35

For posterity, this is me on my "halfway to 70" birthday. Two different people gifted me with tiaras, and more people made me feel special than I would have believed possible. It was a wonderful day.

...and yes, that's me wearing a tiara at work, wearing another one in the car, and enjoying coloring and cocktails (ok, juice) with Cassidy (not pictured: Matthew, Scott, and my "work boyfriends" Dave and Rob) at the Ale House after work!

Portrait of the Artist in a Christmas Ornament

Happy Boxing Day!

I took the self-portrait above yesterday, and have been thinking about it quite a bit.  There's a lot of information about me here, both obvious and just below the surface, and I wanted to make a note of it before it becomes just another of the hundreds of silly random pictures of me on Facebook.

The obvious:

• I'm wearing running clothes.  This picture was taken during a walking cool-down following a five-mile run on Christmas morning.  I ran past this tree twice, but it wasn't until the sun came up and I was moving slowly that I noticed my reflection in the ornaments.  I started to walk away, but thought I'd try to get a picture.
• Long sleeves!  That means cool weather - my favorite running conditions.  (that's my free race shirt from the Orlando Half, by the way)

The less-obvious:

• There's no chance I could have taken this photo inside my house, because I didn't bother decorating for Christmas this year.  However, a few boxes of my ornaments (just the impersonal ball-type ones) are out and proudly displayed...on someone else's tree.  A new-to-Florida friend mentioned that she only had 4 ornaments on her tree, and I gladly loaned her mine so hers wouldn't be so sparse.  
• The photo is a selfie because there was no one else to take it.  

So there you have it - seasonal happy runner and lonely Scrooge all in one picture. 

Reindeer Run

Check us out! We're runners!

Yesterday was the Reindeer Run at Sea World, which sounded like so much fun that Scott was willing to let me sign him up.  It turns out that this run didn't feel as well organized as the Disney runs, but the path was wide enough that there were very few choke points.

I also learned that Scott, who didn't train AT ALL for this run, runs faster than I do.  I don't know how long he'd be able to sustain that (I'm guessing not 10 miles...), but I was actually chasing him a few times wondering how much longer he'd run before our next walk break.

I had a LOT of fun! And I'm so proud of Scott for running with me, and glad he did.  It turns out running is harder when you're laughing, but so much more rewarding.



Classic...I Guess

When you find a style that works for you, why change (even 11 years later)?

Some Pictures, Just Because

...mostly in case Facebook ever explodes.  Here are some of my race-day (and day after) favorites:

Birthday Tradition

On my 30th birthday, my co-worker Donna bought me a big ol' mylar "30" balloon.  When I got home that afternoon, I had Scott take my picture with the balloon.  I don't know why I did it, probably because I'm kind of a sucker for balloons and this one was a definite record of where I was on the big 3-0.

For the past two years, I've continued the tradition in a less conspicuous way.  Instead of balloons, I've used finger counting to mark the years.  On birthday 31, I was in Animal Kingdom, and it was cold!  On birthday 32, we were killing time in a mall in Tampa when we stumbled upon racks of prom dresses.  For 33, because 3 is my lucky number (how could it not be? my birthday is 3-3 after all!), I made myself a prop.

The best thing about this picture, besides my sign, is the fact that it was taken in the Magic Kingdom at 1 am today, and I was wearing pajama bottoms. (nope, I wasn't the only one!)  Scott and I went last night for the "One More Disney Day" promotion.  MK was open for the "bonus" Leap Day for 24 hours (for some reason from 6 am to 6 am instead of midnight to midnight).  We got there right after the fireworks, and the crowd was horrific.  We waited in lines for food, bathrooms...even the never-has-a-line TTA!  We were planning on staying until 2 or 3, but we gave up slightly after 1 when we looped back to Tomorrowland to see that lines had actually gotten longer than they were from 9-10!  We really did have a wonderful time - it's so much more pleasant to wait in lines when you're not also suffering from sunstroke - but the congestion was disheartening.  I'm glad we didn't stay and try to wait out the crowds.  I read a tweet from 4:30 am saying the line for Haunted Mansion was "only" 20 minutes.

Lesson learned: never underestimate the Disney die-hards!

I'll be bringing my sign with me wherever we go for the rest of the weekend (including on my actual birthday).  Hopefully it'll have some good stories to tell.

Out With the Old

Look who got a new scratching post! I thought a nice before & after shot would show just how much (and how hard) the cats love these things.  The new one (#4 since we moved here I believe) was only $8 at Ross.  You never know what sort of awesome crap you'll find on the shelves there!

I'll post a picture when it starts looking nasty and tattered like the one in the foreground, so we can see exactly how long it takes them to destroy one.

(and yes, the Christmas tree is still up. it's on today's agenda. Scott had a day of overtime last weekend so we didn't actually have a day off together.)

8 Going on 12

Christmas 1987: I was 8 (almost 9).  This is the last of the Santa photos in my baby book.  Perhaps because once your head is higher than Santa's you're officially too big to sit on his lap?  If my math is correct, I was in the 4th grade in this photo. 

I have no idea what I got from the Jolly Elf this Christmas, but apparently I was quite excited to see him and ask for something.  Was this the year of the tiny pastel boom box? Some form of Cabbage Patch product? LEGOs?  Whatever it was, thanks Santa!

I *Told* You Not to Do That!

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to Cassidy.  I met her today and got to hold her so long my shoulder and elbow still hurt.  (I call it "baby arm." It's like tennis elbow, but getting this is so much more fun)

Cassidy was born on Wednesday night, and she belongs to Matthew and Kristen. By now though, I think it's safe to say they belong to her.  They let me come and visit today, though at 6:00 this morning I was really not sure I'd ever meet her or speak to her daddy again.

Perhaps you remember this post from last month where I gave sage unsolicited advice about the perils over over-sharing to future parents everywhere?  On one side, my post focused on photos, but the gist was pretty much "everyone doesn't need to know everything."  Matthew actually read and reposted what I said on Twitter.  And that's why I was so shocked and disheartened last night when he started basically live-tweeting Cassidy's day.  Weight, temperature, consistency of poops... I was wondering if he was doing it just because he knew it would drive me bonkers or if he really thought his Twitter followers were that interested in meconium.

This morning, after waking up to another 8 updates, I tweeted to Matthew (with love) that for my own sanity I needed to unfollow him until if/when he stopped tweeting literal and figurative baby crap.  He texted me a few hours later, "OMG!!! I had no idea it was doing that!!!"  It turns out the iPhone app he bought to track baby crap (and did I mention breastfeeding?) asked for his Twitter ID and he thought he'd be able to pick which entries to tweet - smiling, rolling over, etc.  He was so mortified over what happened that he logged into Twitter and deleted all of those posts before I even had a chance to get a screenshot to mock him with later!

Needless to say, Matthew turned off the auto-tweet and I followed him again.  And I scored an invite to the hospital.  How could I say no?  So I brought lunch (I still suspect that's why I was invited. though the smooth "will you stop on your way?" was pretty classic) and held the baby, heard the story of how she was born and doled out some assvice (no, she doesn't need a Black Friday TV in her room to turn her brain to pudding; yes, she needs books that aren't on an iPad!) and talked to Cassidy about life.  I also decided to snap a classic self-portrait while I was holding her:

She and I decided that we'd do this every time we see each other. It'll be our thing. Of course, while I was getting this picture just right, Matthew got the best behind-the-scenes picture ever. It's now my Facebook profile picture, though I'm not sure how long I can leave a hospital picture of me with a baby before it just confuses the crap out of everyone I know!

Welcome to the world, little one.  I hope your life is filled with love and happiness.  And don't worry - I'm sure your daddy deleted all of those tweets about poop before the Library of Congress had the chance to archive them!

Between Vacations

I spent August 24-27 in a whirlwind of family fun.  Of course, I'm a terrible blogger and didn't bother to record anything of note at the time.  Now on the eve of another "memory maker," I'm going to throw up a random list of things I want to remember about how wonderful it was to be with everyone again.
August 24 - evening - dinner at Downtown Disney with Rose, Gary, Mark, Dawn, and Scott.  Good food and wine, followed by a trip to Goodings to pick up ponchos for the tourists!

August 25 - Magic Kingdom with a ton of people! 

Our original plan was to meet up with Dawn and Naomi and their respective spouses and children, sign them in, and go off with just Dawn and Mark.  Then 7 others showed up, including Jenn and her family, so we stuck with the crew long enough to ride Pirates (not a good idea with a tiny baby...she wailed through the whole thing, and everyone on the boat was throwing me the "bad mommy" look because I was holding her!), Hall of Presidents, and Haunted Mansion.  By the way, the new and improved Hitchhiking Ghosts at the end of Haunted Mansion blew my freaking mind! I want to go back again and again and again!  After that, we bailed on the family fun and headed home... with a Dole Whip pit stop.  Mmm...magical Magic Kingdom treat...

August 26 - Happy Birthday Scott!

The day started with a little birthday brunch for my halfway-to-70-year-old.  Actually, it started as a little brunch and ended up being me feeding 11 people and trying to keep the stress away from Scott.  Note: I've never even really participated in Thanksgiving dinner (besides the pies).  I was so proud of myself - sticky buns, a bread casserole (with pancetta...that I fried...with splattering oil), individual chicken pot pies... and the only thing we didn't do from scratch was mashed sweet potatoes from our local favorite BBQ place.

Then we napped.  I needed it!

The evening was spent in celebration of Aunt Mary and Uncle Richard's 50th anniversary. In addition to the planned activities - dinner, musical performances by some grand kids, and a DVD of 1950's home movies that made me laugh and cry - we brought a little entertainment of our own.

I bought these 2 11x17 picture frames on clearance a few months ago, for the purpose of using them as silly photo props.  I brought them with me and stashed them in a corner until I saw a photo op.  As soon as the frames came out, they were like catnip for the kids, even the camera-shy ones.  People were squeezing as many faces as they could, going 3D and popping out of the frames, and generally laughing and having a good time.  I got major brownie points for bringing them along!

Alicia as Richard, and Richard as Mary

I was also a (small) part of the night's most fun surprise: "Flat Mary" and "Flat Richard" - customized masks of their faces, perfect for taking even more ridiculous pictures!

After the evening's fun and frolic, we asked everyone to take a pair of masks home with them, and to take pictures where they live.  Our plan is to create a travel diary of The Adventures of Richard and Mary.  I hope people remember to take pictures!



August 27 - Another day of Park Hopping, this time with Rose and Gary, Laura and Richard, Alicia, Alex, and Megumi.  We did almost all the "E-Ticket" rides at the Studios and at Magic Kingdom, got caught in a monsoon, and had lunch at Prime Time Cafe.  Some of the highlights for me:

Laura and Richard's 10th Anniversary Hoop-La!  We got them bride and groom mouse ears and anniversary buttons. Everywhere we went, people congratulated them.  They got up on stage for the Indiana Jones show, got shout-outs from parade performers, and generally got a lot more attention than they were probably comfortable with.  It was awesome!

The new Star Tours was so much better than I expected it to be!  There were 9 of us, which apparently qualified us for our own private ride.  I was the "rebel spy," (you'll understand when you ride it) and Alex was yelling back at the screen that he wanted to turn me in.  Our tour saw Chewbacca, Yoda, and JarJar Binks.  The 3D is great, and the simulator motion matches the image on the screen pretty seamlessly.

Riding Big Thunder Mountain with Alicia and literally laughing until I started to sob.  Because the lap bar was set to my legs and she's so much skinnier than I am, she got tossed around a lot.  The first dip, I thought she might fall out.  From then on, I just couldn't stop laughing.  By the time we pulled into the station, I had tears streaming down my face. When I recounted the story to Scott, people were looking at me to see who the sobbing freak was!

Laughing to tears again on Space Mountain. I was in the front of our rocket, and every time we went through a jarring turn on sharp drop Alex would yell "woah, Space," as though he was trying to get a horse to stop. It just got funnier and funnier.  Honestly, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun on Space Mountain!

Having great seats for both the Electric Light Parade and Wishes. Thanks to this, I was able to learn about what I'm now calling the "shaky shaky" feature on my camera and get some killer pictures of both without a flash.

And of course, we brought Flat Mary & Rich along for some killer photos "where Magic lives," but I won't be previewing those quite yet.

Driving home after a marathon day in the parks, with sore wet feet and total exhaustion setting in, it was hard for me to not get emotional.  I miss them all already - not just the ones I had a chance to "play" with, but the ones I only saw at the anniversary party.  I met some new extended family members, made a baby cry in terror, and took a zillion pictures (of which, about 50 came out).  We had a fabulous time - even better than we were anticipating - and look forward to seeing everyone again.

All Jamie All the Time

(a book-end post)

Well, it took me about a zillion refreshes over multiple days (during which I found out a connect-seven of Scott pictures isn't nearly as uncommon as I originally suspected), but I finally got an all-Jamie banner:

And because I know you're dying to know, these pictures are from a pretty good variety of places: 10-year Disney party, our room on the Disney Dream, 10-year Disney party, Disney Magic character breakfast, Animal Kingdom (by the hippo viewing window at Pangani), FL Aquarium, and Castaway Cay/Disney Dream.

And now I can stop endlessly refreshing my own blog!

All Scott, All the Time

I just noticed that all of the pictures in the gallery at the top of the blog currently contain Scott.  I can definitively say that I have never seen this happen before!

 

Also of note: only one picture contains any sort of booze.  It seems most of the time when there is a camera-worthy occasion, there is also beer and wine.  Or a mojito.  Or a margarita.  Refresh the screen a few times and you'll see what I mean.  I guess we're both special occasion photographers and special occasion drinkers!

And in case you were wondering, the photos would be labeled "cruise, cruise, cruise, Epcot, Sea World, Studios, cruise."  Or more specifically, "Disney Wonder emergency drill, Castaway Cay/Disney Dream, Castaway Cay/Disney Dream, Epcot parking tram, Sea World penguin building, Mama Melrose's at the Studios, Disney Magic atrium."

I often find myself refreshing the blog whenever I'm blue or bored and wanting to jog happy times back into my brain, so that's why I'm so sure I've never seen this happen before.  It's like I won the Flickr slot machine or something!

Full Circle

It was November when I spotted this pair of bald eagles together for the first time.  In December, I realized that they were nesting.  The hatching probably happened in January, completely hidden from those of us on the ground.  I saw the chicks for the first time in February, and watched their fuzzy little heads sticking up more and more over the nest in March.  In the beginning of April, they all of a sudden looked like full-grown hawks.  And now, my baby birds are leaving the nest.  Today I saw both of them sitting on the tree where I met their parents.

I also saw something pretty awesome yesterday morning.  One of the eaglets was on the "daddy tree," and while I was watching took off on a short flight around the clump of trees.  In another few weeks, after they've learned to hunt and their wings get accustomed to longer flights, they'll leave the nest and never return.  Adults re-use the same nests fairly often, so maybe we'll get to do it all over again next year.  I hope so - I'm already lamenting the empty nest!

Poacher!

The dog next door was barking like mad a little while ago.  She's not a barker by nature, so I figured there was somebody outside.  When I looked, there was Harley walking along with a fish in his beak that was about the size of my hand.  Harley's head, as you probably remember, is about the size of a ping pong ball.

I was upstairs and immediately galloped downstairs (yeah, about as graceful as you're picturing) to grab the camera.  When I got to the side window and opened the blinds, Harley was there but had put down the fish.  There was no way he was going to swallow this thing whole, so I guess he was going to pick at the flesh?  And so I focused the camera as well as I could through the screen and waited.  Before I could get a single picture, he flew away.  Without the fish.

What the...?

...and then an eagle landed on top of the fish!  That son of a gun is poaching fish from other birds!  OK, I get that he has two increasingly large mouths to feed that can't quite leave the nest to hunt for themselves, but it just seems such a cruel way to make a living.

(at this point I will refrain from pointing out how interesting it is that our forefathers chose the bald eagle as the symbol of our country - the predator that sees something it wants and takes that thing away from the 'lesser' creature that did all the work in the first place)

Anyway, I did manage to get two other pictures before lunch flew back to the nest.  Hope you enjoy them!

 

32

Sometimes a girl is destined to try on a fancy dress.  After all, if it wasn't meant to be, it wouldn't have been on the rack in my size and I wouldn't have been wearing my clear-strap bra.

...and as I told Facebook, I justify this little "me time" by pointing out that 32 is really just two 16's.  I should have tried on TWO prom dresses!  And by the way, I love this dress WAY more than I loved my real prom dress, and possibly even more than my wedding dress.  Extra impressive when you consider Scott picked it out. I had my eye on a sparkly orange dress instead.

How appropriate that we went from the store to the theater for West Side Story.  I had to stop myself from singing along to 'I Feel Pretty!'

A Little Change

Today's Photo of the Day... isn't really.  It's actually a PhotoShop of the Day.  And truth be told, it's not even that.  It's a clumsily doctored photo done on Paint.  With a back story.  So let's start there, and attempt to use full sentences with subjects and verbs.

(but before I start, in defense of my poor writing, I'd like to say that I'm sleep-wacky right now.  I worked midnight to 8:30 this morning, having had a 2-hour nap from 8-10pm, and then came home and slept from 10-4. that makes me not sleep-deprived, but definitely off-kilter a bit)

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Scott with this photo attached (seriously, click the link) and a note that says "don't you want to see the picture where Ozzy bites his head off?"  And I thought yes...yes I do.

And before the "big reveal," I thought I'd mention that Scott met young Master Bieber a few years ago when he was supposed to be doing a fan meet and greet type of thing.  Scott was, to put it kindly, unimpressed with the kid's attitude towards his fans and his handlers.  To this day, it's fun to say "Bieber" and see what sort of face Scott makes.  To put this in perspective, he had a more positive impression of Charlie Crist!  So anyway, here's the loving gift I made for Scott:

Nesting

Alternate misleading post title:

What to Expect When You're Expecting (Baby Eagles)

Do you see it in the picture up above? It's pretty well camouflaged. How about in the picture below?


I could barely see the birds in the nest with my naked eye. And not at all in the camera viewfinder. I lucked out with my timing - one bird had just flown back to the nest with a new stick, and they (I assume) were tucking it in where it needed to go.


So while I don't have any clue if or when we'll actually have a whole big eagle family, I know that for the immediate future I'll have plenty of photo opportunities.

Cotton Balls Dipped in Pea Soup

I took this picture at about 7:20 this morning at the entrance to my development. Even if you can't tell from the photo, let me assure you that the visibility was crap. And believe it or not, aside from a few clear patches, the visibility was this bad or worse for my entire drive in to work.

It was panic-inducing bad. Like driving through cotton candy... or cotton balls... or pea soup... or cotton balls dipped in pea soup.

It reminded me of a news story my mom once told me about a bridge that was destroyed by a boat in heavy fog (a Google search leads me to believe it might have been the Sunshine Skyway?) and cars kept driving right off the road into the water because they couldn't see that the road in front of them had disappeared. All my life, I wondered how a person could be so stupid as to not know the road was gone.

At one point this morning, when the fog was at its thickest, I was convinced the road in front of me was going to disappear. Now I understand.

On the bright side, driving slowly and concentrating on the white line painted on the side of the road made me notice all of the frost on the grass. I wish I could've stopped to take a picture of some feathery marsh grass that was thick white and sparkly. It was pretty awesome.

And speaking of taking pictures, I'm going to try to take and post a photo a day in 2011. Whether terrible camera phone pictures (dear Blackberry, yours is the worst camera phone I've ever had. love, Jamie) or planned outings with the camera, I think it'll be a fun and easy way to document the year.

Cruise Food

Well, I promised "something" about the cruise, this weekend, so here are some food pictures. Who doesn't love food pictures?

These first two pictures are of dessert from our first night. Really, I only took them because we were amused by the tiny strawberry pieces. Scott's dessert is the one on the left - some sort of chocolate cake thing - and mine was cranberry-orange cheesecake.

And now for some pictures from Palo. I had monkfish with mascarpone risotto and red pepper sauce, and Scott had lamb chops. We also got to try the lobster ravioli.

Palo has a "famous" chocolate soufflé that they recommend, but to me a soufflé isn't really any more special than a warm piece of cake. We had it once, just because everyone says "did you have the soufflé?" Now I can say yes, "but next time you should try the pineapple ravioli...it's amazing." And Scott loves their panna cotta so much he'll probably never order something else.

And thus concludes the gratuitous food pics from the cruise. I'm sorry I didn't get pictures of the amazing eggs benedict or Scott eating caviar at the Palo brunch. I did, however, get a picture of Scott's traditional start-of-cruise shrimp feast. Enjoy!

It's Been A While...

...since I shared any backyard wildlife photos. And truth be told, these pictures weren't taken in the backyard. They were taken by the dumpster at the end of the street.