8 weeks, 26.2 lbs lost, 50 lbs lost total

Hey all!  I've been a little absent lately....Just wanted to check in and say hello.  Weight loss is still going strong.  I'm down 50lbs altogether.  Pretty proud of that!  I took a new set of progress pics that I thought I'd share.  Hope everyone is doing well!!!

Thirty Days - Day Ten

A photo of me taken over ten years ago

I couldn't pick just one...I love embarrassing myself with old pics.  Especially when other people are included in them.  :-)

First, a picture from 1996, so that puts me us in 8th grade.  I'm on the left with my big bushy eye brows and sticker on my cheek.  And on the right is Melissa, giving me the evil eye.  You love me.  I promise.  Not sure what the dirty look was for that day.  Geez, we look like such babies!

This picture was taken in the basement of the Catholic grade school I went to for 7th & 8th grade.  The basement was used for many different functions - lunch room during the week, meeting space for after masses, a place to pick up your market day orders, and the place where we had our weekly music classes (Side note - to this day, when I hear "La Cucaracha", I still remember the two of us convincing Mrs. K that we should sing it in class...Despite the fact that NONE of us spoke Spanish!  lol!!).

This second picture is from Prom, my senior year.  What a difference four years can make on some eyebrows, right???  lol  I went from one ridiculous extreme to the other.  I'm glad to say, they've settled at a more normal place and size nowadays.  :-)

About a month before prom, my boyfriend of two years and I called it quits.  I didn't know what I was going to do about prom.  It was the first dance in years that I actually had to worry about finding a date for.  The guy that I went with, Tim, was a good friend and such a nice guy.  He asked me before I could make the mistake of going with my ex "for old times' sake".  I'm fairly certain that Tim would have liked to become an item, but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to realize what a wonderful boyfriend Tim would've made.  I haven't had much contact with him since I graduated, but I'm sure that he's continued being a nice guy and is making his wifey a happy girl. 

Thirty Days - Day Seven

A Favorite Photo


I thought about sharing a photo from my wedding.  Eh.
I thought about sharing a photo of my kitties, but that just lends itself to the crazy cat lady thing that I have going on.
I thought about sharing a photo of my girls because they're amazing and I don't know what I'd do without them, but I don't have one of all of us together.

So, I've decided to share a pic of myself.  I was loving my makeup & hair on Friday, so I did a real not so quick vanity shoot at work before everyone got to the office.  My eyes are always squinty in pics of me because I smile too big.  I consciously opened my eyes wide and minimized the smile and love the pic that I produced.  I feel pretty, oh so pretty....

WooHoo!!!

I updated my photo blog, FotoJenic, today! The last update I did was way back in August...I was feeling like being a bit productive today, I guess! Go check it out! Tell me what you think! :-D

Hold on to your hat!

I have SOOOO many things that I want to accomplish this weekend.

• Grocery Shopping
• Library
• New Layout for this blog
• Update FotoJenic with all of the photos that I've taken over the last sixish months
• Take some photos for next week's You Capture
• A super secret project that I'm sorta really excited about
• An icon and the McLinky for my Thankful for...Thursday meme
• Another super secret project that involves mucho ass kissing
• Curtains - I have a sliding glass door in my kitchen that seriously needs some curtains. It's a project that I KNOW I can do. I just need to buy the materials and DO it. (This project may have to wait until next week when I get paid again, since my wonderful husband took $100 out of the account last night for God knows what...)
• Catch up on some tv shows, like pretty much ALL of this week's shows
• Move all my musica to my desktop, so that I can chuck my piece of garbage laptop out the window ...just kidding ...sorta

Yeah, I'm going to be a busy girl. But I'm really excited about it. These are all pretty fun projects for me. Anything that involves making a mess in my kitchen or playing on the computer makes me happy. Should be a fun and productive weekend!!! :-D

Dressed in costume = lack of motivation

I have a BUNCH of friends who are teachers and so many of them were dreading this day. They have a hard enough time keeping their classes tame on a normal day. Throw in costumes, and it just begs for the students to be distracted.

I feel the SAME WAY today!!! I am completely unmotivated to do ANYTHING! I've checked my email and Facebook about 15 times. The first two hours of my day flew by because everyone was far more interested in the costumes and the fun-ness of the day. But the last 52 minutes have dragged on for seemingly EVER! It's almost lunch time...and then I can wander away for another 20 minutes or so.

I work in an office building, so most people are just dressed in their everyday attire. I guess once you get to a certain age, you don't feel like dressing up anymore? Or maybe you just don't have the time or the energy or whatever the case may be. But I love to dress up. I started working here just over three years ago, along with two other newish employees. One of our coworkers told us that everyone in the office dressed up. He gave examples of what everyone normally dressed as and he convinced us all that we should show up in costume, as well.

I'm sure you can see where this is going...

The three of us showed up in costume and not a single other person on the floor was dressed up. JB & I laughed it off, but the other guy was pissed. He'd dressed as a priest, and as soon as he saw that he'd been duped, he went to the washroom and took it off (obviously he had clothes on underneath his robes).

JB and I have since made it a tradition to dress up every Halloween. That first year, I did the quick and easy cat costume - black shirt & pants, ears, tail & whiskers - not the drawn on with eye liner kind, though. They were plastic and had a little ring, which hooked onto the center of my nose. JB was a referee. The next year, I dressed as a dark fairy. Super fun. Black dress & shoes, red, yellow & black wings, a short black pixy wig, and fun, colorful makeup in black & oranges. JB was preggers that year, days from her due date, so she skipped it. Last year, I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Omi made me a dress, I had a long reddish brown wig in braids, I had the ruby slippers and even a picnic basket with Toto in it. JB was a flapper girl.

This year, JB had a costume that she felt wasn't work appropriate, so she came up with a second one - a sock hop girl:


Another one of our coworkers finally joined the party and he wore his costume as well:


I decided to go as a witch this year. I like alternating between good and evil characters every year. The evil ones seem to be much more fun - mostly because I get to go crazy with my makeup.Apologies for the shoddy camera work. My phone had a bunch of dust over the eye.




I love my makeup today, but I think I may do it differently tomorrow night (not that I'm going out or anything...I'm just passing out candy to the youngins that come to the house). I mean, you've got one opportunity all year to go crazy, why not???

Happy Halloween, Folks! I hope you all have a great (AND SAFE!!!) time this weekend!!!

Got a little excited...

I googled free collage software, since I couldn't remember which of the photo editing softwares that I HAVE actually does this, and the All Knowing Google reminded me that it's Picassa. So, I did some fantabulous collaging. Click the collage(s) to see a larger image.

North America


Asia Quest


Beco, Asian Elephant


The Shores


African Forest


Australia & the Islands

Our Mini Vacay!

I pitched my plan to Hubby last weekend, and he while he wasn't nearly excited as I was, he gave in and we made a compromise. We'd go to the zoo, not the waterpark, and we'd do it all in one day.

*blink*

That conversation went something like this...

Hubby: We'll leave early in the morning, get to the zoo right when they open...Tool around for a few hours and then drive back home that night.
Me: Uh, it's a seven hour drive. And the zoo opens at 9am, eastern time...You're saying we leave here at 1am? We're going to be exhuasted.
Hubby: You sleep on the way out there. I'll sleep on the way back. It'll be all good. We'll go Wednesday.

*blink*

Uhhh...okay. That sounds like fun! *eye roll* I was just happy that we weren't going to spend the ENTIRE vacation in the house. Even if it meant running around for 20 hours straight. So, I kept my mouth shut, although in my head, I'm thinking Dude, my hair's gonna look like a bird's nest if I sleep on the way there. Somehow, I'm changing your mind on this one day deal.

We had plans to go see Hubby's mom for lunch/dinner on Monday. So, we start getting ready and out of the blue, Hubby suggests that we go to the zoo a day earlier than planned. We discussed the logistics of it and I finally got him to agree to get a hotel for the night! So, after his mom grilled for us, we got in the car and started driving east. When we were about an hour and a half north of Columbus, and Hubby couldn't keep his eyes open any longer, we decided to stop and get a hotel room for the night.

First, we went to Holiday Inn Express. And they were completely sold out.

What?? We're in the middle of bu fu Ohio and the Holiday Inn has no rooms? Oh, and the front desk attendant tells us that the Hampton next door is also out of rooms, but the Comfort Inn & Suites across the street has some available rooms. So, we go over there and the lady at the desk tells us she only has suites available - all the regular rooms are sold out. We end up getting a King suite with a whirlpool tub in the bathroom. Between the bedroom and the living room area, it was almost as big as the first level of my house! And for only $110! Too bad we were only there for like six hours. lol I didn't even get to try out the tub, as much as I really would've liked to!!!

The next morning, we were back in the car by 7. Another hour and a half on the road, and we'd made it to our destination!!!

We took a TON of photos...And as much as I'd love to litter your temporary internet files with tons of pics, I'm going to limit myself to my five six favorite photos from the trip. I had a hard enough time narrowing it down to six.

We came at a good time to see a couple baby animals, which is always fantastic! The photo above is the baby Langur, born on July 6th - a week before our visit. It was really dark in here and so hard to get a good shot. I loved this one with the mother and sibling looking down on him.
This is Beco, the baby Asian elephant, along with his mother, born in March. They have viewing of him between 10-2. We were lucky enough to walk up at 9:45, and still waited around for about 30 minutes. When we walked out of the viewing area, the line was quite long - would've been 45 minute wait just to get up to where the elephants were at! It's amazing to me how these animals will walk up to the glass and just parade around (Some of them, anyway...Early in the morning, all the animals were still in sleep-mode. I didn't get any good shots of the lazy ass bears, because they refused to get up! lol).
The aquarium was pretty small, but still cool. They had a few small tanks and one gigantic tank that had a variety of fish and sharks swimming around in it. They also had a hands-on station where kids could touch certain water animals. I got in line (dragged Hubby in line, too) and then as I looked at the line, realized we were the only people over 10 that weren't holding on to a small child. I backed us out of the line and walked on by. I should've gotten some shots of other people's hands touching the starfish and stuff, but I didn't.

This orangutan made my day! We walked up and saw a couple of these orange guys hanging out in the trees, showing me nothing but ass. I happened to glance around the area, and saw this one all swathed up in the red cloth. Sorta looks like an old man. lol
I almost missed this one. We were getting near the end of our adventure, with only Australia to visit, and I was sweaty and my ankles hurt and I was thirsty. I told Hubby I was cool with skipping the last section. He was not having it. (I'm glad he didn't let me...Don't tell him that, though!) So, we see some more monkeys and the kangaroos, and then we come up on these fuzzy little koalas. How flippin cute!


I'm going to make a couple collages, I think. Maybe I'll post them later. Or maybe I'll just post everything to FotoJenic next week. We left the zoo around 1pm and got back on the road. We were home 7 hours later, and haven't done a whole lot since. :-)

Almost over? Already?

Geez! I will never get over how fast the time goes by when you'd like nothing more than for it to slow down or even stand still. My summer vacation is almost over. It's almost time to go back to work. Bleh. Just wanted to say what's up to all my homies. lol

We did go to Columbus - did an overnight trip. Checked out the zoo. No waterpark. It was a compromise. Had a very nice time at the zoo, but if we'd been in that car together any longer, I'm pretty sure my husband would be missing an eyeball. We can only be in those tight spaces together for so long before I want to poke him in the eye.

The rest of the week has just been spent here and there. Picked up my new glasses today. Apparently the shape of my eye changed since I last got glasses, so my eyes have yet to adjust to the new prescription. The lady who handed my new specs over said that I should put them on first thing tomorrow morning, so that my eyes adjust to them first thing, rather than getting all used to the old ones first. I'm excited for new eyes, though. Lost my sunglasses a couple months ago. Was hoping that they'd turn up, but they didn't. Gave in and bought new ones, along with new regular glasses, too. Maybe pics to come.

Today started the second session of my photography glass. We have assignments now. I'm stoked. We're working on composition this week. She gave us some things to focus on, but what I got out of the assignment is that she wants us to take some macro shots. I'm good at those!!! Yay! Five printed photos. So, we'll see how that goes. She also suggested that we play around with b&w and sepia editing, which will work nicely with this week's You Capture.

Anyway, this was meant to just be a short what's up! And I will be returning shortly with a more in-depth recap of the week. Hope everyone's having a good week!!

New Updates!

Happy Fourth of July, Folks!!! Hope everyone has a great holiday! Please stay safe!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've updated my photoblog with pics of Melissa and her kids from last weekend. Go on over! Check em out! Let me know what you think!!!

Weekend Update

I had a very nice, albeit short, weekend! Friday night, I came home and watched back episodes of The Cleaner with Benjamin Bratt. It's the story of an ex-addict who in his own recovery has found a calling to help others through the same thing. He is hired by people who have loved ones suffering from some kind of addiction - drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex - they mostly focus on drug addicts in the show, though. William (Bratt's character) and his team track down the addict, find the supplier, "catch" the addict and bring them to a rehab facility. They talk about how the failure rate of these caught addicts is 75%. Only one quarter of all the people that they bring to rehab are successful in kicking their habit. Yikes. Anyway, I got sucked into the show. That's what I did on Friday. I had leftovers for dinner, made Hubby his BLT's and went to bed.

Saturday, I woke up around 7 when Hubby got home from work. We hung out for a while - he played WoW, I played Sims 3. I did a bit of cleaning and then took a shower and ran some errands. Finally got my pool pass - definitely going to take advantage of that soon. Went to JoAnn Fabrics and got some material to make a backdrop for my photos. Came back home and ordered a pizza for dinner. Watched some more Cleaner and went to bed around 10.

Sunday, Hubby woke me up around 6, after he'd been up for an hour and a half. Before I even woke up, he did some cleaning and put on a pot of coffee for me. We had some breakfast and I finished up with the cleaning while he went out and mowed the lawn. I did a bit of sewing - my backdrop isn't quite what I'd planned, but it's not bad. It serves its purpose. And then around 2, Mel & the kids came by. We took some pics at the house, but I had forgotten how difficult it can be to get 2 and 3 year olds to sit still and look in the same direction at the same time. So, we put the nix on that and went out to the park. It was a beautiful day and I think the kids had a nice time. I got some great pics at the park, which I'll be sharing soon. After while, the kids got tuckered out, so they all headed back home. Spent the rest of the evening having dinner with Hubby and talking about plans for the week.

Like I said, short & sweet. :-)

OMG...I'm dyin here...

I have one hour and 8 minutes until the bell (in my head) rings, signaling the end of the work week. Normally, I can easily pass an hour reading blogs or futzing around on Facebook or reading/sending emails. Today, there is NOTHING. No blog updates in almost two hours. No emails since this morning. And it seems everyone I know on Facebook is at the Crosstown Classic. So, it's pretty quiet over there, too. What am supposed to do for the next 66 minutes?

Work, you say? Pfft.

I'm so over that for this week.

This weekend should be fun. I need to clean some - my floors are looking kinda grungy. And the litter boxes are bad. I asked Hubby to take care of that more days ago than I care to count. I hope he cut the grass today. We put down a bunch of mulch around the trees and flower beds. Looking pretty nice, even though it's not the color that he was supposed to get. Still looks fresh. That's what matters. I guess.

Oooh..I sent some texts. And looked at FB again. Now we're down to T minus 45 42. Woo!

My hair is a big fluffy mess today. If I spray it with curl enhancer when it's wet in the am and give it a little scrunch, I get nice wavy-ish curls. Most of the time. Today, apparently I didn't put enough enhancer in. So instead of loose, wet-looking waves, I have dry, fluffy (It's really the best word to describe the state of my hair) Shirley Temple-ish curls. Not so cute on a 27 year old.

I got some AWESOMELY CUTE (not to mention inexpensive) sandals at Sears yesterday. Three pairs, $35. Today, I'm wearing brown. They've got a cute little wedge heel and topaz colored jewels on the straps. And the part that's actually touching the bottom of my foot is a fuzzy material, instead of rubber. Makes for less stinkiness later, I thinks. I got white ones that have a white, almost pleated ribbon on the straps, with a little rhinestone buckle. These two pair were marked down to $8 from $13. And the last pair is just a plain black leather (maybe pleather, given the price) flip flop, originally $30, marked down to $16. I haven't been wearing a lot of sandals this summer. Mostly because my shoes are all still packed away in some unknown location, but also because when I do anything other than socks and gym shoes, my feet and ankles swell up like the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man. And that ends up meaning sore ankles. But, at least my toes aren't hot...Right?

T minus 26. We're doing good here!

Melissa and the kids are supposed to come over on Sunday. That should be hella fun! If Hubby gets his shit together, I might have a quasi-photo studio set up by then, so we'll have a place to take some pics. And then maybe if the weather cooperates like it's supposed to, we can head over to the Forest Preserve for some more candid-type photos. Mel - would you be interested in going to the pool after pics? There's a zero depth pool, where we can take the kids (I'm sure there will be plenty of other kids there, too). If not, I'm cool with that too. Just thought I'd throw it out there. I'll have to see about visitor passes - let me know.

Okay, the boss just asked me to Proof read something for him (yeah, my grammar freak tendencies have gotten around), so if I wanna get out of here in 21 minutes, I better hop to it. Thanks for helping me kill some time, folks! :-D

Lost & Found

I lost a follower today. I was hurt for a moment. Until I realized it was some random that had mysteriously appeared there a couple weeks ago. And now she's mysteriously disappeared. Such is life.

I found some new photos (well, new, as in I've taken them in the last week and decided to do something with them). They're over here. I haven't done any edits to them. Just SOOC. Good deal.

Oh, and just so I can prove how unGodly hot it was on the ride home yesterday, have a pic outta my phone...

Can you see it? The part where it says 100??? Stop yelling at me for taking photos while I'm driving 60 mph. Do you see the thermostat!!?!? This wasn't even the worst! It went up another degree! Stupid hot. Stupid humid. I'm so getting this shit taken care of tomorrow. I'm too much of a whiny brat to be driving around with no air.

True to to nature...

I'm going to do two posts in one day, one was a meme and the other, a belated Weekend Update. Good times, huh?

My weekends have been pretty quiet for the last few weeks. Hence the lack of Weekend Updates. Last weekend (the weekend of the 13th), I went out to see Steph for her 23rd bday. The plan was to hit up the local drive-in, but the weather just wasn't cooperating. So, instead, we went to the regular movie theater. We saw The Hangover. It was a pretty good flick. We sat in the third row, because the little theater was PACKED! I thought I'd be feeling nauseous or have a headache by the end, but I didn't, so that was good. Quite funny. Andy from The Office (I don't know his real name and don't really feel like going to look it up) was in the movie. HilARious! Love that guy!

This past weekend, Hubby came home from work early on Friday night...Got home at like 3am. I didn't know he was there until 5, when I was hollering at the cat and he responded. Scared the shit out of me for a second until I remembered that his vacation time started over and it was only a matter of time before he left early. I could care less, as long as he has the time. He has a bad habit of using all his vacation and personal time early in the year and then for the last six months, every time he wants a day off, or a couple hours off, he has to take no pay. Which he never seems to have a problem with. I could kick him every time.

Anyway, I went back to sleep and woke up around 7, thinking that we were going to go to Menard's to pick up some yard stuff and then work in the yard for a few hours. That never happened. Hubby didn't leave his desk chair all weekend, with the exception of a few hours when he napped and a couple potty breaks. What a turd. Saturday was just a blur. I got Culver's and TacoHell for dinner. We did not a damn thing.

Sunday, I went to visit the fam. My grandparents were there, which was nice, but they only stayed for a while. Opa wasn't feeling well and wanted to go back home. Poor guy. He starts radiation this week. I don't really have any more info, except that they did some more tests last week to determine if the cancer has spread to any organs. As far as I know, we don't have any results on that.

The rest of the afternoon/evening, I just hung out with my parents. I read to my mom for a while (who needs a book on tape/cd/mp3 when you have your own personal readers??) and then checked out my dad's Father's Day gift - a new grill. He was testing it out on me - he made ribs, red potatoes and asparagus (and showed me an awesomely easy way to grill the asparagus!!! You take a couple toothpicks and stick them through the spears, making a "boat" of sorts. Makes it way easier to turn them and you don't lose them through the grates of the grill...Good deal!). Very nice dinner with my dad. After dinner, I got back in the car - I had Hubby's - no way was I going to put up with the heat when I didn't HAVE to - and made the long journey back home. I pretty much went to bed as soon as I got home, while Hubby continued to play the game straight through the night and until noon on Monday. Seriously, that man has an addiction. Last night, though, he did comment that he needed a break from WoW. Like a whole weekend. Call me Thomas, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Not much else is going on with me. I'm bored with life in general. The future of my company is still up in the air. Bossman Bob met with the potential purchaser (we'll call him the Donald) yesterday, and while he hasn't accepted the deal yet (wasn't offered enough moula), he also didn't turn them away. He's going to mull it over for a week and get back to them. If he does decide to sell, the Donald says that he'd like to keep all of us on, but in new roles. He'd want to send the programming/development over to India and the existing programmers/developers would move to sales/support. Which made me question my own job. If the programmers, who have far more knowledge than I do, are bumped to support, where does that leave me? I mean, that's what I do now. As a tester, JB and I are the main contacts for our clients. They call us, JB and I try to work out or duplicate the problem and then we submit the issue to the programmers. If they're doing our job, where does that leave us? It's a little concerning, but, as I've said before, I feel bored. And if my job security was in question, chances are, I'd be on monster and careerbuilder faster than ... well, I dunno what. But fast.

I sent an email to a bunch of my friends, with a link to my photo blog and told them all that I'm looking for human subjects and that I'm offering my services free of charge. I have three or four pretty definite things set up, and a handful of others saying they're interested, just let 'em know when. So, I'm glad I did that. I'm a bit nervous that I won't be as good as I'm hoping, but that's the whole idea, right. Develop the portfolio. Develop the skills. And they're my friends. They've gotta at least pretend to like the photos. ;-)

Wow...This turned out to be much longer than expected. Well, there ya have it. That's most of June, so far. :-)

And now, Presenting...

My new photo blog @ http://fotojenicphotos.blogspot.com/!!!

I really want to be able to display my photos, all in one place, and be able to show it other people, mainly people I know, that I don't neccessarily want all in my business. Hopefully, I can keep the two separate.

I posted all the photos yesterday and did the layout today. When I came up with this plan to make a blog solely for my photos, I knew exactly which photo I wanted to use as my header. I knew nothing else. But I'm very pleased with the way it came out. It's not too busy, but it's still unique.

If you get a moment, please wander over and let me know what you think!

How fun!

Last night was the first session of the photography class that I'm taking this summer. Good times! The instructor is a girl around my age who has a degree in photography from NIU. She works for a studio in the area that does all the photos for the local schools. So, sporting events, school pictures, dances, etc. How fun does that sound??? I think it sounds like one of the coolest things ever! Not surprisingly, she said the in the last six months or so, she's watched her job go from full-time, pushing overtime on a regular basis to minimal part-time hours. Sucks.

Anyway, the class consists of myself and two other women, probably in their late 50's or early 60's. One is a teacher and the other is a nurse. Both very nice ladies. And the instructor, Cathy, is great, too. Last night's class was just kind of an overview of what we'll be talking about over the next six weeks. But it was very informative already. My assignment is to go out and try out the different settings on my camera, now that I have a little insight as to how they work. Should be fun. I'm going to try to go visit Mel this afternoon. The plan is to take some photos of her kids (and maybe a couple of the two of us, since aside from my wedding, the only ones I have of us are from maybe 8th grade) and just futz around with the settings. I'd really like to get some more photos of PEOPLE in my portfolio. I'm a bit nervous to look like a dummy, but I don't think she or her kids will mind. ;-) I'm looking forward to the classes. Hopefully, I can gain some real insight on how to take better photos.

Belated Weekend Update, and then some!

Hello Friends!

I'm getting a little lax on these weekend updates. I mean, we're halfway to next weekend already! (Woohoo!)

This weekend was great! It was so nice to have an extra day off. Saturday, we spent the morning in the yard. Hubby mowed the lawn & did the edging/weed wacking while I trimmed the bushes and pulled weeds. We planted some flowers (petunias, pansies, lamb's ear & New Guinea impatiens. I haven't taken any photos yet - I'll have to get on that sometime this week. We were going to put down mulch, but Hubby made the mistake of asking the neighbor across the street how much he used. He tells Hubby he used THIRTY TWO bags of mulch!!! We only had six. And I'm still not convinced that six wasn't enough. But Hubby didn't want to start the job if we couldn't finish it. So, that was the end of our yardwork. It was fun, though, what we did do. I got a bit of a sunburn, but I needed some color and pink is better than pasty! We took a four hour nap after our hard work outside and then hung out in the office for the rest of the day. Sunday & Monday, we just relaxed. Hubby slept most of the days, while I worked on my blog layout (which, I think I may change again this weekend...Maybe I'll just use a different bgd on the actual blog part...). I grilled a couple times and then it was Monday night and I was back to getting ready for work. :-P

We still don't have any news on the future of our company. My coworkers are doing a demo of our software this week for the high-ups at this other company, who might be interested in buying us. We will see what happens. I have to admit that I was surfing around Monster & CareerBuilder this weekend...Just keeping my eyes & ears open.

I'm starting a photography class through the park district tomorrow. I'm really excited about it! Not just about learning how all the settings on my fancy dancy camera work, but also about meeting other people in the area who have an interest in something that I enjoy. Maybe, just maybe, I'll make a friend!!! Someone who lives less than an hour away! How exciting! It's a six week "beginner's" class, then a break for the week of July 4th, and then another 6 week "intermediate" class. Did I mention how excited I am??? :-)

I have something else to discuss, but that topic will get its own blog post. Probably later today. Until then, hasta!

You Capture - Sweet!

It's that time of the week, kids! It's time for You Capture!



This week's theme was sweet. Naturally, I thought of things that taste sweet. And while I did think about expanding my horizons and photographing things that I think are "sweet," as in super!, I waited til the last minute to take my photos this week. So, I came up with a few sweet things in my kitchen.

An ear of corn from this weekend's BBQ with Hubby's mom. I was incredibly surprised at how sweet it was!

Next, we have a couple shots of caramels...I bought these for some cookies that I intended on making months ago, and never got around to it. Now, the caramels sit in my spice cabinet, waiting to be found by Hubby.

And finally, my favorite bottle of wine (perhaps the reason I'm rambling a bit more than usual tonight. A glass or two bottle will do that, ya know...). I really only drink dessert/sweet wines, so this is perfect. :-)

To see some more sweetness, go on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry and check out some of the other Captures for this week!

Lions and Tigers and Bears!

As previously promised, here are some photos from my trip to Brookfield Zoo last week. My favorite ones are the one of the polar bear making love to the camera and the one of the elephant, showing off his trunk.

Welcome to Brookfield Zoo!

I started in Tropic World, one of my favorite places in the zoo, despite the heat and smell of the indoor exhibits. This guy looked like a little old man. After a few photos, he turned around like he was irritated with all the paparazzi.

Dude, really...They're fake leaves...As in not edible...

Every time I go to the zoo, this guy's always got this look on his face - Like 'Don't effin look at me...Or I'll eat you for lunch...'
Such a stark contrast from this one who looks so relaxed. Her little one just got done picking bugs off her back. Ain't that sweet?

After the primates, I moved on to the pachyderms. Hubby and I collect elephants (I really don't know why elephants...I wish there was some great story, but there's really not)...I'm thinking about having a print of this one made and hanging it in the house someplace. It looks a lot darker/shadowy in this size than it does in a larger size.

Usually, I couldn't care less about the hippos, but this guy was pretty cool. Just hanging out in his little pond.
Definitely a photogenic hippopotamus!
And, apparently I can't go anywhere without taking some sort of foliage photos...
The dino in the middle of the zoo, which moves its head & tail, makes noise and even spits water...And scares a lot of small children....Good thing it's not a T-Rex...I think I would've cried too.
Next up were the kitty cats! I arrived by the tigers just in time to see this one pad across his exhibit and flop over for a nap...Reminds me a LOT of my own kitties' behavior

I was going to say that I must've arrived in the big cat section at nap time, but then I remembered that this is what cats do...I hope I come back as a cat in my next life. Preferably not one that's in the wild cuz I don't think they have it as easy as a house or zoo cat.
As I was walking around the big cats, I couldn't find the lions. It seemed that they'd gone inside when I was walking by. I didn't feel like waiting for God knows how long, so I moved on. A bit later, I took a ride on the zoo tram for the first time ever and when we went by the lions - THEY WERE OUT! I missed the Daddy, but the Mama was chillin on the rocks. I was lucky to get this real quick one as we drove on by.

And last, but definitely not least, the polar bear. Either I smelled like lunch or this guy was ready for his photo shoot. As soon as I walked up, he turned his head and was posing for me left and right. I like this one the best because he's looking dead at me; he was probably thinking that I looked pretty tasty!

And this concludes our trip to the zoo. There are plenty more animals that I didn't see and some that I did. But these are the best of the best.

You Capture - Colors

Well, after a brief hiatus, I have some new photos to share for this week's You Capture!!! The theme for this week was colors. I was all over this! So many beautiful colors all around. I love this time of year - when everything is coming back to life and so vibrant!

My colors this week all came from the outdoors - it's got the best lighting and it's usually pretty easy to find things to photograph. So, without any more jibber jabber, here they are!

The barn in my hood that I'm in love with. I just like how all the colors play together.

Tulips by the sign to the building that I work in - I looked at these flowers for days before I finally stopped and took some photos on the way out of the office one afternoon.
These next three were all taken at my parents' house - there's so many things to photograph there. I <3 going "Home" sometimes.

This last one is something that I snapped while I was stuck in traffic Tuesday. I was on the entrance ramp to the highway and as we creeped along, I glanced over and noticed this field of yellow. I don't know what they are, but I really like how they've just taken over this little area - surrounded by the dirty, noisy commotion that goes on everyday. I snatched my camera up, switched the lens real quick and started taking photos. I was worried that I wouldn't get any good ones. But as it turns out, I think this may be my favorite this week.

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