Volume 8 of 2010, February 14th - 20th

This volume includes Valentines day.  We went to visit my family as it was a three day weekend and our Valentine's day consisted of orange bowknots (sooooo good), a goat cheese frittata, brownie hearts packed in bags as valentines to give to my grandma's, my dad making homemade french fries, and a family movie night.  So not romantic per say.  But filled with so many sweet memories.

The next two days after our road trip were pretty quiet as the whole family was in need of extra nap times.  The next big event was the delivery of our new rug... and I am in love with it.  I know it is lame to love a rug but seriously it was worth the wait. 

On a little neighborhood walk this Saturday I noticed a magnolia tree with buds... umm hello little sign of spring!  But I hope that they don't get frozen and then not bloom, they have a while to go before it is time to blossom in this part of the country.  But I will take any sign of spring that comes my way.

Have a great week!

Volume 7 of 2010, February 7th - 13th

It is not Sunday but as I had today off for President's Day it is essentially Sunday for me... so it is time for Sunday Edition!

This past week I pulled out our polaroid which had not been used since the wedding a year and half ago.  It is fun to use and definitely quite different.  This past week was pretty lovely (meaning the moments and people I got to spend time with, not the photos :) ).  That might have more to do with having a long weekend visit to the countryside.  Countryside sounds so romantic doesn't it?

Volume 5 of 2010, January 24th - 30th

Volume 6 of 2010, January 31th - February 6th

So I think it is a good thing that I didn't decide to start a separate blog for this project as I can barely keep it updated on a weekly basis!  That said, the past two weeks have been insanely busy.  We decided to take the apartment on the top floor in our building and have been in a whirlwind of painting and moving and buying new furniture.  We replaced our sofa of 8 years with a pretty new one that I adore and clearly I was a little too excited about replacing the ugly yellow scones with crisp white ones.  And while painting every single wall in our new apartment, including the closets (in blue!) has been a ton of work we are so thrilled with the transformation.  I think that the reason I keep making hearts to photograph, must be a reflection with how much I heart our new place. :) Other than that it has been regular old corporate worker bee life for me. Hope you are all having a fantastic weekend!

Volume 4 of 2010, January 17th - 23rd

The 365 project was very hard this week!  We were so busy with apartment searching and I had a freelance project to finish up on top of the day job so most of my photos were snapped at the very end of the day.  I found myself wracking my brain for something to take a photo of right before bedtime. 

I am thinking about getting a D-SLR Neoprene Pouch so that I can take my camera to work with me and then sneak out for a lunch break to take photos.  It would be nice to include more of my day in this exercise and dragging around a camera bag, handbag, and gym bag while commuting via the El is less than ideal.  (If anyone has used one of these I would love to hear any thoughts on them)  Anyways....

Have a lovely week!

For 2010 I decided to do a 365 project.  Photography flew to the top spot for my hobbies during 2009 and so it was the clear winner for a 365 project.  Plus it is something that I can fit into a small 5-10 minute window during the day and on the weekends, when I have more time, I can upload all the photos from the week.  At first I didn't plan on sharing the photos here as posting a photo day was less than likely to happen.  But then my ah-ha moment came to me with doing a weekly post. 

So Sunday Edition will be a snippet of my week.  A glimpse, if you will, into a small little moment of my day.  I do not pretend to even be close to an amateur photographer.  I am a hobbyist for certain.  I get so much pleasure out of snapping photos. I may share a little synopsis of the week sometimes.

Winter is my least favorite season.  While I do enjoy the snow, I really dislike the limited the hours of sunshine and highly dislike being cold.  As it is dark when I get up and dark when I get home and the first couple of weeks of 2010 were Cold, many of the photos were taken inside and sans natural light.  My tripod is my friend right now. 

Volume 1-3 of 2010, January 1st through January 16th

So far I am loving the 365 Project.  It has been a challenge to find the creative energy on some of the more "shut in" work days.  However, there is beauty in the everyday, right?

The big event for us this weekend was the Rock and Roll half marathon.  Followed closely by the Dog Day On the Green of course.

Training for and running our first half marathon was a great experience.  Both of us have the goal of living a healthy, active lifestyle and find it to be an important part of our relationship to do things like this together as partners.  We kept the 'start together finish together' plan in place during our training and through the race.  We actually finished with the same time... which incidentally was just under our goal of two hours at 1 hour 53 minutes 13 seconds.  This was the longest run of my life to date and it was quite the challenge.  I am so happy to have had Dan by my side giving me little cheers of "your doing great, honey" and keeping me motivated to not walk by just being there (and boy did I want to at mile 11). 

The other big event this weekend was the trip down to Soldier Field for the Dog Day on the Green.  I was ready to take a nap after the race but that beagle knows how to work me with her sad little eyes.  It was an interesting little festival for dogs... it was mostly just vendors selling things rather than active things for the dogs to do but they loved their first visit to Soldier Field and were all smiles.

Other than running and the dog day on the green, my main mission this weekend was to do a deep scrubbing of our apartment.  So was both a quiet weekend and busy one all at the same time.

It was a perfectly lazy summer weekend...

Although perhaps the "biggest" part of the weekend has no photo, we ran 12 miles and are not to terribly sore! It is my longest run to date and went really quite well.  We have been training for an upcoming half marathon and have been shaving time off our smaller runs... I am hoping that we will improve our pace for the longer runs to hit our time goal.  But other than that it truly was a lazy summer weekend.  We drank iced coffees, watched movies, finished a book, spend an afternoon in the park, ate cupcakes and pancakes, and I finished a sewing project... it was a lovely couple of days.

It has been a while since I have done one of these weekend snippets.  Since I enjoyed a 5 day weekend that included pretty much no computer time, I am pulling back this little series for today to share a few photos of our weekend...

We enjoyed a rainy mid-morning (I can't get out of the house too early when I have a non-working weekday!) trip to the Green City Market...

A trip to our favorite place for Italian ice for us and frosty paw for the pups...

Our dogs love going to this place- they know when we are on that street and wait some-what patiently for bites of frosty paw.

Then we headed out for a little camping trip in Wisconsin to enjoy nature...

Relaxed a bit and simply enjoyed each others company... {I was a bit more disappointed than I should admit that I forgot the cute little tablecloth I made for our table out of Amy Butler fabric}

My years as a Girl Scout came in handy as I had a few cooking on a campfire tricks (peach delights anyone?) and my starting/tending to a campfire skills were still pretty strong almost 12 years later!  It was the perfectly restful and disconnected weekend that I desperately needed.  Now back to work schedules and the bustle of everyday life!

This was my laziest weekend in a long time... I actually took a nap and I can't remember the last time I took a nap!  For the most part it was quiet around our casa...

We have been perfecting our french press coffee skills.

And enjoyed brunch- both out and at home...

I am way to excited to have discovered that Eddie's finally combined my two favorite ice cream flavors (mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream) into a yummy mint cookie crunch...

We enjoyed the almost warm enough weather outside in our backyard with new book + wine...

AND - I finally got a new hair style!  Last year at this time I was convinced that I would cut off my longish hair immediately following the wedding but then I hesitated. So while I was planning on just getting trim during this appointment I started to think about doing a more drastic change on Friday afternoon. Nearly 6 inches later...

And one of these days maybe I will be a bit more comfortable taking my own picture- it just feels so odd!

For Memorial Day weekend we headed to Iowa to visit family, attend my oldest nephew's high school graduation bbq, and host my youngest nephew's baby shower...

I am so excited that it is officially summer and can't wait for picnics, flip flops, and carefree Saturdays in the park...