elizabeth anne

This is my sister Elizabeth and she's not very fond of cameras. I think that's a shame because she could be a model.

Candy!

Not a fan of M&M's, but are good for photos because of all the colors (I'm a big fan of that)!

rain, rain...

today is the perfect day to do two things:

-drink tea and read a good book.
-play beethoven's moonlight sonata in the dark.

unfortunately, neither of those are happening here.

My life in 3 Photos

I would rather be here:

Instead, I'm stuck here doing too much of this:


Looking like this 99.9% of the time:

I'm thankful for...

I'm also very thankful for my family, but we're so big that when I tried reducing the picture to a thumbnail, not everyone fit. Hah!

winter is coming!

Christmas designs, part 1

Recently, I've gotten back into the habit of sketching. I've never been great, but I do enjoy taking ideas and putting them to paper. My latest sketches have included a lot of Christmas designs. This year, I'm thinking about individually preparing each of my Christmas cards by including some of the sketches. In the past, I've matted photos or used rubber stamps, but this year I'd like to make things simple, focusing on the real reason for the season. Drawing separate pictures for each card saves money and it's more unique and special to the recipient.

First, I've been testing different writing "fonts" that I've created. That just means I scribble different phrases in various ways until I come up with something that I like. Today, I spent over an hour doing this (read: procrastination. I have two presentations and three papers that need to be finished). Here's what I came up with. Very elegant and classy, but still simple. Love it.




Next up: I'll be unveiling some of the other drawings that will grace the front of the cards.

I'm going through all my pictures from 2009 and organizing them and getting ready to back the last trillion up. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but it sure seems like I've taken a lot of pictures! The above photo was taken earlier this year and I LOVE it. Not sure it ever made it on the blog, so I thought I'd share.

Never be afraid to dream!

This probably seems rather insignificant to most, but for me, this is a milestone :) Three years ago, I was completely incapacitated and came close to dying more than once. One day while lying in bed, I made a list of one hundred things I wanted to do before I died. I had no idea if any of them would even be accomplished because my health was so frail, but I dreamed on regardless. One of the top five things I wanted to do was run a 10K. Most of you know that I've been participating in some races with my cross-country club at school, but those have only been 5Ks or 6Ks. Considering where I was three years ago, that is a miracle right there. However, I have stilled dreamed of running a 10K.

And next week, I finally get to scratch it off my list. I'm not sure why I put a 10K on my list. Probably because the number sounded large and...I was dreaming and the odds of it ever happening were slim. But, here I am. Those long months of enduring the embarrassment of a cane, walker, leg braces and exercises have made it possible for this dream of mine to come true. I am SO excited!

Christmas!

Please, don't shoot me. I'm not a fan of Christmas before Thanksgiving either, but I need some input for a project, which is the ONLY reason I'm posting this.

When you think of Christmas, what images or words come to mind? Also, if you have a favorite Christmas tune, please include that as well :)