Absent due to Major Changes

You may have noticed my absence on my blogs as of late. Not only are Dave and I very busy with our wedding preparations (which I am hoping to update you all with shortly), I am also working on some BIG changes for my blogs and for my photography business overall.

Some of the changes need a fair bit more research before I can announce them, but the changes for my photography blog should be ready sometime this weekend!! Hopefully the changes for this blog won't be far behind.

I am super excited to share it all with you and I hope you check in to see what's going on.

Playing Catch-up

The time has come, again, for me to write another post about how busy I have been and how poorly I have been doing in keeping my blogs up to date. That all being said, I am working on some more posts for the rest of November and into December. Hopefully I will be able to get some more regular posts going until Christmas when I should have some downtime – maybe.

Lately Dave and I have been busy with not only work and the gym, but making the last few decisions on where our wedding will be. Once we have worked out a few more things, I will post about all the details (so far).

 

I have also been working diligently on my final photography course assignment and am pretty happy with how it is turning out so far. I have been learning all sorts of new tricks and am going to start posting some tips and tricks on my photography blog – so stay tuned for that.

 

For now though, bear with me once more as I try to sort through the craziness that is life.

It’s Been A while

So it has been a while since I last posted…quite a while actually. I think this may have been the longest break from blogging ever (well since I started blogging that is). The reason for this is simply that life has been crazy busy lately – in fact it has been kicking my butt. Figuring out how to be a good and attentive Aunt while keeping on top of my busy workload, classes and my own business all while planning a wedding and attempting to stay on top of my weight loss has just been wearing me down lately. I used to say that I was treading water and managing to keep my head above water but in the last few weeks I have started to feel my head drifting below the water level and at times I felt like I was drowning. There was (and still is) so much stress lately that I don’t really know what to do with it all. I haven’t figured it out, not in the least actually, and am still stressed and have so much to do that I can’t ever see not being stressed to the max, but I need to figure out how to live my life with all of these things in it as it is appearing to be a normal state of life for me.

All of this being said, I have found/made some time this weekend to work on my blogs. I am hoping that seeing regular posts go up for the next little while will inspire me to continue to find/make time for blogging as I really do enjoy it.

Incoming House

You may have noticed a lapse inposts again...though I had time to sit down last month and put together the scheduled regular features, I have not had that luxury this month. We get possession of our house on Wednesday and are scrambling to get everything ready. Please bear with me once again as I attempt to get my blogs organized amidst all of this chaos!!

I’m Back!!!

I know it has been a while, but I am back now. I am spending most of the rest of this afternoon sitting by an open window, enjoying the fresh air, my backyard garden and the sunlight while I blog away. In other words, there should be regular posts for the next month or so despite how busy I will likely be.

 

What have I been busy with you ask? Well for those of you who don’t already know, Dave and I have been advancing our lives a fair bit lately. We are obviously planning our wedding which is very time consuming despite the fact that we are planning a wedding that is well over a year away. We have also signed up at Goodlife gym and gotten ourselves personal trainers (to learn more about this, check out my health blog, The Road to a Better Me – it too is getting updated today). We also made one of the biggest purchases we will ever make…we bought a house. I will create more specific posts about each of these things later, but for now I think this is enough to understand just how busy our personal lives have been lately. Oh, and I am also planning a baby shower for my sister-in-law with my mom which has taken a little bit of work as well (invitations, ideas, gift shopping, etc), though to be honest, this one wasn’t as much work as the others. In fact it was quite fun to send out invitations and look at baby things.

Blog of Note: December

As pretty much everyone knows, I love photos. I really love old photos. Forgotten Old Photos is a blog dedicated to posting old photos found in antique shops garage sales, etc. They have had several successful reunions with the old photos by returning them with the families of the subjects.

Overwhelmed

My life the past month has been more than a little overwhelming. Work has been very hectic, leaving me tired and burnt out by the time the weekend comes.  Laundry, groceries and housework all seem to get put off as long as possible – and those are the things that I actually need to do to keep running on a day to day basis. I feel like I don’t even have time to refuel before Monday comes. I very badly need some time off, at least a week if not more is needed, but I really don’t know if it is at all possible.
My photography is rather active as well. I have had a few clients this year and am trying to wrap up a few things for them before the end of the year. My most recent photography class has been awesome to say the least, but it also needs a lot of time and commitment on my part to ensure everything gets done and done to my standards.
I am quickly running out of time for Christmas. Normally by now I would have almost all of my gifts purchased and the few I still had left I knew of, just needed to arrange or finalize. I haven’t really even started this year – the ones I do know about need a great deal more work and the ones I don’t --- well I really don’t know about them.
As you readers can probably tell, I have been running on fumes in terms of my blog. I set up the features a month in advance and pretty much let the blogs take care of themselves. All I can say about that is thank goodness for scheduled posts or else all my blogs might have been completely barren for the past month or so.
I am getting December’s feature posts ready over the next couple of days and hopefully will be able to find the energy and topics to do some non-feature posts as well. *fingers crossed*

Blog of Note: November

Blog of note this month is a tasty blog entitled Love Letters in a Pan. Dave’s sister and her best friend have created a really original recipe blog in which they write letters to each other about their most recent baking and/or cooking endeavour. Check it out for some really tasty food ideas.

Green Ideas

I know I am not always the greatest at staying on top of my feature

s, but I really do enjoy them. I have made a new one recently and decided to call it Green Ideas. As the name implies, it will be quick tips and suggestions for greening up your life. T

opics from electricity and water saving to dispelling common myths will be discussed and I am working on a few longer discussion like posts as well. As always, comments and suggestions  are always appreciated.

Blog of Note: September

So I have been slacking with my Blogs of Note so I spent a few hours surfing the net finding some really interesting sites…this is one of them.

LoopyBoopy is a blog showcasing Art Dolls created by Colleen Downs. They are slightly creepy and very odd and actually remind me of Tim Burton characters…perhaps that is why I like them and find them very interesting.

Scheduled Posts

I have said it before and I will say it again – I love Scheduled Posts!!! I think it was the best thing Blogger introduced to its users and has enabled me to do so much with my blog. It is actually very likely that I would have stopped blogging by now if it wasn’t for this feature. My day-to-day life is too busy with work and night courses and entertainment that I think I would only post at best once a week without scheduled posts.
I spent several hours this long weekend getting the next two months worth of posts scheduled (features at least – the remaining posts are done more or less on the fly). I created a new feature to be introduced on the 24th of this month. I had been working on it for two weeks now but wanted a little emoticon graphic for at the end and finally got the time and motivation to sit down and create it (it’s not that impressive and wasn’t time consuming, I just enjoy procrastinating).
Now it is off to cross a few more items off my to do list…though I do have two more feature posts to write for September and October.

Guest Post XVII

The final guest post is up today. Not a very long post – in fact it is really just an altered photo to interpret Chris’ trip to Iceland. Check it out.

Daria

Daria originally aired on MTV from 1997-2002. It was created by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn. For those of you who don’t know the show, or didn’t have the pleasure of watching an episode or two, it is about “a smart, acerbic and somewhat misanthropic high school girl” (Wikipedia).

I bought the complete series (five seasons and two movies) from Amazon for just over 50 bucks and am really happy with it. I watched it pretty much non-stop all weekend – though it did give me lots of time to catch up on blogging.

Guest Post XVI

What I believe to be the second last post over at Always Standing went up a few days ago. It is all about my and Chris’ trip to England way back in 2008.

Guest Post XII, XIII, XIV and XV

The guest posts over on Always Standing are starting to wind down now (I wrote a total of 17 posts and we are apparently up to number 15). That being said, I have been slacking in letting you know of their existence so here is a longer post about each of the guest posts I have missed.

Post XII was supposed to be about Russian vodka but now that I try to create a link, it seems to be blank now...interesting...will have to inform Chris about that. Either way, perhaps it is jus tmy computer or perhaps it will be fixed shortly so check it out in a little while.

In the meantime, check out Post XIII. This is a more in depth post about my weight loss blog Road to a Better Me. I talk about my past success and also my current inspirations for joining Curves and taking a better stab at making my life healthier.

Post XIV is all about Ottawa Festivals. They are a wonderful aspect of this beautiful city that I really enjoy. Of course my favourite is the Tulip Festival, as any of my readers will know, but I also enjoy Winterlude and some of the smaller festivals in town. Greekfest just ended and The Gatineau Balloon Festival is coming up shortly.

And finally (for now at least) Post XV was just posted today and is all about My and Dave's morning routine. It's pretty short so a really easy read if you don't have a lot of time this morning.

That is all of them until XVI and XVII are posted in the next week or so. Chris comes back to Canada in a little while so no more guest posts then, but many more (regular) posts from the world traveller - which I know I am excited about.

Guest Posts X and XI

So once again I have gotten behind in the guest post updates over on Always Standing. The two latest ones are rather different from each other. Guest Post X is a recipe for peanut butter cookies, one of two peanut butter based foods that Chris likes. Guest Post XI is a brief synopsis of my trip to Stonehenge and my attempt to describe what that meant to me. I didn't succeed in getting it across really, just as I didn't when I wrote out my journal for the trip either, but it is still a pretty good attempt and has a photo to boot!

Guest Posts VIII and IX

Oops...it appears I missed informing you of two of my guest posts over on Always Standing. My posts about the magical Super Freeze button and my 5 favourite gifts are now posted and ready for you to enjoy.

Guest Post VI

Part 2 of Planes Train and Automobiles is up on Always Standing.

Guest Post V

My fifth guest spot over on Always Standing is the beginning of a three-post series called Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The posts are predominantly about travel in the three forms and memorable trips I have taken using each. Check it out. :)

Guest Post IV

“Vegas Baby” is going up on Always Standing today. My fourth guest post is about a future trip Dave and I intend on taking to Las Vegas.