I'm Late, I'm Late

Racing out the door. Catching a flight to Ireland. Nephew's christening this weekend. Pleeeeaaaaase, Atlanta traffic, cooperate with a girl in a major hurry.

Maybe the shortest blog I've ever written.

And The Answer Is.........

Oh Husband, you seriously underestimate the wife and what she is capable of when left unsupervised.

The answer is  [D]   ALL OF THE ABOVE

So I hope you were the big winner at the casino. If not, you may want to consider a return trip to hit it up Ocean's 11, 12 & 13 style.

See you soon : )

Dear Husband

This past weekend, while you were vacationing , working in Europe, the wifey

[A]  Went to the salon, got her hair and nails did while catching up with an old friend.

[B]  Saw a cute dress in a store window, went in to try cute dress on and walked out 1 hour later having purchased half the store.

[C]  Was inspired by all the HGTV and DIY Network shows we've seen and so decided it would be a good idea to "Flip this House" all by HERSELF.

                                                                       OR

[D]  All of the above.

P.S. Your silence on my blog will no longer be tolerated. You are expected to guess.

The Fintanator

Fintan is at it again. Not a day goes by but he shows up with some captured creature. For the most part its just some routine butterflies and lizards but every now and then he hits the jackpot and will arrive home with something completely unexpected.

The unexpected this time, was a baby bunny rabbit. I know. Shocking. Husband called to me from downstairs telling me to come quick, Fintan caught a baby rabbit. Instantly I was upset and my concern was for the rabbit. What was the damage? Was he dead? Injured? If injured, then how bad? Honestly, I couldn't handle it. I love my kitty, but I'm not a big fan of his hunting instincts.

As luck would have it, baby bunny appeared to be unharmed. He was absolutely terrified, which is completely understandable, but there were no signs of blood and all limbs, eyes, ears and tail we present and accounted for. Bunny does not know how lucky he was.

This little guy was sure he was done for when I whipped out the point n' shoot to snap his mugshot.

Even a delicate stroke did nothing to reassure him.

The Classy Couple

This week saw Husband’s return from a 10 day stint in Europe. Yipeee. Don’t get too excited for me though, it was just for the week. Yes, I had borrowed time. The world of track and field gave us 1 week of visiting rights before he must resume his post of “Track Agent” on the European circuit. So this weekend we decided to make the most of our last few days together. 

Friday after work I announced to Husband that he was taking me to dinner. “Sweet”, he said, “we can go to Taco Mac”. For those of you who may not know, Taco Mac is a sports bar. A place of good wings, good beer, good craic and wall to wall tv’s showing all kinds of sporting event. Basically, a fun place. However, this particular evening I had gone all out in the feminine stacks. My hair was all did, my make-up was flawless and I had opted to wear an ultra fem skirt and boob enhancing top. Shoot, I even donned a fabulous pair of ghetto girl earrings. A wife was looking and feeling fabulous.  

I stared at him for a second, I was searching for signs of “just kidding”, but nothing. “Seriously??”  I said. “Look at me, I’m too pretty for Taco Mac tonight”. “But baby, the Red Sox are playing” was his response. Right there I knew there was no way we were doing the romantic thing. A wife knows better than to come between a Husband and his Red Sox. 

I will say one thing about Husband before I move on to the rest of our weekend, Be-Prepared-For-Anything. And this particular night, anything = fight. Yes, Husband and I were close enough to overhear a very heated “debate” between a Braves fan (Atlanta’s baseball team) and a Yankees fan (New York’s baseball team). As a person from Boston and a Red Sox fan, Husband is bred to hate, HATE, HATE the Yankees so he was literally poised, ready to jump to the aid of the Braves fan if the situation required. I was instructed to “take the wife”, of the Yankees fan. Great, the one night I’m dressed all girlie, he needs me to fight. I give wife the once over. Yeah, I gots her, but I do need to remove my ghetto girl earring, I don’t need Yankee wife getting the edge purely as a result of ripping my ear-lopes off. Luckily, the evening never came to blows. Braves dude eventually left and honestly, I have to say, Husband seemed a little disappointed.  

Today, we opted to play the part of a civilized couple going green. Yes, early this morning we took our bikes and decided to cycle our way to brunch. Here, photobook style is our morning.

Look who got herself a new point n' shoot. Here Husband is clearly the holder of the yellow jersey as we Tour de Atlanta our way to brunch.

Yes mam, this little place is where we stopped for refueling. Very Deep South.

Back on the bikes apres refueling.

Husband wonders why you should stick to the roads, when you can randomly take a trail and speculate about where you would end up.

Shinks, prefers to know where she is going, but follows along anyway.

Not easy to snap yourself while cycling.

This is where Husband's trial took us. Believe it or not, this is someone's backyard. Am so jealous.

A nosey neighbor.

Homeward bound.

Family Moments

It was a couple of weeks ago when a new photographer friend of mine, Amy, invited me along to one of her photo shoots. Of course I said yes. The opportunity to work alongside a professional photographer, to observe and learn, would be silly to pass up. Amy was awesome. Not only did she allow me to annoy her with my many questions, but she set me free to shoot too. And boy did I shoot. Honestly, I couldn't help myself. The family we were shooting was nothing short of sweet, loving and adorable and little Erin, too cute, just waaay too cute. They really made me push and challenge myself with my camera as I tried to capture just how warm, caring, loving and devoted this little family was, I hope I succeeded?!?

Here are just some of the photos from our shoot. I know there's a lot, but trust me, there were many more where they came from. 

The setting sun allowed me to capture these next 2 silhouetted shots. I love them.

Recharging

Its been a weekend of recharging. Hanging with friends, eating out, catching movies. Really the most productive I've been was folding my pile of clean laundry. Huge for me, since I canNOT stand folding laundry. I hate it more than I can clearly and plainly articulate. As a result, laundry has become one of Husband's chores. For some unknown reason, he likes it. However, Husband has been gone for 10 days and in his absence the laundry pile took on a life of its own. Growing at a rapid rate and threatening to takeover the whole right hand side of the room. So as my good deed for the day and a pleasant surprise for Husband's homecoming, I folded.

I also spent some time going through the photos I shot recently of the cutest little girl, Erin and her parents. I'll post a bunch of photos soon, but until then here's a sneak peek at Little Miss Erin.

This little girl is almost too cute for words. That blond curly hair, those big blue eyes and rosie lips. Adorable

I Wanted To Blog

I wanted to blog this week. I wanted to blog and share my tails of savage beat downs on the track, of the training kind obviously and not some random acts of violence. Of yet more run-in's with ants. I wanted to share some more of my photos and give you an update on my kitty, Fintan. Fintan, who had been puking almost daily. Who I knew was not right but had been told by others (others = you Husband), that he was "fine, its just hair balls and heat".  But a mother knows. A mother knows when her "child" is struggling with something more than hair balls and heat. And after the vet's urine, poo and blood tests reveled nothing usual, I told her she was missing something. Things were not right and she needed to look harder. She suggested an x-ray, not cos she believed it necessary but only to appease me and my over-protective approach to my kitty. "Do it" I said. So she did. 

I wanted to blog about the bird the x-ray reveled was sitting in Fintan's lower intestine. A bird he had obviously been hunting and swallowed and who's bones were now stuck, blocking his whole internal digestive process. I wanted to blog about how I was right. That my kitty was sick and that I was not just some sort of crazy, over-protective mother.

I wanted to blog about all of this, but I couldn't. Fatigue hit me hard this week. Energy has been in short supply and my brain has been very limited in its ability to string sentences together. I resemble nothing more than a dead woman walking and barely walking at that. So bare with me as I find a way to recharge and get my usual high energy life back on track

Happy 4th of July

Yesterday was America's Independence Day and Shinks celebrated by being one of 50,000 people to run The Peachtree 10k. This is the biggest 10k in the US and its run every 4th of July here in Atlanta.

I'm not going to lie and say it was easy, it was tough. The heat was intense, even at 8am, which is when the race started but also I was running it hard, trying to better the time I ran in the same race 2 years previously. What can I say, I'm a competitor, always have been, I don't know how to do anything "just for fun". However, trying to navigate your way around thousands and thousands of people who are in fact there for the fun is seriously frustrating. And I did get a few "relax, its not that serious" comments as I hurdled small children, or "brushed" an elbow or 2 in my efforts to power forward and pick off the slower folks. Clearly these people did not know who they were dealing with, it was in fact "that serious", I was on a mission and had a target to achieve.

I did end up running over 2 minutes faster than my time from 2 years ago but couldn't helping wondering how much faster it could have been had I not been bobbing, weaving and hurdling the masses. But I guess faster is faster at the end of the day, so one should just zip up and be pleased

After the race my friend Mike and I hit a small restaurant for breakfast and a celebratory mimosa and beer. We dined al fresco so we could cheer and clap the rest of the Peachtree participants on towards the finish. Its still a tough race wether you walk, jog or haul ass so a little encouragement never hurts. 

Yes for a powerful run and a patriotic wave of the flag.

Someone looks too fatigued to be even holding that teeny flag.

Ok, not sure what I was going for here, just got an urge and went with it.

Bestfriends, Captured.

I finally finished going through the photos I took of my friend Derval. For those of you who don't know, Derval is a kick-ass 100m hurdler who has won medals for Ireland at World and European Championships. We became friends many, many years ago, on a trip to Latvia with the Irish track team. We hit it off instantly and as a result, we shared not just a room for roughly 8-10 years but athletic successes and failures, clothes and hairbrushes, wine and beers, tons of memories and stories and the odd vacation or 2. 

I was so excited when Derval agreed to let me practice shoot with her, but was also very nervous. I don't really know why. I think cos we are such good friends and have a long and hilarious history together, I really, really wanted to have some great shots to give her. The photos turned out pretty good. I'm still a work in progress as far as the photography goes and even though I was having some frustrating camera issues, I wasn't too unhappy with the final result.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few more from our day on Howth Beach, Dublin.