Walking through our park really drove it home that we were back in the USA, and back to our daily lives. Every little thing was familiar, including the smell of it all. It was comfortable, and at the same time the feeling was melancholy. I’m already planning our next adventure. :)
Part of what made our honeymoon special was the beautiful ship we traveled in for two weeks. Two weeks is a wonderfully long time. It had been a while since I’d taken a vacation longer than 3 days. India doesn’t count because it was 3 weeks of crazy. This was two weeks of blissful disconnection. Plus, every morning we’d walk out of our stateroom and walk into this. Not bad.
I spent a good deal of our visit to Fort Lauderdale a few weeks ago staring at the planes taking off and landing. The ships are so close to the airport, allowing us to watch every flight from a short distance. Airplanes can be mesmerizing.
I get a rush when I look up at skyscrapers. It’s a symptom of the love I have for this city, and all cities in general. Hubs of so many different people and problems and unity among disparity is really hard to find elsewhere and it exhilarates me.
Here’s a familiar sight to Atlantans.
I’ve started to take a look around my house again. I didn’t have space in my brain to continue to do the things required for home improvement for the past year but now I do plus I have an extra pair of hands willing to help me tackle most projects. The plants around my yard needs some work. I have a tiny yard (on purpose!) but I still like flowers and some garden decor. I noticed the peonies had stared blooming while I was gone. I’m thankful that there’s a yard crew that takes care of most of the annoying work (mowing, trimming, mulching, etc) so planting flowers and watering them are the end of my yard responsibilities. I was thinking of planting some Checkered Lillies or maybe a large assortment of Ranunculus. I love Ranunculus. Anemones are my second favorite. Maybe I’ll just plant them all and see what happens!! It’s not like there are any rules, right?
I’m still reveling in the feeling that wedding planning is OVER!!! Getting our lives in order has been really great. I still have like 130 more Thank You notes to write, and name change paperwork to do but all the hard, stressful stuff is over. Last weekend I was at the Westin to shoot some wedding details for a vendor. I arrived a bit early and was told to go help myself at the bar. Jeremy came along and we had this excellent white wine mixed with some sort of elderberry liqueur. I like pretty food and drink and a little lemon curl adds a little zing to the visual impact of most food! While trying to shoot this using my 50mm on my crop sensor dslr, and almost falling out of my chair to get everything I wanted in the frame, I was reminded how badly I wanted a nice full frame body and a few L series lenses.
It’s going to happen. It might take a bit longer because now we’ll need two of each body and two of every common use lens, but I’m getting excited about the prospect of excellent equipment. It won’t make me shoot better photos, but it will certainly make achieving the look I want far easier and faster. Part of respecting myself and my business is to skip out on purchasing everything on credit. Man it is SO HARD sometimes knowing that I can have everything I want right now and pay it back but that’s not how I want to set the tone for all my future achievements.
Sometimes it feels stupid.
Anyway.
I love the color of this drink :] I want to have another!
Other than that, life in general feels great. I’m getting steeped into my new senior position at work that I was promoted into in August (yay!). Being promoted into a new position with a new team, new responsibilities and a new platform was a bit stressful the couple months before the wedding trying to be present and do work for the team I was transitioning from while trying to learn the ropes on the new one. Still, I wasn’t going to put my career aside for something as transient as my wedding day. I love where I work and I love where I’m going with it all. I am truly blessed two have not one but two wonderful careers that seem to be steadily increasing my challenges and my personal rewards in many ways!
I need to finish processing my honeymoon photos. I am so overwhelmed with all the fun things I’m doing these past weeks.
At the park on Thursday, it was clear that fall had indeed arrived. The trees were all disrobing and the grandmothers walking around the tracks all had their sweaters.
The San Diego zoo was easily the best zoo I have ever been to. The exhibits are awesome and there are a ton. We spent pretty much the entire day there last Saturday there. Our good friend since middle school, Peter, showed us around and let us stay with him because he is awesome.
Part of what made the San Diego zoo so great was that they had diverse subsets of species. Like the duck. They had a bazillion types of ducks. This is a bufflehead duck. It is beautifully iridescent.
I’m enjoying the fall colors. I always do. And this year, after my inital allergy attack on return from my trip, I haven’t had any attacks since. Lets hope this stays that way!
I’m also trying something new. With watermarks. Usually I don’t watermark anything. I hate watermarks. But now I’m seeing my stuff…everywhere. Maybe a small white tasteful watermark and full metadata will help drive some traffic back here. :)