Autumn Love

I love the country. There's just something about the land. Untouched by all the skyscrapers and eyesores that come with some cities. Yes, some. Because as much as I love the quaintness of country life, I also am a big fan of the interesting architecture and life that comes with big cities landscapes. I guess I'm just not super picky about my subjects....

But I really do love the country especially at this time of year. Fall is by far my favorite time of the year. Don't get me wrong, it has its downfalls. Well, one downfall. Because it ultimately means that winter is just around the corner. That doesn't matter though. What's not to love about the weather, the pumpkins, the beautiful trees. Really it's a photographers dream season. The colors of fall are spectacular. I haven't had any opportunities to go out and photograph the season yet this year with the exception of our trip to the pumpkin patch last weekend, but I hope to later this week before the trees lose all their colors.

I sometimes wish I could live in one of those big, old farmhouses out in the country. It would make for some awesome photo opportunities in my very own humongous backyard. No noisy neighbors. No loud traffic driving by. It would just be us and the countryside.

But then I recall snippets of horror movies. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Children of the Corn. Devils Rejects. The Shining. I Spit on Your Grave. Just to name a few. And I realize I don't want to live in a place that seems to be the choice setting for serial killers, masked murders, and psychopaths.

I'll admire from afar and visit sporadically. And I think I'll stick with my house in the suburbs and stay out of the sticks. thankyouverymuch.

Jumping on the Fitness Wagon... Again

I. am. sore. I am out of a shape in the worse possible way.

Jen took the day off work Wednesday and was insistent on going to join a gym. So we trekked all the way to West Lafayette to join Snap Fitness. So now we belong to a gym. It's only been two days and I'm already looking for excuses to not go today. My main reason being that I went twice yesterday so that should more than make up for not going today, right? I'm pretty sure my body needs a bit of a break. The extent of my exercising is usually just walking around the block or what-not. I'm not used to treadmills or ellipticals or stationary bikes and definitely not lifting weights. So needless to say, my body is probably pretty angry at me right now.

Plus I can't find my EasyFit. So if I go to the gym, I won't be able to track my calories. The EasyFit is basically a pedometer-like contraption we're supposed to wear and it keeps track of how many calories we're burning throughout the day, whether exercising or not. Plus it keeps track of "EasyFit" points. Which basically is a score of how active you've been throughout the day. The more active you are, the more points you get.

I've beginning to think that Jen stole mine so she could rack up more points than me today. Which sucks cause I may not be planning on going to the gym today but I was going to clean a bit today. So I could have easily surpassed her today. She probably hid it in the mountain of clean clothes piled on the dresser that need to be put away as a ploy to get me to put them away. Hmm.

Seriously though, I do plan going to the gym a lot now that we have a membership. I'm not one to waste money so I'm not going to waste the money we've put into it so far. Plus, like I've said before, I need to lose weight. And at least i have some sort of motivation now. If I don't go, I've thrown away all that money. I'm not willing to do that.

Boiler Up!

On a completely unrelated note, last weekend was yet another Purdue game. This one went nothing like the previous game. We lost. And we lost bad. But it was still good times. I had to share a few Lily pictures from that game. Jen made Jello shots for the game and Lily enjoyed them! Hers were obviously alcohol-free.

Bottoms Up!

Good to the last drop!

Apparently Sleeping is Overrated

I suck at this. I realize it's been more than a week since I posted anything, but every time I sit down to write something, the words don't come. The only reason I'm here right now is because it's two thirty in the morning and I can't sleep. Again.

I've been having bouts of insomnia the past few weeks. Here's a typical night for me:

• 10:00pm -- Go to bed and fall asleep with relative ease
• 12:00am -- Wake up, go pee, fall back to sleep with relative ease
• Sometime between 2:00-2:30am -- Wake up again. Lay there cursing myself for being awake again. Finally get up to go pee again thinking maybe that will help me fall back to sleep (don't ask where that logic comes from)
• 2:30am-4:30/5:00am -- Lay there hoping that maybe I'll magically fall back to sleep if I lay there with my eyes closed long enough before finally giving in and playing solitaire or fruit ninja on my ipod for hours
• ~5:00am -- Finally fall back to sleep after staring at my ipod so long that I feel like my eyes may fall out of my head if I stare at it any longer. 

At that point I'll usually sleep through Jen's alarm (which goes off at 5:30 and then proceeds to go off every ten minutes for the next forty minutes or so). I'll wake up slightly right before she leaves for work when she kisses me goodbye. And then I'll sleep on and off until around 9:00am.

Obviously this isn't how every singe night goes. The times vary from night to night. Some nights, like the one described above, are worse than others. Some aren't as bad, though I don't ever seem to sleep completely throughout the night. A good night consists of me waking up every couple of hours, but I'll actually be able to fall back to sleep instead of laying there awake for hours on end.

I know I shouldn't be complaining because at least I don't have to get up to go to work in the mornings. It's not like I can't sleep in to make up for the sleep lost during the night, but it's still frustrating. This started before my back surgery but at that point I chalked it up to not being able to sleep because or my leg/back pain. Now I don't have that excuse.

My head does seem to swim a lot lately and I don't sleep well when my brain is muddled with a million different thoughts. Which is part of the reason why I'm sitting here tonight...or this morning? (when does it cease being night and become morning?) I was hoping that writing and clearing my head a bit would help me sleep. The error in that is I've been sitting here for forty five minutes and it's taken me that long just to write all the preceding stuff. If I went ahead and spewed out everything else that was jammed into my brain I'd be sitting here for another two hours. And while that's all well and good, that doesn't exactly help me with my sleeping, it just gives me something to do and makes the hours I'm awake go by a little faster than if I was just laying in bed.

I do think there's something wrong with me though. We went to dinner last night because we have zero groceries in the house and I started crying in the car on the way. For no reason. I felt on the verge of tears when we left and at one point Jen looked over and asked if I was okay cause I looked like I was about to cry and I just lost it. I mean, who does that? I don't even know exactly why I was crying. She kept asking me what was wrong, but I literally could not explain why I was sitting there crying. I mean, I know it's almost "that time of the month", but should I really be that hormonal?

At one point she asked if I was depressed. I don't know? I've never been depressed before. Is that what it's like? Plus, what do I have to be depressed about? I have an amazing girlfriend who loves me. I have a wonderful family who loves me and would do anything for me. I have a fantastic new house. I have a job....

My job. That is one factor in my life I'm not happy with. I'm four weeks into my sick leave and I'm honestly not looking forward to going back. I haven't missed being there for the past four weeks. Every time I realize that it's been four weeks, it makes me sad because that means I'm painstakingly close to having to go back to work. I really wish I was more excited about the prospect of going back to work, but, if I'm being honest with myself, I'm not.

Hell, maybe I am depressed. I'm 27 years old and I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm not happy with my job, but what else am I going to do? Where else am I going to go?

I love my family. I love my girlfriend. I love our life together. I just wish I loved my job.

I know the solution everyone is thinking in their head right now, "Well then get off your lazy ass and find another job!" If only it were that easy. I'm honest when I say I don't know what I want to do with my life. How do you even go about starting to find another job when you don't know what you want to do? All I know is I don't want to settle. Finding another job would be all well and good, but not if it meant I'd have to look for another one in a year or two because I wasn't happy there either.

I guess it's just a vicious cycle I'll have to endure. I'm obviously never going to find what I'm looking for if I just sit back waiting for it to find me...

Walk Along the River

I decided to go to the walking bridge between Lafayette and West Lafayette yesterday. Just to get out of the house. There wasn't a whole lot going on. And no offense to Lafayette, but downtown is pretty boring. There's not a whole lot going on. Though I did find a photography studio down one side street that had some of their wedding photos posted in the window. Very nice. After I walked around downtown for a bit, I went across the river to West Lafayette. They do have a nice walking path that starts under the bridge and goes on for quite a ways. Still wasn't a lot going on. I did come across another big spider web that had an extremely gross looking spider in the middle. The thing was very fat. If I had grabbed my other lens I could have potentially gotten some cool pictures of grasshoppers and butterflies, but I didn't think I'd need it, so I left it in the car. It was impossible to get close enough with the lens that was on my camera because they were too skittish and kept hopping/flying away. I'm sure they're there today too. I should venture back out there and see if I can get some. So the most interesting pictures I got were of the water fountain in West Lafayette. I always think the water caught mid-air in the pictures looks cool.

Victory!

Why yes, yes, we did have a superb football victory on Saturday! While it is very exciting to have won another game and this time it was a complete shutout, I'm still very nervous about the rest of the season. From here on out, the teams just get harder. We may still be doomed.

This is how we roll... Yeah.

It was a fun tailgate Saturday though. Our delicious breakfast pizzas were a hit, even to people who weren't part of our tailgate. Other people tailgating in the same vicinity were coming up and asking what exactly we were making and how we did it and how we came up with such an ingenious concoction. I honestly never thought that breakfast pizzas were all that amazing until people that had never heard of them saw us making them. I mean, I'm pretty sure that I'm not the inventor of the breakfast pizza. Hell, I remember eating them for breakfast at school when I was really little. Those memories are why I decided to make my own years later when I was in high school. But I have to say, I'm sure my breakfast pizzas are a hell of a lot better than those bland things I ate in school!

And to top off our awesome tailgate we had an even more awesome game to watch. Lily had a blast during the first half. Her eyes were glued to the field for the most part. She was even more content after she spotted some popcorn a few rows down from us and then proceeded to get her very own box of popcorn. She clapping and cheering and having a good old time. She didn't make it through the second half though. She asked to go back down to the car so she could take a nap. (seriously, what two year old asks to take a nap??) But we all had fun. Unfortunately my mom missed the second half because she went
down to the car with Lily at the half, but the rest of us stayed up for the second half so we could watch Purdue cream Southeastern Missouri. There's nothing better than a shutout. And believe me, we haven't had one of those in a while. I can't remember the last time we had such a good game. We're still debating whether our team was really that good on Saturday or if their team was just really that bad. I'm kind of on the border between the two. I'm not sure, but either way, we rocked it! Our boys were kicking ass and taking names.

After the game we ventured back to my parent's house and ended up in the backyard playing some very exciting rounds of cornhole. I didn't play any games because by the time I trekked up and down the stadium stairs, sat on those hard as rock bleachers for hours, and walked around to and from the bookstores, my back wasn't feeling the best. So I just watched and kept score while they all played. It was quite humorous as none of us are very expert cornhole players. The team game lasted forever! Seriously, it kept going back and forth for what seemed like hours. Jennifer and Michael ended up beating Jen and Legend, though they sure gave them a run for their money.

Yesterday my mom treated us to a tablegating experience at BW's so we could watch the Colts game. It was a fun girl's day out, but the game wasn't pretty. They let the Cleveland Browns stomp on them. Poor Colts. They seem to be lost without Manning. They should really have that looked at because Manning isn't going to be able to quarterback for them forever. I know his career isn't over and he'll be back as soon as he's healed, but come on Colts, you're going to have to learn how to win games without him. Because sometime in the future (hopefully not the near future) he will have to retire and you will have to learn how to play like the Colts we know and love without him...

Fall is in the Air!

Touchdown!

It's September and you know what that means! Yes! The start of Purdue football!

Yes, I know. Purdue's season started labor day weekend, but I was out of commission and missed the first home game and last weekend was an away game, so tomorrow starts the official tailgating season!! I think it's safe to say that we're all pretty excited about this season. Not so much because we're going to kick ass (because anyone that has watched Purdue's previous games this season knows how ugly they're playing... and these are the no name teams we're talking about... ND, OSU, et al are going to be brutal unless Purdue steps it up) but because Lily is going to be so much fun this year!

Forget cheerleading. She's ready to play!

Don't get me wrong she was pretty fun last year, but she's much more vocal this year. We've already taught her how to say Boiler Up (with the hand pump and everything) along with the traditional 1, 2, 3, 4, First Down! For example, we were watching an NFL game this past Sunday. Lily was sitting at her table in front of the TV eating her dinner. She heard the announcer say that the team had gotten a first down. Without missing a beat she goes, "1! 2! 3! First Down!" She doesn't quite count it out right, but it's hilarious. She is totally ready for some Purdue football!

Hopefully I'll be able to report a successful game tomorrow. And by successful I mean a win that wasn't inches away from a loss. I have faith in my team. I can't wait to be up in the stands again.

I love fall. For its beautiful foliage. Its beautiful weather. But most of all, for the football!

Lily Randomness

I'm probably biased but I have the most awesome niece ever. She is hilarious. We often wonder what we did to entertain ourselves before she was born. Because now a days we spend our free time watching her and laughing at her ridiculousness. As fun as it was when she was a baby, she's even more fun now that she can talk. We could probably have an entire episode of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" just starring Lily. And the funniest thing about her is that she cracks herself up! My mom was saying yesterday that when she picked her up from the sitter on Monday, she sat in the back of "Lightning McQueen" (that's what she calls my mom's red jetta) talking about how silly/funny she was.

Ask her what she wants to be for Halloween and she'll say something off the wall like a scary chicken, but then say, "no, how about a ghost." My mom spent Monday evening playing EMT with her new fire engine. She yanked Mr. Potato Head's arms off and proceeded to exclaim that he was hurt and needed to go to the hospital. After her toy fire engine got him to the hospital, she put his arms back on (backwards) and said he was all better. When my mom pointed out that his arms were on backwards she just stated that it was okay, he just needed a band-aid.

Her newest obsession is Halloween. We took her to the Halloween store that recently opened for the season and she loved it. She ran around from item to item exclaiming how "scary" everything was and giggling nervously. Really, it's how she says the word "scary".  It's not just scary, it's scaaaawy. And recently everything scary needs blood. We have no idea where this came from. But she was helping put Halloween window clings up at my mom's house and kept saying she needed "bloooood". And again, it's how she says blood. You'd have to hear it. But now the pumpkins on the window need blood, the ghosts need blood, and everything else you can think of needs blood. She's crazy.

We recently introduced her to the joys of play-doh. We've had a can of it forever, but had forgotten about it until a few weeks ago. Of course playing play-doh with her consists of us molding dinosaurs or balloons or whatever her little brain comes up with while she watches, but it's still fun. This week we dug out the cookie cutters and she just told us what shapes to make the dough into. But then she didn't want to destroy any of "her" creations, so it took some coaxing after we ran out of dough to mess things up to make new things.

I told you she was awesome. Even her shirt knows it.

Fish Face

The decided to make a "turd" for the doggie

Pointing out the doggie's turd. They're not right...