Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Validation

Today I am most grateful for validation. This has nothing to do with my normal blog posts or my Project 365, but I felt it was necessary to share. I stopped by Wally-World after work today to pick up something for dinner. The girl that checked me out was very pleasant and mentioned she had only a half hour until it was time to go home. I remarked that the last half hour is always the longest 30 minutes of the day. We went back and forth a couple times and by the time I left, we were giggling like a couple of old friends. See, I think what people need sometimes more than anything else is someone to commiserate, someone to agree that they have legitimate gripes, to validate their opinions about the world around them. Now, I am in no way suggesting that it's a good idea to do this all the time or to encourage excessively negative people, but when Jesus said to love your neighbor, I'm pretty sure it was a partial endorsement of this commiseration I am talking about. This world is big and scary and you know what? Growing up is hard. It's a big complicated mess that often makes little or no sense, isn't fair, is even cruel. So how else do we make it through than by relating to those around us? What better way to get validation that I'm not the only one scared and confused and tired? Some days, all you need is someone to pat you on the back and tell you that yes - your situation is crappy and the jerks who imposed it upon you are truly plotting against you. In that simple reassurance, a relationship, however brief, emerges and blooms.

That's just my thought for the day. I don't know that I'll be able to photograph that idea but I had to share. Photos to follow later dear friends.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Days 98-103 - The Plague Comes to Walnut Street

Ok. Maybe i am exaggerating a little. But I was seriously ill for a whole week and I am still playing catch up. I am behind on editing photos and I even had to dip into vacation time at work to cover it. Blech! I kept taking my photos though. (If you ask me, you can tell I was sick, but I did take my photos!)

This ottoman is all I saw all day the Sunday after our Bensenville weekend. I laid and slept on the couch all day.

This was mostly what I saw on Monday. Yes I know the photo is blurry. The whole day was pretty much like that.

Tuesday I attempted to go to work and only made it an hour and a half before coming home and laying on the couch the rest of the day.

Without a voice, I braved my day job in customer support, stayed till 8pm to try to get caught up with my department then came home and collapsed into bed. Josh brought home this vaporizer. It really helped.

But not enough to ensure my return to work on Thursday. Here are my drugs of choice.

This is the first meal I could taste for days! Go Beefy Stroganoff!


That's all I have for this evening, dear friends. Sweet dreams and a tomorrow filled with blessings for you all. 

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Day 93-97 - Snow and More Holidays

Good evening friends. I hope your weekends have been restful and you are feeling ready for the week that lies inevitably before us. I'm still working on catching you up on my life this year so we continue our journey together.

Snow. I love it or hate it. I'm never just ok with it and typically after mid-January I am DONE with it. My patience for the white stuff not only leaves the building, it runs out screaming bloody murder and pulls the fire alarm on the way out. But the snow in this picture still stood in my good graces so I decided to play with some camera settings and coerced my dear hubby into donning a hat and sweater and freezing his feet off for the sake of my art.  

Those of you who know me know I love to cook. I got this awesome cookbook for Christmas from Kelly that has a bunch of appetizer recipes and I was dying to try the "cheese straws." I don't think I did it right. I shredded the cheese and mixed it all up, stuck it in my cake decorator and couldn't get the dough to come out. I mean it was really really stuck. So I ended up molding them manually into these ugly little logs. Well, cheese straws are supposed to be really thin and tiny and these were ...  well, they weren't that. They were more like little cheese biscuits. But hey, ya win some; ya lose some. This time I just lost.

This guy had to come up sooner or later. Josh has had this frog as long as I have known him. He got it in Mexico when he was on a mission trip with his church youth group and it CREEPS ME OUT! That's a real frog, you know. A dead, stuffed, brown, shellacked frog. Playing a wooden trumpet. Random? Oh yes. Interesting? Eeee, I guess. Explicable? Absolutely not. But Josh loves it so I doubt it's going anywhere. Unless my suspicions are correct and it roams the house at night in search of zombie flies ...

Well, we packed up and headed to Bensenville to see the Schesvold's. We had dinner that night in Elmhurst with an old friend from college and on the way back to the car, I took a photo of one of my favorite little walkways in Elmhurst. It's still dressed up for Christmas. Isn't it cute?

We attended a party at Josh's Aunt Carol's lovely home in Rockford. And we didn't really know anyone. It was a lovely party, but we were all kind of sleep-deprived and more than a little slap happy. So as we congregated in the game room in the basement, I posed the question "what face would you make if I told you this was our last night on earth?" And here are the faces they made. So this photo is technically three photos, but I couldn't leave any out. This is art people. Pure art. (I love being a Schesvold!)

More posts to follow soon, dear friends. We are getting caught up! Huzzah! Stay tuned ...

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Days 83-92 - January Part I

Well dear friends, I see you all survived the Ezzy creativity overload from last night and you're back for more. Admit it - you love me! You really really love me!
Again, I don't remember a lot about some of these photos so let's just roll with it.

Scot and Kristin came over on New Year's Day and we opened our presents for each other. This is Scot with the blanket I made him. I think he liked it!

Here is the kickin' bookshelf Scot made me for Christmas. It's really unique - as you can see from the lines on my wall, the shelf itself leans to the right. Trust me, it's totally awesome. Now I just need to paint it ...


I think I took this photo to show off the bookends I made for Josh for Christmas. Yes I understand that they are being misused since they are hold up movies instead of books. I rearranged things this week and they are fulfilling their intended purpose now. The world makes sense again.

I had climbed into bed before I remembered to take my photo this night and when I flipped on the light to walk down the hallway and get my camera, the light cast this really cool shadow on one of the crocheted snowflakes my mom made for me. So I shot the shadow. Neat, huh?

Between stress and having a desk job, I had the worst knot in my neck. Josh was sweet enough to use this back massager (affectionately known around my house as "Mr Happy") to try to help my muscles relax. He really is the sweetest thing. Josh - not Mr Happy.

It snowed - obviously - and as I came home from work, I noticed this mess of weeds I didn't get cleaned up this fall. The snow made an interesting texture.

I think it warmed up a little and one of the weeds from yesterday had fallen over. The ice on the head looked like little beads. It was cool.

Read "World Without End" by Ken Follett. I don't care that it 1014 pages. Read it. It's amazing.

Josh got a new printer for Christmas from Dad and Kelly. We set it up and when we pulled it out of the box, there was no plastic. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I'm typically not a fan of HP, but this scored some major points in my book. Not only was there no plastic, this bag is totally huge and reusable. Score! (Yeah - I did just type "score". I need some rest ... by brain is turning to mush!!)

Josh and I like wine. It's a hobby Josh decided he wanted to pick up and I just get to go along for the ride. For a wedding gift, I had commissioned a wine wrack from the little furniture place on West Main. (It's not there anymore; it used to be where the Boot Camp place is now.) Anyway, I talked to the guy about building it, gave him 40 bucks and told him when I needed it by. I showed up the day before our wedding to pick it up only to find out the gentleman who was supposed to be building my husband's wedding gift no longer worked there. The woman in charge was amazingly nice and gave me my money back, but I didn't have a wine wrack for my hubby to be. Obviously, I never managed because my brother made this for us for Christmas. And he even left it unfinished so I can paint or stain it the way Josh wants.


That's me for the evening. I have photos to edit so expect another slew of random and amazing photographs from my totally awesome life tomorrow!
Sleep well dear friends and have a blessed tomorrow!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Day 82 - Happy New Year!

I like this photo so much I am creating a post just for it. Every year for New Year's Eve, Josh and I get a bottle of sparkling wine. (It isn't technically champagne because champagne is made from very specific grapes in a very specific region of France I think and there are very few things in the US that are actually champagne. Most of it is just sparkling wine.) This year was no exception. We looked forward to this for weeks. Josh journeyed across Springfield (I know - woohoo) to procure this bottle of Illopart Cava Sparkling Wine. Wasn't it pretty?


Unfortunately, it was much drier than the bottle we got last year and we didn't enjoy it quite as much as we had hoped. Oh well, there's always next year.

Well dear friends, I'm caught up through the end of December. Tomorrow or the next day I will post January and the first part of February. If anyone would like to hear specific stories about any of these photos, let me know. If there is anything I can talk about with any sort of authority, it's my own life! Sweet dreams and blessed tomorrows to all!

Day 67 - 81 - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok. Lesson learned. I waited WAY too long to post these photos. I don't remember what was going on in half of them! But see - that's the whole point of Project 365! One photo a day to keep track of lives lived too fast. So dear friends, my apologies for depriving you of the awesome little tidbits of wisdom and enlightening musings, but I have got to get caught up. Here was my life between December 16 and December 30 -


I really liked my eye liner that day ...

Did cast photos for The Nutcracker. My brother Scot was the nutcracker.

Katie and Alex's engagement photos. I love these guys; they are so cut together!


Umm ... maybe I was playing with flash outdoors?


Me and my best friend Katie. I spent the evening with her for some much needed girl time.


Yeah I got nuthin'. No idea what this was about. Either I spent a lot of time on my hair or I was pointing out what a slob I am by not putting my stuff away.


Presents!!!!

Had a photo session and did some studio-type work. Thanks Boston family! You guys were awesome to work with!


Christmas Eve morning - yes those ARE Cheetos in Josh's stocking. Santa knew he would rather have those than candy.

Christmas Eve evening - I made baked ziti and we had a bottle of wine. We did the church at midnight thing. If I can take a sec to get all sappy - this was the closest to a perfect day that I think I have ever had.


Christmas Day - Mom opening a present. There were so many photos I would have loved to put up but this one really captured the mood of the day.

Pablo sitting in "child's pose" on the back of one of the free chairs.

Scary yet awesome icicle outside my back door.

Sexy red sheets we got for Christmas.

Playing with the manual settings on my camera. (Pay no attention to the cat fur clinging to my free chair.)

An afghan I was finishing up for my brother.


Whoo! Really - lesson learned. I swear! I have more, many more, but I need a break. Let it all soak in dear friends. Maybe I should say - go wring your brains out so there is more room to soak because there is much more to follow!