A couple more late light...

So I was coming to the end of my due date and had to get a couple more "non-commercial" photos for class so I went downtown to the bus/train depot but did NOT like them so I got a couple of the clock "tower" downtown. =) I LOVE the way the light hits the building. Even in B/W it makes the building look beautiful.

Late light

Jaleesa was so kind to volunteer for me to practice my late light shooting for my Photo class. It's a B/W assignment and this is what we came up with...

Why it means so much...

So I'm a fanatic, weird, pushy and whatever other adjective you want to insert. About what? Getting out of debt. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT IT!! For about 2 1/2 months Mat and I have faithfully created and tried our best to stick to a budget. Still learning and realizing that there's no such thing as a perfect month, we keep pushing through and have been able to pay hundreds to our  debt. Our goal is to be debt free so that we can be in a great position to invest and buy a home. But the biggest thing in all this is the PEACE that we feel. If we go off budget we know that its not going to break us and we have a peace knowing we have a baby emergency fund. Everything we do is in cash--in our minds building and bowing to the great FICO isn't worth the lack of peace and the stress of making ends meet. It feels so great to be united with Mat on one of the biggest issues and causes of divorce in America--our finances. I wish I could describe how great it feels to be ONE with him.

You may have noticed the tracker on the right--yep we are $27,800 in debt and here is the breakdown:

• Citicards (aka Stupid Debt #1)=$2,100! 
  
• Providian (aka Stupid Debt #2)=$4,700!
• Nissan (aka Stupid Debt #3)=$12,000!
• School Loans (aka Myth: You Can't Have a Student without a Loan)=$9,000
• TOTAL: $27,800.00

We've have had a whole paradigm shift about debt and how its "supposed" to work. Truth is...its not worth the risk and we do NOT want to be slave to these banks the rest of our lives. Proverbs 22:7 says "The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender." We're done being slaves. We're done working for our money only to have to give it to someone else because we couldn't say no to ourselves. We're done. We are living like no one else.......so later.....we can live like no one else. Join us as we celebrate our journey to freedom!!

3 Little Ladies

I had my cousins over for the last two weeks. Oh-my-god I was so tired when they left, but I had so much fun with them here. We went to the park, the Tech, the IMAX, bought school supplies, lost shoes, learned skates etc. We had fun. Totally am so jealous of all the hair they have!!! Aren't they cute?!?

Camping

Last Friday I took a bunch of the girls on a very spontaneous camping trip. We had totally planned to do something else but ended up at Mt. Madonna. We had a lot of fun. We roasted marshmallows, ran out of hot chocolate water (Nicole tried to warm up water over the fire CONVINCED that the thermos would heat up the water on the inside EVEN THOUGH the whole point of a thermos is to maintain the temperature of whatever is INSIDE of it despite the temperature on the OUTSIDE), slept on the hard ground with a pillow and a blanket or in the back of Kandice's truck, told not very scary ghost stories and got kicked out of our stargazing position by the rangers (poor Steffy's knee). Then we packed up the next morning and headed back home. Poor Jaleesa and Nika were so tired because they had been on the beach all day (we almost lost Jaleesa but God kept her from a rip-tide **yikes**). Anyhow, totally have to do it again.~side note~ The picture of the group Nicole looks really great....................................................................................she was really stuck in the tree.

***starting new topic***


Steffy started driving lessons the other day. HAD to get a picture of her in her STUDENT DRIVER car!! I remember when I took driving lessons and we went on a back windy road and at the first turnout the instructor had me pull over and ALL these cars went past (so embarrassing because of the huge yellow sticker on the back)--so Steffy had to suffer some humiliation. Isn't she cute!?!

I'm Legal

Hey I'm legal!! I can now be taxed for all the work I do. Three cheers for taxes-- hip hip eeewwwww!!!!

School...and all that Jazz

Well surprises of all surprises--guess who changed her major again!!?!? =) I actually met this lady who was the Chair of the Art Dept and she said she never got her BA. She went to, and I may have this backwards, it was either 9 schools for 11 years or 11 schools for 9 years but she went straight to an MFA. And she said one thing you don't hear a lot of professors and especially Chairs say--that completing school if you have a career or if business is taking off for you may not be what fits in your lifestyle at that time. And it was all about the life style. She didn't say to never finish!!--but if my photography took off then just finish school at my pace. I know I've definitely not been the cookie cutter four year student. You know on the myspace page where it asks you about me?? I know it may sound a little stupid but it took me a long time to finally come up with that section. I won't say everything was time wasted, there are times that I would do if different but now I finally get to do something that I truly love. And I'm not too shabby at. Still have a lot to learn but that'll come with time...and lenses. BTW--my birthday is in two weeks...

Auuuugggghhhhh....MISSING FINGER TIP!!!!

Okay so its actually not the whole finger tip, but somewhere between a dowel rod (see picture) and a piece of cabinetry is Mat's finger tip. He had this nice hole in his finger tip. Poor guy. It happened on Thursday while he was working and we've been doing follow up hospital visits all day today. The dowel rod went straight through his finger and into the hole in the cabinet with the glue and PINNED his finger to the cabinet piece. He had a MINOR surgical procedure to to push the bone down cause it wasn't lying flat and used a tiny stitch to minimize the exposure of the bone. They can't really close up what's not there anymore so his skin just has to grow back. I'd post a picture but I haven't gotten it yet, Phil has it. Anyhow, just posting about my poor baby.

THIS IS WHAT WENT THROUGH THE TOP OF HIS FINGER AND OUT THE OTHER END. THANK GOD IT WAS MINOR DAMAGE TO THE MUSCLE, NERVES AND TENDONS!! I'll have to post a picture of the cabinet part--he did keep that!


Well I'm off to dinner with my sisters--Olive Garden!!

Lina

Happy Birthday to Lina!! She's 17 today so I had to get at least one picture done just for her. This is my favorite of the bunch! The rest will be posted on my Sneek Peek Blog later this weekend. Enjoy!

Aren't we handsome?

Well he is at the very least. We went out a did a shoot--just the three of us. Me, him and the tri-pod. This is one of my favorites from the bunch. If you click the pic you can see some more.