Amber's Shower

On Saturday 2/28, I made my way to CT for Amber's bridal shower. Meg, Jen D, Jessica, Lorella, Laura and I all went and it was great. The shower was held at the Carousel Museum in Bristol (a very unique and fun venue). Of course we mainly stayed at our table, catching up and eating far too many sweets {who chose the table closest to the desserts?! LOL}

But I did get up to take a few pictures of the absolutely gorgeous mom-to-be. Amber is by far one of the cutest moms ever!

I didn't get any group photos, but Meg did, so once I get those I'll update.

Thanks for a great day ladies.

Love you all!

Photo Finish Friday

I am going to try to post an update every Friday with my progress for the week. As you can imagine, preparing to walk 60 miles in 3 days is going to require a lot of work. I'm hoping by posting here I'll keep motivated and also remind all of you who have generously donated to me that your contributions really are worth it :)

3 Day Breast Cancer Walk- HERE I COME!

In case by some chance I don't have your email, I wanted to make it known here that I am going to be participating in a very special event called the Breast Cancer 3-Day. From October 16-18, I’ll be walking 60 miles through Philadelphia, camping out at night with thousands of other women and men taking this journey with me.

As much as I’m not generally the type to ask, I need your help. I can train hard for this walk. I can buy the gear I need to camp out and walk 60 miles. I can travel all to Philadelphia for the event, but by committing to this walk I am also committed to raising $2300 and I’m hoping to raise even more with your support.

Would you please consider making a donation? Even $20 would go a long way towards helping me achieve this goal. I know this is tough economic climate in which to ask for donations, but every little bit helps. And remember that donations are tax deductible. So please consider skipping the morning trip to Dunkin Donuts for a week, or putting a few of your tax return dollars towards this really good cause. I would appreciate it more than you could know.

Donating is very easy. Simply click on the link below to see my personal page:

Click here to visit my personal page.

Or click on the 3Day icon on the top right-hand side of my blog page.

Or call 800.996.3DAY to donate over the phone.

My great-grandmother battled breast cancer, and she and I ended up sharing a special connection. On the day I was born, she went into the hospital to have her breast removed. Instead of being named Kimberly, my parents decided to name me Jennifer, after my great-grandmother (lovingly called Jennie). Fortunately she survived breast cancer and because of that I have many, many fond memories with my namesake. Now each year as I celebrate special events with my grandmother, mother, aunts and cousins I am so grateful that each of us is healthy. I hope that someday we’ll never have to worry if one of us will develop breast cancer.

Without a cure, one in eight women in the U.S. will continue to be diagnosed with breast cancer. That’s why I’m walking in the 3-Day. Because everyone deserves a lifetime!

Thank you in advance for your generosity!

Love,

Jen

P.S. Ask your employer if they will double your donation through a matching gift program.
To see if your employer matches donations, click HERE.

P.P.S. I will be doing regular blog updates on my training (aiming for every Friday) so please stop in to hear about my progress and other exciting news about the event.

energized

i feel like i'm on a roll lately. between having the internet at home, and having some down time at work (a lot of my projects are in a slow stage right now)... i feel like i'm making some good progress on my goals for this year.


photo cards
- i've been wanting to sell these on Etsy but coming up with a name had been plaguing me. i wanted it to be versatile yet specific. no easy feat. and then one night, right before i fell asleep it came to me. life IN focus. it works on a few different levels. it refers to my use of (and love for) my camera. its a mantra. it suits me. so i've got an etsy account and an email address to go with it. nothing to sell just yet (but i'll get to that very soon).

-and today i contacted a local printer about getting my cards made up. currently i've been printing the photos through Ritz Camera and buying white cardstock cards from Walmart. they are relatively cheap but not the best quality. and it takes a lot of manual work to put them together. the price i got today seemed reasonable, so i'm going to see about getting a sample made up to see if its worth it. the other perk of doing it this way is that i can put my website and email on the back.

baby steps. but its progress. and i'm totally energized about it.

Oscar Party Treats

Mom's annual Oscar party was a hit again this year.
Of course I rarely go to the movies... and I can't stay up as late as you need to in order to see "the good parts" of the awards shows.... but I did enjoy the festivities for a couple hours before calling it a night.

And I obliged and brought a themed item for the menu. This was Mom's idea. Something she found online. But it was really easy and came out SO cool that I had to share.

No. This is not popcorn.

They are cupcakes.

With mini marshmellows on top.

And frosting with yellow food coloring!

Pretty cool huh?!

And they tasted yummy too!

Hodge Podge Saturday

Saturday morning.
Matt stopped by to drop something off... or pick something up. I can't remember.
He and Willy stayed for lunch. Stir fry. MMmmm!

Willy wanted some... until he saw what it was.
Clearly he did not want what Uncle Danny had to offer! :)

Not a great shot, but I think this one is so cool. A little candid. a little coy. a lot cute!

i spent the afternoon/evening working on painting canvases for amber's baby shower the following weekend. from clean and company to chaos 5 hours flat. you never know what you're going to get around here.

playing catch up

yikes. have gotten out of the habit of blogging!
so let's play a quick game of catch-up.

i spent last weekend in philly visiting my good friend christine.
we spent a lot of time scrapping and chatting and being very lazy
which is exactly what we both intended
it was perfect.
i had my first coffee from Wawa. it was yummy.
see picture on my shuttercal calendar.

it was lovely having monday off. i drove most of the day
but hit very little traffic
got my car washed on the way home
(much needed)
and ran a few errands including food shopping
planned some healthy meals for the week
that extra day just adds so much to the week

tuesday= work + gym
waveney joined kim and i for the first time in awhile
we did cardio then triceps and biceps

wednesday= hanging w/ megg and the kids before zumba
and we got a nice bonus of having krissy and willy there (and matt joining us for dinner)

tonight= dinner in boston w/ megg, krissy and the kids
they are coming in town to visit rachel and we're going to grab a bite
yaay for school vacation week!

no official weekend plans
which of course i love
lots to do and see

other updates:

• I am 99.9% sure I am going to register for the 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk in Philadelphia in October! It will be a lot of work to train for it, but I am very much looking forward to the idea of spending that weekend with some of my very good scrapbooking friends while getting in shape and raising money for a very good cause. So keep an eye out for more to come on that. I haven't officially signed up yet. But I'm will :)
• I still need to get geared up to sell prints and photocards on etsy. I am forcing myself to decide on a name by the end of this weekend so I can make some forward progress on that. I'm also hoping to sell cards with all proceeds going towards the Breast Cancer walk! It feels like a good fit.
• Shockingly I'm still keeping up with my photo-a-day endeavor. I can hardly believe it. But so far its been really fun. Some days are more creative than others, but at least I'm always looking out for photo opportunities and so for that alone I think its a worthwhile project.
• After much discussion and many many tears (on my part) Dan and I have decided we need to look for a new home for our beautiful kitties, Maverick and Stinger. I love them so much, but unfortunately we're just not home enough and they are used to being able to come and go, in and out of the house, whenever they please- and with Bill they were able to do that. However, we're just not around enough and its led to them ripping out the weather stripping on the brand new doors and scratching up some other things around the house... I know they don't know any better, but they're grown now and accustomed to life as it was, and I don't think we can provide that. Please let me know if you know anyone who would enjoy 2 cats. They are so loveable and sweet!!! My heart is breaking over this, but if I knew we could find them a home with someone who would love them, I'd feel so much better about it.

Pick a card...

Wednesday after worked I headed to the Fortin's to help Megg with a project. She was in charge of creating an invitation for Emelyn's school's big fundraiser- a Casino night. I brought my camera. She got out Tom's poker set (and a green apron) and we had fun playing around getting some shots. This was my favorite of the ones I took. I need to get Megg's final shot with her invite. It came out great.

Emelyn was also loving the camera and wanted me to get pictures of everything. Of course I was happy to oblige.

This one cracks me up. Willy looks like he's wondering what the heck he's gotten himself into.

This is a pretty good depiction of the chaos that was the livingroom. Chicago (the musical) was on the background and the boys were randomly dancing or drooling, mesmerized by the dancing. Emelyn was working hard at being a goof! :)
Willy fully enjoying some treat. I think it might have been chocolate chip cookies that night. Care of Nanny :)

And my favorite shots of the night. Em and I being silly!!

And Oisin. Love those eyes! He's one cute little dude.

i love my kitties but...

i'm really annoyed this morning.
dan brought home my flash drive from cards last night
it contains the rest of the vacation photos
care of dana and sheri
and i was so excited to look at them
and share them
today

but no

he left the flash drive on the ottoman
and this morning its gone
i can only assume the kitties were batting it around
i search w/ a flashlight for far too long this morning
under the furniture (where apparently i need to dust better)
and nothing

so aggravating
not a great way to start the day

but on the positive, i'm headed to Philly this afternoon
and i'm very much looking forward to that

TGIF
and happy early valentine's for those of you who celebrate

playing with my camera

After calling numerous of my friends crazy for attempting the picture-per-day endeavor for 2009, I somehow got sucked in... I think it was the allure of the shuttercal website.. that linear design... the immediate sense of achievement by simply uploading 1 photo... i'm not sure. but there i was. all excited about the idea. amazingly enough, its mid-february and i'm still into it. mostly i think my day to day life is pretty mundane... don't get me wrong, there are certainly highlights. but i don't always have my camera handy nor is it always appropriate (i.e. getting kudos at a big meeting at work... um yeah. not exactly going to bust out the Canon for that...) so you get the picture.

But I think what i am learning and liking about this project I've committed to, is that its forcing me to look for the beauty in the simple stuff... or at least to look at a new way of seeing things. Here are a couple pictures from today that I really like.

My Sigg water bottle in the cup holder in the car. My red coat practically touching it. The yellow of the tissue holder. The roundness of the bottle and the round empty-cupholder. The colors- red, yellow, black, gray. Somehow I just love it. Its just a bottle... in my messy car. But its pretty cool if you look at it the right way.

This next one was more about the contrast... 57 degrees outside. It was over 60 degrees when I got in the car to drive home. And yet there is still lots of dirty snow on the ground... are we heading towards spring or will February continue to rear its ugly wintry face?



And here's a collage of self-portraits from the past couple months. I find that when I'm at a loss for a subject I turn the camera on myself... whether to contrast w/ the background... to celebrate a hat i love wearing (which apparently I do a lot), or just for a lack of a more creative idea-- I have quite a few already. I think its time to start branching out... but when grouped like this, I thought it was sorta neat.

Well that's enough blogging for one day...

Night kids.

cultivating- progress check

we're 6 weeks into 2009 at this point (gasp!)
and thanks to tini i'm remembering that i did set some goals for myself... and so its probably good to keep tabs on those so i'm not forgetting about them until its too late

so how am i doing?

relationships: trying my best in this arena. emails friends from school to say hello... hanging out with megg tonight since we rarely get 1:1 time and we end up trying to cram life updates in between song changes during zumba (not ideal)

a garden: still too cold

art/photography: taking photos every day and loving it... you can check out the results of that here. i'm also enjoying the editing process, what little i know. trying in some cases to make something out of almost nothing ;)

business. i am still working on a title for my etsy store. definitely behind on this one. BUT i did take a massive amount of photos in Jamaica with my sights on selling either the photos and/or the cards. so at least its still on the brain.

health: no weight loss yet. and no real time for running. not good. need to focus more on this. i do have some new healthy recipes i'm looking to try, and i'm trying to be better about meal planning which i think should help because i do usually hit the gym 3-5 days a week.

writing: haven't written in my journal since before vacation... not feeling it so much right now. but i'm reading a LOT and loving that...

blogging: eh. some good weeks. some bad. overall not terrible.

not too shabby for 6 weeks in.
need to focus more on health, photography/business and the keeping in touch thing...but overall i think i'm not too disappointed or discouraged yet :)

photo updates

The tri-Lassonde birthday party on Sunday was great.

And a great party deserves some fun photo highlights.

Little Miss Riley... pulling herself up on the ottoman in the livingroom.

My favorite photo of the day!

Mom and Riley laughing their heads off!

So much joy!

My cousin Megan's boyfriend Evan with Riley. Evan is a big tall teddybear of a guy, who is apparently a little gunshy around babies, but I think by the end of the day he and Riley were getting along just fine. He's really in tune with what babies want... in this case, reading the Babies R Us ad :)

Sweet little girl in the cutest little dress, compliments of Grammy.

And of course I couldn't capture it, but the shoes match! :)

Then it was time for cake... but we were a little short on numbered candles. Still we managed to cover the basics...

53= Diane

27= Jeff

(carry the two to use for Megan)= 26

Followed by my Second favorite shot of the day.

What in the world is going on here, you might ask?

This is Mom, imitating Jeff's traditional

"Haiy Yah"

karate chop with a knife cake cutting technique.

And the three celebrants.

Happy Birthday! I love you all!

friday night funnies

Friday night Dan and I went over to hang out with Matt, Krissy and Willy. A very chill night... talking, Krissy making dinner, running around after Willy (who was constantly picking one or another of us to take by the hand to show us something of great importance), eating dinner, laughing and of course taking a few pictures.

I pulled out the camera to take a picture of this.

Willy had his new shorts (that we brought home from Jamaica on his head)-- think he got a little help from Uncle Danny. He thought he was hysterical, especially once we started laughing about it. He's a ham that's for sure...

Then once he realized that the camera was out and he could ham it up AND see the proof on the camera display, it was time to perform.

I have NO idea where he learned this, but when I said "Smile"

this is what I got:

even more squinting...i mean smiling...
i have no idea what he was trying to pull off here... this might have been "be silly"
either way. its priceless.

and of course a couple fishy faces...

his new Dale Jr. hat
(what goes better with Halloween pjs than a Nascar hat?!)

i love these shots. willy with uncle danny in the background

dan talking to matt

willy and i talking to eachother

totally different conversations.

some different reactions, different faces... some so similar.

both are unmistakable goofballs

my favorite moment of the night we didn't get on camera

willy kissed krissy's belly

kris said to him "say hi to the baby"

willy says: "hi baby" pause... "see you soon!!"

smart little guy!

i swear kris and i almost started crying.

sooooo sweet!

stinking at this...

ok i'm stinking at the blogging thing lately.
sorry about that.
last week was rough...
i know what you're thinking
"WAH! get over yourself... recovering from a tropical vacation?
life's tough huh?"

i have no legit response to that except yep.
it was a hell of a week.
working late
2+ hour commutes because of the icy cold and rain
which i swear the MBTA was not built to withstand
(not sure which state they thought this train would be run... Georgia perhaps?!)

i still managed to hit the gym 2 days and go to Zumba on wednesday
so it wasn't a completely worthless week
but the house suffered in order to accommodate fitness
so after a lovely night catching up with matt, kris and willy on friday
dan and i spent all of saturday cleaning
the house was soo disgusting i was actually ashamed of it!!
yep. that bad.
still we had a nice reprieve from cleaning
when dick small stopped in to chat
and then matt and willy stopped by to pick up a saw
then it was back to cleaning for me
dump run and home depot/lowe's stops for dan...
and finally the house is back in one, mostly clean piece

sunday was a joint birthday party for
mom, jeff and my cousin megan
super fun day! {meanwhile dan visited
pictures of all the weekend festivities to follow.

and don't forget
you can check out my daily picture challenge
on my other site here

sharing flowers

"Did you know...that when you walk past a flower, whether it be in somebody's garden or on a vacant hillside, the flower will always smile at you. The most polite way to respond, I've been told, is to cheerfully return the smile."Ron Atchison

Highlights from Jamaica

I know what you're thinking, a vacation post and no pictures in sight... has Jen lost her mind?! Well, sorta... but there are too many pictures to post here, so here's a link to my shutterfly pictures. I am still waiting for Dana and Sheri's pictures, so keep an eye out for some more to come.

So what can I say about Jamaica?

It is beautiful.
I've been there before. To Ocho Rios. It was nice, but nothing like Negril. The beaches were fabulous. Few shells, easy to walk on. The Sandals Negril was 1000 times more beautiful than the one in Ocho. As it turns out, we got extremely lucky. They upgraded us 3 levels so instead of the Garden Room we paid for, we had a beachfront room. Literally 30 steps from our patio to the beach. On the way to breakfast each morning we'd reserve the 4 beach chairs almost directly in front of our room.

Good food and drinks.
Food was the one thing I was worried about. Not that I thought there'd be nothing I liked, but with this still-fairly-new-vegetarian thing, I was worried about finding enough reasonably healthy options. But I did. The veggie selection was great! There was 1 day with nothing great on the lunch buffet, but I splurged on a grill cheese from the beach grill and I was good.

The sit-down dinners were delicious! Especially the Japanese hibachi. Always great :) and entertaining.

And the drinks... not so much my thing, but I found my fair share of treats to try out. The rum punch was great. And the Miami Vice, which I didn't even know I'd ordered... I asked for a 1/2 pina colada 1/2 strawberry daiquiri. I got a Miami Vice which has those two things with a shot of blue curacao on top. MMMmmm! And of course Red Stripe Light is pretty tasty too.

Staying Fit is Easier on the Beach
I doubt I lose a pound. I may have even gained 1 or 2. But working out in paradise does not even feel like work!
Monday I did aquacize in the pool. Loved that! Then it rained in the afternoon so I hit the fitness center to do some arms and abs.
Tuesday I did aquacize again.
Wednesday I did the 7:30am beach power-walk. Loved that. We were probably gone for about an hour. 7 of us with a trainer from the Fitness Center. We mostly walked the beach but there were some sections where there was no sand to walk on, so we had to hike up a banking and around the trees. It was a great workout and the views were amazing.
Thursday Sheri and I did the 7:30am yoga class in the gazebo on the beach. I was soooo sore on Friday, not having done yoga in years, but I held my own in class. And the relaxation part at the end was heavenly with the waves crashing in the background.

Good Entertainment
Dan didn't get to hear his steel drums which was really disappointing... but otherwise there was great entertainment. Piano bar, disco music to dance to, local bands.

Then there was the Spotlight Entertainment around 9p each night. Wednesday night was by far the funniest. Dana and Sheri spent most of the evening on the stage. Dancing (once with a tennis ball balanced between their heads), creatively popping balloons (i told sheri to put the balloon between Dana's legs, and kick it with her high heel. worked like a charm!), and wrapping Sheri with toilet paper until she was a mummy. So many laughs. The Sandals Playmakers loved Dana. Can you blame them?

Jamaica is even fun in the rain
It rained Monday and Tuesday afternoon. As soon as we finished lunch the gray clouds filled the entire sky and the down pour ensued. Monday we chilled and watched tv, read, chatted (after I went to the gym). Tuesday we hung out in the hot tub and had a few cocktails.

Wednesday we fled to Margaritaville mid-afternoon thinking it might rain but then we got lucky and it didn't (though of course it rained for a few minutes when we got back).

Thursday I think we got a few sprinkles too.

Either way. I think it was still the best vacation ever. So relaxing (just need to remember to bring more books with me next time). I'd definitely go back. In a heart beat. Right now. If only...

we're home

jamaica was so beautiful

i can't believe we're home already

boston is cold (well, not all that cold for what it should be)

but it feels cold

i took over 500 pictures last week

and haven't really had a chance to look at them

nevermind edit

so more to come later this week

but here's a nice sunny, tropical sneak peek

for those of you who have been stuck here in the snow

missed you all!