Sunday, September 11, 2011

we will never forget....

like everyone else on that horrifying day, i remember exactly what i was doing when i heard about the planes hitting the world trade center.
tuesdays were my day to start work late.  i didn't have to be there until 10:00 am.  when getting ready on the late mornings, i would turn the tv on and watch the martha stewart show.  when i turned the tv on that day (the sound came on before the picture did in our tv)  i remember hearing a mans voice talking.  i wasn't paying too much attention because i was busy getting ready, but i was trying to figure out what man martha had as a guest on her show that day.
when the picture finally came up, the first image i saw was the burning tower.  my second thought was, "why is (the movie) independence day playing at this time of day"?
of course, it didn't take long to figure out what was going on....that i was actually watching the "today show" that had pre-empted martha, and that man was matt lauer.
i called don at work (on the manufacturing floor at general motors) and he had just gotten called into an office with a tv and had seen it too....we said extra "i love you's" during that phone call.
i called my parents and my dad didn't have the tv on yet.  i told him what i had seen and i remember telling him "we are in big trouble".  with everyone else, i tried to process the shock and horror of what had happened, but i couldn't.  it was hard to pull myself away from the tv to go to work and while on my way there, they announced that the first tower had collapsed. 
 i was petrified and sick with worry.  
i'd dropped 4 year old austen off at daycare before i went to work.  shannon was 20 years old and already living on her own.  within the hour,  i made shannon go pick him up and bring him to my work.  my mom came to my work too and they all stayed there until late in the afternoon.  
i didn't want to be at work, i wanted to be at home, in my secure nest...
i just wanted my family with me.  i needed to see them, feel them.
i think the thing that scared me the most was the fact that you could not listen to the radio and hear music.  every station was now a news station..the other thing that scared me was that i didn't hear any airplanes in the air that day.  that was so weird because there is a minor airport about 7 miles from our house and we heard planes all of the time. 
 they just became white noise in everyday life but that day, 
the silence was deafening.
we sat that night, huddled on the couch together, watching the recap of the days news.  
since i had been at work late that day, i hadn't heard too much about 
the other planes going down in pennsylvania and at the pentagon. 

we all slept in the same bed that night, and the next night. 
i was scared beyond thought but i felt lucky that i had my family intact and with me.
my heart went out that day and many, many days since to the families of the victims.

ten years later, i hope that most of the families have found peace in their "new normal". 
however far removed we were in distance from new york, i never forgot that it just as easily could have been our family, or yours or anyones.   
i pray for the deployed soldiers and their families now fighting to secure our freedom.
god bless them and keep them and i want them to know that my family will 
always remember.......  




****adding something interesting today****
for dinner today i made pasta with chicken and artichoke hearts. i got out the jar and.......
 this was what i found on the lid....
for reals........

Friday, September 9, 2011

i miss them.....

jerry and tina used to live next door to me....they moved away about 18 months ago and we miss them like crazy.  she made our family part of her family and introduced us to the fabulousness of greek food and life straight out of "my big fat greek wedding".  we always have so much fun with them and their families always treat us as if we were part of theirs.....
  tina is a personal trainer and she trained me down 3 clothes sizes a couple of years back....
i will be forever grateful to her.......jerry is a pharmacist and took immense pride in his yard.  he and don always had so much in common because of that.
we missed last year's photoshoot when she moved and subsequent chaos that ensues because of it....
we are back in the swing of it now though!!
their little girls are eden and london.....
one is an image of her mama and one is an image of her daddy!!! 
 i think that this picture of london flying with daddy is one of my all time favorites that i have taken so far....it takes my breath away!


 we took the pictures on a windy summer evening at a small local beach 
just as as the sun was getting low in the sky....
 it casts the most amazing light and shadows....



 just gorgeous.....
 eden has a couple of new teeth and was happy to show them off for me.

we miss your family, jerry and tina, and we have got to get together more often..
we are going to work on that, okay??

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I've been keeping very busy lately....

i've been doing a lot of photography shoots and processing really takes a lot of my time.  that is why i have been so lame about blogging.....heck, i haven't even been reading blogs for the past couple of weeks.

i love the processing of the photos part of photography.  i get to look at these faces for hours...
i can see their personalities in their faces.....
 big sister sophie, older than her years, who takes such good care of the sisters 
who obviously look up to her...
the serene middle child sadie, who chills while the older and younger sisters run the show.....
 and the sassy baby sister sydney, who isn't going to get lost in the crowd.....
their mama is the most beautiful woman ever, and her house is to die for......
i may have to go back over there sometime and get pictures of the inside to share with you.....

and daddy, the lone y in the forest of x chromosomes, and who totally dotes on all of his girls.
the cutest family ever.   
 i had to spend extra time processing these photos because we were swarmed by mosquitos the entire shoot, even though we were drenched in bug spray, and i had to clone out the welts from their skin.
 totally worth it though.....
we all had so much fun.....
christina and steve...your girls are growing up beautifully!!!!
thank you for letting me document the transformation....

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

my baby is a high-schooler.....

sniff....
austen started 9th grade today. 
9th grade!!!
how does this happen?  he was just in kindergarten last year, or was that two years ago....
this mama is having severe anxiety about her boy growing up.
it is all happening too fast.
high school starts much earlier in the morning than middle school.  he has to get up an hour earlier than he did last year, which was 6:30 am.
5:30 am is ear-ly!
so we had everything ready last night.

backpack packed....check....
cereal and bowl set out.....check...
ninth grader showered, dressed and ready.....chec----whoa!
5:30 is really, really early!!!!
so early in fact, that it is still pitch dark out when he goes to school now.
so i had to take the pictures in the house.

i made him smile by telling him to say the proper name for "weiner". 
 he compromised and told me to stop taking pictures.  through gritted teeth...
we're even!!!!
have a great year buddy.  i love you!   ..don't let high school make you grow up too fast...
promise me, okay? 


Monday, September 5, 2011

be my guest.....

I am guest posting today over at musings of a gem....
gemma is a darling young lady who lives in england.  i have been following her on her blog for quite a while now and she has an etsy store, she loves to cook and has lots of recipes on her site.
check her out....and give her some love!!!

here in good old michigan, we have had our first fall-ish day.  two days ago it was 88 degrees with a heat index of 95....whew!!!
today? 
57 degrees with a wind chill of 54!!!  brrrrr....
summer goes so quick!!!  fall goes so quick and brings w.i.n.t.e.r   i am so not ready for that!
in the meantime
i am still hoping for more of 
this....





sunflowers are courtesy of don's garden....aka....the jungle
school starts tomorrow in our district.....my baby goes to high school...sniff!!!


Tuesday, August 30, 2011

just sayin'......

not a good idea!!!!

Monday, August 22, 2011

what the?????

i showed you in my last post how i have been canning the tomatoes out of my neighbor's garden.  they are away and i have been picking the ripe vegetables out of their garden so they don't rot.  i showed the beautiful bounty i reaped 
and what i did with it for them...
curtis and don are very (friendly) competitive when it comes to their gardens. they start them from seeds in early spring and every year, there is a competition to see who can grow the biggest pumpkins.  we plant mostly the same kinds of  tomato plants....lots of heirloom tomatoes and big red, juicy ones.

well, i picked again from curtis's garden on saturday morning and got
this....
don picked the tomatoes from our garden saturday morning and got
this....
huh???????
looks like we aren't even in the running this year!!!
:)

Saturday, August 20, 2011

oh, yes i "can".....

our fabulous neighbors and friends, curt and laura
left for utah last week to drop off their daughter
at byu for her first year in college.  since they will be gone for 10 days, we are in charge of looking after their garden.  the day before they left, they had picked a huge bowl full of tomatoes, banana peppers and jalapeno peppers.  since they would probably go bad before they came back, 
they were entrusted to me....
hmmmmm....what to do with the first real bounty of summer?.....
salsa, of course!
so i canned 12 pints of it.....
a few days ago, i hit up their garden again and came home with this.
see that really big one at the top, the one that is split in two?   it put up a valiant fight to prevent me from picking it.....but i won.
there weren't enough peppers to make more salsa, so i just canned the tomatoes.....
6 quarts of garden gold.....
now, if only our garden will start producing tomatoes like these......
i will be checking their garden later today to see if there is anymore to pick....
and to can!!!
and just because they are so cute, here are the rest of the kids


hope you have a great weekend.....
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