Indiana since I was a wee baby).
After we opened presents at the in-laws, I made my first attempt at a gingerbread house since my elementary school days. This is Cat the Rat’s house. His friend Butterly the RedAnt just dropped him off and he’s a bit hungover.
Poor Cat.

This picture describes, perfectly, my mood as of late. These past few days, I sit at my desk at work, trying to get the stuff done that needs to be done before we leave for a long weekend and I am entranced by my sadness. I can not explain the reason that tears drop down my cheeks and I am bewildered by this feeling of helplessness.
More baffling than not knowing the reasons behind my depression is not knowing the reasons behind my full recovery. The gut-wrenching sadness has passed and I am myself once more. I laugh, I joke, I bop my head and tap the desk to the poppy sounds coming from my headphones.

On a happier note, Christmas presents are nearly done. Better said – Christmas presents that will be passed out before the new year are nearly done.

This week’s challenge is abandoned

As promised, here are the pictures from Thanksgiving.

Favorites?

London pics can be found here.

And some photos of a band who doesn’t even have a cd out but are still some of my favorite people can be found here.

I don’t know who he is, but he hand rolls his own smokes and he drinks hot chocolate early in the morning.

See pics here of my first major art purchase. This was from a silent auction that took place at the Harrison Center this past winter. Isn’t it pretty?

Here are pics from my boston trip. Yes, I know. I am absolutely fascinated with feet.

Now, it may just be that i’m on top of a sugar high (from which I will be crashing fairly soon), but…..
isn’t this the prettiest picture you’ve seen in quite a while?

honestly, isn’t it?

More to come later. In the meantime, go here for pictures.

Had an amazing visit with old friends yesterday. While H* and I have kept in contact over the past 6 years, we had not seen T* since we left school. We quickly fell into old habits and were as comfortable around each other as if we had never left each others side.

CPH and I had garden duty last Thursday and saw that the weeds were quickly overtaking our veggies. Unable to tell kale from weed, we rushed home and put out a plea to a fellow gardeners to plan a day o’ weeding. Today, we all met around 4 to pull weeds and harvest some salad greens. It was a rather enjoyable afternoon. It started pouring near the end. I love rain in the spring time.

CPH and I drove about an hour south tonight for a concert (Sufjan Stevens and Denison Witmer). I was greatly looking forward to this, because Sufjan’s new album has become a daily listen for me and Denison has been a favorite of ours for quite a while now.
But, (and here’s where the amazing of all amazings comes in) we became very excited when, as we were walking to the front door of this venue, we hear CPH’s real name being said by someone beside the door.
It was one of our friends from our college days!
So, not only did we get to see a very, VERY (did I say VERRRY) enjoyable show, but we also got to catch up with a dear friend.
Music does make the world go around.

Go here for pictures.

here is a picture of me wearing a scarf that my friend knitted for me. it’s one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever worn, honestly.

Here are pictures of the wonderful week.