Crossover — DEACON Jeremy

Cruise on over to the Heartland Blog to view a few faves from Deacon Jeremy's ordination!!!! (Wow, it feels really strange to call him "Deacon" ... I've known Jeremy since I was 16 ... he's one of my oldest and dearest friends).

MORE photos to come .... I'm maxin' and realxin' right now, though. So you'll just have to wait!

But in the meantime, I learned the Catholic Diocese of Wichita puts photos and such up on YouTube. I haven't had time to look through much of it, but it seems pretty cool! you can check it out HERE. :)

I love a good blog contest/vote

I'm a sucker for blog contests/submissions.

This week, my crazy design inspiration made the top 5 in a design contest, and I'd love YOUR vote before Friday at 5 p.m. EST ....

Pretty please with sugar on top, GO HERE and leave a comment, voting for yours truly (KAREN!!!). :) Prize is $100 to Home Depot, but I"m pulling for Lowe's b/c the nearest HD is an hour to 90 minutes away from our house.

What will I do for you? I promise to not invite you over to help instsall/paint/do whatever I get with my mad money at the home improvement store. :)

Making friends is hard to do?

I've been pondering this awhile, and finally have the courage to put it on the blog.

This might sound a bit odd, but I sort of think making friends as we get older is more difficult than when we were younger. I've lived here in Salina for 2 years now, and I enjoy it. It's a great town. I have a wonderful husband and an amazing marriage. I have A LOT to be thankful for.

But I don't have many girls who I'm friends with. Who I can just call up and go get an ice cream with. Or get together for a glass of wine, to unwind or just watch chick flicks.

When I was in Hays, I was really blessed to have a few good friends who I could call up and just bum around with. Who would get in line with me for the midnight release of Harry Potter Book 7. Who I taught CCD with once a week.

Here in Salina, I miss that so much. And it's not for a lack of trying! I tried to get involved with CCD at our church, but they are way more strict about the books/program they use (which makes me just gag ... it's SO watered down and just awful Catechesis, I can't bring myself to inflict it upon a second grader ... for example, they wanted me to teach either 2nd or 7th grade, and sent both books. I was flipping through one and said to Fr. Nick "This is for second grade, right" .... and it was the 7th grade book.). We've tried for 3 years to host Totus Tuus teams when they come through, but I've been told that since we don't have kids, we won't be considered. Ouch and ouch. Just really bums me out.

Meeting people through work ... well, I work by myself here in my residential studio. Yes, I have clients, but I would just feel plain uncomfortable saying "let's be friends" ... I feel lame somehow. Like at nearly 29 years old, I should HAVE friends and not NEED friends or something.

I really miss poker nights from Hays. It wasn't every week, but often, a good group of us would get together to get rowdy and lose money. It was a great time with some of my co-workers! And I miss it!

Don't get me wrong, I'm BLESSED with amazing friends. Who have carried me through the most difficult patches of my life. But my close, close friends all live elsewhere. Yeah, I can call, but conversations are often brief, if people even pick up the phone. Everyone has busy lives going on in their OWN towns.

I suppose this is something I could add to my "bucket list" ... to cultivate some good friendships here in town. Yes, I'm going to try to make more of an effort ...

A few from behind the scenes

Excited to be shooting Andrea's wedding. :)


One of the things I think I'll always remember from Andrea and Larry's wedding is the smell of these lilac trees. I've had blocked sinus passages for YEARS, but it's started to clear up, and now my sharp sense of smell has returned. I love the smell of lilacs, and got a nose-full. :)

It's appropriate to share these photos because I'm working on getting Andrea and Larry's wedding proofs up!

txtng + drvng = trbl

I was catching up on the newspaper this week, and guess what? The state of Kansas has now banned texting while driving.

I'm impressed. I didn't even know it was in the works to become a law.

So .... as if I needed one more push to give it up for good, it's illegal now. Honestly, I've not done much since giving it up for Lent. I just wanted to give a shout out and let everyone know it's going to be a ticketable offense soon.

Here's another interesting tidbit: Texting while driving is already illegal for teens. Who knew?

Happy Sunday.

Crossover — super-hot :)

I had a portrait session this morning, and it was smokin' hot! :)

I feel like this couple could have been models at a workshop, but no, they're a for-real bride and groom.

CLICK HERE to check it out.

Another Esse ploy...

Which one of these things in the following photo doesn't belong?


There are a lot of good choices ....


WAIT A MINUTE!!!! What's the kitty doing there? (pictured is her hateful/spiteful face).

When we won't let Esse out for whatever reason (we're leaving for the day, it's stormy, there is a tornado warning), she gets pouty. One day, she decided to station herself by the door, probably in hopes of slipping out when we left.

She did this just last week, and so Erik defied her and left through the side door. TAKE THAT, KITTY!!!!

They're here! They're here! They're HEEEEEEERE!!!!! #78 baby!

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! Remember awhile ago when I was whining about how bad I am at getting wedding photos up? Well, the wait is over! The 32x48-inch canvas gallery wraps have arrived!!!!!!!!


Initially, I had a different photo in mind, but when I showed Erik the photos I was considering, he pulled this one immediately. I think it's a great choice!

interestingly, I was editing the photos Heather took of our wedding for her, and skipped over this one. It didn't rise to the top for me. But the lovely and very talented Heather pulled it, and the more I look at it, the more I like it. In fact, I'm really crazy about it! So I'm glad Erik made a strong case for having it on our wall. :)

Now it's soapbox time people .... are you ready? I know there are some photo-lovers out there who read our blog. And let me say a few things. 1) people seem afraid to buy big photos. To that I say: "DO NOT BE AFRAID!!!!" 2) people think they don't have room for big photos. To that I say: "If you have a couch or loveseat, you have room. This is because they're often on a long wall. The photo you see above is FOUR FEET wide. Think of the "big" photos in your house. Probably an 8x10 or maybe an 11x14. Seriously about ONE FOOT wide. And how wide is the average couch? Anyhow, don't be afraid to get big art. This piece is an investment that we intend to keep around for a L-O-N-G time.


Here it is! This is the photo I had envisioned for months and months! I knew I wanted it in our bedroom! Initially, I wanted to get it bigger (40x60, anyone?), but we decided it'd be nice to be able to switch it with the one above the couch if we wanted. So they're both 32x48. Still substantial.

Once again on photo size: This wall is TEN FEET wide .... huge! And our photo is FOUR FEET wide ... so you can see we had plenty of room. There's even some space to the left if we want to make a smaller grouping of photos. I'll have to think on that.

Lastly, what is this #78 business, you ask? Well, as I was searching for info for this blog post, I came across my 101 in 1001 list, turned bucket list. #78 reads: "Get large canvas prints made" ... and now I have! So off the bucket list it goes!

Post-dinner

Remember when Erika and I had out house blessed? Scroll down to the last photo. Yes, that's my dad sleeping at a social event. It's sort of a standard for Mikols men.

Well, when we were at my sister's house for a graduation party last week, my brother didn't disappoint. But since they just moved into their house, Carl had no couch to stretch out on. No bother. A floor will do just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Rain Barrels, 2010 style!

I'm not 100% done. Heck, I'm not even 25% done, but here's where we're going in 2010 with our water harvesting.

This is the back of our house.


We added some railroad ties. And the space in between, I have dirt removed during the patio project last summer. I'll put it in there and then rain barrels will go on top!


Sort of like this.


I have only one done, but all of the rain revealed a flaws in my efforts, so I will have to empty it and then do a bit of tweaking, but this is where we're headed this summer!

I hope to have more time this week to work on it. In between all of the rain we're getting. Seriously! I wish I had this all done so I could just harvest the water! Geek, I know!