Visit with Rosie

Miss Rosie, chilling next to me in my office.

This weekend my old roommate Stephanye took a trip to DC with her boyfriend Regev. Benefit? Christopher and I get ROSIE!! Rosie is not your ordinary dog - she is very attached to Steph and when Stephanye is gone she attaches to me. She's been following me everywhere - up and down the stairs - outside - into the kitchen - onto my piles of laundry... :-) It's fun to have her back in the house again. She's not being particularly photogenic today (she keeps turning from me), but she's still adorable. Later this summer Steph is going to move in with Christopher and me before she moves to Israel. So I get BOTH my girls back for about 5 weeks - woohoo!!

Ok, this may be unnecessary - but just PROOF of how much they actually took off my hair.

Yowza! That's definitely a good 10".

Off to pack - going to DC tomorrow to stay with Lori, Tommy, Jake and Linds. YAY!!! :-D

Goodbye Long Locks!

As some may remember, a few years back I decided to cut my hair for Locks for Love. I took 12" off and it was a very traumatic experience. Let's just say that it wasn't water I was chugging from my water bottle while the woman cut.

My hair has grown SO long and Virginia is getting HOT so I decided I wanted to cut it again. It's so hard to make a donation because you have to take so much off. I knew I didn't have enough for Locks for Love so this time I decided on Pantene's Beautiful Lengths - a charity that uses hair to make wigs for women with cancer. As it is my best buddy Seth's birthday, and his mother is a breast cancer survivor, I decided today would be the day. It's funny - it looks almost EXACTLY like it did last time except this time I don't have bangs.

The pictures don't do it justice, and I looked tired and drugged up - but here are the before and after shots of my Locks for Reightler-Love expedition - round 2.

Long hair complete with dead ends...

I made the cut at 1:30 and then stopped by Robin's school to show her. She took me out for ice cream - isn't she the greatest??

ACK -so much shorter than I thought!

She ended up taking 10" from the back and about 8-9" from the top/front (my hair was layered). Although she dried it to flip out - it likes to move in this way. It's going to take a long time to get used to, but it's cooler already!

My love to everyone who knows someone who has lost their hair due to cancer treatments. I hope my little bit of a contribution will help others in the same situation.

Photo Tour of Charlottesville

So since I need to play around with my new camera, I thought I would do a little "tour" of some hot spots in Charlottesville as a little preview for our wedding guests. Our ceremony is downtown - 1/2 block from court square and 1 block from the downtown mall. Then we head down Main Street toward the corner (UVA hangout) and UVA grounds. I took a ton of photos before my allergies started acting up and here are just a few of them leading you from the ceremony to... well, not quite to the reception hall. I'll leave that for another day. Matty made the cut because his apartment is on the downtown mall. Silly man. I didn't edit any of these and I know I can do much better, but it was so much fun! I felt like a real photographer (minus knowing what I was doing!) So afterwards I ran to Barnes and Noble quickly to pick up a book about the D-60.

Alright ladies and gentlemen, our tour begins in historic downtown Charlottesville outside the courthouse... Enjoy!

Court Square, downtown, 1/2 block from our church

The Inn at Court Square... So quaint.

This is where we're getting MARRIED!!
Don't make fun of the name. :-)

It's been there for awhile...

Matty. Isn't he special?
I like portrait mode, it's the only one I know how to use.
(i.e. turn to portrait, take pictures of people)

SUPER cute puppy of man trying to hit on me.

Christopher's restaurant!
They obviously weren't open yet. Hehe.

Sad chess board in the park.

We should've scheduled the wedding for May. Look at these beauties!

Welcome to the south. Everyone needs a large statue of Robert E Lee.

One of my favorite places in the world... the library.

Steps to a law firm downtown.

More posies downtown.

Circling back to the inn. SO CUTE.

Front door to the inn.

In case you had ANY doubts the square was historic.

Driving from downtown to grounds you pass the Main Street Market. Albemarle Baking Company is one of the best joints in town.

Outside the bakery.

Bodo's on the corner. Bodo's is a staple of Charlottesville. This is where Mama, Daddy, Christopher and I had lunch in between my graduations.

On the lawn at UVA. Well, the lawn is behind me, this is one of the Pavillions. I can't wait to get wedding pictures on the lawn. So gorgeous.

And this is the end of your tour around Charlottesville because your guide's allergies are about to make her face/head explode all over the camera.

I Want To Marry My New Camera

More flowers from Annie. :-)

So I have no clue how to work this camera. I can turn it to auto, portrait, and close-up. Other than that I'm a novice on how photography works. It's so exciting. The sun is not out today but I got out of bed, remembered I had a new camera, and pranced around the house/yard taking photos. I can't wait to figure out how to actually make them GOOD since the auto is pretty amazing itself. Plus, I found a whole bunch of flowers around my house that I was unaware existed. Sweeet.

Some pretty flowers growing in my yard.

Some pretty flowers growing on the side of my house.

A potted plant... what is it??

An interesting flower of the crackhead variety.

My boy on his computer.
Look at the pure jealousy on his face. He wants my camera.

NEW CAMERA!!

It's here!!

Trying out the multi-burst mode.

I finally got it - my Nikon D60. I have been wanting this camera for-ev-er and finally got my hands on it earlier this evening. I wish it would have been charged and ready to go for my dinner at Annie's house because they have a beautiful farm and I could have gotten some amazing shots. But alas, I had to wait until I got home.

This camera has been the topic of MANY arguments - and today I finally just bought it. I'm so jazzed. It's best in natural light - and I'm assuming with people - but this evening I was limited to my bedroom. Hm... until Christopher got home from work I had to use some inanimate models. :-) Oh and yes, I'm a 6 year old girl.

Tubbers.

Leo Lionni.

Christopher.
Real live fiance.

Tomorrow I'm going to go on a walk and take tons of pictures of everything I can find. I'm still figuring out how to use the AUTO mode; this whole real photography thing is new to me. But I cannot wait to learn. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who contributed to my beautiful new buy. I love it already and haven't even really had the chance to try it out!

PS. Happy belated birthday to my brother, Jeff. Bubby turned the big 3-1 on the 21st.
PPS. Happy belated birthday to my good friend Meggie from college. Meggie turned 2-6.
PPPS. Happy birthday TODAY to my friend Rick from grad school.

May certainly is the time of year for birthing babies. :-D

Aaaachoo!

Allergies are the worst. They take a perfectly beautiful Virginian day and turn it into the most miserable load of crud ever. I end up inside, with the windows closed, on the couch with an ice pack on my head. I don't get the sneezing, but instead massive sinus pressure/headache and itchy eyes. It's been pretty rough here for the past two weeks and I'm on a daily regimen of Flonase, Claratin, and over-the-counter sinus/allergy every four hours. Still feeling rough.

Despite the misery that accompanies allergy season, we still get to witness the most beautiful plants and flowers. Miss Annie brought me some peonies from her garden to congratulate me on graduation. Aren't they GORGEOUS?!?! I want peonies at the wedding - too bad they don't bloom until May or I'd just go cut a whole bunch from Martha and Annie's garden and use those. :-) She brought me a ton - they're sprinkled all over the house. I refuse to let a little headache keep me away from these beauties.

Forgive my amateur photography, I'm playing with my old Canon point-and-shoot while I wait for my Nikon to come back in stock. (B-day/graduation present from my parents, my brother, Chris's parents, Chris and myself). :-)

So Far, So Good

I talked to Tom earlier this evening and got the scoop on Linds's surgery. It was very long and intense, but overall it seems to have gone very well. When she awoke and the doctor asked her where she was, she apparently looked at him like he was silly and responded, "I'm in the ICU, I just had brain surgery." So very Lindsey. :-)

She was very tough, but is uncomfortable and Lori and Tom are very very very tired. Please keep them in your thoughts. I hope to go up next week or the following to hang with my girl for a few days when she gets home from the hospital. Words can not express the relief I am feeling now.

Prayers for Lindsey

Yesterday after receiving her "brain markers"

Please please please keep the prayers coming for Lindsey. She went in for her brain surgery today at 2:00 and as of 8:30 was still in the operating room. It is now 11:15 and I haven't heard anything recently but they estimated a 5-9 hour surgery...

Hopefully I will be heading to Baltimore first thing in the morning. I know there's nothing I can do there that I can't do here, but right now I long to be in that waiting room more than anything else. There is nothing I want more than to just sit there and know I'm in the same building as her. A good friend of mine from high school lives just down the road from the hospital and has GRACIOUSLY offered to let me crash with him while she's there. I had planned to go up in a couple weeks, but I am literally going CRAZY here. The unknown is so scary. Knowing it's in God's hands is reassuring, but - I just need to be there.

Please pray for Lindsey, her parents Tom and Lori, her brother Jakey, and her grandmother Marge. This family made me part of their own when I was in the hospital in Baltimore and they are the most wonderful people in the world... Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers - I know they can feel them.

Graduation Day

Today was graduation day here at the University of Virginia. I FINALLY finished my second master's degree, whew. Now I just need someone to offer me a job. UVA always has the large university-wide graduation outside on the "lawn" of Thomas Jefferson's academical village. Well it was a little rainy in the village today, but that didn't stop the thousands of people gathered to celebrate. It did lead to some muddy feet though - ewww... A few shots of the day.

Mama and Daddy found us walking down the lawn!

Old Cabell Hall

Ew.... Muddy feet!

With Robo and Snar at the diploma ceremony.

Family shots - post graduation.

My hair looked much cuter BEFORE the rain.

Hooray! FINISHED!!

Congratulations to everyone else graduating today - all my friends from UVA and my cousin Casey from Notre Dame. Hip hip hooray!! :-D