Where You Can Find Me…

I finally got my business blog off the ground. Since the majority of what I post is pictures. I plan to post them there. I will still use this site when I have more writing posts, but for now you can find me at my work blog.

Go on over and check it out.

My most recent post is on where I live and where I hike with the beast…

Kansas

I arrived in Kansas on Friday afternoon along with my mom. We were greeted by one of the newest members of the family, Miss Emma.

We have been waiting for Miss Emma for four long years. It took a long time to make this baby but she is perfect in every single way.

She has only been in America for 3 months and she is already understanding so much. She knows all her body parts, she knows animal sounds, and so much more. When they picked her up in China she could not even sit on her own. Within three months she is RUNNING! And she is fast. Not to mention funny.

When you say Emma make an angry face, this is the face you get:

I am totally smitten with her if you could not tell.

I just have to add I wrote this blog post while online in the air. I love the new in-flight wifi! Technology is awesome!

Sunflowers and Love

There is so much good going on lately. I just have not had the desire to post here. I think about it, but then I don’t.

I am thinking of turning this into a photo blog. I don’t have much to say, but I will add pictures I take.

My family lives in Kansas. Every time I buy sunflowers I think of going home to Kansas. My mom and I are going next weekend for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer walk. My mom plans to walk 2 weeks post op. She is unbelievable.

I bought these last night and sat them on my window sill. They made me smile every time I looked at them.

I have not seen Amazing A and her side kick Super G in a few weeks. I never go that long without seeing them so I was missing them. Today Amazing A had her first day. I decided to bring her these flowers for her first day along with a package of monogramed tissues. Cause nothing says bring on the colds like preschool.

She loved the flowers. She was so proud of them and when her Papa walked in from work it was the first thing she showed him.

I am thankful for the wonderful people in my life. Amazing A being one of them. I can not imagine life without her. She is amazing.

Pulling Out The Big Guns

Someone has been cooking and baking again…

I feel like I am 5 again when I have to bring my own food with me where ever I go. It is totally worth it though. I am feeling a million times better & I am losing weight to boot.

This weekend I made blueberry/raspberry gluten free scones and gluten free chocolate cupcakes.

Gluten Free Living…

I have been living on my elimination diet for almost 5 weeks now. I added back two items and they are peas and tomatoes. I am glad to say I can read them. I accidentally ate something with flour and was sick for the entire day. I am almost certain I will not be able to have flour or milk back in my diet. I feel a million times better since starting this new way of life.

I have been following gluten free sites and I really love the site I am gluten free. Tonight I am making the gluten free blueberry scones. They look delicious. I do not have hemp milk or even goats milk, so I will be substitiuing Almond Milk. I am still going to make it and see how it turns out. I will let you all know!

Delicious Divas

I have been busy. Busy with good things. Going back to work full time in a few weeks. Currently working on gettting everything in order. In the meantime I have been visiting with friends. Shooting and processing lots of pictures.
My girl Denise at This Delicious Life is starting a new business.

Here is a brief summary of what the parties entail:

d.lishs divas is an in-home portrait party for women only! It’s about fun, freedom and discovery. Its about celebrating YOURSELF! Its about seeing yourself for who you really are — seeing the beauty that is TRULY you — and discovering the of *photometamorphosis*. Each participating diva will have a 20 minute private photo session, resulting in a personal online gallery of images. (wording totally swiped from her site)

It was an incredible evening and I am so excited that I got to be a part of it. What an amazing experience. I vowed this year to get back in shape and start to be in pictures. I never let people take my picture, but for some reason I let Denise. I am slowly letting people and I am so happy I am. These pictures are amazing and I plan to hang some in my home. I never hang pictures of myself, but that is all changing.

What an incredible group of women. I have met so many wonderful people this summer. It has been a great summer full of wonderful memories.

(denise took this picture of me, it is by far my favorite picture ever, I might even go as far as to buy a canvas of this print. I love it that much)

Life is good, really truly good!

New York with Wonderful Friends…

I went to New York over the weekend and stayed with a group of photography friends. I love getting together with others that enjoy photography as much as I do.

We did a lot of shooting and a lot of visiting. It was a wonderful weekend and I can not wait to get together with them all again.

We started out at the farmer’s market, then went to an abandoned brick yard. It was hot, not Africa hot, but hot. Then we went back to our friend’s house for mandatory naps before the evening of festivities. I joke about mandatory naps, the hosts asked if we wanted to take some time to nap. I joked that we had mandatory naps and that was my idea of heaven. I never did get to nap I was to busy visiting with my friends.

On Sunday before we headed home we went to breakfast and then to an abandoned train.

It was an incredible weekend full of wonderful friends. I can not wait to see everyone again. We are planning a trip to Italy next summer. I  have wanted to go to Italy for as long as I can remember and I don’t think there are any other people I would like to experience that country with.

8 years ago today my life changed forever!

I had the most fabulous weekend I was going to write about today. Then I looked at the calender and realized I need to write something more important.

I wrote this 4 years ago on my first blog. I decided that most of you don’t know me from there and I would repost it. Today marks 8 years since my dad died while on a business trip in Nashville. I can not believe it has been 8 years.

8 years ago today I sat in a hospital with all my siblings and my mom, my dad’s best friend, and a couple of his closest business associates. I was going to rewrite that day when I looked through my archives and found that I had already posted it.

This is what I wrote in June of 2005:

My dad passed away on August 17th 2001. He was 60 years old. I will never forget the day he died. Or should I say the week. C (my ex-husband) asked my dad if he could marry me on Saturday August 11th. Of course my dad gave his blessing. I should say surprisingly considering I was only 20 years old he gave his blessing. (Oh my god was I young…) Well I left for the Beach with my mom for a girls week at my aunts house on Sunday. My father had a business trip in Tennessee on Tuesday. My brother Casey drove him to the airport for his flight and he wasn’t feeling well, but still got on the plane. While in the air he had two heart attacks. He landed in Nashville and was meant by a business associate (who he was meeting for the first time, what an impression he left on that man) who immediately drove him to the local hospital. It turned out to be the best heart hospital in the country, go figure. My dad was in the hospital when he called us at the beach to tell my mom he had a heart attack but that he was fine and there was no need for her to come down. (Yeah fricken right, like that would really happen!) My mom ended up talking with the hospital and it was worse than my dad had thought or I guess wanted to believe. He not only had two heart attacks he had previous mild heart attaches the week prior to his flight. He had done lots of damage to his heart and they didn’t know how or if he would recover. But with therapy it seemed like a possibility. My mom left the beach and went home to get my youngest brother. They flew down Wednesday Morning first thing. My dad was extremely angry that my mom had come down and kept telling her it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t want her to worry and he was going to be coming home in a few days (yeah he only wished, it would have been a long time before he came home, if he ever came home. They would not have released him to fly) My mom called each of us kids and we each got to talk to my dad. He reassured us he was ok and would be home soon. I told him I loved him and would see him soon. That was the last time I ever spoke to my dad. After he talked to us kids my mom said that they were having some words about his condition and her being there. As my mom and Jeff were leaving to go to check in to the hotel. My dad suffered a massive heart attack where he had to be revived. Then he was put into a drug induced coma to keep as much stress off his heart as much as possible. He suffered so much heart damage his heart would more than likely never function like it  used to. My mom called all of us kids first thing Thursday Morning and we were all on a plane by 10am. My sister lived in VA beach at the time so she flew from there. C (my future husband) came with me and my two brothers, Casey & Jim. We all arrived in Nashville around the same time and headed straight to the hospital. My mom kept apologizing she hadn’t called us sooner but things happened so fast (on top of that my dad was mad she was there he would have been even more stressed if all of us kids had come to) Business associates and family that could all make it flew in while he was in a coma to see him. His heart was in terrible condition as well as his liver and other organs because he was a diabetic. He would not have been a candidate for a heart transplant because of that. He passed away around 5pm on Friday August 17th. He was only 60 years old.

If you click on this and then on the link in that post you can read some things I have posted in the past. Also on the second link is the eulogy I wrote, scroll down towards the bottom.

August 17th is a day that will ring in my mind as the worst day of my life. I will never forget that trip to Nashville, the smell of that hospital, the sad flight home where the flight check in person asked if we left anyone behind ( I think because there were so many of us flying). The look on her face when I said “yeah my dad, he died at Vanderbelt”! I guess she was not expecting that answer and I am sure she has never asked anyone that question again. I remember the weeks coming home after he had died, the sadness all around. The years that have gone by that I have not talked to him, kissed him, or told him I loved him. I know he knows it all but it is not the same! The sadness I feel that he missed my wedding, my 21st birthday, my 25th birthday, the birth of his grandchildren, the birth of my children someday, the sadness I feel that my children will never have known my father. My heart aches for everything he has missed and is missing. But life goes on and so do we, the actual missing of your loved one never goes away just the daily reminders suddenly lessen, which if you think about that, that is sad as well.

The Internets I will date…just not these Internets!

Most of you know I was married before. Most of you know it has been over 3 years since we have been separated. Oh the joys of being single again in your mid to late 20’s. I have dated. I have dated so many different men. All of them just not right. Some were nice enough just not the one. Some were crazy. Some made my ex-husband look good and let me tell you if you knew him this is a really hard thing.  I have done the internet dating thing. Gah so many times and I always seem to go back and try again. Eharmony…yep done it! Match dot com…yep! Plenty of Fish…gah yes! One might ask why I keep going back. Well I will tell you two reasons. The first being I will not close the door on any opportunity to meet new people and possibly the right one. The second being the full blown entertainment I get from it. Some might think I am not taking it seriously but rest assured I am. I think in life we have to laugh at things or they will just make us want to curl up in the fetal position and cry.

Today is the first installment of Internet Dating! We are going to talk about screen names. Seriously the names some of these gentlemen men crazies come up with are well just that crazy.

I want to contact them and tell them that the reason they are still on here and will be forever is based on their screen names. Sadly some have more than the screen name going against them, but today we are focusing on screen names.  Here are just a few examples that I have come across.

soulassasin – yeah sure because I want someone to assassinate my soul. No thanks already had that…he is called my EX HUSBAND. If I wanted to be assassinated I would still be married to that prick!
mrunreasonable- yep because I am looking for another unreasonable man to try and have a successful relationship with!
phillyguyne- yes maybe if he was a gynocoligist, but he is not!
brokenheartedpa- Because I want a guy that hasn’t gotten over his last relationship! Yah for baggage!
loveseed- seriously any reference to the family jewels takes you right off my perspective list.
dropptonhead- Seriously, fucking seriously, this needs absolutely no explanation!
Tomatoguy- Does this mean he likes tomato’s, grows them, works with them, is Italian? who the hell knows!

Oh and there are so many more. I just wanted you to get a little sample of what is out there.

I may be single forever with my pickiness but by god I am not dating someone with the above mentioned profile names.

Stay tuned for the next installment of online dating! Pictures not to post!

Happy Friday Internets!

Apparently I do have will power…

Apparently I do have will power because today marks 10 days since I began this elimination diet. It was really not as bad as I thought and I am already feeling better. My GI issues are definitely under control. I am elimination all the items I am allergic to for 6 weeks and then slowly adding back in one item per week. If I have a reaction it will remain on the elimination list, if I don’t have a reaction I will add it back into my daily diet. Honestly the only thing I miss are tomatoes and strawberries. I could honestly be fine with eliminating everything else. Of course I love cheese, but I can eat goat cheese and that is what I eat normally. I can also eat anything with rice. There is so much available for people with allergies these days I am not having that hard of a time finding things to eat. Though I will say just about everything has some type of soy in it. Seriously what is up with all the soybean oil?

Tomorrow also marks the day that I put on my running shoes again and run. I am going to run 5 days a week for 20 minutes for the next month. I will learn to run again. Not just walk fast and half ass run!

The Skinny/Healthy girl I know that is inside me is going to win this battle! She does have the will power!