They weren't even solid gold pajamas

Mckay and Gentry have some good friends that live in Albuquerque...Tori, Tylor and Travis. We met them when Tori and McKay were in preschool together and quickly became inseparable. My cousin Leah was in their class too. Together they were the 3 musketeers. (It's kind of interesting to note that McKay was totally drawn to girls at that point and played with them way more than he played with boys...4 years later it's quite the opposite). Tylor is the same exact age as Gentry so play dates were perfect. (Travis hadn't been born yet when we lived there. He's two now). Anyway, when we moved away it was really sad for the kids. McKay missed Tori (and Leah) horribly , and vice versa. To make things a little easier on them we would send little packages back and forth from time to time. Mostly just little notes, pictures they had drawn for each other etc. They exchange gifts during the holidays and birthdays. Every January we go back to Albuquerque to see them and celebrate Tori's birthday. We usually see them once during the summer. I love that their friendship is still solid. Their mom, Yolanda, is wonderful and puts out an equal amount of effort to keep the kids in touch.

Anyway, I had put together a box of Halloween stuff to send them. Nothing extravagant...just Halloween pj's and some cupcake mix and a few little odds and ends. I've had it packed and ready to be mailed for at least three weeks. So unlike me! I got as far as taking it to the car. Where it sat on the back seat for a week. Totally like me. So on Friday I finally made it over to the post office and went to get the box out of the car and it wasn't there. I checked the car and trunk like 20 times. Nothing. I went home and looked everywhere for it. The whole time I was looking in the house I knew it was in vain. It was in the car. I know it. The boys commented on it being in their way multiple times. I could picture it on the seat waiting for me to get my act together and mail it. I felt like I was going a little crazy. Especially when my mom and Carrie both kept saying "Are you sure you didn't mail it?" and I kept insisting that I hadn't. But by yesterday afternoon I started to doubt myself. Could I really have mailed something and not have any recollection of doing it?? I was questioning my own sanity. The box couldn't have just vanished. I had to have moved it. But to where? I emailed Yolanda just to double check that they had in fact not received a package from us.

Cut to this afternoon. We were walking Oakley and found the box in the gutter about two blocks away. It had been ripped open, the card opened, the pj's gone. The cupcake mix and a few other things still there, soggy from the gutter.

So, basically someone took it out of my car. They took what they wanted and left the rest.

How naive am I that I hadn't even really considered that possibility?

I can't figure out when it would have happened. Ever since my purse was stolen over the summer I'm anal about locking the car.

People really suck sometimes. Obviously it was a package for kids. It wasn't worth anything. I mean, you could take the pajamas back to target and get the cash, but they weren't made of gold. You'd get maybe $25 total.

It's really annoying.

The upside is that I'm not crazy!

Fabians, we love you guys and we miss you!

Probably doesn't qualify me for a biker gang.

From 9-26-2008

It was either that or this

From 9-26-2008

Maybe I'll join a biker gang.

I had several things that needed to get accomplished today. None of those things included washing my cell phone with my sheets or getting a tattoo. But guess what?! I'm an overachiever.

So now I have no phone, till tomorrow when Verizon promises the new one will be at my door. And why is it that I feel sorta like I'm missing a limb?? It's not like I get that many calls. I mean, really. And how 2008 is it of me not to have really important phone numbers written somewhere instead of just stuck in my really clean phone? And all of my saved texts from like the last year? Gone. I suck.

And in case you missed that casual mention...I GOT A TATTOO. OMG. I'm not sure I can pull of a tattoo. Can I pull off a tattoo??? I'll post a picture. You can decide.

It's the last weekend of the fair. So we're driving out to Pomona tomorrow and I'm gonna eat something delicious. Something fried, I'm sure. And at the rate I'm going, maybe I'll get something pierced. Or just get shitfaced.

Probably not, though.

Semi famous

I was sitting in traffic today listening to the radio and the DJ announced a giveaway if you were caller 25. I swear to you I never pay any attention to those things but for some reason I called. And I won! I didn't even know what the prize was at first but I honestly didn't even care. I was looking around at all of the other cars thinking Do you all realize that I just won concert tickets off of the radio? That's right. Me. Right here.
Surprisingly, nobody looked back at me or cared. But that didn't lessen my excitement. Since there was like a two minute delay before they actually announced my name, I celebrated in my car, alone. But then the texts started coming in Hey, you just won tickets on the radio. They just announced your name on the radio! You won! Take me with you!!

You guys, I was like semi-famous for a second. Yay me!

It's Travis Tritt tickets for some acoustic concert he's doing in November. I might actually just give the tickets away. But I can give them away, cause they're mine. Cause I WON them!!!

It totally made my day.

But I also wanted to say that my heart goes out to anyone affected (effected? ugh. Jennifer, don't hate me) by the Metro crash today. I was on Chatsworth st. very nearby when it happened and I could tell by the amount of police/fire/paramedics that came raising passed that it was something major. For the record, I know concert tickets are totally trivial. Winning them was way cool but in no way life changing. Also, I think it's a tad bit insensitive that the people giving the news conferences keep making special mention of the off duty police officer that was killed. While that is tremendously sad, I don't really feel like it's more of a loss to the community than anyone else that died. Being a police officer is wonderful. Maybe there was a teacher, or a nurse, a garbage man, mail carrier, waitress, receptionist or artist among the casualties. They were all people. I would imagine that each one of them has a family, neighbors, coworkers and friends that will be equally affected (? here we go again) by their death. It's a horribly sad situation all the way around.

Did you like how I went straight from Woohoo! to Boo. without any warning at all? Sorry bout that

But hey, look who just posted something on their "blog" aka thing that just sits around taking up precious Internet space.

Nostalgia

At the beginning of June I shot a wedding. I said I would post pictures and never got around to it. I'm doing it now!

This is Tiffany.



She grew up down the street from me. She's 7 years younger than me so we weren't friends growing up until like 1998 my best friend developed a crush on her brother Austin. We found ourselves down at their house a lot in those days and I realized that Tiffany was a pretty cool kid. And actually I thought Austin was kind of a jerk! Eventually Carrie got over the crush (cause Austin was kind of a jerk...) but we stayed friends with tiffany. She tagged along to concerts occasionally, or the movies or whatever. Kinda like a little sister, only less annoying.

Then she met Jeremy.


And we didn't see as much of her. But Jeremy was a nice guy and we were happy for her. Then she went off to college (Jen, she went to Cal Lutheran!) and we saw even less of her. In the meantime, she and Jeremy got engaged and planned their wedding for two weeks after her graduation. And I was honored (and totally scared) when they asked me to be their photographer. It was so much fun to shoot their wedding because I've known Tiffany for so long and watched her grow from a little kid into a gorgeous woman.







She and Jeremy are perfect together and totally in love and although I'm kind of a pessimist about marriage in general, I have a lot of hope for them.













Oh, and I think they're gonna have really cute kids (get on that, Tiff).

Which brings me back to Austin (the jerky brother). He's not a jerk anymore. In fact he's married to a great girl named Brenda and they just had their first son, Logan.

I went out to Vegas earlier in the week to meet the little guy and take some pictures of him for his birth announcements. He melted my heart.



He reminded me so much of McKay when he was that size. The night before I left I offered to be on LoganWatch so that Austin and Brenda could get a full nights sleep and at about 2 am he and I were hanging out and I considered stealing him.

Well, not really. But I am in love with this baby.









I mean, look at that face.

It doesn't seem like that long ago that the boys were that little. But Gentry just started Kindergarten and McKay is a second grader! I tried to tell Logan not to grow up too fast but I doubt he'll listen. They never do.

I'm no good at titles, no good at all

For awhile now I've been feeling like I'm not living up to my potential. I've sort of been on a quest the last couple of weeks to figure out why that is. I've been trying to be more honest with myself and basically just reevaluate where I am in life and where I'd like to be.

I haven't uncovered any amazing solutions are even any really major problems but I'm realizing that I've been hiding behind some stuff for a long time and not really letting myself shine in areas where I could be. I'm also becoming very aware of the fact that I'm not good at showing weakness or asking for help (or even admitting to myself when I need it).

Anyway, I've decided to take some steps to accomplish a few main goals...get healthier, more organized, and more financially stable. Overall I just want to feel more at peace with who I am and feel more fulfilled. Does that make me sound like some kind of spiritual freak?? I'm not. I'm just realizing how quickly life is passing by. I think when I was younger I always had a sense that there was plenty of time to accomplish anything that I wanted. I worked jobs that I was bored with and kept friends that I shouldn't have. I didn't take my goals seriously enough to actively pursue them (or some of them, at least) because I figured I'd get to it at some point. Actually I don't think I let myself even have any concrete goals.
I was just living day to day without really thinking too far ahead. Basically I was immature.

All of the sudden it's hitting me how big the boys have gotten and how quickly time is flying by. I think a lot of this is coming from the fact that Gentry will start Kindergarten in the fall and my 30th birthday will be here before I know it. It's not that 30 is old but it feels like a "grown up" age and I'm realizing that in many ways I'm not very grown up at all.

It seems like in the blink of an eye 10 years have gone by. I don't want the next 10 to pass without doing something meaningful. I want the almost 40 year old me to be proud of the accomplishments I made in my 30's.

I'm not very good at dealing with change and I tend to lack follow-through so we'll see how this goes but I feel motivated and that's a start at least. Right?

Stay tuned.

Nothing is getting done.

I'm becoming mildly obsessed with this.