A quickie. . .

My dearest, Erin, and her sweet hubby, Jer, are here, and it's so so great. It's their 2nd (and last *sob*) night here before heading to Pennsylvania tomorrow. I'm doing everything in my power to try and keep them here or at least convince them to come back through Illinois on their way home. I don't think it's working, but I'll keep trying until they (and Penny) leave. It's been the best time ever. I love her (Jer, too) like she's been a best friend always. Thankfully we have the rest of our lives to be those kind of friends :c)

Another stroll through a meme in May . . .

Weird Facts About Myself The Rules:

Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 6 people to be tagged, list their names & why you tagged them. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re it!” & to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you, so since you’re not allowed to tag me back; let me know when you are done so I can go read YOUR weird/random/odd facts, habits and goals.



For me, I'm going through my photostream at flickr. Let's see what i come up with...



Some people think this is weird, but to photographers it's "the bomb". It's called bokeh and it's what you get when you shoot with your lens' aperture wide open. See that blur in the foreground and the background of the focused flowers? Yeah, that's bokeh and it's something cool to try to achieve which will result in "oohs" and "ahhs" from your photography friends (like me). :c) There are tons of "groups" at flickr just to showcase your "bokeh" photos. I'm one who has gotten addicted to it.

And here's another example of beautiful bokeh:





I loooove these green tea frapps from Starbucks. I tend to get these more than (frozen or iced) coffee on most days in the summer. And the color I'm in love with. For some odd reason funky colors of green have really grown on me lately. Isn't it snazzy? (This photo is from my photo shoots in Chicago when Jo and I took a break in air conditioning with some yummy chillers.)

This isn't so much weird, or maybe it is? But here are my necessities when going on long shoots (weddings included).



D200
cell phone
glasses
water
and Starbucks (usually it's coffee or sometimes something cold. Just has to have caffeine.)
and, a cool place to sit down and rest my tired feet for a bit before more shooting :c)

I take chances a lot with my camera.



That's me and that's me during a shoot in Chicago in WATER. You kinda have to take some chances when you want the perfect photo otherwise you miss perfect opportunities. This is about the only realm of my life where I take chances, but that's okay. :c)



I can't find anything weird to say about this one. (hehe) This is just a favorite picture of when my dear friend Jen and her daughter, Addy, came to visit us. I miss her.



Even with all the problems we had in this house and the money we spent and lost on it, I still really miss it.



If you've never been to Chicago, you should go. And make sure you see "the bean" in Millennium Park. This is the bean, well part of it, and our reflection in it. A couple hours later we would have gotten our picture taken with zillions of other faces in it, too. It's quite popular. What makes this weird is, I don't like how dirty it is! Usually (I believe) it is cleaned once or twice a day and obviously it hadn't been cleaned yet!

These pictures make me laugh. Again, not weird. I just need something to fill this spot and these two pictures are two of my favorites from May. Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Bob the Builder:




And, this isn't weird, either, but then again, maybe it is because it excites me. But remember my contest to win the free canvas? Well, my winner, Candi, she asked if she could buy one a bit larger. So I said YES! and gave her a canvas in a 20x24 (I think it was) at my cost --- so she walked away with an awesome deal-a-roo! She got the canvas up and here it is!

If you hop on over to her blog, you will see the before and after of the space where she put it. Isn't it awesome?! I'm so happy for her that she won because it really turned out so great and it just makes me smile seeing it up in her home. Congrats again, Candi :c) (I also gained a friend in all this! Cool, eh?!)



This is my new favorite shirt. I may be weird, but I love it. Hmmmmm...wonder why?


Okay, there we have. My list of 10 weird things (they aren't so much facts, but at least I played!). I am not tagging anyone. But please feel free to do it -- it's fun! (Thanks, AJ!)

In honor of my 500th post . . .

. . . I honor some of the girls who have been supportive, loving, encouraging, funny, and very comment-ative (is that a word?!) to me here at my blog. They have just been very good friends and very loyal friends and so I give to them, some "Blog-a-licious Love" (as Amanda so greatly put it)!

First of all, can you believe this is my 500th post?!?! Should I be celebrating or is this just proof of all the time I waste (I mean, spend) here online?

Anyhow, a while back, Amanda tagged me. The deal is, when tagged you are suppose to show your blogging friends names in a creative way. Amanda did this with my name:Isn't it cute?!

So I kept putting this off and putting this off, knowing that I wanted to do it but just didn't put aside time to do it. But finally I decided today, while Maia was sleeping and Noah was watching Spongebob, that I would finally put my ideations to work.

Only three I made. All three go out to friends who I didn't know until I became a part of the blogging world. They have been three friends who have been so supportive over the months. All three, Amanda, Erin and Chel, indeed friends for life. I love them like sisters . . . is that weird?!?
(I so totally would have picked more, but I couldn't find a picture of them/you! This scavenger hunt for pictures was difficult, to say the least!)

So thanks, girls, for being there for me . . . for giving me some powerfully strong friendships that I never had prior to blogging. Thank you for your loyalty . . . thank you for loving me.




And I will admit, I also only did three because it took me so dang much time! That's what happens when you are so tedious (ahem, anal) about your work!

And Happy 500th post to me!

. . . those are silver, these are gold

Time for a somewhat sappy post from me. I know you are thinking, "come ON Val, ALL your posts are sappy. You are the sappiest person I know!" I know, I really probably am. I try not to be sappy all the time, but somehow it always seems to come out.

Anyway, here we are in our new home. We will have been moved in for almost a week come this weekend. I've felt at home from day 1, but the past few days it started hitting me how different and not the same it will ever be again.

I so easily get caught up in the repetitious life that I live in. After some time I really start to feel a connection with my life and things around me.

Growing up on the farm as a child I got attached very quickly. As a child you don't ever see a change coming. You think it will always be the same. You think that "this" is what life is going to be like forever more. When my dad told us we had to sell the farm and move when I was 16, I felt like my life was ruined . . . I felt crushed. All my memories resided there. We burried everything from fish to pet deceased doggies on that land. I raised kittens who were abandoned by their mothers. I walked the acres and acres of land barefoot all 16 of those years. My bare feet probably felt every blade of grass. I loved being outdoors there. While I became attached to my house, most of my memories took place outside. It's those things that I remember most.

But that's it. They're all just memories. When I was 16 I thought a memory was a memory if those material things around you were there. But what happens if you move? Or if those material things burn down or are taken away by a tornado or what if you die? It's taken me 30 years to really honestly realize that memories are just that -- good (and bad) times of your life that you hold and keep in your heart forever. It's those things that make you who you are. It's those things that you carry with you to Heaven. None of the material objects truly matter.

With that said, I am definitely missing some "things" at our old house on Westlawn and I won't pretend I don't. And most of those "things" are things like the mural I painted on Noah's wall, the writing I put in the cement when we built our garage (which read "Neil, Valerie & Noah 10/17/05" which was the day before we had Maia!), my landscaping that we did all by hand, especially my perinnials that I worked so hard on and spent so much money on, my tomatoes that were just blooming, the lilac bush that one of my dear friends (Katie) gave me as a house-warming gift when we moved there (and finally was getting big but still never flowered!), the beautiful patio Neil built himself, the long driveway that Noah loved riding his "motorcycle" on, the front porch that we sat on to photograph many of our family pictures, where I shot many pictures of the kids playing, the gutter that a neigbhorhood dog literally chewed up, the fence where I stood chatting to "Mimi" or Lisa all the time, the same fence where I handed the kids off to Mimi or Lisa, the back yard where we held Noah's 1st birthday party, the grass where we blew up the small pool for Noah to play in for the first time and for me to sit my feet in while 7 months preggie, hot and tired. The memories out there just go on and on and on.

Neil and I sitting on that memorable front porch when Noah was 8 months old . . . in 2004.

Then inside . . . I could name things that would take all day for me to name, but the biggest thing in my 6-1/2 years of life there were our 3 years of infertility, my 3 miscarriages, and then our 2 miraculous pregnancies and bringing those little miracle babies home. I cry right now as I write this because, well, I never ever thought I would see the day where I would bring home one of my babies there. There came a time when I was beginning to accept the fact that I wasn't meant to bear any children. It was that time that Neil and I grew the most as people, especially as husband and wife. We learned the most about each other. We became the closest we had ever been because we only had each other through that time. A time that no one else could possibly understand. It's a time I don't want to relive, but then again, it's a time I am so very thankful for. It was that time in my life that I really became "me". It was that time that I learned so so much about life. It was that time in my life that will probably be the most profound time in my life. And it all happened there on Westlawn. I won't forget any of it.

I will also miss the day-to-day normalcy, those things that were repetetive. Like chatting to Randy across the street when he was home during the day. He was the absolute best neighbor and always will be! And then his wife, my friend, Vickie. Who I love to pieces. She started out as a neighbor but became a great friend. (And of course, Randy, you are my friend, too!) This last year had been the absolute best when we'd camp out in their front yard, blow up the pools, let the kids play and we (the parents) would sit and drink 'ritas and beer and just chat our evening away. It was perfection! It's those memories that I take with me forever, and will forever and ever remember. But the best thing about things like this, like the friends we made and the friends we left, is that they are still our friends and will continue to be our friends. We'll still visit and we'll still drink margaritas. We just can't walk home afterwards or run across the street to the house for something really quick. That will be the hard part, remembering that we can't (and don't) just walk back across the street anymore. But we'll get through it as we begin to love our home here more and begin to fit in more with the neighbors and community. We'll just have to drive 35 minutes to get there . . . not walk 35 seconds.

I do love this house here A LOT but I miss Westlawn A LOT. I could never argue that! I miss the "things" about Westlawn a lot. But I honesty can say I feel okay about leaving because we've left for all good reasons and it was just time to do so. But I hold in my heart forever all the memories that were made there. Not one, no matter how bad or good, will ever be forgotten. I really truly lived while living there.

As silly as this sounds, I think of this verse from a poem from Girl Scouts (yes, Girl Scouts, I was a Girl Scout . . . "On my honor, I will try . . " go ahead and laugh, I give you permission) . . .

Cherish friendship in your breast-
New is good, but old is best;
Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.

Love you, Vick, love you, Randy, love you, Chloe, love you, Mimi, love you, Lisa, love you, (and miss you,) "O", love you, Darby, love you, Rachel, love you, Heidi, love you, Dreiers, will miss you ALL so so much. Don't forget us!