Sunday, November 9, 2014

Good-bye Blog Site


Hi everyone,

So, some of you already know that I've been working incredibly hard for the past couple weeks on setting up a new webpage.  What I didn't realize is that it doesn't link back to this little blog site, but instead, it imports everything from here over there and that becomes the new home site for this little space of mine.

So, it's with a little bit of sadness, that I say goodbye to this writing space.  If you've set up your account to follow me on here, make sure you head over to the new site and set it up to follow there, as this is technically my last post on this site!

So without any more ado, here is the new site, and this week's post (link below)!  Thanks for following!

New Blog and Post!

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Photography 365 Project: (Days 297 - 305)

Friday, I remembered one of the many benefits of teaching piano after work almost every day:  You don't CLOCK WATCH.  Oh man, having nothing to do Friday evening other than hang out with awesome friends made the day just drag by.  Eventually the clock finally hit 3:55pm, and I was out of there!  My husband picked me up and we drove over to our friends' place and enjoyed snacks, hanging out, dinner, and then board games.  We stayed up way too late, though, to play that one last round, and I paid for it the next day since I'm still in the midst of a monster cold.

Saturday, I tried really hard to get up at 10:30, but there was just no way.  My cold was coming back with a vengeance.  I finally pulled myself out of bed just after lunch as I really wanted to go with Nick to the bank to pay down against our mortgage as November 1st is our anniversary payment date (the day we're allowed to pay extra without penalty).  We saved up all year, and even took a temporary loan from my dad in order to hit it hard and it was fun to watch the numbers drop down in a nice little chunk.

Afterwards, we had a chat about our no-buying-anything-for-a-month fast.  Nick was given a cash tip at a wedding he edited last weekend, and we talked about whether spending that would count in our fast or not.  We decided we were okay with it since it was an unexpected gift and not something that we would have put into our budget anyway.  We went off to the grocery store to pick up some treats:  a box of popsicles, a small bag of chips, and some drinks.  I don't think we have ever pondered so long over what to spend $20 on, haha.  We were truly thankful for the little treat!

Nick spent the remainder of the afternoon working on projects while I burrowed under a pile of blankets and waited for him.  When evening came, he joined me in my blanket fortress and we caught up on all our t.v. shows and even played a board game.  We are probably going to have to actually turn on the heat soon because living in our bed is not always practical!

Sunday, I was still feeling pretty sick so I stayed home and slept while Nick went to church.  He came home just in time to fetch me to run off to a friend's place for lunch.  We had a quick visit, helped them with some camera buying decisions, and then jumped in the car to head out to the valley for a funeral.  A close family friend of Nick's passed away, and since the whole family couldn't make it out, we went to represent the Froese clan.  We grabbed Nick's brother on the way, and made it just in time.  After the funeral, we headed over to Nick's Aunt and Uncle's place for dinner and stopped to chase some amazing light on the way.  We arrived back home around 8:30pm, and Nick had some emergency work to do until 9pm.  After which, we hung out for a couple hours, and then got to sleep to start another busy week.

Monday, I was finally feeling a lot better and covered the main class at work while my coworker took a desk day to man the phones.  I always get annoyed when I have to leave my cozy little desk, but then I remember that I actually really enjoy teaching and enjoy how fast the day goes by in the classroom once I'm there.  Monday, I was also feeling super antsy.  I'm excited for next year, and all the plans we have, and all the adventures we're going on.  2014 feels like it's limping along a little bit and I want it to be over already.  Let's just skip the monotony of Winter and the dreary cold rains.  Let's skip ahead to the new year with fresh unused vacation days, so many fun plans hatching in my mind already, and a gorgeous Summer ahead!  Let's wrap up this year of daily shooting, and branch out into new projects and fresh innovations.  I've never really been a "journey" person.  I'm all about the destination, and the winter blahs are not helping this!  I'm going to have to be even more intentional about observing the wonder in my everyday to get through this season.  Monday was also the last night we huddled in the cold before turning on the heat regularly, as illustrated by Nick's blanket photo here, ha!

Tuesday, was a long day.  I spent the morning helping with a project at a different work site, and the afternoon in a meeting.  I ducked out of the meeting early in order to catch the train home and teach a full load of 5 students.  Nick headed out to hang out with some guys while I taught, and came home around 9:30pm.  At which point, we quickly baked some cookies for guys' Life Group the next day as it was our turn to bring treats.  The good news:  I pre-made the dough and put it in the freezer weeks earlier.  The bad news:  I took out the roast beef instead of the cookie dough to thaw.  I would have finished the cookies way earlier if not for this sad fact.  So there we found ourselves, sitting on the floor at 10pm at night, willing the cookies to bake faster.  This photo is actually not that staged.  We really were sitting there like that, and I actually was holding my camera while we sat on the floor.  The only staged part was putting it on the counter behind us and grabbing the remote to fire it.  This is our real life.  In our pajamas.  Sitting on the floor.  Way too late at night.  Haha.

Wednesday, I was back working at the project site for the day, but finished my assignments way earlier than the rest of the group, so was told to just sit tight.  I used the time to write some of this blog and the rest of the time to research some piano music online for a student.  I got home, and quickly taught 2 students before getting Nick to drop me back off at the skytrain, so I could go all the way back downtown for a meeting with a wedding company I was hoping to second shoot for next Summer.  Four and a half hours of commuting later (2 trips to downtown and back), I was finally back home with Nick and ready for bed!  And, in addition, I had been added to the team of the wedding company, so that meeting was definitely worth the trip all the way back down town in the evening!

Thursday, was a nice quiet day at work since we had cancelled class and moved it to Friday.  I enjoyed some time back in my little corner catching up on stuff and meeting my good friend for coffee.  No, I didn't break our no-buying deal.  I used free coffee coupons I'd been saving from McDonald's for the last few months :).  Afterwards, I headed home to teach a couple students and settled down to "rest" for the evening while Nick caught up on projects.  I say "rest" because I decided to download the templates to start building our own website.  I thought it was going to be easy.  I was so, so wrong....

Friday, we slept in a couple hours and then headed out for Nick's wisdom teeth surgery.  I had taken a special leave from work as Nick wasn't supposed to be unsupervised for the remainder of that day or evening.  I finally got him home in the early afternoon after picking up his prescriptions from the Drug Store.  We napped on and off together for the rest of the day, waking up to make sure he was taking his pain meds and rinsing the blood out of his mouth occasionally.  Nick doesn't nap - ever.  I love naps.  This day worked out quite well for me ;).  No Halloween fireworks or adventures for us, though, unfortunately.

Saturday, we had set aside as a stay-at-home date day just for us - no work allowed!  We've been planning this day since late August, and were excited it was finally here.  Nick was mostly his usual self again as we trudged out to the couch in our pajamas to settle in for the rest of the day.  We made porridge for lunch and put on Netflix.  Nick painted some models to relax, and I "thought" I would relax by continuing to work on our website while we watched t.v.  This website has been, and still is, one of the more frustrating learning curves I've been through in a while!  I'm taking a break from it right now actually to write this blog post, but then I'll be back at it again for most of the night I'm sure!