total teenie-bopper

Guess who rented Twilight tonight, like all of the other 17 year old girls in the world? Yup. 


Full review to come later, but first: classic conversation post movie [and no, Nate did not watch the movie with me. He refused and watched two basketball games simultaneously on the computer. His loss]

J:"See? This is Edward Cullen, er--Rob Pattinson. Isn't he attractive?"

N: [staring into the computer screen with critical eyes]. "He looks really weird, baby."

J: "Like what kind of weird? A VAMPIRE weird?"

N: "I don't know. I guess he is a pretty good-looking guy."

J: [secretly thinking, "Yes! My husband approves of my new lover boy! I'm sure he won't mind if I tack a poster of him up in our bedroom, then."]

N: "But really, he looks kind of faggy."

J: [dying of laughter]

N: "At least the guy you married isn't faggy because you have tendencies."

J: "What are you talking about?"

N: "That vampire? Faggy. John Mayer? Faggy. Leonardo DiCaprio? Faggy."

J: [laughing, while wanting to defend myself since I haven't had the hots for Leo since his Romeo and Juliet days back in high school.] "You just called him 'that vampire.' " [convulsing from laughter]

N: "Vampires don't have names. Vampires don't even effing exist, Julia. You're such a dork."

J: [dying laughing, crying at the thought of Nate analyzing the existence of vampires. Then crying some more while watching my husband flex his muscles in the mirror to build some self confidence again. I'm sure it's hard to compete with a vampire, you know.}

N: "Why am I so freaking pale? I need a tan."

J: [cannot resist] "You mean, you are pale like a vampire?"

And why do I have a feeling similar conversations happen between other newlyweds when the wife is minorly obsessed with EC? I know I'm not the only one:)

shamrocks, seniority, and sunshine

So on Monday I spent a good hour of my day off sitting outside, reading Twilight, soaking in the glorious sunshine, and watching the two dogs roll around in the muddy grass and sniff the crisp air. 'Twas glorious and I didn't realize how much I missed sitting outside in nice weather until I got to indulge myself for the first time since freaking October. Please, Mother Nature. PLEASE let Spring into Milwaukee once and for all. It got up to 70 degrees today and I almost cried when I got hot during my evening run tonight.

Hot. Like, sweaty and a little flushed. And I wasn't even wearing fifteen layers of running gear either. I'm crying right now just thinking about the gorgeousness of warm weather running. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Monday: outside with the dogs and the camera. I feel like Henry is way too spoiled and his ego is getting a little ridiculous, mostly because of the insane amount of face time he gets on my blog. So on this day, I decided to let Sammy---my in-laws' ten year old Bichon---steal the show. Sam is one of a kind and has total seniority over little Henry, which is pretty obvious when Hank follows Sam around like he's a god. Sam is not impressed by the youngin's antics and has this very apathetic look about him most days. Please observe:

The two of them together remind me of Bert and Ernie----Henry being tall and lanky Bert, Sammy being short and stumpy Ernie. They really are like an old married couple sometimes, too, secretly obsessed with each other but playing it off like it's nothing.

Now back to Sam: he has those wise old eyes I love about senior dogs. I like the blurry background in this one because it seems sorta vintage, just like Sammy:

Then there are his Bichon curls...

And I'm pretty sure this angle is not distorting his rump. He really has THAT much junk in his trunk. I love it.

Sammy the wonder dog, we love you and thank you for helping train our little whipper-snapper Henry. Such the loving big brother, you are.

So I'm just minding my own business, taking pictures of the dogs when Nate rolls up with a mischievous look on his face. Apparently he had a craving for a Shamrock shake:

Now, I don't know about you but these things just gross me out. They are actually this green because I didn't adjust the color at all here. Nothing should be that color, and to make matters worse....it tastes like an artificial plant. I would rather suck on a dirty peppermint that's fallen on the ground than eat this thing. Seriously. Am I the only one that feels this way?

In the meantime, my husband is having a regular love affair with the Shamrock shake. I caught him closing his eyes and moaning a little bit and took full advantage of him in this comatose mindset. He was quite annoyed with my paparazzi-style of shooting but he was just too freaking adorable to avoid:

I realize I could have softened the laugh lines around his eyes here but they were too adorable to touch. And his ear hair, glowing in the sun? My fave.

Then I went 'wedding photographer' on his arse and tried the 'eyelashes from above' shot. Not quite the same effect on a dude without a professional make up job, no?

Tell me he isn't the handsomest man around and I'll call you a liar:

Again, with the ears. Sigh.

After calling me 'totally creepy' he was all about the pictures and said, "Take a picture of this and see if you can get the green in the straw." Well, apparently I couldn't but I still like the shot.

And me? Little old me, you ask? I got in on the fun, too, and proudly displayed my shades in honor of the bright sunshine.

Now I ask you, dear readers: do you like Shamrock shakes? What about corned beef? Guinness? Because I'm 0 for 3 on the classic Irish dishes [what, a Mickey D's shake is classic, right?]. And I didn't even wear green today because I'm such a scrooge.

miscellany

I have many random thoughts and random pictures to show you today. They don't relate to each other whatsoever, hence being even more random. Must be a Monday, right?

1. Hello, followers! I see you down there, all 62 of you. I'm sorry I never return the favor and 'follow' blogs but honestly, I just noticed this function and wonder how long it's been lurking in the blogosphere. And hello, Google Reader subscribers! All 433 of you! Numbers like these make me feel slightly pressured to write amazing posts. I will try not to disappoint.


{these self portraits are all the rage on Flickr. I was inspired to snap this one in our old streaky mirror, after a nine miler. }



2. I must preface this with the necessary disclaimer: I am NOT pregnant, so please do not read into this miscellany.

But I mentioned something to Nate the other night that caused quite the ruckus. I think it's only fair but I'd like your opinion on the matter.

I informed him that when I am pregnant I will likely morph into a holy terror for a multitude of reasons, but the two major losses I will experience will be: coffee and wine. My two drinks of choice will be taboo for nine whole months. NINE MONTHS! I might die. I mean, I'm too uptight to even consider a sip of wine but I'm sure I'll be a bit more conservative with my black gold and partake in one cup per week or something like that.

So because I will be in fluid-mourning, I think it's only fair that my husband....my teammate...my partner in crime also suffer. Isn't that what marriage is all about? [I kid, I kid.]

It's only fair that he abstains from his daily morning coffee so that I am not forced to smell it's goodness, right? I really don't care if he consumes alcohol in front of me but the coffee is where I'll draw the line. We should experience horrendous caffeine withdrawls together. I'm sure it will make our marriage stronger if we live to tell about it.

He was not happy about this at first. Then he asked, "But I can drink coffee if you don't know about it, right?" Oh great. Just what I wanted....a husband that sneaks around behind my back and cheats on me with a cup-o-joe. Of course I informed him that if he meant purchasing daily cups of expensive coffee, then no.....that would not be allowed.

We'll discuss further when the time comes. Your thoughts?

{here's me again, schweaty, blotchy and without a trace of makeup. And yet, I sort of like the light in this one}



3. Nate's dad discovered not one, but two nails in my back tire. Said tire is now at the shop getting patched up and my spare tire makes me nervous. It's like a little twig and I swear it's slanted. I can just imagine my whole car collapsing onto the driveway right now.

{my jewelry box and fun with depth-of-field}



4. We tried a new church on Sunday and weren't too impressed. It's hard to find a church with some younger couples, a great pastor whose message connects to us personally, and is located in our general vicinity. We'll keep hunting...

{cool artwork at a nearby school}



5. It finally happened to me: I forgot to turn on my alarm clock before I went to bed on Thursday night. I set it for 6:15 and drag myself to the shower by 6:30, out the door by 7:20. Well on Friday morning, I was dozing soundly when I noticed Nate's head rotate towards his alarm clock then jerk over towards me. Immediately I knew I overslept [he didn't have class that morning, so his backup alarm wasn't set either].

Sure enough, I looked at the clock and it was 7:35.....15 minutes after I should have walked out the door. I sprinted to the bathroom and gave myself a hard look in the mirror, seriously considering forgoing the shower and just throwing on some clothes and a ponytail. But you see, my hair looked liked it housed actual birds that morning. Birds and possibly some rats. I owed it to myself and my patients to take that 2 minute shower.

And by golly, I was out the door in a total of 10 minutes and only 15 minutes late to work. Nate assumed the position of 'Crisis Manager' and ran to the coffee maker to get me my morning brew while toasting my bagel and handing both to me as I dashed out the door. He's a keeper.

What was not enjoyable was the fact that literally all day long I was frazzled because of my horrid start to the day. I just couldn't calm down, was high strung, and generally stressed until about 6pm that night.

Has this happened to anyone else out there? It was awful, I do not recommend.

{More cool artwork}


6. Henry's second opinion appointment went very well and we are officially in love with the new vet. He spent ample time explaining everything and basically, he feels comfortable watching both the heart murmur and the teeth because neither is bad enough to warrant hundreds of dollars in tests right now.

He graded the heart murmur with a lower score than the previous vet and said many dogs live their whole life with a murmur and suffer no side effects. We will simply watch for any signs of distress and track it as we go--no worries there.

His teeth are in Stage One of the gum disease spectrum which basically means they are completely normal for a 3 year old dog. He does not recommend a teeth cleaning because they aren't problematic and once you begin surgical cleanings you will most likely need them very often. We are simply not ready to begin this process with him at a young age and instead, we bought some Greenies to manage his tartar at home. Henry is one happy dog, you guys.

Thanks for all the kind thoughts and recommendations. We feel like this new vet is 100% what we needed---and his advice makes sense to us, without scaring the bajeezus out of us in the process. Looks like Henry will not cost us an additional 1k....at least not right now:)

{pretty texture on a tree}



7. The weather is divine today and is supposed to reach 58 degrees before the day is finished. It's sunny but with a crisp breeze to remind us that Spring has not officially sprung....but we're getting there. We even have a window cracked open and there is nothing more therapeutic than fresh air sweeping through a house. In fact, it inspired us to DEEP clean our place yesterday. Again, nothing makes me happier than an insanely clean home and if you mix in a dash of sunshine I'm a regular doll to be around for a change. Keep it up, Mother Nature. I love you right now.

{rusty fence plays nicely with narrow depth of field}


8. My 1.8 is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday but I'm secretly hoping it shows up today since I'm off and it's beautiful outside. A girl can dream, right?

{wispy branches are pretty, even if there is absolutely no signs of spring buds just yet}



9. I love running outside. It's about a bajillion times better than treadmill running, even if you are taking the personal TVs into account. Fresh air beats ANTM anyday. In fact, I'm tempted to run for the third day in a row outside even though my knees will protest. We shall see...

{now that's what I'm talking about, Spring is coming!}



10. I need to thicken my skin a bit more and wear my 'crazy photographer' mask with pride. I still feel so creepy taking pictures of any and everything in public. I know people are staring at me, like "What the heck is she doing taking pictures of that sign/tree/house?" I think I need to get over it, don't you?

{welcome to MKE!}



11. I'm going to Chicago in two weeks for a fabulous bachelorette party. I'm already excited for the numerous photographic opportunities that await me. I wonder if it would be disasterous to take my camera with me to the bars? Hmmmm....must weigh the pros and cons for that one. Daytime shooting is must with all of the awesome skyscrapers and whatnot. Bar scenes are a little more risky, I suppose...

{I've started to collect photos of the technicolor houses in Milwaukee. This pink one is at the top of my list for sure.}



12. I'm almost done with Twilight and it's still ''pretty good'' if you ask me. I think reading it this late in the game almost made the hype more than any book could handle but we'll see how I feel at the end of it. I will admit that I have a strong urge to stare at pictures of Rob Pattinson all day long, just so I can get the visual and drool a little.

{a cool orange house near us. Many more in my Flickr account if interested}


13. I have a little down time in between albums for J.Lorene and had the most fabulous idea the other day. I'm going to attempt my 2009 album in real time....meaning, I'll try to keep up with my hundreds of pictures as the year goes along so I'm not so overwhelmed at the end of the year when I go to make our yearly album. In fact, I've decided to make this year's album correlate with the blog quite a bit because I've always wanted to make a 'blog book' with posts I write. So why not make our yearly album full of pictures and text from our life? I'm very excited about this now but we'll see if I can keep up all year long.


You can go here to see the full size version on Flickr, but here is an example of a page full of both pictures and my post about Henry's R-Squared:




Whew, miscellanies wear me out. Now I'm off to enjoy this awesome day while pretending I don't have to work on Saturday to make up for this time off. I'm good at pretending sometimes.