If you build it...

Last year, April and I set a goal of booking ten weddings for 2006. We recently reached that goal. Doing so didn't come with as much fanfare as I expected (in fact, it was closely followed by our most challenging wedding shoot to date), which I am learning is often the case. Instead of toasting the accomplishment with pretty pink champagne glasses, we clanked together our cups of coffee and diet coke at Denny's on a nasty rainy night, somewhere between here and Arizona. We were both bleary eyed, and still had hours more to drive that night. It still felt great.

A Few Things

The time has come for me to accept that nothing which can be described as "mini" should be part of my wardrobe. I'm too old, too tall and too pale for it. That won't stop me from occasionally still trying on such mini things, and standing utterly shocked at myself under the harsh spray of dressing room lighting.

I would not call myself a fan of trail mix, but if I am given some, I will eat it with a ferocious love, a love that says "FINALLY, GEEZ, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, TRAIL MIX?" And then hours later promptly go back to forgetting that I like it at all.

Outside of my family, there is no one I know better than April, but I didn't know until a couple of weeks ago that she gets a pain between her pinky and ring finger on one hand when she is nervous. This has been happening to her for years.

Feeling blue today. One of those Mondays where the grey sky is making me sad, the news stories I've been reading are making me sad (just finished reading something horrible about a woman dying of an embolism while giving birth to her fifth child), work is making me sad.

I sometimes (often) hate whatever it is that makes me overly aware of how scary life is.

I'm longing for a nap underneath my bright red goosedown quilt.

A Tuesday

In the elevator just now, a fellow passenger smelled like hospital. Interesting how that scent can cause such a pit in my stomach even though I haven't spent much time in hospitals at all.

I bought a new blush today. Pink and shiny, smells of sun tan oil and sand. I rubbed some of it on the back of my hand. It looks like a twelve year old's blush, a little too cheerful for its own good, but I guess in at least that one small way, I'm still like the little girl I was then, eager for pretty, optimistic things.

Though it's sunny now, it was rainy this morning and I wore my pink rain boots to work, and thought maybe it would be a good day.

Just After

The bride this weekend was somewhat uncomfortable having her photo taken, so I was thrilled to catch this moment when she was happy and a little distracted!

Wedding Season

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Though I sometimes find it hard to believe I could possibly think about flowers, cakes and dresses with any greater frequency than I already do, starting tomorrow my life will revolve around weddings more than ever before. Besides the fact that my own wedding is exactly four months away, A & I will be photographing two weddings a month leading up June 17th.

For the most part, I am thrilled about this. Admittedly, it makes me a bit weary knowing that there will be thousands upon thousands of images of new marital bliss to sort through, all while piecing together the details of my own nuptuals. But this is an exciting time for our little company, and by the time June rolls around, we will have more than doubled our portfolio.

I'm terribly curious to see how it all turns out.

File Under: Corny But True

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

It's nice that when you've got a guy who is good every day of the year, Valentine's is just another one of those days.

I believe that pretty dresses have magical powers.

Fresh

I've been frustrated lately by how much I lack the time to learn new things. If I made a list of all the stuff I want to be better at, for the sake of creativity and for my business, it would stretch from my dismal office cube across the miles to my house, which is where I would need to be in order for anything real to get done.

I get fearful that this is what being an adult is, and that I'll never have the time again. My old creative writing teacher in college used to say if you don't make time to write right now, you'll never make time. He was right, and I took his advice. But

I've gotten worse at manufacturing time since then.

the quick creep of monday

i'm sometimes absolutely floored by the fact that my depression can still sneak up on me with such swiftness. these days, when it does, it's fleeting. it stomps around on my shoulders for a short while, and then departs with such a pathetic whimper that i barely notice it's gone until it's been gone a while. that part is expected, known. but for as much as i know how it will leave, it's surprising that its onset can be so, well, surprising.

"what are you doing here?" i almost always have to ask it, startled. and it cackles back at me while it drinks its coffee, a batty, mean old woman, an unexpected guest in the living room of my head. "i live here!" the depression, the old woman, says. and for as long as she stays, we both believe it, she and i.

Stage Four, In which I become a housewife before my time.

I bought guest towels the other night. You know. For when the In-Laws (his or mine) come to visit. When we're married people.

When I bought them, I got giddy.

New Year

I haven't been much in favor of resolutions the last couple of years. I think, for the most part, that it's not good to start a new year already feeling guilty and weighed down. But I LOVE thinking about goals for what lies ahead. In some ways, I already know this is going to be a good year. I'm going to photograph a bunch of weddings. I'm going to have a wedding of my own, something that still sometimes shocks me. After that, I'll be married to the coolest guy I know, and together we'll go see two countries I've wanted to see for as long as I can remember. 2006 is going to glow.

But I do have some ways in which I want to push myself. I want to learn to take better photographs, so that I impress myself more often. I want to finish the draft of my novel, which has taken a back seat to wedding planning and wedding shooting. I want to exercise more, not just so I'll have Bride Arms (although, I gotta have Bride Arms!) but also so I'll know I'm being as healthy as I can be going into this next part of my life. I want to cook more complicated recipes. I want to learn to bake a cake from scratch. And French, I want to learn some French. I want to find a way to make this blog meaningful to myself again, or drop it altogether. I want to write letters to my little sisters more often. I want to be a better friend and a better cat mom. I want to find the perfect umbrella for the wedding, in case it rains.

I'm so excited for each of these things that I feel lucky to even get to try them.

How will you push yourself this year?

Hidden Treasure

When G. and I were in Traverse City right after we got engaged, my mom and I went to an antique shop in an old barn. There were several boxes of old records, I and grabbed several of them, choosing mostly based on cover art. We'd already discussed going to France for part of our honeymoon, and since I am a bit in love with French culture, one album called I Love Paris caught my eye. I brought it home, and in the frenzy of the last couple of months, neglected to listen to it even once.

Last night I put it on for the first time, and I don't think I've ever been as immediately charmed by any music. It was just exactly what I think the soundtrack for strolling through Paris should be. Even as I was scrubbing the bathtub and changing the cat litter, I could almost feel myself sitting at an outdoor cafe, watching chic Parisians wander by.

Merry Christmas

I'm leaving for Kansas City tomorrow, and wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas before I go.

I'm going to make a genuine attempt to post more often, or at least more meaningfully, in the new year.

See you all then.

Sit Ups

I haven't been doing much writing the last couple months. Not for my novel, not for this blog. I don't, right now, miss it as much as I wish I did. I've been too busy to miss it, my mind too full of other things. But I think that even if I'm not particularly craving it, I need to do it. It's much like exercising, in a way. I never want to exercise. I do it simply because my brain needs me to do it. My brain also needs me to write. When I don't do one of these things, I can feel the heaviness of its void pushing down on my shoulders like lead.

The Doing

You'd think it would go without saying, but I'm surprised by how often I need to remind myself that there is real power and joy to be found in actually doing something rather than thinking about doing it or worrying about doing it.

Craving Cider

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Quiet

I've been feeling sort of quiet lately. I guess you can probably tell around here.

Trying to create a successful business is one of the more challenging things I've ever done. It has a lot of highs and lows, and I'm not a very good wave rider. Yesterday looked as though it was shaping up to be a great day -- we had three inquiries from brides with weddings next summer. Even though we're already booked for one of the dates inquired about, I was excited to have the flow coming in, and let myself daydream about how 2006 may be completely full of weddings. Then later in the night came a rejection from the one we felt closest to getting, and it sent me plunging down a bit. There's always somewhat of a sting that April and I feel when we don't get a job we think we're going to get. Our business is also our art, and even though the photos are of other people's weddings, they mean something personal to us.

I know things will work out, and that no matter what, 2006 will be full of weddings. We have a good deal of them already booked to photograph, and with both my wedding and my soon-to-be-sister-in-law's wedding... there will be plenty of cake photos to go around.

But quiet, for now.

Stage Three, The Dress (Part One)

I will admit that I harbored a secret fear that I might be the one girl in all the world who doesn't really look good in wedding gowns. I don't know why I thought this might be, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I am so pale I practically glow, and thus white is simply not my color. However, after having finished my third successful dress hunting expedition with April this weekend, it turns out that my problem is not going to be having to pick which dress offends me the least, but rather which dress I love most. Because right now I love three, and deeply like a fourth, and I still have two more outtings planned during which it is completely possible that I may fall in love yet again.

I've been told that I should picture myself on That Day and go with what dress I can best imagine myself in. All well and good, except I can picture them all, and each one, at the moment I'm thinking of it, seems like the perfect choice.

I feel heartbroken when I think about having to dump any of them. Last night I had a dream that I went to try on the front runner for a second time, and found that it was no longer a dress, but rather a shiny white pantsuit (think Celine Dion). Once I got over being mortified, I was deeply relieved to have a good excuse to cut one choice away.

Firsts and Lasts

Today is April's last day at the company she's been with since we moved to Los Angeles over five years ago. She's leaving so that she has more time to focus on Sweet Monday. I'm really excited about the strides we've both taken to make the dream of our business begin to come true.

(To the five of you who read this, I promise to write a real post soon. Head still in clouds.)