I’ve had a few photo sessions, check out the photo site for details. I’m also now a member of BNI which is an international networking group. We have meetings on Wednesday’s, every week. I wasn’t sure that I was going to join, but, I did this last visit. You can visit three times before you have to join or not come back again. I was on the fence, so I went this past Wednesday. I received THREE referrals from within the group, so, I made up my mind right there. I have to wait a few weeks to get inducted, but, it’s nice to know that I won’t have to pay the hefty registration fee again. Between that and the Chamber of Commerce thing, I’m keeping busy. I also have been checking out another networking group, this one is all women. It’s the American Business Women Association. They have a dinner mixer on Wednesday in Annapolis. I plan on going to at least see what it’s all about.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. Greg and I are going to the Fairgrounds to eat a picnic dinner and watch the fireworks. I don’t remember doing anything here or in VA when we lived in the townhouses for the 4th. When we lived in Hampton, we just walked out our front door and saw the fireworks. So it’s been about 5 or 6 years.

I need to make a card for our anniversary to give Greg. We’ll be celebrating our 25th this month. I bought some really sweet little scrapbooking things that I plan on using for the card. Hopefully he will get me the Pandora necklace and charm that I am asking and hoping for!

Tomorrow and Monday we have estimators coming out to the house for the living room. Greg’s off next Friday and that’s the day that he will tear up the ceiling and wall. He’s putting in a lighting fixture and there’s nothing at all in that room except outlets and one switch on the wall. We have no furniture in there, as of yet, so, it will be quick and easy for the painters to patch the holes, paint the ceiling and walls and put the crown molding back up. We’re really lucky that he can do the electrical work. I keep telling him to get his license, he could make some good money on the side!

I’ve been cooking and baking a lot since we bought the new stove. It’s sweet! I hope to get the new washer/dryer in the Fall or for Christmas.

Traveling – We’re pretty much staying put until late August. Then we’re hopefully heading 3 hours south to Williamsburg for the weekend. Greg is going to Pittsburgh next week for a few days and then NJ next month for a few days. He’s been traveling a lot the past year, much more than when he was still in the Navy, but less than others from what he’s told me.

Anyhow, that’s about it. You can see that I took off the password protection thing. I’m so irregular about posting that it doesn’t make sense to keep it private.

TTFN!

We bought a new stove over the weekend and it will be here on Friday. I cannot wait! We’ll have all the major appliances replaced. Yay! The stove we’re using has been here for 15 or so years. Sometimes one of the burners doesn’t really work that well. It’s a gas stove and one burner sometimes goes out when you put in on low. It will be nice to have something new to cook on and in. We bought one very similar to this one, but at Lowe’s. It was the last one, the floor model, but, it was in great shape. They took 10% off because it was the floor model, so we didn’t pay the full price. Best Buy’s price is about $250 higher than Lowe’s. I like it a lot and I cannot wait to use it! It’s a convection oven, has a storage drawer (believe me, you miss it when you don’t have it!), 5 burners and a griddle insert as well as a child lock for the stove door. We found some great plastic rings that slip over the knobs on our gas stove. We had been taking them off as we didn’t want Violet to light a burner! They sell them at Lowe’s for anyone that may have little ones and stove knobs that are counter level.

We painted our little powder room last weekend. Started on Friday night, finished on Saturday night. It’s tiny, so we worked in shifts. I think it took us 4 hours total. Easiest paint job we’ve done! Greg rolled the walls to a certain level, I finished that later, from that point to the floor. I took brushes and little rollers behind the toilet and under and around the sink. I eventually want to replace the lighting in there, as well as add some photos and a corner shelf.

I’ve edited and processed all the photos from my Senior class Ambassador, Megan. Haven’t heard a word from them at all. I sent everything to them last Thursday, called on Monday to make sure they could get to the site. I would like to put them online for everyone to see and to print them for my portfolio soon. I also have been playing in PS with her business card layout. I finished it last night and hopefully I will be able to print it soon!

This Saturday we’re off to Jess’s place for the day. We’re driving up Saturday morning and spending most of the day up there. She’s going to follow us Saturday night and spend the night as Sunday is Father’s Day. She was here last Sunday for the day, we thought Brian was going to join us, but he had tire issues. He picked up a nail and they didn’t have the tire in stock, so he couldn’t join us as it was a 4 hour wait. We went to my friends house for a few hours on Saturday. I have some great photos of Violet and Jacqueline feeding the horses!

I have to upload photos to Flickr, I have Vi’s party as well as last weekend to upload. Hopefully today it will be done, at least started.

TTFN!

I’ve been pretty busy since landing at home after Vegas.

We had a great time on our vacation, but, 7 days is too long for me. I was ready to go home on day 5. We did a lot of things. Hoover Dam, Red Rock, Atomic Testing Lab, racing around the Las Vegas Speedway in a tour bus at 98 m.p.h., seeing Cobra cars, the Air Force Base. I did win at the video blackjack game. $200 profit!! We met up with Christine and her guy, Steve. We toured Freemont St., had dinner and some laughs. We watched the overhead projection as Queen played on the street. We saw two comedians, show girls, ate at buffets, saw pink flamingos. We were HOT though, it was the hottest week in May ever recorded. Geeeze. Remember how we didn’t want to go on our actual 25th anniversary because it’s in the middle of July? Whatever! *LOL* I think it was in the 98-99 degree range every day except for Sat, then it hit 101 and Sunday we left, which was good as it was 102 that day. We had a cute little car as a rental, but, Greg wasn’t the main driver, I was. I know my way around Vegas pretty well now. We never went to Area 51, that’s the only thing we planned and didn’t do. We were busy enough and we relaxed a lot.

There’s a small business trade show tomorrow evening that I’m participating in and it’s my first! I’ve been getting ready for it since the beginning of May, let’s hope it pays off! I have give-aways and hopefully some sessions on the books after tomorrow night! I have two senior class sessions this month and one first birthday party next month. Hopefully the soccer team will be sometime this month as well. My hair stylist is the manager of her daughter’s team. They just had tryouts, 18 girls! I would love to do that next week, so I’m working most of the month! I just photographed my first Senior Ambassador for 2010 yesterday and I will be editing her photos today. Hopefully putting in the order for her 100 free business cards to pass around school. School is out on Friday, so we’ll see how that goes. Maybe I will get some sort of word of mouth out of that. I know that her mom will be buying prints, she definitely will she said.  I’ve changed my website around a little bit, I did that before leaving for Vegas. I also have revised the “cd of images” issue. I will not be giving those away without a qualifying print order on birthday parties or regular sessions. School, celebrations, etc. will not get the images at all. I actually was told that I need to change my policy about birthday parties as someone cannot afford my rates so that means her friends cannot. Um, no.

My weight loss is going well. I’ve been trying to get to the gym during the week, although it’s been challenging some days. I hope to be at my goal weight by this time next month, but if not, it’s not a biggie. We just bought the Active game thing for the Wii and I will have to try that out this week when I can. My gym is putting in new machines this week, one circuit is of the band machines. Very cool! I have a doc appt. on Wednesday. Cholesterol check, rx and just to meet the doc. Jac does as well, to get better birth control pills.

Violet is growing by leaps and bounds. I have an entire CD of images of her from May and from her bday party. Next week I will make time to post some to our Flickr account. I promise!

We were going to paint the powder room last month, but, our dishwasher died. We have a new one now, thank God for Lowe’s. It’s a black Kitchenaid and I love it. Hopefully sometime this weekend or next weekend we can paint.

Greg and I went to see Star Trek in IMAX while we were in Vegas. And we saw Angels and Demons a few weekends ago. I want to take Vi and Jac to see Up sometime soon, maybe Friday.

This weekend we are visiting one of my old friends…she lives about an hour from us. They have a ranch, horses and a pool! I’m taking my camera and my bathing suit.

I have been reading blogs when I can, but, I haven’t been commenting a lot. I’m reading though! TTFN!

We’re off to VEGAS BABY!! We’re leaving the house early this afternoon, making a stop at the beer store on the way to get some new bottles for Greg. Then, we are in the air until 8:30 p.m. Las Vegas time! I’m taking my laptop with me, so feel free to drop me a line, comment here, message me on Facebook, whatever. Bringing my camera along for some awesome shots of everything in the area! We’re planning on getting some time in at Red Rock and hopefully some horses will be out there running around. The weather is supposed to be HOT though, each day the low is in the 70’s and the highs are in the 97-100°F range. So, we’ll see what we end up doing with the afternoons. I see movies and a/c in our future. Plus, we’re going to gamble a little. We only pull the slots, so, it’s limited to what we can win. Last time we were there I won $200 on the slots, not a loss at all. Wish us luck! We are meeting up with Christine and her crew for dinner on Friday night. I think we met on Twitter or Plurk (which I don’t go on anymore), not sure, but we’ve been talking online for a while. She and her family live there, so how can we not meet up and have dinner? We found a great hotel near the strip, but it has a full kitchen and it’s always a good nights sleep in these hotels. We stayed at one in Atlanta and really liked it. The Air Force base is very close by to the hotel, we actually thought of staying there, but there are rules. You cannot stay there more than 3 guaranteed nights, since hubby is retired, active duty has priority and we don’t have kids with us either. That’s okay, we’re visiting the base to get cheap tickets and find out about the area.

I’ve been doing really well on my weight loss. I haven’t posted anything about it as I was stuck at a plateau for a while and wanted to get past that. I’ve now moved past that and every pound is a victory! I started on July 28, 2008 at 144 lbs. I changed my eating habits and worked out more and I’m now officially at 122 pounds! I wore a size 12 when I started, I’m in a size 4 now. I’m 4′11″ so my actual recommended weight is 99-115 pounds. I’ve been drinking water or Crystal Light and that’s it. No juice, which was really hard for me to wean off of. I haven’t been snacking a lot and keeping busy over the past few weeks has helped. I still run a mile when I go to the gym and when we get back I will be stepping that up a little. I also do the elliptical and the bike while I’m there. Now it’s time to start the crunches and get everything toned as I lose the last 10 or so pounds. I haven’t weighed under 120 since 1999 when I started working at the truck garage. So, that’s my goal for myself right now. To get those last 3 or 5 pounds off by my birthday in October! Sounds easy, we’ll see though. I want to be in my size 4 jeans that are a little snug right now, on my 45th birthday! I wear a 4 in shorts, weird that I wear a 6 in Levi’s. Anyhow, I’m still taking my vitamins, eating my salad and protein each day. I have a lot more energy than I did a year ago. Oh and I bought a dress! My first dressy purchase since losing weight. I will have someone take a photo of Greg and I while we are all dressed up so you can see it. I looked at my driver’s license and Military ID photos last night. I look SO different now. My face is definitely different. My weight was 130 when I got my driver’s license, I lied on it though, it was much higher I’m sure, that was last January. My Military ID has my weight at 115, which is a lie too, they carried that over from my last one and I didn’t deny it, they never asked actually. Now I can state it proudly when I get my next card or license.

Have a great week and I hope to post at least once from Vegas!

I cannot wait. It’s been since NEVER that we’ve been gone a week from our kids. Ever. And we’ve always driven to the vacation spot, so we usually go to Williamsburg or somewhere nearby.

Sleeping in, spending time with each other. Heaven.

I’m behind closed doors from now until eternity. If you are reading this, I know you very well and have trust in you. My best friend, Lisa, has a really assholish hubby. He will not give her any privacy. I was actually thinking of going totally protected with my blog a few months ago, but never did it. He found a TRUE entry about himself and went apeshit on her. I think it was only verbal, he’s like that. Anyhow, if you are here, thank you for reading. I promise to post at least once a month!

Greg is leaving on Monday for a few days. He’s heading to San Diego. I’m actually glad now that I’m not going, I have TOO MUCH TO DO! He will be back on Friday, he rests on Saturday, then we leave for Vegas on Sunday for a week! Yay!

I’ve been working on revamping my photo biz site. It should be done soon. I’m just uploading and posting the photos on my business Flickr and then I have to do a header and some light coding. I will let everyone know when it’s completed though! It’s been taking up a lot of my time lately.

I really do like my new computer. I’ve had it for a week or so and I’m getting used to Vista. I like the Media center! I’ve been putting all my CD’s on it today. Greg hooked up the TV tuner card so I can watch TV if I want to, or listen while I’m doing something. I haven’t tried out the recording thing yet though. I will get in the near future, at least one new DVD burner, the one that it came with sucks. I’m currently using my Lightscribe burner for all my CD’s and DVD’s. It’s fast, but really a little noisy. I bought it for work, so I don’t want to use it too much. I also have TWO open bays in the case for internal hard drives. I see those filled up by the year’s end. I think I have another slot for another DVD burner. I had two in my old tower, I miss them! They are pretty old though, so I won’t be transferring them over. I’ve been putting the new computer through the tests. Lightroom is a huge memory hog, but, I can have that and two other programs open and a graphics program open as well with no issues so far.

Life here is always busy. Violet will be two years old at the end of the month. I cannot believe it. I cannot imagine life without her around. I will be watching her one last time on Tuesday while Jacqueline is at her last French class for the semester. We are going to miss her so much while we are on vacation! Greg will be gone nearly two weeks from her. She only really has him as a male role model and loves her Pap-paw a lot. It will be hard on her I think. I took some photos of them together today and I am planning in printing out some to hang in her room so she can see him while he’s gone. I want to get some of me and her tomorrow and of Jac and I. Violet is so funny now, she smiles a silly cheesy grin when you ask her to smile! *LOL*

Jac is applying for an apprenticeship at a local tattoo place, so, we’ll see how that pans out time wise with watching Violet. It’s night’s at least, 2-9, maybe 3 times a week. She’s a great artist, has to do a portfolio of different drawings and will be bringing that back to the guy sometime in the near future. I really don’t care where she works to tell you the truth, as long as she’s happy with what she’s doing and she’s safe doing it. It’s not a food related job, which is great and not surrounded by high school kids is a good thing too.

Greg and I went to Outback last night for dinner. We ate for $29 and had an appetizer. We each ordered the 6 oz. steak and the two sides for $9.99, an appetizer of the crab stuffed shrimp and I had a Coke, he had water. After the tip it was under $40! Great deal! I couldn’t hear myself think throughout dinner though. They sat us backing a loud table of 4 or 5 women and a baby. They were so loud. Once they left we sat there talking for a while, just so we could get our money’s worth of quiet!

I hope to post again before we leave for Vegas! Thank you for reading!

Saturday’s session never happened and frankly I’m a little pissed off about it. She called me that morning to tell me that she couldn’t find the potential groom and then after I had packed the Jeep with everything and I was ready to leave to drive to the session, she called again. She found him, but since they had had such a huge fight, she needed to cancel. I’ve learned from this though, no matter who it is, contracts and deposit before the session. We could have visited with our old friend that day instead. That’s why I’m a little pissed off. Oh well, when she wants them done, I will get the deposit and then take the photos. If they don’t show up, they will have to just have it apply to a future session. That’s how I work. It’s on the website, seriously.

I had a Pampered Chef party on Sunday, it was good to see my friends and have some fun. If you want to order, let me know and I will send you the online ordering link. The party closes May 4th.

I’ve been busy keeping up with everything. I’m currently looking at getting a new computer. Unfortunately it’s not a Mac. Oh well. It will cost too much dough to get what I want and the programs that I use already. Some of them aren’t compatible, so I will stick with a PC. I’m actually looking to get a Gateway desktop to replace my 10 year old Compaq. We bought it when we moved to Virginia (again) in 1998, so, it’s time. I’m looking at this one actually and it’s very affordable. I get very frustrated when I’m working on photo things and I cannot have Lightroom and something else open. It’s really stressing me out, man!

We booked our tickets to Vegas last Friday, yay! We actually are getting a pretty good deal and one flight is non-stop. The other one is a short layover, so no biggie. We leave May 10th for a week! We have our hotel set up, it’s the same one we stayed at three years ago and it’s in a good area. Not on the strip, but, right nearby. We’re going to rent a car when we are there to do things out in the actual area. I think that I have a few good places bookmarked already. I just need to read more about them. We’re going to see Blue Man Group one night. I have to buy the tickets for that this week. We saw them years and years ago, in VA Beach. They are awesome and I cannot wait to see them in Vegas!

I just put my old printer on Freecycle and hopefully the gal will show up this evening and take it away. I’m giving our old cell phones to this organization. If you have a moment, read the site. I was going to sell them on eBay last year, but, this is so much easier and does something GOOD for the soldiers. I have a pre-paid envelope that came in my bathing suit order from Newport News. I kind of thought it was a strange marriage of the two though!

I found two bathing suits last week. I went to Ross to see what they had. I ended up trying on a bathing suit by Michael Kors. It’s a one piece and I really like red, so I tried it on. It didn’t look horrid! I thought, “well I will see if there’s another one I can buy”. Result, a black one too! I laid out $19.99 for the red one and $9.99 for the black one. It’s just a plain suit, no skirt and no print. Which is great, since I really don’t like either! I just need to find a cover up and I’m set!

I hope you have been doing well, I’m off to read my reads through Google Reader.

I’ve been busy over the past few days getting business things accomplished. Head over to the photography blog to see what’s been going on! I’m currently researching Mac’s and I will be test driving one in person sometime over the next few months. I need to set up a Flickr account for the business to showcase my portfolio in another area. I’ve also been thinking about selling some of my nature and environmental photos, probably on DeviantART. What do you think of this idea? If you haven’t seen them yet, go here and here. I still need to refine the photos on the site, currently. I have to replace some and move some around as well as add some new ones. My business will be going up in front of the Board of Directors for our counties Chamber of Commerce next week. Once that’s done, I can post a link to my listing on their website and order new business cards with that on the back as well as the two associations I’m a member of already. I’ve purchased table coverings for the small business showcase in June. I bought two cloth ones at Home Goods yesterday for cheap, cheap. I’m trying to get in contact with Brandi, the senior that I shot last summer, to join me there. I thought it would be cool for her as she’s prominent in my portfolio photos as well an aspiring photographer on her own! I will have a wall behind me, hopefully and a power plug so I can bring my laptop and have a slide show. I also bought a 11″ x 14″ portfolio and I think i will go back and get another one. Each one has 24 sleeves, which means 48 photos. I thought I would put different photos in each one. I also plan on having business cards, probably something to hand out as well, maybe a photo framed key chain thing. I cannot find anyplace to print on them, etch anything on them even. I can buy them plain though, maybe put something inside it? I cannot figure this out. Those little plastic squares, that’s what I’m talking about. Otherwise it’s probably pens or bottle openers. I’m trying to figure out a logo for the site and for Twitter. I cannot do it today, I’m tired of thinking about everything! I did contact my previous clients and asked them to write a testimonial/thought about their photo shoot. It’s funny, out of all the clients I had last year, the only ones that had any problems with the service or me, were bridal clients. Which makes me crazy. I’m just not cut out for brides, I like the families, little ones, couples, school photos.

Last Saturday I cropped with my friends and actually accomplished a lot! I have started the flipping of scrapbooks to Creative Memory ones. I have condensed 8 books into three with only 2 more needed! I placed an order to be delivered to me at the beginning of May for the Nat’l Scrapbook Day crop. I also have an order being delivered to me on Sunday. The gal is going to be at my Pampered Chef party, so that worked out nicely. Jac and I were going through old photos the other day and I found some negatives! I took them to Target and they scanned them and burned them onto a CD for me. There are some stunning photos on there that Greg took overseas. I hope to get them out of my computer and print them in the near future. I was hunting for the originals to these photos for a while, glad I found them. I don’t have a lot of negatives to be honest. I think they have disappeared with moves and the like. I do have a lot of photos on DVD’s and the actual print, so it will have to be a scanned copy for anything I need to print.

I had to buy a new printer the other day. I’ve had the one that died for quite a while, it’s lasted through the last two moves, so at least since 2004. I say that it served well, printed a lot of things! We have a wireless printer, which is great since sometimes I do turn off my computer at night and Jac wants to print a story or is researching something. I still have a photo printer though, it’s the same kind as the one that died. Funny, I use Nikon to shoot photos and Canon printers. Hahahaha. I really like them though, the replacement is a Canon as well. I just haven’t ever had any issues with a Canon printer, but have with Epson.

This weekend is totally booked, I’m booked from tonight until Sunday night. Tonight is my last photo class! It seems like I just started, wow. I’ve learned a lot though, I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone and learned more about how cameras work and what the settings do. I’m not relying so much on the auto settings, but, actually have used manual mode a lot lately. Tomorrow we buy our plane tickets to Vegas, shop for new shirts for Greg to wear to work, spend time together. Saturday morning we’re heading up the road to see my friend, Janet. She has a ranch now with horses, I thought it would be a good visit since I haven’t seen her since 2001! Violet will like seeing the horses too. I do plan on taking my camera, not missing this opportunity! It should be nice weather too. Saturday afternoon I have a photo session with Emma and Terry. Emma is Jac’s ex’s mom. That’s a mouthful! I’m friends with her on her own though, she’s a sweetie. This is my first engagement session, I’m stoked! Sunday is the Pampered Chef party in the afternoon and editing and more editing of the photos.

I hope you are doing well! Comment please, so I know you are alive and kicking and reading!

I’m using a Windows based machine now for editing my photos, it’s a little frustrating at times. I have been thinking about getting a Mac for over a year, just can’t figure out which one would be best for me. I’m pretty sure I want a laptop vs. a desk machine. I really like the Mac Book Pro’s, but, I’ve also been thinking about a Mac Mini. I have hard drives and burners, I really just want to be able to open up Lightroom and Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro X2 and not have LAG and BOG. I wonder if it’s Lightroom though. I can edit photos in PSP just fine, then I open Lightroom and it’s a slow machine.

So, help me decide! Thanks!