unexpected surprises

While out walking at Crow Wing State Park with Dakota, Gus, Luther, and Vicki we happened upon a few swans and Vicki generously offered to distract the puppies while I snapped away for a few minutes. The top picture was the first swans that I saw when all of a sudden these five on the bottom came into my field of vision. They were such a beautiful surprise at the state park, I was thankful I was carrying my Nikon d60, so I could get some decent photos. It makes me want to go back out there without Dakota and see what kind of pictures I could shoot.

Dakota's best friends

 These are Dakota's best friends, Luther and Gus, their human is a youth director here in town. Dakota love love loves Luther and Gus and will do anything to get the chance to play with them. Yesterday while their human was busy with stuff we went over to let the boys and Dakota play for a bit. Below is Dakota and Luther, while Luther looks vicious here he really is super gentle, they just have a weird quirk that they like to show each other their teeth and mouth on each other. Their tails both wag three thousand times a minute when they are together. I give thanks for dog loving friends!

One room at a time.....

There will be no pictures with this post. My house is a mess.... it is driving me nuts! I have a couple problems going on, one my kitchen will remain a mess for a while due to the demo that is happening and I need to learn to be okay with that, every other room on the other hand has no excuse. Naturally shortly after I start demoing my kitchen winter arrives, while we don't have much snow we do have the nice bitter cold weather that I have been anxiously awaiting.

Confession: I love a clean and organize space. I love everything to have it's place and I don't love excess stuff sitting around.

Confession #2: my house is not the way I want it... it is semi gross in fact. While it isn't dirty or anything along that line, it needs some serious organizational help.

So I am going to do it room by room until it is clean. I cleaned/organized my bedroom last weekend and now I love being in that space, so given that I love clean an organized why can't I get it that way and then keep it that way!? Seriously!?

My next room that needs to get done I think is my kitchen minus the tiles that I am ripping out and then I need to work on my craft loft space. I am really excited about that space but I now need to work to make it practical and useful.

I also need to go through things like my books and get rid of the stuff that I just do not need any more. Why in the world do I feel the need to hang on to stuff? Get rid of it! Thankfully a couple Christmas' ago my dad got my brother and I each a kindle (which I LOVE) and that has massively helped cut back on my books that need to go on shelves. Now to go through all the old theology and other such books from seminary and undergrad.

I also massively need to catch up on my photobooks. I LOVE looking through them and I sit down and page through them all the time, but some how I have gotten so far behind that the task is now daunting. Must catch up!

I have however kept up on my photo a day project and am finding it lovely. I even have started the photo book and am updating it each weekend so that at the end of the year it will be ready to have printed. (I love shutterfly.com for making photobooks.)

Nights without meetings...

I should not be allowed to have lazy evenings when I haven't completely exhausted myself. Last night I came home from the YMCA (working out and teaching a couple swimming lessons) and I walked the sweet little girl and she was happily playing with her orange ball, when I began the project. I was sitting in my kitchen throwing the ball for Dakota when I realized I was fully annoyed with my kitchen tiles, they are ugly, they are dated, they are crooked, I don't like them. So instead of complaining about it or anything else I looked up online to see how to take down tiles. This project is going to be a little more work than I maybe anticipated and I know absolutely NOTHING about laying tiles, so I will learn. I give thanks for an independent spirit that leads me to do things that could potentially go horribly wrong. I give thanks for parents who taught me that it is okay to try things even when you have no clue what you are doing. 

So the project I think will go as follows (or at least this is the plan as of now):

-rip out the tiles (they are everywhere)

-potentially take out the fake brick stuff (debating this still)

-paint the cupboards

-replace the draw pulls and handles on the cupboards

-put up new tile (this is the part that makes me the most nervous)

-Enjoy a new-ish kitchen

Another Tuesday

This winter has been crazy, a serious lack of snow. This picture is of my sweet (not so little any more) Dakota and myself out wandering through a local state park on an attempt at a "snowy day." Life has been good, winter has semi-disappointed me with the inability to use my snow shoes.

In the midst of work and other such fun I have managed to continue to make a wide variety of crock pot soups (which I have learned to love cooking in the crock pot, now if only I could figure out how to make crock pot recipes so I wouldn't have so much leftover), do some crocheting, take tons of pictures, read (Hunger Games, my latest favorite, and many other books), and run. It has been wonderful to be able to get outside and run.

I also have been taking photos every day. It is kind of a fun challenge, some days I wonder what in the world I should take a photo of and other days it seems so easy. Although today, I missed out, I got to go to the hospital to snuggle a new baby and totally forgot to take a picture. He was very cute for sure. I think it has required me to be a little bit more intentional with my camera and has allowed me to see moments as picture worthy beyond the big trips and special holidays/events, although I must admit I do have a lot of photos of my sweet puppy.

In other excitement I am running the Fargo Half Marathon and am super jazzed about it! I would like to say I can't wait, but truth be told, while I have been running faithfully since the new year, I am not yet ready to run the half.

Oooo.... I have also discovered www.pintrest.com and it is soooooo much fun finding all sorts of random projects and recipes!!! Now if only I had time to make all the recipes and projects that I find or could actually re-do my house like many on there. However it does continue to give me ideas for the ongoing house projects I am doing. Currently I am learning how to re-do my kitchen, I am working on taking down a horrible backsplash in my kitchen and will figure out how to relay the tiles. I am planning on painting my cupboards after the backsplash gets done. I am loving home ownership 98% of the time.

I keep thinking how nice it is to have no major things happening this year: no moving, no graduating, no getting ordained, no call process, and it is a beautiful thing!

Unusual January

 This is my photo from January 7th, I wonder where our January weather is hiding. I have been slightly disappointed by October, November, December, and January so far, I want snow, feet upon feet of snow. I am ready to dust off my snowshoes that have been sitting by my back door just taunting me daily. I went to Crow Wing State Park with my brother, Marc, Dakota, and Nala (my brother's dog) and we walked around for a good couple hours, we had the park to ourselves. As we were walking along the banks of the Mississippi river we happened upon these beautiful birds and I was able to quick snap this picture. The birds in flight look pretty sweet in my opinion, although I am slightly frustrated that I didn't notice the grass in my shot until the photos were upload on my computer.

Photos

It probably seems a little strange that a blog titled 'photos' will have no photos in it. But I am going with it anyways, why?! Because I can, it's my blog.

I LOVE taking pictures, I could spend hours upon hours taking photos, my problem is I go in spurts, I take lots of photos of one particular thing or event and then I forget to pull my camera back out for days at a time. So this year I have decided to take the 365 days of photos challenge. It is the 5th of January and it is already something on my mind of if this is really do-able. I want to give it a chance because I want to push myself to photograph the every day, but I am struggling with what to shoot. I need to continue on and push through this already bump. I think I am going to attempt to post my week in photos on Saturday or Sunday pending on time and when Saturday's photo gets taken. I am excited to see what I can come up with, but on mundane days, where I seem to fill my days with getting stuff done in the office and cleaning my house, and looking forward to a new episode of Grey's, I am just uncertain when to pull out my camera. I want fun pictures, I want to be a photographer whose photos tell a story and are more than mere objects on my desk or in my house, I don't want to take boring photos any more.

This year I will push myself, this year I will conquer this challenge (allowing myself some grace - I am sure there will be days in which I will forget to take a picture) - this year I want to enjoy taking photos every day. I want to capture this year. I am excited by 2012 - looking at it from the start it doesn't contain anything monumental (graduation, ordination, or even a big move), but I am excited to see what it contains.

Now dear 2012, how to photograph you?

Empty again.

Christmas and New Years was awesome to say the least, my family (Dad, Mom, and Brother) all came up and we spent nearly a week together. My brother stuck around for a little while and has now left for a few days to spend some time with his friends but left me with is dog (Nala, who is the highest needs dog I have ever met) and my friend Suz and her puppy (Louie) came to stay for a few days. Together with a group of friends we celebrated new years at my place. It was all fabulous, we played games and ate raclette (look it up it is swiss and amazing)!!! My house is now empty minus an extra dog for a few days before brother comes back. I am lame and am way excited to do things like: laundry, clean my floors, get all the dishes put away, clean the bathroom and living room. I love sharing my house with others but after just over two weeks of company, while I am super sad to see everyone go, I am jazzed to have my house all to myself and am able to clean it up and get it back into shape.

2012 is looking like it should be a good year, I have some fun stuff in the works.
Some of this year's highlights:
-Extravaganza, New Orleans, February
-Bring Grandpa and Grandma's car back with Mom, Naples to SD, April
-Craft fair with my friend Jess May 12
-Fargo Half Marathon, May 19
-Sour Grapes Half Marathon, Brainerd, June 9
-Boundary Waters Canoe Trip with friends, August
-365 days of pictures (I am not sure how this will turn out, but I am going to attempt to take at least one picture a day and put them all in a book)
-Oktoberfest (not sure distance yet) Run in Fargo, October

This summer will be nuts with work and trips here, there, and what feels like everywhere. While there is a piece of me that isn't over the top excited about it, part of me can't wait for the fun to begin, enough of this planning stuff, let's get on with the trips.