Ok it isn't really too big of a surprise because I mentioned it a while ago. Go check out the new Macyfron.com. This blog will disappear one day soon. There is a blog and some other new things at the other site. Let me know what you think! Enjoy!

Testing

I have a couple of good stories from this past weekend, but things are busy around here, and I have something exciting in the works. Hopefully it will be ready to share by the weekend. Until then I will just say that I am happy to have a day off in the middle of the week. More stories and pictures coming soon.

There are a couple of photo contests that I want to enter. Even though there is a slim chance I will actually win, I figure I might as well do it. You never know, I might just win. So I need some help. Does anyone have a favorite picture that I have taken in the last year or so? You can look through my flickr account if you don't remember (although there are quite a few pictures over there). The categories available for entering photos are: Celebrate America's Beauty Wilderness Photography The Human Condition Extreme Exploration Urban Landscapes Snapshots Open Series There is also a website called Awesome Photographs (I might disagree with some of the photos that publish as being awesome, but whatver), that I want to submit a photo to, if only to maybe drive up the hits on my website. So I need help picking one out for that. Thanks!

I finally uploaded some of the other pictures from this weekend. Here are some of my favorites.

We are back from the wedding. It was a great time, seeing a friend get married, catching up with some friends we hadn't seen in 6 or 7 years. There are some pictures up on the Grazus Blog, I will be adding a few more today probably. Yesterday we had to deal with Matt's car that wouldn't start. It needed a new ignition cylinder, fun. We learned that our landlord is apparently selling our house. I guess that means we really have to move out of Durham. Our landlord has yet to mention to us that she is selling the house, but told our upstairs neighbors by accident. She is supposed to be showing the house today at 2:30, but never told us that. We left a note about watching for the cat, but we didn't clean up one lick. Hopefully no one will want a house that is such a diaster. I guess this means we will need to really start getting rid of some of junk this weekend. I have a couple of pictures not from the wedding, but from this weekend that I will eventually get up on here, but I am a bum and lazy so I haven't gotten around to it. Oh yeah, and my camera may be dying. When you push down on the button to snap the picture, it takes forever to actually snap it. I don't know what happened. I have tried posting on some boards to see if anyone else has had the same problem, but so far I haven't had much luck. So I might have to buy a new camera. I was really hoping to wait until I actually book my first wedding, because then I would actually have some extra money to buy it, but it may have to happen sooner rather than later. Our upstairs neighbor has a mouse in there apartment, which is just lovely, because that probably means we have a mouse or two as well. Hopefully the landlord will do something about it. Maybe we can leave mouse traps out all over the place to scare the buyers away.

So here is me in my dress, with the belt I bought at Charlotte Russe. It was only $5. I think it looks pretty good, Matt looks it looks silly and like I am trying to cover up a baby belly, but alas I am not. So those who will be at the wedding, know what I will be wearing. The end.

I have a dream of having a huge garden someday. So far that hasn't happened because I don't feel like creating a useable area in a house we won't be in for more than 2 years. Last year we attempted to plant some herbs, but they never really grew. Albert ate some of them and the rest just never got taller than an inch or so. This year Matt decided to go buy some more seeds to plant. We just planted them on Saturday, which is a little late to start, but whatever. There are already some little sprouts popping up. It is so exciting. We planted green beans, tomatoes, okra, broccoli, parsley, and basil. Hopefully we will actually yield some produce from them. Also...an update on the baby bird. This past weekend we saw the mother, father, and the baby out in the yard. We still occasionally see the mother bringing in food to the nest, but I don't think there is anything there. Maybe they are using it as storage. It appears that the baby will live! We have some cute little cardinals in the yard as well. The boy always brings food to the girl, and it looks like they are kissing. I tried to take some pictures, but it is nearly impossible to get a decent shot through the dirty window.

We are going to a wedding this weekend in Florida. Last night I went and bought a new dress to wear. All of my dresses that fit and I like are black and I didn't want to wear a black dress to a daytime Florida summer wedding. So I bought a yellow shirtdress at Marshalls. I can't find the exact dress online, so I will show you some dresses that are similar. Here is one from Target. Here is one from Nordstrom. And lastly here is one from J.Crew. The problem is, the dress came with this hideous plastic brown snake skin belt. I think the dress looks kind of blah without a belt of some sort, but I don't know what to replace it with. The belt it came with it wide, probably about 3 inches. Should I get something that I can tie in a bow? or just another belt that isn't so terrible looking? Suggestions of stores to check out would be appreciated. If I get a chance I will take some pictures tonight. Thanks.

On Saturday, Matt and I ventured out to Historic Stagville. I was expecting a little more than we saw, but oh well. It was a nice morning and everything was very green, so it resulted in a few decent pictures.

In the past few months I have discovered a lot of fun sites that showcase things, unlike most of the blogs I read that showcase people. Mary Grace sent me a couple of them, and the others I just found from there. I thought I would share some of them, as I know there are at least a couple of you who would enjoy them. Boys, you might as well just skip this whole post, unless you are the metro sexual type boy, because you will probably be bored out of your mind! The first one is called MyMomShops. It basically showcases stuff for kids. They also have giveaways pretty often, and I just won a $150 gift card to this really cool toy store called Oompa. I know I am not a mother yet, but I have nieces and nephews to buy for, and I like to see what cool new things are out there for my one day child. Another mom site that gives away cool things on occasion is mod*mom. I haven't won anything here yet, but I keep trying. The good thing about these sites is that there are usually only a couple of hundred people who enter, so your chances are much better than in most contests. The next site is mommyknows.com. The lady owns an online kids store. Last month and this month she has given away a prize a day. She also offers discounts for her store. There are a couple of deal sites out that I visit pretty regularly as well: Thrifty Mommy, Baby Cheapskate, and The Thrifty Decorating Blog. There are so many websites that focus on pretty things, like pretty things to wear, pretty things for your house, pretty things for your wedding, more pretty things for your house, and some random things. And there are tons of sites that don't focus on one special pretty thing, but on all things pretty. Oh Joy! {frolic!} A Little Sussy sfgirlbybay Love Made Visible Your Heart Out Tangled and True Oh Happy Day Mighty Goods Awesome m.writes Hope that is enough to keep everyone busy for awhile. I am sure there are plenty of other great sites out there. If you find one that you love, feel free to share it.

I bought a new domain name, macyfron.com. It will eventually house this blog, but I think that is months away since I don't have a clue about how to set up a blog without the help of blogger, or some other easy interface. If you go to the new site you will see that nothing is there at all. I don't have a full vision of what I want it to be, but I know I want it to house the blog and also all personal photos. Anyone out there good at design? I need some ideas. I want it to be pretty and simple and to not be too girly, since it is about Matt and I, hince the Macy part (MAtt + luCY = MACY). Send me any ideas you have, or even some websites that have cool designs that I could change and make it into my own new design. Thanks!

Yesterday I was driving around town running errands when this guy pulled up next to me. He was probably around 30 years old. He had a pink mohawk, a couple of piercings, and a couple of tattoos, nothing too strange. He was driving a BMW Z4, totally not what I was expecting. Just strange. On the cruise I had a facial and the lady who did it told me that I had very angry skin. Lovely. I really want one of these pretty camera bags, but umm they are are $180 without the pretty cover. I need to teach myself to sew, so I can make my own pretty one. I also want this car. But I don't think you can buy them here in America. All of the cars in Europe are so darn cute, I want them all. Another favorite is the smart car. I really need to update my links, I have so many pretty new websites that I read. Maybe I will just do a summary post of all the cool ones.

We got back last night around 10 pm. It was a long journey home, but we managed it well and don't even really have any jetlag! If you haven't already read about all the things we did on our trip, you can read about it here. I am adding pictures today, so there should be at least something new to see. My parents and sisters are still in Europe, they went to Paris until Thursday. I couldn't justify taking any more time off, so we just came home. I am at home today unpacking, doing laundry and catching up on things around here. Remember the bird nest? Well while we were gone apparently some baby birds hatched (I didn't even know there were eggs in there). This morning when we woke up there was two baby birds on the ground. One was already dead and the other Matt placed back in the nest. I dropped Matt off at school and then came home. When I got home the baby bird was already back on the ground, so I don't know what to do. It is still alive. I saw the mama bird bringing some food in there this morning. Hopefully there are some others still in the nest. Albert is really, really glad we are home. Every time Matt moved last night Albert would rub his head on Matt's head. I am pretty sure he just purred all night long. Well now it is time to get to work around here.

I know I said there would be pictures this week, but well I was a total slacker on our quick trip to MA/NH. I took like two pictures and they were from the car window while I was driving, so they aren't the best. We are back in NC trying to catch up on sleep and prepare for the big trip. We leave Saturday afternoon for two weeks! I have created a travel blog to blog about our trip. I don't know how often I will actually be able to post, but hopefully every other day or two. Of course I might just be so tired at the end of each day that I say forget the whole thing. But hopefully that isn't the case and hopefully I post pretty pictures and document our trip. I won't be posting there until at least Sunday, since there is no internet 35,000 miles above the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I doubt that I will post anything here on this blog until we return. Be listening out in case any ships go down, ours is the Emerald Princess. Matt is especially frightened by all the recent boat sinking that has been happening. Be back in a few weeks!

We watched Click this week. It was recommended to us by Matt's sister. We didn't like one little bit. It was so horribly depressing. So I don't recommend it one bit, unless you are feeling like your life sucks and you just want to get more depressed. It especially is depressing when you are in the middle of job searching and planning your future. We both got haircuts on Wednesday. I just got a trim with supposedly some layers, but I can't really tell. I was going to go to a nice salon, but then Matt convinced me that it won't matter anyways, because I will just end up pulling my hair back anyways, and I pretty much agree, so off to Hair Cuttery it was. All of the shows I watch finished this week. I dislike summer because my favorite shows aren't on anymore. Oh well. I enjoyed the season finally of The Office and Scrubs and can't wait for September! This weekend and next week will be jammed pack full of stuff. We have to do lots of things to get ready for our cruise this weekend and then we head out of town for a quick trip to NH/MA on Monday morning. Then we will be back here for a couple of days before leaving for two weeks! During our trip we will be going to Bracelona, Marsielle, Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, Athens, Istanbul, Kudasai, and Ephesus. If you have been to any of those places and can think of any can't miss things to see and do let me know. I should have a few new pictures before we leave next Saturday!

I just had to share this funny picture from last weekend (when we were in PA). Here is M in the sandbox for what seems like the first time. I took her shoes and socks off and put her down. She didn't seem to like it and was afraid to put her feet down. Soon after this she started crying. Last weekend when we got to church, J1 gave us this: Last Wednesday we went out to eat with our friends who have a cute baby. Here is a cute picture of him at dinner. Saturday night we babysat for our upstairs neighbor while his parents went out with some friends. We had a great time, and I think he did too. We definitely tired him out and he went right to sleep! This weekend we noticed several time when we went out the back door that birds were flying out from under the porch. I couldn't figure out why they were always under there. Then we noticed this lovely nest they were building. In many ways it is a smart place to build a nest, it is protected from the sun, wind, rain. However it is in the wreath that hangs on the door that we go in and out of all the time. So I am not sure how long it will last. Albert keeps trying to climb the curtains and attack them (this morning he jumped probably 5 feet in the air and clung to the curtains). Maybe it will cause them to abandon the nest. There are no eggs yet, so I don't feel too terrible about wanting to move it. I am just afraid that one day the eggs will fall when we close the door. It is getting bigger and bigger by the day.

So you know how my friend Katie has a brain tumor (or did until they removed it) and is going through treatment. Well apparently Matt's uncle has the same kind of brain tumor. He had surgery about 2 weeks ago to remove most of it and is now investigating treatment options. I know a couple of other people who have had the same kind of tumor. Apparently it is the most common of primary brain tumors, but I am still in shock as to how many people I know personally (and pretty well) have this same terrible disease. If you could keep him and his family in your prayers it would be appreciated. Thanks.

Male readers probably just want to skip this post. I am going to talk about hair and hair styles. My hair has pretty much been boring my whole life. I have had short and long hair with the same style, cut straight across. Most days start out with my hair down, usually it is wet, and by about 10 am it is up in a pony tail because it annoys me. When it is short it is usually half up by that same time. I would be totally fine with this if my hair looked decent in a pony tail, and really I have been fine with it my whole life, but someone I know who shall remain nameless continues to point out my little poof action that occurs on the left side of my head. This poof action is quite ugly and drives me crazy when I look in the mirror, but I don't actually do that very often so I don't notice all that much. I can't find a very good picture of the poof action, but here is a picture that shows it a little. Just imagine that this on a good day and that you aren't really looking head on. Sometimes (depending on the length of hair in the poof region) it sticks straight into the air. It is awful. I am not convinced it is possible to find a hair style that I like that won't go immediately into a pony tail. How do most people do that? I can't stand my hair in my face. So if you are still out there and have suggestions about a new hairstyle I am willing to try it. Currently my hair is pretty long for me, a couple of inches past my shoulders, so I have some choices. I was thinking layers or something, but I have been told before that my hair won't look good that way because it is too thin. So let me know what you think I should do with my ugly hair. Thanks.

We had an even more hectic weekend visit to PA than usual. We arrived at about 12:30 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning. Got up the next morning around 7 or 7:30 and went nonstop until about 9:30 p.m. Saturday night. We visited just about everyone we hoped to, including Matt's uncle, great aunt, grandfather, and all the siblings. On Sunday before leaving we stopped to see our friends who had a new baby 2 weeks ago. It was great to catch up with them and see how they are adjusting to parenthood. The baby is adorable and I took some pictures for them. I haven't sorted through all of the pictures I took, but here are a few snippets of the weekend. More pictures of the new baby can be found at the Grazus Blog.

For those one or two readers who are in town this weekend, there is a ton of stuff to do. I wish we were going to be here to do some of them. 1. Strawberry Festival 2. Greek Food Festival 3. Old Durham home tour 4. Handmade Market I am sure there are a few other things to do, such as some lovely Cinco de Mayo activity, but these are the things I am wishing I was here for this weekend. Anything exciting going on in your town?

It appears in a few months we will be moving. Matt is hoping to graduate some in the late summer or early fall and has begun looking for job. While this is all very exciting, it is also going to be quite expensive. I have been looking at potential cities (where there might be some job openings) and doing some cost of living comparisons. Basically we live the cheapest place in the country, ok maybe not THE cheapest, but definitely somewhere close. This CNN comparator tells me that it is cheaper to live in Durham than in Burlington, NC. I mean who the heck wants to live in Burlington, NC. All that is there is JRs and some crummy outlets. And it is in the middle of nothing. Why can't all the ultrasound companies move somewhere cheap? like NC? We leave in just a few weeks, 3 I think for our cruise. I am getting pretty darn excited. I have started a packing list of everything we need to bring with us. I made a separate travel blog on travelblog.org for hopefully easy posting (not like this hard or anything). I will post the address of it closer to our departure. We will have some internet access when we are on the boat. It costs 50 cents/minute, so we won't be using too much of it, but I feel like we write everything we want and then log on to post/send stuff and then log back off. This weekend we are heading to PA to see Matt's family. It appears to be a packed weekend already with at least 5 people we want to visit in addition to the immediate family (which is 4 different families). There should be lots of cute kid and baby pictures next week for your enjoyment. Have a nice weekend.

Somehow I have earned a free 11" x 14" print from Snapfish. I am having trouble deciding what picture to print. Matt doesn't care, or at least he claims not to care. I don't know if I should make it of people, places, or things. Most of my pictures lately have been flowers and ducks. Feel free to browse around my Flickr page and let me know what picture I should get. Or if you remember some picture jumping out in your head then tell me that one. Please, pretty please help me. Thanks.

Baskin Robbins is having a special night tonight from 5 - 10 pm. A scoop of ice cream is 31 cents. So go get some yummy ice cream tonight!

Last night we went to the Volunteer Appreciation Dinner for the hospital. We sat in the back at a table with some nice looking older people (probably one couple was about 45 and the other about 65). The one lady was honestly one of the rudest people I have ever encountered, we were embarrassed to be sitting at the same table as them. First they were speaking in their native tongue, which we think might have been Arabic. Not a huge deal, but they definitely weren't welcoming or wanting to join in conversation with us. The first request was for more salad dressing, not an unusual request, but she wasn't the nicest about it. I never once heard any of them say thank you to the servers. After the salad dressing it was the bread. She asked for it multiple times claiming she was starving after she had just eaten her entire salad. I'm pretty sure several times during the meal she said I'm done to the server to get them to take her plate away, or at least demanded they take her husband's plate away after he was done. The final and worst incident was the end. The servers were bringing the cake around and came to me, I said no thank you (I had brownies at home that looked a lot better than the cake looked, so don't think I am changing my ways and skipping dessert) and immediately she patted the table in front her husband and said he wants some. Honestly at that point I just wanted to get up and leave the table right then. I mean come on lady, the server was going there next. So everyone is eating their cake, but she just takes one little bite and says I just wanted a little bite and pushes it out of the way. Now instead of just being rude and inconsiderate she was being totally wasteful, I mean couldn't she have just had a little bit of her husband's like I did. It turns out her husband did eat her entire cake, so it ended up not being wasted, but still. We were totally shocked the whole night and left as soon as possible.

Lately I have been in a very photo mood. I kind of go through phases with my brain and web surfing and just basic activities. This week it has been very photo oriented. I created a myspace page for my business (please add me if you are on there). I bought a cute little baby blanket to use in some baby portraits, even though I have no babies to photograph at the current time. I really want to buy one of these adorable petticoat skirts to take cute little girl pictures like this and this. And of the the whole trash the dress thing I mentioned earlier. I also might be tagging along on a wedding next weekend, but it is still up in the air. I also want to buy some cute little baby hats to use in pictures as well. I am hoping that when I go to the market this summer with my mom I will be able to find some of these things at wholesale. Forgot to mention this earlier. Another friend had a baby girl, her name is Anna (two soft a's) Elizabeth. So three babies in about a month with the name Anna in it, Charlotte Annabelle, Annabelle Grace, and Anna Elizabeth. Totally crazy. I love all the names, just didn't really expect them to be so similar. None of them know each other. And what is with all the little girls being born. Last year it seemed like everyone I knew had a boy, this year it is girls (I know another baby girl coming in July). Strange how things work out sometimes.

I just came back from a little walk around campus. As I was approaching the building I noticed a lady smoking outside. She flicked her cigarette butt near a pile of dead leaves when there was a cigarette butt trash can about 10 feet away. I wanted so badly to say something to her, but I didn't. Is it complete laziness or lack of care for everyone else (someone has to pick that up when they clean up the outside area) or just pure stupidity? I just don't get it.

There is this great website that I found recently. It is called Trash the Dress. Basically the idea is that you are only going to wear your wedding dress once and that your children won't want to wear it so why bother storing it in a closet for the next 50 years when you can take some totally awesome pictures to remember it by. I am not so sure I want to do this with my own dress, because I am still holding out hope that I will find somewhere to wear it even though there is no wear acceptable to actually wear it and it probably wouldn't fit me anyways, but I really want someone to do it, so I can take some lovely pictures. So anyone up for it? Most of you don't even live nearby, so I doubt it, but worth a shot right? P.S. If someone wants to participate doesn't feel gutsy enough to trash their own dress, we could certainly buy a cheap one from a thrift store or ebay and do it that way.

Friday night we had some friends over for dinner. It was lovely. We grilled some steak. Saturday was a beautiful day, but we didn't take advantage of it very much. We went out and ran a few errands and then came home and took a long nap. That turned out to be a very bad idea because neither of us could sleep on Saturday night. After naptime we went to the dinner and then to the Duke Gardens. It wasn't crowded at all and there were lots of pretty ducks. Then we went home and bummed around. Sunday, after church, we went a few places looking for cheap rocking chairs. We didn't find any and settled on cheap plastic patio chairs for our backyard. Matt went to school for a while to get some work done and I went back to the gardens and then to the mall. The gardens were much more crowded since it was the middle of the day, but I still managed to get some nice shots of ducks and such. Sunday evening was a relaxing evening hanging out outside with our neighbors. I took some pictures but haven't downloaded them yet. Our neighbor's kid just turned 2 this weekend and we got a him a bubble machine, which he totally loves. So we played with the bubbles and grilled some chicken for dinner. I think it was a very nice relaxing weekend, filled with beautiful weather. And to end here is a cute picture of Albert from the weekend...oh and a little Albert story. Matt accidentally left the back door open on Sunday afternoon and I went into the kitchen about 10 minutes after he had come in and realized that the door was open. I screamed for Matt to come because I was certain we were going to have to search high and low for our little kitty, but it turns out he was sitting on the step eating some grass. Thank goodness. Now he is watching the door even closer in case we leave it open again. He has tasted freedom.

We went to the Duke Farmer's Market at lunchtime today and bought some strawberries. They are now sitting on my desk just begging to be eaten. They smell fantastic! Anyone have any great strawberry recipes? We have a big bucket of them and need some ideas.

When we were home a few weeks ago, my parents gave me this photo. They want me to put it on my photography site to show me and my first camera. This was taken in August 1986, when I was 6 years old. My sister, Catherine, is 2.5 years old. My parents said all of their friends were shocked that they had given me a camera because I was so young. But they wanted to give it to me. It was a Fisher Price camera. Notice how my sister and I were both wearing watermelon outfits, cute huh? Have a good weekend. We have friends coming over for dinner tonight, and then tomorrow I am going to go to the Earth Day celebration here in Durham and hopefully do some cleaning, throwing away in the house. Maybe I will take some pretty pictures too.

Many things to share/comment on.... 1. Two friends have recently had babies. One named Charlotte Annabelle and the other Annabelle Grace. These friends don't know each other, at least not that I know of. Strange that they both have Annabelle in the name, apparently it is going to be pretty popular these days. I have one friend who is going to have a baby any day now, I wonder if there will be any Annabelle there. 2. My computer should be here today! Although there will probably be some difficulties in receiving it as I don't think they will leave it without a signature, so I probably won't get it until tomorrow. 3. Earth Day is this weekend. I think I am going to go to the celebration here. Apparently Home Depot is giving away flourescent light bulbs this weekend, so go get some. 4. My friend Kristen and I were planning a great little weekend adventure to St. Augustine in May with the tickets we didn't use last summer because of my Grandma's death, but apparently the tickets are non-transferrable and so only Matt and I can use them. I was really excited, now I am disappointed and sad. 5. Last night we watched The Last King of Scotland. Most of it was pretty good, but then it got really gruesome and graffic. I turned away and then Matt fast forwarded through parts of it. 6. Another video that won't allow me to post it like the previous one. Enjoy! 7. Still sad about the whole VT thing.

I just answered my phone at work to someone singing Happy Birthday. I had to stop the person and tell them that I think they had the wrong number because it wasn't my birthday. Definitely the most interesting phone call I have gotten in a while and pretty darn funny.

It is FREE CONE DAY at Ben and Jerry's. Visit your local B & J for a free cone between 12 p.m. and 8 p.m.

So you want to hear a story? I bet you do, things have been boring lately, but today something exciting finally happened. We were on our drive back from the DC area and stopped at a gas station. Ahead of us is a black Lincoln Navigator. The Navigator pulls in to the gas stall and we pull in behind him, he goes to the front pump, we go to the back pump. Matt puts the car in park, turns off the car and starts to get out of the car. His hand is on the door handle, when I notice the Navigator is in reverse and moving backwards. So I reach over and slam on the horn for about 5 seconds. He stops. Then starts backing up again, I hit the horn again and he keeps on coming and hits us. We get out of the car, slightly annoyed, but not too angry. He gets out of the car. Matt says "You hit my car." Mr. Navigator says "This pump didn't have 93 octane gas." He then tells us we whipped in behind him and that is why he didn't see us. Recall we had already put the car in park and turned the engine off. I explain this to him. He doesn't seem to care and just says "this pump didn't have 93 gas." Apparently that is a reason to back up and hit someone. Finally he goes back into his car to move it off of our bumper. He gets back out and says "there can't be any damage." Nevermind the fact that he has a big Navigator and we have a small Saturn. Before I totally loose my temper I go to the car and get the credit card so I can start pumping gas while Matt continues the conversation with the man. He keeps trying to blame us. Matt explains that we honked the horn, he says he didn't hear it, Matt says there must be something wrong with your car if you can't hear the horn inside. He invites Matt to come in and listen, he declines. Navigator man asks what we want, do we want to call the cops or something. Matt says he wants an apology. He says he already gave us one...hmm...did you miss that apology, cause I certainly did. He goes to get in his car and says "You can kiss my a**," and drives away. The end. We think he heard the horn and just really didn't care because he is bigger than us and so hit us on purpose. He had big car jerk disease. P.S. there is a mark on our car. P.P.S. Matt says "There will finally be something interesting on your blog."

Today I saw this bumper sticker (for those who didn't click over, it says Buckle Up, It makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car). I thought it was a big odd, but hey if it makes you buckle up then why not. So everyone out there wears their seatbelts right? Apparently some people haven't gotten the memo from years ago that you should wear your seatbelt, oh and also it is the law. Take for example the governor of New Jersey. He would be in a heck of a lot better shape today if he had been wearing his seatbelt. Typically the people who aren't wearing their seatbelts these days are the poor or uneducated. But I am pretty sure this man is both wealthy and educated, I mean he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Hopefully whenever he gets out of the hospital he will make it a point to wear his seatbelt from now on. Really the best safety feature of a car is the seatbelt. So please make sure you always wear yours, even in the backseat. In NC it is now against the law to not wear your seatbelt in the backseat of the car. The end.

I got an email from a friend at UVA the other day with a picture of our lab from 2002 when I started my Masters. It made my day. The other night I ordered a pretty new computer from Lenovo. My laptop is almost 5 years old and really just isn't cutting it anymore for all the picture moving and editing. I tried to convince my parents to buy me a new one, but they didn't seem to be up for that. It was worth a try. Computers are a lot cheaper these days. I got some free candy from the grocery store. It was supposed to be half off because it was Tuesday and Easter was on Sunday, but it rang up full price. So I went to customer service and because it rang up incorrectly it was free! I wish I had gotten a few more with the wrong price. Oh well.

Matt's parents have been here this weekend. We have had a pretty lazy weekend, with movie watching and eating. Yesterday we went to the mall and to the gardens. It was quite chilly, so we didn't stay at the gardens very long. We watched Happy Feet and Flag of our Fathers. Both were ok, nothing too spectacular. Today we went to mass and made a lovely Easter dinner. We invited our neighbor from Cameroon and learned all about Cameroonian living. It was very interesting. We also watched the Masters, which is my favorite HD TV event. Augusta National is a beautiful golf course, especially in spring and even more so in high definition. Now it is a little more tv watching and then bedtime. This blog is getting more and more boring by the day. Oh...today at church we sat behind this lady with the hugest hair ever. Honestly it was about 18 inches across. I couldn't see around her at all. I really wish I had my camera so I could show everyone how huge this hair was. Her hair wasn't naturally big or frizzy, but was styled to be absolutely huge. It was great! Tomorrow we will be going out to get some cheap Easter candy, hopefully there will be some left.

This week I feel like I am rushing around. We got back on Monday evening and I feel like I have been trying to get a lot done. Although it probably isn't really all that much. We didn't get to watch hardly any movies last week because Blockbuster decided to take forever to send us our next movie, so we have been trying to squeeze some in before Matt's parents get here tomorrow. I also wanted to get all the laundry done and put away. It must be put away because the storage area is normally the guest bed, but that will be occupied. So tonight I need to fold all the laundry and make the bed for his parents. I had a ton of pictures from the wedding this week to sort through, edit, and organize into a slideshow. I finally got that done last night. Tonight we also have a celebration dinner for Matt's old roommate who recently defended his PhD. And I am planning to go to church this evening since it is Holy Thursday. The biggest dissapointment is that I will be missing The Office tonight. It is finally a new episode and I won't get to watch it. Yes I will download it, but as Matt likes to remind me, it won't be in HD, so it won't be as pretty. Oh well, only so much you can do in one night. I think I would feel much less rushed if I could handle going to bed a bit later, but I am a wimp and like to sleep. Ok enough of my complaining. I took some more pictures of the flowers around here, but haven't downloaded them yet. And I also have some pictures of my parents' empty swimming pool. They are getting the patio and pool redone and so while we were home they drained all of the water out of it. I got to walk around in it, which was pretty cool. When you are in the pool with water it doesn't seem nearly as steep as it does without water. And the first step is so darn tall! Who knew?

I created a new blog that will be dedicated to my professional photography. For now it will include weddings I attend and portraits I take. Hopefully one day it will include any job that I am hired to photograph. I will still post pictures here, they just most likely will be more personal pictures of everyday stuff. Hopefully soon I will put a link on the Grazus page to the Grazus blog, but for now I will just tell you folks about it. Feel free to drop in, it is open to the public, so anyone can view it. The new site is here.

Last week was pretty uneventful around here. This weekend we went to Tallahassee for a wedding of a high school friend. It was a beautiful wedding and once I finish organizing the photos I will post some. We spent yesterday in the car driving back. Today it is back to work and regular life. Matt's parents come to visit on Friday. Should be a nice weekend. Pretty pictures tomorrow!

In some ways I am an 80 year old woman. Like the fact that I love Wheel of Fortune or that I go to bed by 10 pm just about every night. Matt even claims that I drive like a grandma. On the other hand I am a complete child. We got a catalog in the mail today that I am pretty sure is for teens and younger, but I kind of love all the clothes. They are clothes that remind me of my childhood and I really want them. Like this totally cool sweatshirt. Or this tshirt. But in real life I am a 26 year old woman. I want to go back to being a 6 year old kid, yet I act like I am 80 most of the time. Who the heck am I?

I went to the gardens yesterday and took some pictures of some pretty flowers. There were tons of kids hanging around and tons of lovely flowers. The weekend is forecasted for super weather and I can hardly wait. I might even leave work a little early today!

This will show you how lazy I am. I washed our sheets on Sunday. But rather than remake the bed we have slept in the guest bed all week. Every night I come home thinking I will make the bed tonight, but then decide not too because I don't feel like it. LAZY!

Spring is here. Yesterday I went out and took some pretty flower pictures. Later this week I hope to make it over to the Gardens to see all of the flowers there. Enjoy!