Goodbye 2010

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You brought me joy.  You brought me a teacher's license.  You brought me tears.  You took two of my beloved family members.  You gained me a new side business and new photography skills.  You allowed me to meet some great friends but also lose some in the process.  You brought me my one year anniversary with my husband.  You brought me a deeper walk with Jesus Christ.  You brought babies and engagements and weddings of many dear friends.  You flew by but I enjoyed every minute of it. Goodbye 2010 and thank you, for everything. Hello 2011! Can't wait to see what's in store!  

We are headed to Ruth's Chris tonight because it's also my husband's 29th birthday!  It's also my fabulous mother-in-law's birthday!  Now, do we have a night's worth of celebratin' to do or what?  I'm looking forward to a nice, juicy steak and great company!  What are your plans?  A quiet night in or a night on the town?  Whatever you are doing, have a blast!

Lastly, here are some pics from a photo shoot yesterday with my family.  I always have the camera out when we go places.  I like to embarrass them like that.  But, you never know when you will encounter the perfect old wooden wall for a backdrop!

My sister, Sarah.  Find her at her blog Two-Legged Plant Eater!

My cousin Ben

And lastly, me being super silly.  Whatever works, right?

Overcast Sky

50mm f/1.8 lens

f/11

SS 1/125

ISO 800 

Minted: Adorable New Year Cards on Sale

The super nice people at Minted are offering 20% off of their holiday and New Year cards!  See, I told you they were nice.  Click on the picture above to shop for your sweet cards and if that 20% off deal hasn't swayed you enough, here are just a few of the cute options you have to choose from!  Enjoy! I will also say from experience that Minted has high quality paper *and* they are super easy to deal with.  I know, they're nice, you get it.  Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

How About Orange?

These cheerful rooms with brighten anyone's winter doldrums.  I can honestly say I'm already ready for Spring.  Feast your eyes on the combination of orange in these rooms and be happy!  Also, if you have the appetite for more orange, check out How About Orange, a crafting blog mecca!  Enjoy!

Sources:

Coastal Living

Southern Accents

DecorPad

Decor8

Kimberly Ayres Interior Design

Thibaut Design

Our Sale is on Sale!

Check it out because these prices will end January 2nd!

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Also, be on the look out for a great Stella & Dot giveaway for the new year!  

Project 365 and Other New Year's Resolutions

If you couldn't tell already, I really dig photography.  I've totally immersed myself into reading photo blogs and books and playing with my camera all.the.time.  You know the saying, "if at first you don't succeed than try, try again? " Well, this has been my motto about photography.  When I first received my brand spankin' new DSLR (Nikon D90) I couldn't even figure out how to take a non-blurry picture.  Fast forward eighteen months and I feel like I've actually gotten a grip on how to take a decent photo, in manual mode no less.  I was a complete klutz when it came to my camera and now I've got this aperture, shutter speed, ISO love triangle pretty down pat.  By no means am I going to be bringing in the big bucks from taking pictures, but I do love what I do.  My photography goals for 2011 are to:

A)  Start and complete a 365 Project.  Haven't heard of it before?  Find all the info. you need to know by clicking here or simply click on the picture above.  You take one picture a day for a year.  I'd love to encourage you to start one too!  

B)  Start a photography blog.  I've found some really great, affordable templates out there so I'd like to show the world what I've got.  And if that means someone likes what I do and wants to pay me for it, then that's okay too.

C)  Experiment with different lenses and purchase a wide-angle lens.  Maybe a 35mm fixed or maybe a zoom.  Who knows, that's what the experimentin' is all about.

Okay ya'll, on to a confession.  Somehow marriage has wrecked me (for the better) and I've gained almost 40 pounds since my wedding!  How did this happen?  We like to eat ya'll!  I really want to join Weight Watchers and go to the meetings so I can feel accountable to something!  I've done WW online before but after a week or so of diligently writing everything down and putting it online, I kinda just gave up.  The fear of the woman at the scale at WW meetings will definitely make me work.  This is definitely one of my New Year's resolutions.  

Another resolution?  Pay off my student loans!  Last week our preacher told a story about a lady who had accrued over $100,000 in credit card debt alone and she paid it off in TWO years!  Wow!  Now, I surely don't have that much debt in student loans but if she could do it, surely we can to.  It would be nice not having the debt hanging over our heads.  Of course, student loan debt is much different than CC debt, which we thankfully do not have!  Between substitute teaching, Stella & Dot and photography, hopefully we can make this happen!  

What are your resolutions?  I would love to hear about them!

Christmas 2010

We had a fantastic Christmas and I hope that you did too!  This will be an 'almost' picture-less post since my wise self took the Christmas pictures on the RAW camera setting and my computer won't open up a single picture.  Shucks!  For anyone who may be able to solve this dilemma, your advice is appreciated in advance!

We woke up yesterday morning, bright and early, and headed over to my parents house for breakfast and presents.  I was already giddy from Christmas Eve because Justin totally surprised me with a beautiful cushion cut, blue topaz ring in a diamond pave setting (an estate piece and one of a kind!).  We weren't even going to exchange presents with each other this year, but of course we each got each other a "little" something.  He got a new game for the Wii and I got a beautiful ring. Somehow that didn't seem to quite add up!  My mom made a delicious breakfast (cream chipped beef is my FAV) and then she started passing out the presents in the living room.  I will preface this by saying, Santa spoiled me big time!  Out of all the fun gifts given by my mom Santa, my two favorites were a wool J.Crew coat and metallic Tory Burch flats.  These are things I could never just buy for myself so it was very exciting!  And let me tell you, Tory does her packages up in style!  The box is so pretty I hardly want to take out the shoes (but somehow, I'll find a way).  

Justin had to go into work for the afternoon through evening on Christmas so I spend the day playing Wii and watching movies with my family.  We had such a great time together.  It snowed the majority of the afternoon and we had the first white Christmas that I can recall.  What a beautiful day it was!  Of course, it's never fun to have your husband work on Christmas day, but he has so many other days to be home that it was kind of a trade off.  He was also supposed to work New Year's Eve (also his birthday) and New Year's Day but he was able to get both of those off!  

I hope that everyone had such a Merry Christmas!  I'm sending you off with some Christmas pictures of our kitties.  They were such good sports having their picture taken about 100 times (slow shutter speed + crazy cats = about 10 good exposures overall).  I've been working on taking sharper pictures and I think that slowly, they are getting better! 

Merry Christmas

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

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Labor of Love

Today we reflect on Mary's journey to Jerusalem as she made her way to give birth to the Saviour.  I heard this song, Labor of Love, on The Isaac's new Christmas album and it is truly beautiful.  If you are a mother it may also hold a special meaning for you.  Please enjoy Christmas Eve with whatever you may do and remember to celebrate the birth of our Savior, because it truly was a labor of love.

It was not a silent night, there was blood on the ground.

You could hear a woman crying, in the alleyways that night,

On the streets of David's town.

And the stable was not clean, and the cobblestones were cold,

Little Mary full of grace, with the tears upon her face,

And no mother's hand to hold.

It was a labor of pain, It was a cold sky above,

But for the girl on the ground in the dark, With every beat of her beautiful heart,

It was a labor of love.

Noble Joseph by her side, callused hands and weary eyes,

There were no midwives to be found, in the streets of David's town,

In the middle of the night.

So, he held her and he prayed, shafts of moonlight on his face,

But the baby in the womb, He was the Maker of the moon,

He was the Author of the faith, that could make the mountains move.

It was a labor of pain, It was a cold sky above,

But for the girl on the ground in the dark, With every beat of her beautiful heart,

It was a labor of love.

I Need a Silent Night

Is it just me, or has shopping for Christmas gifts turned into a somewhat crazy time?  This morning I headed out to a few local stores to grab those last minute presents and wrapping paper and the stores were a buzz with people.  I left my house normally joyful.  It is almost Christmas for pete's sake...but I left shopping a miserable grinch.  From the large amounts of people not saying excuse me, to the madness of the parking lot , to the lines and the man who ran through his stop sign and *almost* hit my car.  Like, truly blew through his stop sign and came thisclose to hitting me.  I stopped and honked like a mad woman, normally, not wanting to be hit in the side two days before Christmas.  

What happened to the Christmas joy?  Or, my Christmas joy for that matter.  Christmas is not about gifts or food or shopping 'till you drop (and don't get me started of the debt that people go into over their presents).  It's about the birth of our Saviour, who came to Earth as a perfect, sinless baby to live as one of us, grow up to be a man and die for you and me.  I don't know how we steered so far off track.  The older I get the less importance I place on the gifts and things at Christmas time.  Christmas has become so commercialized and I don't know if people out there even know the true meaning of Christmas.  Christmas is about Jesus.

While on the way home today I heard Amy Grant's song "I Need a Silent Night."  Now, I've heard the song before but the lyrics revealed so much more to me today.  Please play the video and listen to the lyrics.  I really want to take all of this emphasis on things this year and think about the birth of our Saviour.  

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.  - Luke 2:16-20

Worst Christmas Songs. Ever.

Without further adieu, I present my top ten list of the worst Christmas Songs.  You know, ever.  

1.  I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Jackson Five - The very worst part?  When young Michael J. says, "I did! I really did see mommy kissing Santa Claus!"  Augh, the horror.

2.  Merry Christmas, But I Think I'll Miss This One This Year (or whatever the title is) - By The Waitresses - There really are no words for this one.  I was at Home Goods with a friend yesterday and it came on and I started saying some of the words and she laughed hysterically.  We both agreed it was the worst.

3.  The Christmas Shoes - NewSong - It's not that this is a BAD song, per say, but I cannot help but bawl my eyes out every time I hear it.  Crying in line at Target, no thanks!  The first time I heard it was on my way home from college and as soon as I walked in my parents panicked.  I told them I was fine, didn't get an F, didn't hit a deer, just heard The Christmas Shoes on the radio.  Sob. 

4.  I Want A Hippopotamous for Christmas - Gayla Peevey (1953) - Perhaps the most annoying singing voice ever!

5.  Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer - No comment.

6.  Hey Santa - Wilson Phillips - "Hey Santa!  Hey Santa, Santa!  I wish with all my might"...this song would not play on Christmas radio anymore.  Did you see Wilson Phillips on Dr. Phil?  They were dressed like they were 18.  It was not pretty.

7.  Christmastime (Is Here) - Charlie Brown Christmas - Augh, my ears!  My sister knows this is my least favorite one ever and she sings is a lot of the holidays to annoy me.  Gotta love that!

8.  Do They Know It's Christmas - Band Aid - Augh, the 80's liberal fest of it's time.  Sing it Boy George, sing it.

9.  Eight Day of Christmas - Destiny's Child - Is this really a song or Beyonce's Christmas list?

10.  And lastly, any Christmas song (or song for that matter) by Jessica Simpson.  

Procrastinators Rejoice!

There's still time to get your Stella & Dot gifts before Christmas.  As a gift to you, we are offering a FREE UPGRADE to 2-day shipping (you only pay standard shipping, we upgrade it to 2-day shipping for free).  Place your "standard shipping" order by December 22nd @ noon CST to take advantage.  US orders only.

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So there's STILL time to get these (pieces I wear almost every day)...

or this...

  

or these...

  

or maybe even these...

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Water For Elephants Movie Trailer

Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen, is one of my all time favorite books.  When I found out they were turning it into a movie, I was ecstatic!  The movie trailer was recently released and the movie looks excellent!  Plus, with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson in the leading roles, how could it possibly be bad?  Please watch the trailer and I promise it will make you want to read the book!  I would love to know if you plan on reading it or have read it before and can't wait to see the movie!