eve

it's almost two thousand nine now. i actually had the night off but both gareth and i are opening tomorrow. so no celebrations tonight. he'll be home soon and we'll get to watch the ball drop together. i wouldn't want to be out tonight anyways. it's been insanely windy all day and it's now in the twenties. i did go out and get some shots of the last sunset of two thousand eight. it's been a good year : ]

distorted

budd's outside. and surprisingly fast for a turtle. it's such a nice day out. i wish i didn't have to go to work. at least my car is working again. they said the engine was just flooded. what a relief : ]

broken

so i got my car fixed. and now it's broken. they said it was just the battery cables and that wasn't too expensive to get done. so i was pretty happy about that. and when i went to pay for it and pick up the keys yesterday i started it just to make sure and it started just fine. but when i went to pick it up today it wouldn't start. it's done something different every time it's not worked. so i have no idea what it could be now. they had tested the starter and alternator when they worked on it and said those were fine. but now it's just revving and not turning over. blah. so our plans of doing all our driving to get mom's car back home today will have to be moved to another day. i hope we have another day to do it. everyone tells me when these things happen that i need to get a new car. i know this. but i really can't afford one right now. and i guess that's what i've been saying for awhile. so maybe i should start saving now. after i get this next thing fixed that is. but that's what i always say...

things

i got so many things this year: the wide angle lens i'd wanted so badly, the external flash i had no idea i was getting, a cat calendar from my aunt, awesome bamboo kitchen utensils that matt tried to steal from me, a project perry calendar from him, a scrapbook calendar, a hawaii photo album from mike, starbucks chocolate, christmas candles and a holder, vodka shots from amy along with handmade candied pecans and chocolate covered pretzels... delicious, a one pound chocolate bar, a shooting star necklace, pear scented bath stuff, mary kay hand creams, handwarmers, post it notes, a heart stamp, a christmas book, and lots of cards from everyone. wow. i just put it all away. i am so thankful for these gifts. and for all the time i got to spend with my family. i ate so well these past twenty four hours. and got to take some home. i'm watching the movie tin man tonight. the new version of the wizard of oz. it's really good. but pretty dark. i should be going to bed soon though. tomorrow's going to be another busy shopping day at blockbuster. then i should get my car towed. i'll let you know how that all goes.

together

twas the night before christmas. and all through the house. mom was vaccuming. and dad had gone out. to get mom's stocking stuffers. sorry if i ruin your secret dad. but it was quite cute seeing you panic. i just hung everyone's stockings. they forgot before they left. everyone seemed to have other things on their minds tonight. including me. my car wouldn't start again this morning. thankfully i had friends who gave me rides to work and back and tried starting my car. and a brother who drove all the way to r'mond to pick me up when it still wouldn't start. and a mom who will let me borrow her car for the weekend. but the car is still sitting in the back of my mind an hour away broken. i'm glad i got to get away for a day. especially this day. i'm looking forward to tomorrow. the lasagana tonight was delicious as annually expected. and we're having brunch when everyone arrives tomorrow. i always look forward to these times together.

cloudy

it was just a dead battery last night. but that dead battery turned out to be quite a hassle. we tried jumping it for about an hour. then we called aaa. right before they pulled up it started. but after driving home i tried to start it again and it was dead. again. long story short i learned about battery cells. which turned out to be irrevelant. and got a new battery installed in my car by gareth and our roommate in the middle of the night. i slept through that part. thank goodness for gareth. i had to get some sleep though. had another busy weekend before christmas shopping day at work. i talked to dad on the phone today before he left hawaii to head home. he said it was in the eighties and sunny. i told him it was in the thirties and cloudy here. so they won't be so shocked upon their return. i've spent the night in the christmas spirit finishing and wrapping all my gifts. watched elf for the second time of the season. and a movie called in search of a midnight kiss. it was surprisingly entertaining. low budget but rich with emotions. a good new year's eve flick. i still have cards to do. but that'll have to come another night.

stars

i'm sitting home anxious for gareth to get back from work. we have an adventure ahead of us. not an exciting one though i hope. as i was picking up his present after work tonight my car broke down. i'm hoping it's just a dead battery. but i've got to wait for gareth to jump it. i asked a man getting into the car behind me if he could jump me and he said no. that's the holiday spirit. i had to walk home. just a half hour. but still tiring after a days worth of work. i'd actually had two days off in a row before today. we split the two movies we'd wanted to see into two movie days. milk was pretty sad. but really good. i thought i heard two women after the movie bad mouthing him and that made it even sadder. the other movie we saw was charlie kaufman's synecdoche, new york. that was pretty amazing. i'm still trying to figure out what it all meant and i don't think i'll ever know. gareth got me an awesome bday gift. a telescope. we haven't had a clear night since i got it but we checked out some local lights. i'm looking forward to seeing some stars.

birds

http://www.projectperry.com/greyvideo.html

older

i was told i was going back to what should still be my main store this week. but when i called for my schedule sunday night i wasn't scheduled at that store at all. so i'm at my old store again this week. and no one was going to tell me. i'm really getting sick of this poor communication. and some other things. so i applied to another job tonight. store manager at sears portrait studio. we'll see how that goes. but i feel better having at least submitted something. tomorrow's my bday. turning twenty five. an employee at bbuster bought me a dozen mini cupcakes tonight. i don't think i'm getting a cake this year. so that was sweet of her. i'm looking forward to tomorrow. i'll be spending it with my pets and my gareth : ]

accomplishments

so this has been a busy week up until today. it was the last week of class. except for the final monday. so there was lots of printing and mounting to do. i stayed after both days and finished all my stuff. and then some. i also worked all week. including friday. i had no idea i was scheduled friday. that's what happens when one store puts me on five days and i don't think to look for a sixth shift at another store. and no one tells me. so i get called when no one opens the store and have to rush over. then have to call the evening person to come in early because i'd already made plans to be somewhere before i was scheduled to leave. they came but i still didn't get out early enough to be at my parents' house before they left for my brother's graduation at jmu. so i had to drive myself. it took over three hours to get there with the directions i got. i'd already called my brother and said to sell my ticket to the big football game there that night because i wasn't feeling well anyways. instead i went to the hotel my parents were staying at and started my studying. went to bed when the game was finished on the television and got up early the next day for graduation. that was a pretty exciting event. even though i read my book while they called the other six hundred graduates.
we ate at red lobster afterwards. i found something to eat amongst the meat and seafood. got to hang out with my family for a bit. then it was back home where i spent the night working on secret stuff. got my presents i have to mail out finished. one good thing came from working friday. i now have today off. it's good to have a day home.

click

http://flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/sets/72157607350816312/
wow. what an amazing part of our planet. ever seen the endurance?

*snow*

i saw my first snow of the season tonight. after working a nine hour shift i came out to a flake-filled sky with street lights spotlighting the scene. it was beautiful. and made me even happier about getting tomorrow off to go home and help decorate. i'm just hoping this runny nose doesn't turn into anything worse. i've been working on christmas presents these past few days. hopefully it'll all be done in time. hand made gifts are hard. but usually worth the effort. good thing i don't have to have mike's bday present until christmas eve. i guess i'll be celebrating mine then as well. thought i could get away with having my own this year. but i wouldn't know what to do without him there to sing happy bday to too. i wanted to start a three hundred and sixty five day flickr blog on my bday but i think i'm going to start another account to do that on. you can either do a portrait of yourself every day or a picture you take every day. i think i'll do the latter. don't need to see my mug three hundred and sixty five times.

computing

i got my first bday present today. don't worry everybody. it's not for another two weeks. but my brother managed to get me one of the top things on my list. photoshop lightroom. i started watching tutorials on it tonight. i'm totally technologically challenged. but once i'm shown how to do something i'm a pretty quick learner. so i hope i learn all this. it's something i've wanted to do since i was introduced to it last year but unfortunately never got around to doing. now that i know regular photoshop from class it's given me a little more confidence in working on my pictures. which is almost as important as taking them in the first place. just not as much fun for me. gareth and i both had today off but we haven't spent much time hanging out. he's been with a visiting friend downstairs and i've been upstairs on my computer. but we're both going to another friend's house tonight to eat something he's cooked with tofu. sounds delicious : ]

bighead

so i see i haven't written about gareth on here at all. this is a busy week for him with finals approaching and papers due. he should be back from work soon. i just got back from class. got another a on a test. they're open book but still pretty tough. i work tonight at my old store. i'll be there all week helping out. it's twice as far away but closes much earlier so i'm happy about that. i went clothes shopping on friday. didn't spend much but got some nice stuff. including this hat. it was in the kids' section so i had gareth stretch it out some for me. he's a good guy. with a big head : ]

smitherines

thanksgiving was pretty awesome. i went home the night before and slept in my old bed. awoke at ten and watched some of the thanksgiving parade. i missed santa but mom said he was in a swan sled and "it's just not the same." my nephew owen and i spent the afternoon on and off exploring outside before everyone came. i got some great shots but instead of posting them all on here i'll now direct you to my other online albums. http://community.webshots.com/user/maudlinme and http://community.webshots.com/user/tinytraveler. the first one is the one i put my daily pics in. any and everything i take. after editing them down a bit of course. the second one is for my travels. these will be in the first under r'mond '08. this is my family.

everyone except me. one of the downfalls of being the family photographer. luckily for me we've acquired another photographer for the past year or so. my sister (in the middle in white) has an even nicer camera and actually prefers taking pics of people and not just animals. figure that. so here are some great pics she got of me. and one my brother snapped while playing with my camera. he just got a sony slr so we'll have three photographers at the next event.

so that was my take on our family thanksgiving. mom got my brother and i sliced tofurkey. i made a nasty looking but great tasting vegetarian version of stuffing. i was the first one to leave but i knew after twenty four hours of no human interaction my pets needed me. and i needed a nice relaxing bath. i worked last night for black friday. it wasn't terrible but i'm glad to be off today. time to update my albums now. hope you check them out. i make them to share : ]

flickring

i've been working on my flickr account for awhile now. finally downloaded a free trial version of photoshop that lets me save from it so i don't have to do everything in class. i really hope i find a way to keep it after these thirty days are up. but i'm so not good at technology theivery. i've had to go back through all my pics to find the really good ones to put on here. i'm still nowhere near done but i thought i'd share the link on this to show you what i've done. keep checking it to see any new updates in the future. thanks and enjoy. http://flickr.com/photos/rectanglereflections/

thankful

i have a lot to be thankful today. i just found out that my favorite professor is teaching another nature course at the community college i've been attending. i just signed up and i'm so excited. these photography classes have been so great for me. i hadn't planned on taking any more after this semester so i'm glad this came along. i still don't know exactly where i'm going with all this but i finally got my resume together so that's a start. i've also finished my guyana story so i'm excited about where that will go. my other great news is that i got thanksgiving off. i had gotten off that night to be home for dinner. but another employee said she'd rather work for time and a half that day if i could work her wednesday shift. so that worked out quite well. now i get to be home for the full holiday. hope that doesn't make it so i have to work christmas. i still don't know why we're open every day of the year. it's quite unnecessary. but that's blockbuster. i hope i can find something better someday. but this has been a good job for me. i'm glad i have everything i do.

superkitty

familywise

i just finished watching surfwise. the story of a family of nine children and their parents who grew up in the ocean. on surfboards. no structured school. the world was their teacher and life their lessons. living in a twenty four foot trailer they were closer than anyone would imagine. until they all grew up and one by one left that mobile house they'd deemed their home. they moved to all parts of the united states and hadn't seen everyone together in years. until they met in hawaii for a family reunion that brought the mother to the most joyful tears i've ever seen. i know my family doesn't have such an interesting story. but i'd still like to think we're a unique group of people that loves eachother in a way in which no other bond can compare. as the youngest i've missed out on the beginning of how my family came to be. but maybe i'll live the longest and see how the story ends. we're in the middle of the story now. where we've all moved out (hopefully for good). not to all ends of the earth. but further than one house can contain and further than any mother would wish. i'm glad we have a mom that keeps us connected. and a desire to stay connected ourselves. a dad that guides and helps us. and a whole family full of love <3 <3 <3 <3 <3