Emily

Marli and Company

Ricky and Amy

Our good friends Ricky and Amy are getting married in December. They asked if I would take some shots for them before the big day. We headed out to the Duke Gardens and got lucky with a beautiful day with fall colors and spring temperatures.

Answered Prayers

Thank you all for your support and prayers. My Grandfather’s surgery went well. The doctor’s were able to remove the aneurysm. They also said that his heart is strong and his blood pressure is good. Now begins the long recovery process as he’ll be hospitalized for a minimum of 21 days. I don’t know about you all, but this holiday season I will be counting my blessings. I Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving and keep your eyes peeled for some new photo shoots and my holiday pictures from the farm in Kansas!

The Good and the Bad

I apologize for my lack of posts lately. Early last week we found out that my grandfather has an aortic aneurysm which requires a serious surgery. Since then I honestly haven’t felt like writing much. However, after a lot of thought I realized that this site has become so much more than simply a place to post my photos. As time has progressed this site has become an extremely personal outlet which has enabled me to learn a lot about myself. While all of us process our emotions in different ways. I work through mine by writing and sharing. Normally you all get a good dose of the funny, the happy or the even strange, but today I’m going to go serious and hope that you all will be willing to help.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll reiterate that I am a big believer in the phrase, “everything happens for a reason.” You see, because the doctors were able to catch my grandfather’s condition, he has a chance at surgery however dangerous it may be. Had they not, I don’t want to think of the consequences. Now unlike my grandparents I am certainly not the most religious person you will ever meet, but I do have a strong belief in faith and in turn the power of prayer. While I know that not everyone has the same beliefs as myself, I’d like to think that some of you do. So if you can find a moment in one, or all of your days this week, please send out a little prayer for my grandfather. I would appreciate it. I believe my family would appreciate it and I know my grandfather would appreciate it. Thank You!

Coupon Crazy

I don’t know about you, but we are always looking to save a buck. I have no problem admitting that like a good portion of Americans we currently live paycheck to paycheck. With Clarissa in school, student loans and cost of living expenses things can get a little hairy at times. We have had to learn to cut costs where we can. This means couponing.

Now I have never been one to coupon. I’ve actually always associated it with grandmothers and big families. However, money is money so when I heard that one of my work colleague cut her grocery bills in half I was ready to jump on the bandwagon. Her method, which she learned about in a class, is simple. It’s based around the theory that, “if you don’t see it, you won’t know you have it.” To start all you need is a 3 ring binder, some baseball card holder pages, page dividers and a Sunday paper. Put the baseball pages in your binder and divide the sections however you want. My work friend’s binder is super specific. She has sections for bread, milk, sauces, meat, veggies and so on. I went a little less specific for our book. I categorized my sections based on the aisles of the grocery store I frequent the most. The best part is you can do whatever works best for you. I actually had to change mine around after my first few shopping trips because I realized I could make my trip flow faster by rearranging. Next, cut out all the coupons from your Sunday paper, even the ones you think you would never use. Believe me you’ll be kicking yourself if you find out you threw away a coupon for an item you could have got for free with it. Finally, put the coupons in the baseball card pages based on the sections you created for yourself. Every Sunday I buy a paper and cut out the coupons while I watch football. Then as I insert them into my book I scan my sections for expired ones. Normally there aren’t that many. The whole process takes me between 20 minutes to an hour based on the volume of new coupons I have.

 

 

Now that you have a place to keep your coupons, you’re ready to shop. The idea behind saving a lot of money is to combine coupon savings with sales. I use an internet site called Southern Savers to find out the best deals in my area, but I would reason to bet that there is someone in your area that runs a similar site. I also joined the email club for my grocery store. They send me their weekly ads and special offers. My grocery store also offers double coupons up to .99 cents everyday and often runs deals where they triple your savings. People always comment that we must buy a lot of things we don’t need and honestly we went a little crazy at first because we could get things we could never afford in the past. Over time we learned to stock up on certain items like canned goods, soup broths, dressings, marinades and cleaning items. We only buy the perishable items that we really need to get us through a two-week span. Now I refuse to spend more than fifty cents for most of the items I just listed. Clarissa and I both have a blast trying to figure out how we can get the stuff we want for the cheapest price. Lately I started making a list of the things we want most so that we have an idea of how much we’re going to spend per trip. I loaded all my info into an excel spreadsheet and it does all the calculations for me. Thank God because I really stink in the math department.

 

 

During our most recent trip we purchased $158 worth of groceries and spent $46. This also included some items that weren’t on my list that Clarissa snuck in like beer, sodas, ground beef and some other non coupon items. We figured out that these came out to roughly $15 bucks so without them we would have paid $31 bucks for $143 dollars worth of stuff. Now tell me you couldn’t spend an hour a week to save money like that? You should try it. I promise your wallets will thank me.

Meet Trouble

Yesterday I wrote about my mini photo session with Drake. Well these are the photos of his other half, Wheaton, who happens to be our problem pet. We adopted her about 6 years ago from animal control in Wilmington and if I’m being honest, I didn’t want her. (In my defense it wasn’t that I didn’t want her, it was that I always wanted a bigger dog.) Clarissa will joke and tell people she’s my dog, but we both know Wheaton had her hooked from day one. Clarissa still tells the story about how Wheaton licked her face as she held her the whole way home from the pound. The vet told us she looked about a year old and that she was part Wheaten terrier, hence the name. (The other choices were Old Scratch and Scrappy Doo so I really think we dodged a bullet on that one.) Although be aware that at times she may answer to the aliases The Wheatmonster, Wheaty Peety Pants, Wilma Washpan Joe,  Wheaty, My Wheatpea and Now.

   We think that whoever had Wheaton first abused her. When we first brought her home all you had to do was look at her the wrong way and she would tuck her tail and run leaving a little trail of piddle in her wake. We also can only guess at the fact that her first family had children who did some of the abusing because to this day we can’t trust her in a room with kids. However, I’m happy to say that she’s outgrown much of her original fear. Clarissa and I pick that Wheaton has 9 lives because she has been hit by both a car and a dump truck and jumped out of the window of a moving car. Her worst injury was an amputated toe that the vet said would never grow back, but it did. She is a great guard dog seeing as she barks at people, cars, animals, and sometimes nothing at all. I like to imagine she just really likes the sound of her own voice. However for all her faults Wheaton is one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever met. She loves to cuddle and has this amazing ability to weasel her way under whatever covers you may have. She thinks clothing for dogs is ridiculous and will refuse to move if subjected to wearing anything but a collar. She spends countless hours trying to figure out what that long, hairy thing is attached to her butt and works tirelessly to catch it. She also loves to watch both Clarissa and I throw things for her and then follow us while we go to fetch them and we both agree that she must have been an otter in a past life because if there is water nearby she will find it and get in it. Looking back now I think that despite all her quirks I think we can both agree that Wheaton was a great addition to our family.

   Unlike Drake, Wheaton will go out of her way to avoid the camera. If you look closely you can kind of see her little mohawk. She’s always game for a new hairdo. Most people don’t know it, but Wheaton is a big sports fan and during March Madness she traditionally has the words Go and Duke shaved on her sides. Well except for one sad year when I had a dyslexic moment and made the D backward so instead she said Duke and Dog. (Luckily, I don’t think she can read.)

Photo Session Sunday

   My photo session for this weekend was cancelled due to rain so I needed something to do indoors. Thank heavens I have dogs because they are (almost)always willing participants. Let’s just say that Wheaton was a bit more frustrating than her brother, but you get to see those photos tomorrow. I wanted to try shooting in low light and since Drake is dark it makes it even more challenging. People always ask how I take the photos I do or comment about how expensive my camera must be, but the truth is anyone could take photos like these with any point and shoot camera. Simply turn off your flash, light your subject from behind or the side with a desk light and get down on their level. I promise you’ll get some good ones. Happy shooting!

 

SUMO SUNDAY

   I always knew my friends were crazy! I guess that’s why I love them all so much. This is precisely why I didn’t bat an eye when my buddy Dawn said she had rented sumo suits for a get together she was having. No one throws a party like Dawn does! She made medals (well, convinced her mom to make them), a podium and cooked for everyone. She even researched the Japanese symbol for sumo seen on the medals below.

      

  According to Dawn, proper headgear is always important! Even her dog, Owen, got in on the action. It smushes your face together like crazy.

    I swear I have been looking forward to this event for the last 2 months and it did not disappoint. It’s been 4 days and I don’t know if my stomach still hurts from wrestling myself or from laughing so hard as I watched everyone else do it. Dawn and Ashley kicked off the day in the first bought. We quickly realized that suiting up was best done in groups as the costumes could get a little unwieldy at times. I think the 40 or so onlookers would agree with me when I say that this match may have to be one of the most entertaining things I have ever seen. I nearly peed my pants from laughter. This was a quick one though because Dawn is surprisingly bad at sumo wrestling. Hmmm, who would have known?

 It was almost as fun watching these guys suit up as it was to watch the battle. The taller people made me smile because their legs stuck out all spindly from beneath the huge bellies.

 

      

Closing Time

     

   My petstore is closing! (I’m making a boo boo face) I guess I should be sad that I’m losing a job, but in all honesty that part doesn’t really affect me all that much. The part that does bite though is that I feel like I’m losing my fun. It sounds weird I know, but I really look forward to my weekly shift. My fellow associates and I have built friendships through the crazy times. Above all I will miss hanging out with those guys more than anything else.

    The store will be closing at the end of the month so everything was marked down by at least 25%. The only problem with this is that we already had enough nut jobs come in before this massive sale, so imagine the fun we’re having now. This past Saturday I brought the camera with me to document some of my favorites. I swear I hadn’t been in the store 5 minutes before I had my first dumb question of the day. (You know those people who say there is no such thing as a stupid question? They’re lying!) This lady comes up and says, “Why is everything on sale?” Now you all saw the first picture I had up right? You know the one that showed the front of the store with the 18 large, bright yellow signs that say STORE CLOSING everything on sale? So I was tempted to tell the woman it was because it was 12:05 on a Saturday and we were going to have everything on sale for a total of 15 minutes so she better hurry, but I refrained. Instead I decided to be nice and point out those bright signs and wander off to take some aspirin.

  

    I know it’s a stupid picture people, but I am building a story with photos here people so get over it. Plus, these little puppies were a life saver because that lady above was one of about 30 people who asked that very same question during my 6 hour shift. While we’re on the subject of stupid questions it would be a shame not to mention, “How many hamsters can I fit in a shoebox, Can I leave my parakeet outside for the winter and It’s alright if I put 12 goldfish in this 1 gallon bowl, right?” There were also a lot of people who seemed to be under the impression that this afternoon we were playing let’s make a deal because they kept trying to bargain for certain items. For instance, “Hey Lady, I’ll take this fish tank off your hands if you can knock an additional 25 percent off.” Me “Uh, how about NO!” Obviously it was a day filled with geniuses.

   I would be lying if I said that every customer was a pain in the butt. There were plenty of people who seemed genuinely sad to see us close and all of us were more than happy to help those folks find some great deals. The problem is that it’s always easier to remember the jerks as opposed to the nice people. I know the customer is always supposed to be right, but all too often they’re wrong. I don’t know what it is about retail that brings out the worst in individuals? I mean I was raised to treat everybody with respect whether they were a cashier at McDonald’s or held a PhD, but clearly that’s not the case with the rest of society. Needless to say I have no problem telling you all the next story because these people were some real winners in the class department. Whenever we sell a large item we always try to make certain that the customer understands the space it’s going to take to get said item home. One would imagine that someone could see on their own that a 6 ft tall cat condo probably wouldn’t fit in a Toyota Tercel, but you would be amazed! So when a family came in on Saturday and demanded we sell them our last cat tree the first question we asked was, “What are you driving?” They said they had a van and so then we asked them if they would have room in it. They basically told us to stop hassling them so we went ahead and sold it to them.

     This is Tyler holding the cat condo as the customers realized there was no way in hell that it was going to fit in their vehicle. I would show you the picture of their poor little kid smushed in his car seat with all the brick-a-brack from the car on top of him, but I think that’s a little to mean even for me. They informed Tyler that they were going to need some rope and were furious when he told them that not only did we not have any, but even if we did, he couldn’t give it to them. I think we all felt a little sorry for them as we watched them struggle for about 40 minutes to figure it out, but then we laughed and chalked it up to karma.

     On a normal Saturday we do about $4,000 in sales. When I left at 6 on this Saturday, we were at $9,500. Remember too that everything was 25% off. By the end of the day I think we were all feeling a little crazy ourselves. We’ve been trying to sell this ridiculously expensive, shedding toy dog seen in the pic above for about as long as I have been with the pet store. If you would like to buy him, or anything else in the store for that matter swing by this weekend or it may be too late. We would hate for you all to miss out on the crazy fun we are all having.

( P.S. This is Tyler’s crazy fun face, in case you couldn’t tell)