oh but there's more

You can't be sick of Henry pictures yet, can you? Cause I have more my friends. Sunday afternoon I took about a bajillion pictures and here are some of my favorites:

Next to some good light:

And outside! Yes, I finally ventured out to see what some natural light would do:
Yep, still has a cute nose.

So then our friend Charlie and his dog Kevin came over for a surprise visit. Do you remember this post with the adorable puppy? That's Kevin but now he's WAY bigger than Henry and I don't think our little guy liked being the runt this time around:)

Kevin inspects Sammy.

I force the boys to take a walk before the sunset, but the good light was pretty much gone already. Isn't winter depressing? And don't Nate and Charlie looks like a happily married gay couple?

Oh, Kevin. Why do you eat so much snow?

A fave.

I can't wait to play with this one in Photoshop, but right now I'm staying away from the editing process while I learn the camera. The editing stuff is a whole other beast and I need to stay focused right now [no pun intended].




Cutie patooties.

They honored my wishes and began a [friendly] dog fight, just so I could play with different shutter speeds. I love how Henry is literally holding Kevin's paw in his mouth here.

And then he goes for the armpit, youch!

Such a snowy face.

We went for a walk in one of the nicest neighborhoods in our area. I can picture us living here, can't you?

Or here...I mean if you forced me to live there, I could survive. Is it creepy that I took pictures of random mansions? Probably. But I was ready for a still subject at this point.

Henry and his mommy, since she never gets to be in pictures anymore.

So then, the big decision was which camera bag to buy. I always thought I'd buy a girlie, fun-printed bag like the fabulous Shootsac, but I can't justify spending that kind of money right now. Nate, however, had different ideas: he wanted us to get an ultra-masculine, outdoorsy bag such as one from Lowepro. There is absolutely nothing wrong with those bags but they are just so plain and not me.

We debated on this for awhile and it almost got ugly. I personally think I'll be the one to use the camera the most and therefore I should have the biggest pull with this purchase. I doubt Nate will be strutting around the city, toting our camera in a girlie bag without me. He says it could happen and doesn't want to sport a bright pink floral print, although I can't imagine why not. I'm trying very hard not to be selfish with our new purchase and I've avoided saying, "It's MY camera that I bought with MY 'fun money' account...I earned it!!! Lay off!! Sigh.

Since marriage is all about compromise we settled for this adorable, custom made, padded bag from Etsy seller Wicked Stitch Designs.
But in this gender-neutral pattern. It was literally the ONLY one out of 1000s that we could agree upon, you guys.

If I had my way, I would have gone for one of these 'designer' patterns in a heartbeat:
But the green will do, I suppose. Since the bag is custom made it will take a full three weeks to arrive, and in the meantime I will continue the Crazy Tourist look with my camera hung around my neck.

Oh, and I'll still be putzing around with the new addition, too. I love it. So much fun.

Loosen up my buttons, baby.

Not really, but seeing as how I'm attempting to master all of the crazy buttons on my new camera, I thought this would be a semi-appropriate title. It's a stretch, isn't it?

So much to learn on this baby! I decided today would be a day to shoot many pictures with more manual settings, just to see what happens. Want to see?

[Why do I love his nose so much?]

[my boys]

[his tongue is so long and rubbery!]

[Gooey Butter Cookies for our work Christmas party tonight...mmmmm]

[A little sip of heaven]

[Sammy, my in-laws dog, comes to pose a bit]

[they have such a love/hate relationship]

[those eyelashes!]

[my new favorite Sammy picture. Such wisdom in those old eyes]

[I'm quite fond of his nose, too, afro fur and all]

[somewhat artsy.]

[I really like this one]

[he loves to pose]

[and now, the shaking series...1]

[...2...]

[......3.....]

[another good one of Sammy]

So yeah, mostly the same subjects over and over as you can see. Tomorrow I plan on venturing out into the snowy wonderland that is our neighborhood to try out some more natural light pictures! So.much.fun. Stay tuned.

One place I will NOT take my new camera....

...is the ladies locker room at my gym.

Shudder.

Maybe I'm just a prude, or royally insecure about my naked body, but seriously? Since when is it socially acceptable to strip down naked and gyrate your flesh in front of total strangers? Yes, I said gyrate. Bear with me.

Ever since I succumbed to the cold weather and joined the gym a few months ago, I chant a mantra in my mind: "Soon, it will be warm enough to run outside and I won't have to deal with this madhouse. Someday, when the ice melts, the road will be my friend and I can tell the stupid treadmill to suck it. I hate paying money to run indoors. And meat heads flexing their muscles in the mirror aren't even entertaining anymore." So I'm already not a huge fan of 'clubs' or 'gyms' or whatever the hell you want to call them but when people start exposing their nude hoo-has to me, I basically lose my mind.

Tonight, I was minding my own business, changing clothes the way I thought most people do it: discretely and quickly. As a former athlete I learned the very sneaky regular-bra-to-sports-bra maneuver to avoid any nipple exposure: you just put the sports bra on over the regular bra, then unhook the regular one and pull it out from under the sports bra. It's easy, and everyone should do it. But instead, this chick whipped out her ta-tas so quickly that I didn't have time to look away. A flash of light reflected from her saggy areolas...and....wait a minute.....was that.....it couldn't be.....freaking nipple rings! Ah, my eyes! My eyes!

And if that weren't enough, I spun around to face the other direction thereby avoiding nipple ring lady and instead I found myself face-to-face with a new gem: large, naked woman who is applying lotion vigorously. One foot up on the bench, bent over, with her offensive bum pointed directly at my face. I think it was smiling at me, you guys. Seriously.

It's just one of those things: do you blatantly look away, possibly staring at the ground to avoid all views of naked flesh? Or do you play it cool and if you accidentally find your eyes drifting towards an unknown flap of skin, act like you are totally unphased?

I completely respect this extreme act of self-confidence, really I do. I mean, obviously you have to feel pretty good about yourself to walk around butt naked in front of strangers. In fact, I think some of the naked ladies strut around, more so than walk, just to prove a point. Some of them dry their hair in the nude, talk on their cell phones nude, and apply makeup....in the nude. It's like they are trying to maximize their time sans clothing before they leave the confines of the locker room and enter the real world, where all the rules change. It's not okay to be naked in a public space...unless there is a little plaque on the door that says 'locker room', apparently.

There are little kids running around in this same locker room, probably staring as much as I do, and I think I saw a stray boob pop one of the little children in the face one day. It might have happened, I don't know----because I get so disoriented when I'm in the locker room. SO MUCH NAKEDNESS! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Does anyone else find this horrible and stressful and down right awkward? Or maybe I'm just overly inhibited or something, I don't know. I'm just not used to such nudity or perhaps I haven't been in enough locker rooms in my life.

Ick, now I'm thinking about nipple rings and unidentifyied womanly pieces again.