shutterboo

Tomorrow will mark my one year blogiversary of shutterboo.  And since it’s a Wednesday, a photo challenge post will don the page.  But every blogger feels the need to celebrate this day – it’s a complete sense of accomplishment.  Like when  you were in high school and you and you’re boyfriend had actually been going out for six months which is really like three years in the real world so it’s a big effing deal.  So is this.  Believe me.

Anywho, with 364 days of blogging under my belt, I thought I’d share with you some of the things I’ve picked up along the way, be it from a person or an experience.  None of which is helpful knowledge when it comes to actually “blogging”.  But things that will… crap I don’t know, just go with me here.

Be Real. Because if you’re one of those “my life is puppies and unicorns and I shit rainbows” kind of people, just know that the world A) knows you’re lying to yourself and B) makes fun of you.  No really, we do.  It’s A-OK to be satisfied with your life but don’t rub our noses in your overly-optimistic posts.  Actually, you don’t rub my nose in it.  Because I don’t read it.  Because I don’t identify with it.  Makes sense, huh?

Be Nice. Not every sentence has to end in an exclamation point [unless you're one of those  'I heart unicorns' people] but being real doesn’t mean you can’t be nice.  I tend to rant on certain topics that might be not-so-nice but I’ve never used this website to bad mouth another person or be catty.  Unless you’re that lady that keeps talking on her cell phone in the ladies room.  You I will bad mouth.  But you probably don’t even know that this little piece of the interweb exists.

Be Nice.  It’s that important. When you leave a comment, don’t be a jackhole.  I delete jackhole remarks.  Because I can.  But no one can be a successful blogger with a chip on their shoulder.  You won’t gain readers, you won’t gain acquaintances and you won’t gain respect.  Everyone has a bad day but take it out on a bowl of ice cream, not someone else’s comment log.  Lighten up.  But be sure not to leave rainbow encrusted bullshit either.

Learn To Be Disappointed. Just because you’re absolutely smitten over your latest post about your deaf dog doesn’t mean anybody else gives two shits about it.  If your stats are down or you didn’t get too many comments that day, be disappointed but don’t be defeated.  Remind yourself that you blog for fun and for you and you ain’t getting paid anyway so who cares.  It usually starts as a hobby and as long as it remains a hobby, you’ll be a rock star.

Be Prepared. Some of my best writing has been spontaneous.  But let’s be real, I ain’t creative enough to keep up spontaneousness as often as I write.  Having a notebook of ideas has not only made blogging easier but more fun.  Letting ideas fester, building on them for a few weeks… these become rewarding once I hit ‘publish’.  And the photo challenge gave me something to look forward to each week.  It works.  And it pays off.

Throw A Bone. List a blog you like on your blog roll.  Pass along a silly reward.  Mention a site and add its link.  It may sound silly to point someone to another house when you’re wanting to showcase your own, but it’s worth it.  And the favor is usually returned in some fashion down the road.  Blogging karma, if you will.

Be Friends. The best part of even starting this little blog here is the people I share it with.  It’s also the reason why I was hesitant (note: mean people suck).  My friends and family have been supportive and tell me which stories and photos they’ve enjoyed the most.  And I’ve made several internet friends that also share what’s on their minds through blogging.  And even though these internet people are complete strangers and don’t know me from the bum on the corner, they’re supportive and encouraging and incredibly fantastic.  A virtual community that keeps me coming back.

Here’s to another year of shutterboo – because looking into the future too far makes it less exciting.  Cheers!

Dear Friends of the Interweb, you are going to see a lot of lists this week.  Don’t hate me.  My brain has been slowing d-o-w-n and the interweb won’t be as accessible as normal.  I know.  I’m lame.  So let’s kick it off with a list today, shall we?

1.  Friday I went to the HullabaLOU Fest in Louisville.  Anticipation has been boiling since February when I knew I was going (thank you Abby and Kelly).

2.  It was hotter than the seat the devil’s butt sits on.  HOT.  I consumed water like it was my day job, stayed red-faced for who knows how long and finally began to cool down when we sat down.  Long live the ponytail.

3.  GenAdmin sat in the stands at Churchill.  Unfortunately, our seat had an obstruction but I don’t care.  (See Exhibit 1)  It was in the shade.  Shade = Heaven.

4.  Dirks Bentley was good.  I like country music but I’m not in love with it.  We’re just mere acquaintances.

5.  I love these girls.  (See Exhibit 2)  Natalie, you totally should have been there.  But you weren’t.  So don’t be mad when I talk about how awesome The Man was for the next five years.

6.  The Man.  Jon Bon Jovi.  Awesome.  The band was awesome.  The crowd was awesome.  It was awesome. (See Exhibit 3)

7.  Except for the people sitting next to us.  They just sat there.  Like lumps of coal.  OK, melting lumps of coal because the heat index was something like 103.  Boring.

Note: Paco’s zoom isn’t fantabulous.  And I asked the golf expert in the box how far away we were.  He says about 200 yards.  Paco doesn’t do 200 yards very well.  The little lady in front of us – she got some stellar shots.  But sadly, I have not stalked her on Facebook to get them yet.  But I will.

8.  AHHHHH!!!!!  I was 200 yards away from THIS, people!!! (See Exhibit 4)

9a.  So I took part in a few libations.  But I really did drink a lot of water [because this chick was not going down before The Man came on stage].  So the pictures towards the end of the night… are a little goofy.  I have no idea why I make goofy faces, I know they never look good after the fact, but I do it anyway.  So yeah… (See Exhibit 5)

9b.  I told you so.

10.  I had THE BEST TIME EVER!  I really did.  I loved singing along and dancing in place and taking silly pictures… it was FANTASTIC!  And I love my friends for including me in their plan and I’m telling you, it would not have been the same without them.  No way, no how.

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 4

Exhibit 5

Found a YouTuber (I’m assuming that what you call them) that posted a small part of my most favoritest Bon Jovi song.  Thank you, ChevalMugs for sharing your videos!  Reliving Friday on a Monday is fantastic!

Today. Is. The. Day.

I’ve got my ticket.  I got my sunscreen.  I got my bug spray.  I got my drunk people spray too.

Bring it, Churchill Downs.  Hit me with your best shot.

That’s right: HullabaLOU.  More specifically: Jon Bon Jovi.

Even more specifically: Me, Abby and our Little Skipper all screaming along to Livin’ On A Prayer.

That was a necessary visual.

OK, so I’m stoked.  I can’t wait to be blasted with music all the live long day.  And boogie to my heart’s content.  And to have the day off work… with my girlfriends… yep, that sho’ is nice.  Although it isn’t perfect.  I could live without the crowd, the people that will drink way too much and the heat.  But I’ll make do.  I have to make do.  Because Mr. Bon Jovi is the last act.  And he needs to sing to me.

Eat your heart out, Anamaris!

I have this thing.  About school supplies.  I suppose office supplies could be included but staplers and hole punches don’t really do it for me.  Pens and pencils and notebooks and paper and markers and push pins and generally anything related… I dig it.

I have a pack of Sharpies that come in 12 different colors.   I bought a box of crayons last year for a quarter.  One for me, one for PodMate.  I know, Big Spender.  I have a super fun notebook to keep my blog notes in.  Recently, I purchased some colored pencils.  A pack of 24.  I had to have a box of my own after getting some for my niece’s birthday.  To use with her Project Runway fashion stencil set.  I envied a ten-year-old’s birthday gift – I think I may have a problem.

(I didn’t purchase the fashion stencil set.  I thought about it – but then thought better of it.  Vacation fund donation.)

I know that I’m not the only one that enjoys these little things.  But I feel like a dweeb.  I’ve tried sorting out exactly why walking down the Crayola aisle makes me happy and I’ve come to two conclusions:

1. I’m a crafter.  I like crafting.  I have a huge stockpile of scrapbooking supplies, boxes of paints and brushes, stamps and inks and even supplies to emboss things.  I like to emboss.

2. I’m a girl.  A woman rather.  But definitely girly.  But not like fru-fru girly.

The second conclusion falls into that old formal logic Venn diagram where not all school supplies lovers are women and not all women are school supplies lovers but a portion of them fit the bill.  Are you asking why would I even think this?  Never fear, I have reasoning behind my logic: my niece.

My Monkey of niece is obsessed.  We walk into Target or a book store or wherever, she flocks to look at ink pens and markers and journals in the coveted Crayola aisle.  She always wants to go into the book store when she visits.  Not for books to read.  For books to doodle in.  With pretty colors.  Child after my own heart.  This was me when I was ten.  Hell, this is me now.  A new pack of colored pencils excited me; I was  immediately inspired to draw.  And think of different ways to photograph the colors.

So tell me, am I on to something?  Or am I completely wrong and possibly *gasp* stereotyping?  Or am I just a complete weirdo that thinks about school supplies a bit too much?  I could live with that last one… I do love me some colored pencils.

I got the itch again.  To pretend I’m a food blogger for a day.  OK, who am I kidding?

Truth be told I sat down and watched three hours of the Food Channel last Saturday and one show was about nothing but ganache.  It made my mouth water inspired me so I set out to make some cookies.  And I wanted to take pictures of my cookies.  This makes me a pretend food blogger by default.

I’ve been holding on to a macaroon recipe for some time now.  I even went ahead and purchased all the ingredients so that when the whim struck, macaroons would appear.  But after reading through the recipe again, I decided that macaroons weren’t going to happen.  I don’t know why but separating an egg freaks me out.  I know.  I’m special.  But chocolate was a must.

My old trusty friend of the cookie world: chocolate oatmeal no bakes.  Mom’s recipe.  They turn out every time.

The good part: they only take 10 minutes to make.  Which means taste testing happens sooner than with most cookies.  The bad part: just because they have oats in them does not make them good for you.  I tried telling myself that for the longest time.  Until Mom gave me the recipe.  I was shell-shocked.

But if you want a quick cookie that will make the kindergartners (and co-workers alike) go mad, this is the cookie for you.  Well, it’s the cookie for me.  Me love cookies.

I feel like I talk about babies at least once a week now.  But seriously folks, everyone around me is having babies.  Three ladies at work (well, one down, two to go).  A gazillion friends.  Those I’m very close with (Like Melanie!!  I can finally tell you because it’s FBO now: Facebook Official.), those I visit with every couple months (ten or so sorority sisters and girlfriends) and those that I don’t see often but am still connected with thanks to Facebook.

Everyone.  Having.  Babies.

It’s all I hear about.  It’s what I’m photographing.  So that’s why I talk about it.  That’s why I’m a broken record.

Boo broken record, boo.

I’m sure some people get a kick out of it.  Like my parents.  Quit praying for triplets, DAd.  It’s unbecoming.

Broken record begins:

So last week I visited my gal pal Jacqueline and her baby, Evangeline.  I’ve told her maybe a thousand times already that the shots we got were great.  But she hasn’t seen them yet because sorting through photos that your giving to someone to frame have to be really, really good and that takes time.  But last night, I narrowed down my selection even more and picked a favorite [but oh so many are favorites].  And I thought you guys might like to see it.

It’s a favorite because of momma’s expression – not much can be seen of le bébé.  But look at her face.  A look of love.  Of happiness.  And amazement.  I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

Natural light makes all the difference.  It makes shooting babies (ha! shooting babies!) and people more fun and just draws on creativity more than I imagined.  I can’t wait to show you some more.  But you have to wait.  So does Jack.

I was at [yet another] baby shower yesterday.  (Big shocker, I know.)  This time, only the guest of honor was expecting because three ladies already popped.  And three babies were in tow.  This little gal was there.  So was little Liam I talked about last week.  And Reece.  A bambino I’ll be photographing later this week.  Me and Reece?  We’re good pals already.  I am apparently snuggly and am perfect for taking naps on.  Of course, I already knew this because the doggins lounge on me as often as they can.  But I’m excited and looking forward to Wednesday.

Gifting photography.  This was such a good idea.

I work on a stretch of Main Street where some sort of construction has been going on for quite some [forever long] time.  Walking by foot through this stretch of downtown has been like a playing a video game; detouring with certain lengths of the sidewalk being closed, shirking around fences and hoping not to be taken out by a side view mirror, shimmying past construction signs that block the pathway.

It started with the new YUM! arena at the Second Street Bridge.  Then the condemned buildings at Main and First caused barricades to flank the street.  Then Patrick O’Shea’s manifested (but I can’t complain because they worked really fast and they have sweet potato fries).  The BBC liked that idea and started construction on a new bar across from the arena.  And the old green Arctic Ice building is getting a much needed face lift between Brook and Floyd.  And a lot of pavement was ground up for what I’m assuming is for the arena and the ugly condo building going in further west on Main.  All of this is at play (sans O’Shea’s) at this very moment.  But oh no, it wasn’t enough.

Now… now we see that sidewalks are closed so that sidewalks can be ripped up and replaced with prettier sidewalks lined with marble.  (WTF?)  Causing both sides of Main Street to be closed on three blocks.  They’ve kindly put up detour signs so that we know where to walk around, making the trek three times longer.  How nice of them.  It’s a way for us to enjoy this blistering heat and humidity even more than we normally would.  The kicker is they haven’t started on the sidewalks in front of our building.  Yet.  I’m sure when they do, shit will hit the fan because so many people work in these buildings; that many feet make it hard to rip out anything.  Which is why they haven’t started yet.  (Yet.)

I can’t find out why they’re updating the sidewalks.  Me thinks its to make the area look nicer for when the arena is completed.  But I’m not very savvy at using Google or searching through The Courier Journal so I can’t confirm.  Boo Brooke, boo.

But I feel bad for the local businesses that have set up shop on Main Street between Floyd and Third.  Business has had to slow down.  I don’t think we’ve gone to the shop across the street for our PBR tallboys in weeks.  I know I haven’t made my way out to lunch very much.  Well, Jimmy Johns and Subway are easy to navigate to but Queue?  Queue, I love you but I’m not walking my happy ass a block south to trot down Market Street for a turkey ciabatta panini.  Or anywhere on West Main for that fact because it’s out of my way.  To walk a detour.  In the sun that blazes with the heat of a bazillion aim-n-flames.

There was some light at the end of the tunnel though.  A small protest about the limited sidewalks has prompted the city to create a small pedestrian walkway past the condemned buildings.  I’m sure a lot of folks are happy about this.  I know I’d be happy about it if I ever decided to walk west again.

When will it end?  I have no flippin’ idea but every morning I dream that something is  gone on the drive into town.  As of right now, my dreams aren’t coming true.  *sad face*  But at least it’s Friday.

When I was kid – or a tween rather – I had a phone book.  It was pink and had little puppies on the cover and was filled with ink the colors that the rainbow hasn’t even seen yet.  But that wasn’t what was important.  The contents were sacred.  As it had phone numbers from almost every human child I had encountered between the ages of eight and fifteen.  I am not making this up.  I had my own tweeny-bop bible of a phone book.  It went to sleepovers with me, people.

But thinking back on this, I have absolutely no idea how I got all those phone numbers.

You see, I didn’t like talking to people I didn’t know; I was kid, I stuck close to my friends and our inside jokes.  So how did I have so many to write down?  I had numbers of girls I was only acquaintances with.  And of other girls that I purposely avoided at school [because the venom in their voices spelled trouble].  And  boys.  Lots and lots of lots of numbers that belonged to boys.  Of course, this means absolutely nothing because boys did not like me.  But I had them.

Of that one boy at the skating rink.  Of the two friends who were both named Chris.  Of half the guys I went to school with even though they had no idea I was alive.  Oh yes.  All scribbled in purple ink inside my puppy infested pink phone book.

OK, so I may have not liked talking to people I didn’t know in person, but on the phone… I was a completely different girl.  I had confidence.  I made jokes.  I’d talk about the Cowboys winning the World Series.  I couldn’t be stopped on the phone.  I loved talking on the phone.  Until I didn’t.

I don’t know what happened.  One day I’m talking to a guy [I was suppose to meet on a group date] and I told him that I had a little deformity, nothing big or alarming, just that my right eye a little lower than my left.  Like, on my cheek lower.  (See… I told you I was funny.  Granted, he didn’t find that humorous whatsoever and completely blew me off.  I met him a year later and ignored his calls by then.  Thank you, Caller ID.)  And in an instant, I’m completely turned off by the idea of having to sweat it out with someone – anyone – over the phone.

I told myself I was getting older and frivolous things like chatting on the phone just weren’t worth my time.  But that’s a big fat lie because frivolous things like playing on the interweb has filled that void.  So then I told myself that I was getting older and human contact just meant that much more to me.  Sure, with my people I like but I still freeze up like a puddle on a December day around strangers.  So maybe it was because I was getting older and just didn’t like talking to people any more.  By golly, I think I hit the nail on the head.

I don’t like talking to people.  Sue me.

It’s awkward.  It’s time consuming.  It’s awkward.  OK, I’m awkward, but please tell me you know what I mean.  I’m in favor of email.  Ditto with the texting.  But a conversation?  With real words?  On the phone?  Really?  I’ll talk to ya if I have to but by george, let’s cut the chase: whadayawant?

One thing definitely hasn’t changed: I’m still a different person on the phone.  I can bargain, wheel and deal, put on my mean person pants and get my way on the phone.  In person… not so much.

Unless maybe there’s beer involved.

Note: I do have frequent and long phone calls with my parents.  But they’re my parents.  And when Big Bro calls, we usually stay on the line for a while too.  But even the hubs keeps it short and sweet… he completes me.

I have a new-er pal.  Her name is Navi.  She carpools with dates my friend Alan.  She’s also my current hair-advice-expert.  She does it for a living – it’s all good.  But her expertise does not stop there.  She has a green thumb.  A big honker of a green thumb.

She gardens tomatoes and peppers and potatoes and other veggies.  She keeps fruit bushes along her property line.  And she tends to flowers.  Navi has the most beautiful little spot in her backyard filled with flowers.  And she cut a few to bring to me.  All different kinds in blue and white and  pink and green.  But the sunflowers were my favorite.

Such a bright, inviting flower.  You can’t help but smile in its presence.

Navi shrugs off my amazement of her gardening ability.  “It’s nothing, really.”  I guess she doesn’t realize she’s talking to a gal that’s killed a hosta.  And a violet. I’ve managed to do well in the summer months with my potted flowers (begonias are stellar for people that might forget to water for a day… yes sirree, a hearty plant) but for the most part, I suck at gardening.  Vegetables and flowers alike.  I’d like to change this.  But then I realize that I really don’t care enough to.  Because it’s hot outside.

But these sunflowers.  Oh how I love them.  And I thought it was extremely sweet of Navi to share with me her garden.  On second thought, she might have already known about the hosta.  My reputation may proceed me.