this sickness

By | Personal | 13 Comments

today’s challenge is for me to write this entire post about how i’m SO SICK but to not make it gross or depressing. here goes…

i am SO SICK. as in, i don’t want to go out in public sick- who wants to be THAT girl sniffling over your shoulder on the soup aisle? not i. although, if you’ve spent any length of time on the soup aisle, you’ve come to expect this. ANYWAY, i’m saving you from that by sitting on my couch desperately trying to come up with meals based on the hodgepodge of ingredients in our close to empty kitchen. last night we had roasted acorn squash filled with wild rice- you got it! we’re pretty much out of meat. i’m thinking shrimp bisque for tonight since we have some baby shrimp in the freezer and some canned tomatoes and stuff- already not excited about that meal. but YOU, dear reader, will NOT be dealing with my sniffles in public if i can help it!

when i get sick i go slightly crazy- in case the previous paragraph didn’t already make that clear i think it only fair that i state it. my equilibrium is always the first thing i lose so i can usually be found, arms out for balance, attempting to get to my bed from the kitchen. it’s a sight to behold i am sure- especially when i forget the arms out tactic and try to play it off when i walk straight into a door frame. i agree with what you’re thinking, playing off hitting the door frame IS impossible.

especially thanks to this next sick characteristic- emotions running wild. equilibrium already shot, i was making breakfast for matt when i tried to flip his fried egg and completely missed catching it- i watched in horror as the runny egg landed directly on top of our lower right gas burner. PAN.DE.MONIUM. there were tears. matt literally picked me up, put me on the couch and banned me from getting up until breakfast was on the table. sweet? yes. but also, i think he as just afraid for our kitchen.

so when my balance is off and tears come easily there is a whole new brand of rationale that takes over. example. just a few minutes ago i decided that to fight this sickness i needed vitamin c. do we have the supplements? yes. but i felt the need for fresh. our building backs up to a grocery but since i am not leaving the apartment i decided to make my own juice. my rationale so far seems ok i guess- even though in the amount of time i took to think this through i could have just taken a supplement- but it gets a little fuzzy after this…

…i think of our hand juicer and decide that is entirely too much work so instead i just pull out two oranges, a grapefruit, a lemon and the blender. yes that’s right, the BLENDER. i’ve decided instead of juicing i’m going to just BLEND it to death. i peel the fruit (in this amount of time all could have been cut in half and juiced with the hand juicer) and drop everything into the blender. i add a little water and sugar and hit puree. right away i realize our blender might explode and i prepare for the worst by pushing down on the lid (??) like my life depends on it. but soon enough the huge chunks are getting smaller and a little smile of success is creeping across my face.

when everything looks done i pour it into a glass and take a huge gulp- which i immediately regret. my mouth is splintered with tiny slivers of wood and my throat is thick with flat pieces of citrus membrane. after a little confusion over the woody texture and another sip to make sure i wasn’t crazy (verdict: mouth splinters) i realized the wood was seeds that had been blended into pieces and distributed evenly throughout my beverage. i’m losing patience fast but i can’t keep drinking it the way it is (i may have tried to again), so i grabbed a couple pieces of cheesecloth and strained it. i now have a glass of the most perfect tasting, healthy, sickness stopper ever made. it’s glorious. and it only took, oh, an HOUR. ugh.

anyway, we’re headed out to shoot later this afternoon and we have a meeting tonight so we’ll see how well i hide the insanity. i’ll probably just try to stay really focused which will make me really quiet and only a little creepy, of course i’ll keep you posted. we will be back soon with some sweet, legit blog posts about awesome clients with pretty pictures. until then, please send vibes of warm, glowing health our direction! :)
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atlanta SNOW fun!

By | Personal | 23 Comments

so in case you don’t follow us on twitter, it is SNOWING in ATLANTA today! and in case you can’t tell from that last sentence- this makes me VERY EXCITED!

when we walked out of church this morning i think i smiled bigger than i’ve smiled in weeks- it almost hurt- then proceeded to half hug/ half beat matt’s arm as i endlessly repeated, ‘it’s snowing, baby!’ as if he couldn’t tell by the ice-y whiteness weighing down his eyelashes and obscuring his vision. we met friends for pancakes and after a quick snowball fight (snow scraped off the hoods of cars in the parking lot, of course) we headed home to grab the camera. the flakes had gotten heavier and wetter (but had not quite turned to rain!) so we took turns juggling the umbrella as we shot everything in sight- including each other- that happened to be covered in snow. we didn’t have too much time before we were totally soaked through and it was time to enjoy the whiteness from our couch… ;)

here are a few from this rare snowy march day! first up: me realizing that my hat has a quarter inch of slushy snow on top of it:

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my husband is just a stud :)

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and here i am, extremities completely frozen, conjuring up the teeniest smile despite my drenched jeans (is there anything worse?!):

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my ice covered hat! it (i) kept dropping ice chunks every time i tried to chimp a shot…oops… ;)006_atlanta_snow_030109

like i said- we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the snow from our couch- this is the view from there, it’s lovely:

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what a glorious day!

the stanley clan…revisited!

By | Extras | 13 Comments

six months ago i had the pleasure of photographing baby jayci and her lucky mom and dad- becca and adam. it started a little spiral of baby related posts and we received lots of inquiries about family shoots during that period of time. we were excited to try something new but we were just too busy to take on extra shoots right then…that brings us to february- our month of day shoots (that all ended up getting booked at the end of the month, ah, lesson learned!). it actually worked out perfectly for us that we were able to capture jayci yesterday as she celebrated turning 1/2 years old! we wandered around marietta square and marveled over jayci’s every squeal, burp and yawn- capturing their sweet family the best we knew how. it’s so amazing to watch a family grow together- so much has changed for them over the last six months and as we listened to them recount funny jayci stories we realized how perfectly suited they are to be parents. we feel so blessed that when we decide to have little altmixs (in, like, 5 years at least) we’ll have so many amazing friends to lean on and learn from. like the stanley clan:

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jayci was really aware of the cameras during the shoot- she kept looking back and forth between matt and me as we shot- it was perfect!002_atlanta_family_photography_022309

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old dark alleys don’t scream baby pictures! but we decided to give it a shot anyway, of course ;)

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all of the white noise of the vents and machinery soothed little jayci to sleep right away so we snuck a few images while she enjoyed her little nap!005_atlanta_family_photography_022309

the sun was kicking off an office building across the street from this wall and the windows created the most beautiful little patches of light:
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i think jayci looks like a little gift here- pretty appropriate!
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becca, adam & jayci, thank you all for allowing us into your life to capture your family. we enjoyed hanging out with you guys and we really can’t wait to see what awesomeness is in store for your family next!