Saturday, July 01, 2006

Professional Courtesy

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job... Today that's my mantra to keep me from ending up in a clock tower with a rifle.

I've been a baby photographer for nearly 5 years. I take damn good photos and I make damn good sales, I work hard at what I do and I love my job... for the most part. At this very moment I'm glad to be out of my client's room. I'm taking photos of her baby and I'm about to do some shots with the father and the mom says, "Ya know, I don't think we really need that. I'm just getting these done so people can see him now. I'm going to get some done by a professional later." My impulse was to call her a bitch and just walk out, but I didn't do that... I'm a professional, I know that pissing off the client doesn't make them want to buy photos so I just asked her if she was sure and nicely pointed out to her that I AM a professional and these are PROFESSIONAL photos. I was pissed, so pissed I didn't even let her see the photos I took even though she ordered. I was so insulted... still am. Whatever... I'll shake it off now... *her baby looks like a salamander though. ;)

* not really. She's still an ignorant ho though.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Thrilling Thursday

I know I promised to post photos of cool art work of mine (painted eggs) and detail the camping/tubing trip with the Tiny Terrorist, but fuck that, I’m not in the mood. I’m having a foul day and I don’t have near enough duct tape to make it a passable and less stressful day.

I’m cleaning. I have a stupid Pampered Chef party tonight and I have friends coming over to eat food and talk and pretend to be interested in expensive yet cool kitchen stuff. I’m stressing because I’m the only person in this fucking house who cleans. I mean really CLEANS, not just loads a dish washer and takes out a bag of trash. I mean put things in the right place, vacuum carpets, wipe counters and mop the floors. No one has REALLY CLEANED this place since November – yes November, gawd help me. So I’m CLEANING, REALLY CLEANING so that my friends who love me and know me don’t think I’m an utter and complete slob (though I’m sure my dear friends already know that I am a slob and they love me anyway).

This morning has consisted of me yelling at the Tiny Terrorist to do tasks to help with the cleaning. They have in turn hemmed and hawed and WHINED and eventually under penalty of grounding, spanking and painful death they have accomplished the tasks I have demanded of them (don’t worry, it’s nothing that would violate any child labor laws).

And now after fighting with cleaning equipment and sending children upstairs for naps I am nearing a point that my stress levels have dropped and my blood pressure has returned to normal, though I still am barking orders and yelling every time I open my mouth (you might not want to phone me right now).

Okay, my bitching is done for the moment… back to CLEANING.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Is Actively Avoiding Something Considered Exercise?

As I sat here eating my fat free fake crab tossed carelessly across my salad topped with peppercorn ranch while reading the news this conversation just took place:

Child 1: Mom do we eat whale?
Me: Hmmm? (not really listening)
Child 1: Mom. Do we eat whale?
Me: Hmm? Yes, yes you usually eat well.
Child 2: I TOLD you we eat WHALE!
Me: What? I mean NO we DON’T eat WHALE. Not unless you are Eskimo, we don’t eat whale.
Child 2: Just the whale skin.
Child 1: What’s an Eskimo?
Me: Native American who live in Alaska and other cold places and are allowed to hunt and eat whale.
Child 2: We eat whale skin.
Me: No we don’t.
Child 1: Do they eat ALL of the whale?
Me: Yes, I believe they do.
Child 1: Ewwww!
Child 2: We eat the whale body right?
Me: No we don’t. We don’t eat whale!
Child 2: Just the whale body right?
Me: What’s your sudden fascination with eating whale? Do you want me to get you a couple of whale steaks?
Child 2: EWWWWW!!!

Catching Up… Sort Of!

Gawd, I suck! I haven’t been good about regularly updating and that bothers me. I have so much to talk about and so little time. Actually I have a little time but then I end up mired in the guilt of having not updated and not being able to decide exactly where to start and who will care or what not. So… um.. I’m just going to give a short (and probably inaccurate) update of some thing and them MOVE on to current crap.

Scarby – It was fun, it was hot, a dear friend got bit by a radio active spider and developed super powers, sadly they only manifested themselves as a rather impressive cough with the power to clear a room and occasional projectile vomit. Well before she could choose a snazzy superhero outfit made of spandex, she went to a doctor and was given the antidote which oddly turned out to be allergy medicine and antibiotics.

K ended up going too, actually doubling his usual attendance at Scarby (hey, when you usually only go once a year, it’s not hard to do) AND he was in garb. He totally had a good time and plans to attend more next year. The plan is for him to go to TRF one weekend this year also! Dear GAWD, I’m turning my gay ex into a rennie! Am I CRAZY?!?! Heh, kidding, he’s a great guy and not just because his genetic contribution to our adorable offspring.

The best Scarby event happened toward the end of faire when I got crowned Duchess of the SPCF. This means so much to be as I absolutely love this group and I love helping out whenever I can. I feel honored and touched (and not in THAT way perv!) and I have a TIARA! I also bought feathers at Scarby, PINK feathers that I absoulty LOVE! Forget about the fact that I have NO and I mean NOTHING AT ALL in the way of PINK garb, the PINK feathers look fabulous with my hair.

And K went on the last day of Scarby, and it rained and it was hot but it was fun and we were tired when we left and we went to have our usual after Scarby dinner of trucker food at Waffle House. Damn I’m so freaking trailer trash some days – I LOVE Waffle House. I blame my extremely rednecked-trailer-trash ancestors for that. Get enough beer in me and you can actually picture me standing on the porch of a broken-down trailer, surrounded by beer cans and flea bitten mongrel dogs yelling for my progeny to get their asses in the house right now… or not, maybe you can imagine it minus the beer, I do like to wear my wife-beaters and camo pants. (It’s a fashion statement bitches!) But I digress, my trucker breakfast was fabulous.

Moving on, the week after Scarby ended was intended to be my first week of dreading Summer Vacation and of me trying to teach the progeny to SLEEP IN! But instead it was spent painting wooden eggs for my grandmother’s 75th birthday. Yes I said painting eggs. She’s collected eggs for YEARS now so D had the brilliant idea to paint eggs for her – 12. One for each month with each month having the birthdays in that month listed on the egg. Sounded like an amazing idea and my motto is anything worth doing is worth OVER DOING… or something like that… so I was all for doing AT LEAST 12 eggs. 12 unique, hand painted eggs. Yeah. We ended up painting about 3 dozen eggs total, only about a dozen and a half went to our grandmother. She was impressed… I think… it was hard to tell she was in a lot of pain from her pancreitis and I think she was drugged up (yay for her). Whatever, it was fun painting the eggs (photos to come soon) and I did somehow make up with my uncle who hasn’t spoken to me in 4 years – seems just letting him mix me drinks was the key. Not entirely sure what he was mixing but it was good and it had vodka in it. In fact he shared his BEST vodka with me. (This was the best vodka I’ve EVER had, so smooth!) THEN, THEN the fun party happened.

The DRIVE home. Oh dear gawd. We left at 10 to drive the 3.5 hours home which wasn’t a SMART idea since neither D nor I had gotten more than 3 hours a sleep a night for the past WEEK. Let’s just say, sleeping at a rest stop is in no way RESTFUL even if you do happen to be sleeping in a Mercedes Benz. When all was said and done, I got home with enough time to take a 30 minute nap, change clothes and head out to the Sammy Haggar concert (which ROCKED! They had burros in sombreros.)

AND… that’s it. I leave you with all the gems of whatever. Tomorrow hopefully I’ll have time to blog about the tubeing and camping trip with the Tiny Terrorists! Woohoo! Believe me it’s well worth a post of it’s own.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Doggie Makeover

Sad Coco


Just yesterday I noticed Coco pouting on the couch amongst the Tiny Terrorists teddy bears.

Leave Me Alone


I asked her what was the matter and she told me to leave her alone. After a few minutes of questioning, she told me that she just didn't feel pretty and was sad that I hadn't taken any pictures of her in days. I told her that she was still pretty even though she was looking a bit schlumpy but I knew how to fix it.

A BATH?!?!?!?!?!?! YAY!


You should have seen her face when I told her I'd give her a bath (well just look at the photo). So off to the store I went with Chaos and Destruction to procure a bottle of fancy dog shampoo (or Dog Wash if you ask Cabbage Patch).

All Wet and Clean


My only regret is that I did not video tape the bath because it was hilarious. Coco loves to play in water and it makes her act totally insanely funny. This was also the easiest pet I've ever bathed. All I had to do was put her in the water and let her run back and forth splashing around until she was wet, then put the 'dog wash' on her, lather and let her splash around until rinsed. To wash her face was even eaiser, Super Girl accidentally dropped a dog treat in the water and Coco dunked her face in the water to get it. Above is a photo of her all clean and wet and happy.

All Clean And Fluffed Up!


And finally here she is all blow-dried and fluffed up. What a happy, pretty doggie!

Ps sorry I don't have time to photo-shop anything interesting into the photos at the moment, but check back later, I very well may have altered the photos to make them more spectacular.