Can you handle it?

The free internet from Bowling Green popped back up yesterday, so I should be able to update my blog on a more regular basis!
B and I got home from our trip to Claire's on Sunday night around 11. Really, we got back around 6:45, but we stopped to pick up Claws from the Rexroats house, and that took longer than expected. We played with the puppy, played baseball, caught lightning bugs and rolled down the hill. Really, I think we were just glad to be out of the car. It was a exciting weekend! We found a kitten on Wednesday, I went to the gym with Claire, B played golf and photoshopped, Claire and I regular shopped, and I unofficially broke my toe on the bathroom door. I also bought a pair of these. Solid $10 investment. They're very comforting on a broken pinky toe.
Anyway, the trip was fun. I think that counts as Brian and my first road trip together, and it was a long one. We'll be driving to Gatlinburg on the 9th, so that will feel super short compared to Fuquay-Varina! Pictures from our weekend at the Morrow B&B can be found here =)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1975883355677.2108304.1200870101&l=fc919638ef

My sports marketing class has ended, I was two points away from an A. C'est la vie.
I'm halfway through with my geography class, and I'll probably kill some of the quizzes this week since I have internet and Wednesday night off! I'm not sure what else is going on that's exciting. I survived babysitting those four kids, and she has since asked me to come back once they get home for vacation. I also got to watch 9-month-old Brody, who gets upset and can be calmed by going swimming. best. babysitting job. EVER.
After a long weekend of spending money like it was my job, I returned home to turn on one air conditioner, buy a "cats rule" sign at tj maxx, and a filter for the turtle aquarium. Little ole Bowling Green doesn't compare to Fuquay/Varina/Cary/Holly Springs/Lillington/where ever else we went with Claire.
I'm picking up extra hours at the office to make up for it, though. Also I want to buy an iPad. And a new lens for our August and October weddings. I have such pricey hobbies.
I think that's about it for now. I'll soon be changing my picture to the one of me and North Face's "Cat's Meow" sleeping bag. If I ever go camping, that's the bag for me. Or, ya know....the one I already own that's not $200.

Either way, that's all for meow.
-Cat

It's June?

Somebody forgot to inform Mother Nature what June is supposed to feel like, and kindly remind her that this is not August, and I'm a bit too poor to afford cooling my apartment in THIS kind of heat all summer long.
Ok, maybe actually I can, but I'm not gonna like it.
Not that I'm a professional server yet, but in both weeks I've worked at Montana Grille, I've had one night off a week. During the week it's usually slow and I get to come home way before we close. Some nights I make $14, some nights I make $84, it just depends. But I'm getting the hang of things there! Most of the people are really fun, and I enjoy wearing mens long sleeve dress shirts. I might take up cross-dressing as my new hobby.
Just kidding. I don't have time for any new hobbies! I'm 75% done with my marketing class, and my geography class starts Monday. I can work as far ahead in geography as I want, so hopefully the one-week overlap won't kill me.
I think it's safe to say that I'll be glad when my classes are over. Working 7:30-3 is tiring as is, (especially when people think they can apply on a Wednesday and start classes on Monday, realize it's not possible, and then yell at me. Such a pleasant week I'm having.)but add serving from 5-10 on top of that and I am TOAST at the end of the night. But then I have to study. And usually forgot to eat supper. All the fun summer shorts I bought from Old Navy are all now too big. Which is good, I guess, but also sad because that's what I have to wear to work. Their long shorts are the bomb.
Anyway.
Brian and I kept the Rexroat kids last weekend (May 20-23. Suzy 6, Gavin 3, Katie 2) and have since decided that we're never having children. No big deal.
I spent Memorial Day fishing with Phil Kimbel, and elder from Greenwood Park, cleaning said fish, and then swimming and eating with his son's family. One of Kelly's friends was there and had just gotten back from Africa, and she was with the group that one of our WKU tour guides is on! Crazy stuff.
Quick relationship chart.
David=Phil's son. Kelly=David's wife. Tiffany=Kelly's best friend.
Since our Memorial Day fiasco, I have been asked to babysit Tiffany's kids. Did I mention there are four of them? Ending in almost two-year-old twin boys? I'm really never having children.
Other than that, I'm having my first real life experience paying for groceries and bills. Since I'm still taking class, Momma and Daddy agreed to pay rent, but that's where it ends. Thus the reason I'm trying to avoid the a/c as much as possible. Claws hates me, I'm sure.
Oh, also I got an HTC freestyle. I less than love it. But, it was $20 bucks, and it works. So that's where I'm leaving it.

I think that's all that is new in the Bowling Green area. I'm very much looking forward to the weekend, even after a short week.

Cat

Oh, just forgot. We're meeting with a girl today about shooting her wedding next May! Super pumped! And we have a possible October wedding as well.

Update

An update just to update.
I start work at Montana Grille tonight, wish me luck =)

Cats vs. Babies

Cats are better than babies because:
you don't have to clean up their poop on a daily basis.
[ie, changing diaper vs. changing litter box]

Babies are better than cats because:
their claws aren't as sharp.
[ie, scratches all over my chest from Claws running laps around the bed]

Nascar Style

I forgot my MacBook charger, so this is going to be one heck of a quick update.

twitter.com/topperquirrel

That's possibly my new favorite thing.
I put together a pretty fun multimedia piece this week. Some of the audio was crap, and the owner kicked me out of the shop, so I think I'm gonna add it to my list of "things to shoot this summer."

I'm about to sign the lease on my next (way pricier) apartment for this fall.
I'm currently filling out my application for The Herald. I don't plan on doing any writing, just editing, because my schedule next semester will be photo-heavy.

Brian and I are working 13 hours this Saturday. PAY DAY! I love making $10 an hour.

I keep wearing the same jeans every Tuesday/Thursday. I really need to either do laundry or shave my legs. Both of these options are equally time consuming.

This week is Greek week, so I've been bonding with all the Fiji's. It's been glorious.

I put together a Facebook page for [bc]photography. You should find us and like us. And remember, the brackets make the difference.

Claws butt dialed Katie DeCillo last night. I kid you not. He sat on my phone, called her AND put her on speaker phone. I really do think he's taking over my life. Especially judging by the way he pounces on me until I get out of bed to feed him. Fatty. But he is a very cuddle baby.
Also, do I really want to pay $30 a month for him? Ahhhhh. I need another job. The Herald? Ok. I can't not have my kitten. He's my best friend and favorite cuddle buddy. I don't understand why they need $360 for my cat. The goal of adopting him was to keep him out of a shelter and give him a new life—not punish me for being a good person with a heart for animals. Whatever, I don't have enough battery to rant =)

I'm sure there are pictures somewhere of something I've done...
or not.

Also, Brian and I have been together a year and a half today?
Double also, I've been in college that long? Please just let me graduate.

Mid-College Crisis: It's a real thing

At least, that's what many of my facebook friends say.
I just feel like I'm being pulled in 8 million directions.

Photo is expected to run my life. I'm sorry, I have 2 jobs and 5 other classes to work around—not to mention my subject's schedule. I'm actually dropping a class because I'm shooting 80% of the time the class is in session.

Except I can't drop the class due to a hold on my account because I got a parking ticket WHEN I STILL HAD TIME ON MY METER. I've spoken repeatedly with a woman at Parking and Transportation Services, and she said she would look into it and let me know, but I've called her repeatedly to no avail yet.

Kinda like the lady who backed into me 2 weeks ago. But she FINALLY answered her phone today. As it turns out, she's been in the hospital with pneumonia since the day after she hit me. Now I feel bad for calling her just about every day for 2 weeks. I'm so cool. I drove out to her house today (it had a "BEWARE OF DOG SIGN." Trying to show my dominance, I stepped out of the car and said hello and took a step toward him with my hand out, it cowered and ran away. I'm more scared of the average house mouse.)

Emily Yates and I have decided to be roommates ASAP. I had found a really nice apartment within walking distance of campus and asked my realtor about moving out early. She spoke with/emailed my landlord (whoever he may be) and we had a few conversations ending with "I've emailed him again and will let you know the second I know something new." That apartment is gone, and when my realtor took my rent money this morning, she didn't say anything. Awesome. PS, my bathroom walls are rotting. You're getting that call tomorrow, jerk.
Anyway, so Emily and I got hooked on walk2campus.com and toured the apartments on Tuesday. They are much more expensive than mine, but the fact that I won't have to buy a parking permit or walk to class, work or Brian's house, EVER might make up for that when gas is 3.79. Like it is right now. At least I bought a bike lock. Our apartment of choice is currently gutted and looks like poop, so there are no pictures. But it has a large kitchen and living room area, a dining room and a study. Also, we'll have our own laundry. That's what's up. (Sorry, but I'll be visiting less now, Clark and Momma.) We want to move in as soon as it's finished, but we don't know when that will be, so we just put down August 1. That cuts off a month of driving to work, at least. We're going to look at stuff at Big Lots tomorrow on our Grey's Anatomy date night. SO pumped.

I'm trying to plan my schedule for next semester, and since I'm on track hours-wise to graduate early, I have to think WAY ahead. Apparently the capstone class is only offered in the spring, which means I'll have to double up on photo classes, which is essentially a death wish. If I don't have time to shoot a picture story a week (which even the professor admits is unrealistic) what makes me think I'll have time for Web Narratives AND Practicum? I don't even know what those classes require. I hate hoe they expect photojournalism classes to be your number one priority. When it's my actual job, yes, it will be higher up on the list. But for now, there are a few more things above photo—one of them is school.

I know that wasn't 8 million, but if all I do is complain, you'll stop reading. Things get more exciting starting...NOW

Exciting things:
Our bus driver for the tours is on spring break, so all tours are walking tours. I LOVE doing them, because you really get to show campus off. However, Monday's tour got caught in the midst of a tornado warning. Awesome. We were stuck in the gym locker rooms for 45 minutes. They were real troopers, though, and we ran through the rain so they could eat. At least it was smashed potato day!

I've rearranged my apartment...again. I'm going to fall in love with it just in time to move out, probably. But I've been watching too much Nate Berkus, I think.

I spent Saturday and Sunday with Allie in Athens. Sunday was Friends and Family Day at Second Street, and it was really awesome to see everybody again. (Mom and Dad, everybody says hello. Especially Bobby and Mary Jesse.) The Swanger crew even made it down, minus David, so we played catch up for a while.

Those are all of the exciting things I can think of for now. Except that I just realized I missed "Off the Map."
Oh, part of the rearrangement included putting my coffee table against the wall because it just collects crap. Claws loves the extra space to play. He's been eating more, so I guess he's playing more? ...fatty.

There are approximately 5.5 weeks of school left. Somehow, I will survive this. It may not be pretty, but it will be done.
Also, just for the record, I liked the Grey's Anatomy musical last week. So take that, critics.

-Cat

The Cat Lady

Friday was Claws' birthday.



We had a party.


I am officially the cat lady.

Exciting things from last week:
I got the estimate on the damage on my car: 1,134. However, Pat Simmons has yet to answer the phone or call me back. Time for a police report?
I found a b-e-a-u-tiful apartment that's within walking distance from campus. I'm attempting to bail on my current place and get in this one. It has a blue kitchen, a red bathroom, a giant living room and hardwood floors.
Brian and I went to Louisville for the Southeast Christian (6 Flags over Jesus) Easter Pageant. It was a musical. There was a camel. And people descending from the ceiling. And a rotating floor. Needless to say, it was a bit overwhelming for this small-town Church of Christ girl, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. If you have an attendance of 16,000, at least you can do a lot of good work and put those resources to good use (ie, someone probably owns a camel?)
Went out to the Rexroat's to get Claws tonight, and of course, stayed more than the 15 minutes it takes to actually pick a cat up and put him in a car. But that's ok =)

There's more, but let's not kid ourselves, it's 14 minutes past my bed time.

Cat

The price of PJ

Monday night, after shooting with my subject at a "memorial," (aka, funeral for a creamated guy)I was told by a nice lady that her mother had backed into my car.
I haven't taken it to the dealer yet, nor have I heard from the lady who hit me. I did, however, over hear her before she left
"I better go ahead and leave, I can't see worth nothin' after dark. Y'all better wait a few minutes before you leave."

She wasn't kidding.

-Cat

Another week, another adventure.

I realize it's almost midnight, which is about four hours past my bedtime, so this will probably be a quick post, but I promise there will be more later!

Wednesday- work. class. spaghetti/church/cradle roll.

Thursday-class. cleaned. pretended I cared about March Madness.

Friday-work. went to Target to buy Blokus. stayed in Target for 2 hours playing Blokus. got locked out of apartment. broke into apartment (surprisingly easy. actually...I'm not surprised.) got locked IN apartment. figured out who to un-jam a storm door (just put your shoulder into it!) went to the Rexroats.

Saturday- tried to make breakfast smoothies. fail at making smoothies. explore parks in BG. take family portraits downtown and at WKU. go to baseball game. Chick-fil-a. go to Rexroats.

Sunday- paint Suzy's nails. let Suzy paint my toe nails. remove said paint from toenails. church in Cave City with Rexroats. come home and play outside. eat steak. play outside. play Blokus. sort 8,462 items on my desktop. take pictures of kids on mulch pile. find Claws, go home, go to church.

And now I'm at the Fiji house. But I'm about to go home. I'll post some of those pictures tomorrow, I hope.

Facebook sources tell me that two couples have recently been engaged. When is it too soon to ask if they need a wedding photographer? ;)
Along those same lines, I also think we lost the Nasvhille June wedding, so we're down to the one in Virginia. Hopefully something else will pan out, but I register for summer classes tomorrow! Woo!

-Cat

Happy Spring?

So I slacked off quite a bit, but you gotta admit, we all knew the 3-a-week updates would only last so long. Things that have happened since March 5:

March 8, 2011 (I almost typed 2010, yikes!) Running water was restored to The Trust Tree. Around 8:45 that morning I was awakened to the "BEEP-BEEP-BEEP" of large machinery in reverse. That large machine was a backhoe, and it was either putting in a very awkwardly shaped in-ground pool, or digging up my water line. Turns out it was the latter. I went to work at 10:30 (sans shower, bleh. They took away my water hose so they could dig.) and when I got back, there was STILL no water. It was ok, though. I just ate a hot pocket and went on my way. Claws, the ever-vigilant-window-watcher that he is, informed me that they were taking a lunch break and would be back later. I went to Brian's around 5 to work on our online Music Appreciation class and when I got back that night, WATER!!! I let it run for a while, because there was air and some nasties in the line, then I showered. And cleaned my stovetop.
[Note: my water went out on February 8, so this was after exactly— one month since the water initially died; 2 weeks and 2 days after I got the water hose; one phone call from my cop-friend who put in a complaint with the city. Maybe now's the time to tell the landlord that I wasn't kidding when I said the caulking in the shower was crap. Those leaks won't fix themselves...)
Anyway,
March 7-11 was spring break. Brian and I got back to Bowling Green on Monday morning just in time to go to work and bring home the bacon. Ooh, bacon.
We mostly worked in the Office of Admissions and worked on our online class. We had planned to do fun things and visit parks, but it was cold and rainy the first half of the week! So much for SPRING, huh? Things we did do included:
Going to Aldi: it's a really simple, very small, and incredibly cheap grocery store. You have to bring your own bags or boxes to carry your groceries out of your buggy (which requires a quarter to release from 'buggy prison.' You get your quarter back when you lock your cart back up.) which means I need to go to Office Depot to get some more because this place is GREAT! Not that I'll need to go back for a while, my freezer is PACKED, but $2 bacon and a gallon of milk? Heck to the yes. We grilled steak the same night we shopped, I've since made ranch pork chops, and I'm looking for good tilapia or salmon recipe (cough MOMMA cough.)
Friday afternoon, ok night, we left for Alabama to go see Bubba and Amy and Quinn and Zander and Riley. The puppies peed all over the place when Brian and I got to the house, so we cleaned that up and when we were done, Clark came home from work. we chatted for a bit then went to bed.
Saturday, not only was it GORGEOUS outside, but I got to spend time with Allie (and Mason) and Savannah. We went to an Athens Bible School soccer game since Allie had helped coach the team for a bit. A girl on the opposing team played with a broken arm. What a trooper. We tried to go to a consignment shop since Mason has outgrown all but two pairs of shoes, but it was closed, so we went to Zaxby's for lunch. I got the "Betty White sandwich," the chicken parmigiana wannabe thing, and it was really good. Incredibly greasy, but good. I dropped them off and headed back to Clark's for some quality photo time. (side note: I drive like a grandma with a baby in my car.)
We went to a small town in Alabama whose name I still do not know, but we took pictures on a caboose, on top of a caboose, inside a condemned building, at the old train station and on an old wagon. We got some nice golden hour light, used our strobes, and a stray beagle peed on our lighting bags right before the black lab got attacked by the fluffly cat and almost got blood all over Brian. It was indeed eventful. We went for Mexican downtown afterward and it was AWESOME. For the first time in my mexican food life, I did NOT order a quesadilla. I got some burrito dularjo thing. But it was good, too.
Sunday was church, helping Cindy and Allie with the 2 and 3 year old class, jambalaya, Blokus, and more pictures! This time we included Quinn and Zan-man for a bit, then ditched them and headed to another small town with railroad tracks. Clark really, REALLY wanted pictures with a train, and boy did he get his wish.
We anticipated the train wouldn't be moving very fast. We were wrong. Part of me thinks we shouldn't have been standing so close, and the rest of me knows that the conductor thought so, too. But I some some really great pictures. I WILL post those...maybe tomorrow?
Anyway, we got back Sunday night, went to bed, woke up and went to work. Brian sent me a text asking me to give the second tour, which I did....in the rain. I can no longer say I haven't given a tour in the rain. At least the group was great—they didn't complain any more than I did =)
Today I had class. And then more class. And then another, and that's where I still am right now. Chihuahua has the highest homicide rate in Mexico.
You've now learned as much as I have from this class.

pictures later, promise!
-Cat


aaaaand here they are!
This is Brian hopping off the top of the caboose where he was shooting C&A


This is the building that was probably about to fall over


This is Clark holding a buttercup for Amy (sometimes I am so proud of what my brain thinks of for pictures. I love it!)


On the wagon outside the train station


And the field across the street from Bubba's house


Anticipating the arrival of the train


And yet they survived the passing train anyway


Sunset that night (we just pulled over in some random field to take pictures)


After the color was gone from the sky, I played around with some of these


AND! I'm finally finding ways to get back at Clark after roughly 13 years of torture