The "Rest" of the Summer

In July we flew to NJ twice for weddings 2 weeks apart. We stayed for a week after the first (my step sister’s) and so we were only in Georgia for 6 days and we were flying back. The second wedding was for a family I grew up with, a girl I've known since she was born- she called my parent's aunt and uncle. Since we've started photographing professionally, it has really been fun to photograph for people the we've known for a long time- Charles and Ben Greenwald were college roommates, I've photographed several weddings for people I went to high school with, my Dad's wedding, etc. It's really been wonderful.







Our new NJ wedding tradition is to photograph on Saturday, drive to the shore Saturday night, and surf Sunday morning. We hit two really great surfing weeks both times, and were able to go several mornings in a row. We were short one board, so Charles actually stayed on the beach for part of one of the sessions and let me surf with his brother and college friend Nate. It’s the first official record of me surfing, and I don’t expect there will be many more beautiful days that Charles is willing to photograph me from the beach, but I’m thankful for the picture.

June and July were as crazy as May, if not worse. My work piled up, I was working days and nights and weekends again (ah the joy of working for yourself). However, that sentence is in past tense, because now it's August. It's miserably hot outside, kids have started back to school and I have had two straight weeks now with no new jobs. So, I'm doing things like finally ordering my Dad's wedding album (which I finished designing 2 months ago) and making dinner when I can figure out what to do with meat. I told Charles today, if he just tells me what he'd like, I can try to make it. I could make great breakfasts and lunches, but dinner? I don't know what I want until, well, I want it- so trying to plan to make a dinner is really hard.

Charles started working at GMI this Monday, and being home alone all day also helps me plow through jobs. So I'm trying to catch up before my next wedding at the end of August. It will feel really good not to be so behind. Also, now that Charles is at GMI, we're not going to be desparate for me to take every possible photo job, so I'm going to try to take fewer jobs, so that I'm not as crazy. Charles has been coming home very happy from GMI. Of course he doesn't have a full counseling schedule yet or anything, but it is encouraging that he likes the place. So life is new, at least a little.

Gordy is indefinitely amusing. Charles came home the other evening and walked into our downstairs bathroom and started calling me saying he thought the toilet was leaking because there was water everywhere. Gordy also came to investigate and I bent over and picked up a very wet rabbit. He’s always hopping up on stuff- his cage, our couches, our bowflex- and several times when I couldn’t find him, I ran into the bathroom afraid he had fallen into the toilet. Luckily he was able to hop out, but I think it took several tries because there was water sprayed in every direction in the bathroom. But, at least now we know he can get out. I drew a little picture of a rabbit sitting in water and taped it to the lid with a note “please close lid” which Charles has already removed.

The only really bad thing that Gordy does (other than chasing Sandy, our houseguest) is chew wood moldings- which is pretty bad. So, I went to the pet store and thought I would outsmart my rabbit and bought a spray called “phooey” which has very little odor, but is supposed to taste terrible to animals, and therefore train them not to chew certain things. Well, Gordy was interested in my spraying, and came over to investigate, and to my horror started lapping up the wet area, hop over to the spray bottle and try to chew the spout. Hmm, phooey on me, I guess. I think I’ll take it back and let them know my little rabbit wants more.