Day 30: 2006

"Wearing" my little Emily, born 4th of July, 2006.

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30 days of photos and anecdotes. Everyday. A glimpse into my life in a grander sense than ever before. I hope you enjoyed it, I know I did. :)

Day 29: 2005

In Colorado at the Natural History Museum with Ali. We'd gotten a little sun the day before. They had a Butterfly Pavilion at the museum and when we walked in to the subtropical butterfly area, our skin tingled and felt like it could breathe for the first time in days. Compared to super-humid Florida, Colorado is really dry.

Day 28: 2004

Chilling with the family at my sister's old apartment in Gainesville. Looking at this picture and then looking at myself in the mirror this morning, I'm floored by my weight loss.

I was talking to Wendy about this last night. I know I've lost a bunch of weight, but I see me everyday. And while my clothes fit amazingly better (or are falling off me), I don't see much a difference. Well, not until today. :)

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My 300th post is coming soon ---- everyone who comments on it gets entered in a drawing for something cute and yarny. :) So start your commenting and don't miss out. I will reveal the winner on Friday.

Day 27: 2003

Ali's first trip to Disney World. Considering she was only 9 months old, she had a ball. You can tell that Wayne is also enjoying the happiest place on Earth. :)

Day 26: 2002

Beaming for a whole different reason. My Alison Gray. :)



It's a pretty safe bet that the number of times I've smiled like that at 5AM can be counted on one hand.

Day 25: 2001

Easily one of the happiest days of my life. The weather was gorgeous (important in an outdoor wedding), most things happened on time and I got to marry my best friend in the whole world. Plus, all day everyone told me how beautiful I looked. :)

Here I am waiting in the limo before the ceremony. My dress was fairly simple, just a strapless A-line with pearl beading along the top. My veil was made by a friend of the family to my specifications. I wore flip-flops. I didn't really do my hair that morning - I had a hairdresser come to the house to help us all out and my long-haired bridesmaids took up a lot more time than we expected. I don't have them on here, but for the ceremony I wore above the elbow-length white gloves. It was December and when I bought my dress there was a lot of talk about how cold I could possibly be, it was in the 70s the day of the wedding. :)

Day 24: 2000

So in love. Wayne and I went on our first date on Nov. 4th, 2000. It wasn't even really a date. He called out the blue and wanted to come visit me, so I let him tag along to the movies with me and my friends. He held my hand. :)

Day 23: 1999

This is my Filmmaking I class in college - I'm over there on the left in the overalls. I think I may have worn them 4 out of 5 days in the week that year. So comfy. I had a collection of black, white and navy blue shirts that I'd wear with them.

I'm not kidding. Everyday.

Some of the people in this picture are my best friends. Some of them are famous enough to have their own entries on the Internet Movie Database.

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We're moving today!!! I'm hoping we'll be able to pick up someone's wireless network at the new house 'cause the Brighthouse man's not coming until Monday. :)

Day 22: Happy Thanksgiving

I have so many things to be thankful for. God has blessed our family in ways I could never count and he is faithful to continue.

I hope that you, my wonderful readers, who I'm also very thankful for, can count your blessings today and find them innumerable.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Day 21: 1998

I worked at GTE running credit checks and activating cell phones my first semester at college. The job was a temp position, but they really liked me and by the time Christmas break rolled around I was the only one from my group of temps still left. Unfortunately, I had to go home for a month and they didn't like that. It sucked, 'cause I could wear my pajamas to work.

Day 20: 1997 - High School Sweethearts

That's right, I graduated from high school in good 'ol 1997. And so did my lovey. Although at the time he was not my lovey. I never actually looked like this in high school, I usually looked a lot more like the previous 2 days postings. I spent most of my senior year with much shorter hair and a more grunge-y approach to apparel. Wayne was just handsome, devastatingly handsome. :)

Day 19: 1996

Sleepy, which is how I remember feeling a lot of my junior year of high school. I was working part-time, juggling AP classes and waking up at 6 in the morning.

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Wayne and I went to IKEA!!!! It was so great.

There were some problems. First we attended a show that one of Wayne's friends was playing at. It happened to be a pre-game show for last night's Orlando Magic game. We thought we'd be fine getting out of there 'cause we weren't staying for the game. Little did we know that at the same time we wanted to leave, all the old people from the matinee show at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center wanted to leave. We waited in the parking lot for 35 minutes (!!!!) without moving an inch.

It was 5:50pm and IKEA closed at 7pm. There was talk of skipping it and going another time, but I assured Wayne we could do it. If we could only get out of the stupid parking garage.

We did. I made it from downtown to the IKEA parking lot in under 10 minutes. We were lucky, not a lot of people were trying to get in knowing the store would be closing soon.

We picked up some sheets for us and sheets for Alison's new bed at the new house. Some rugs for the new house to use until the new floors go in next month. And did some dreaming about how we're going to redo the bathroom and kitchen.

Hooray IKEA!

Day 18: 1995

Full of high school angst and drama, plus some acne. It took me until my sophmore year of college to discover that while my skin had oily areas, it was actually combination skin and the proper skin care products would actually work.

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Busy day. Very sleepy. Can't promise more tomorrow, but soon. :)

Day 17: 1994

This was one of my favorite days. My church youth group had a day-long Polaroid Picture Hunt all over Orlando. We had a list of 9 crazy things we needed photos of (a team member hand-cuffed, two team members in an airplane, a video game with a high score over 100,000 points) and a Polaroid camera to capture it all.

We drove all over and made it back with 8 of the 9 required photos within the time parameters. I can't remember which team won, but it was wicked fun. And everyone wants a photo in 'cuffs to scare their parents when they're 15, right?

Day 16: 1993

Long live the sparkly shirts! And it's like I wanted everyone to know how pink my socks were. :)

Day 15: BONUS!!

Well I've made it to the halfway point of NaBloPoMo and thought we should celebrate with a bonus photo. I believe this picture was taken around 1996-1997. In Tampa, after a Supertones concert where we were all dancing and jumping and being silly in silly clothes. We're really sweaty, but we had a great time.

My sister Aileen is the only one who managed to look like a normal person, and if she weren't so overexposed it'd be easier to see how beautiful she is.

The guy in the top right corner, looking tall, lanky and weird - that's Wayne. The love of my life, although not at this time, we were still just friends. :)

Day 14: 1992

My 13th birthday: at this point in my life I was in full puberty swing - the weight gain, the acne, all the things that make this time so awkward. I compounded this by still having a pretty flashy wardrobe of colorful clothing (why didn't anyone take me to GAP??) and at this particular party by having the worst sunburn ever.

In what can only be referred to as a science experiment gone wrong, the weekend before this party I learned the different effects of the sun based on your location on the planet. I'd never been to the beach in Florida, but had lived on the beach in New Jersey. You can stay out all day at the shore in South Jersey applying sunscreen just once, this is not true in Florida where you are much closer to the Equator.

This trip certainly drove that point home - I'm a sunscreen crazy now.

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No-kea for me today. The more I watched the news last night, reporting the growing crowd gathering at the new IKEA for the grand opening today, the more anxious I got about the whole thing. Would I even be able to get in?? Would there be parking?? Would Emily make it through the morning without a nap??

So in the end, I decided to just wait and go with Wayne this weekend.

Day 13: 1991

I volunteered at our church's Vacation Bible School this summer, I'm pictured here with one of my kids. I will refer to this time as the "overly-accessorized era". You may note the way big earrings and glittery clothing. I loved things that glitter. I still do, I've just learned to manage my glitter-mania.

Tomorrow is a doozie. Stay tuned.

Day 12: 1990

In Florida. This photo was taken by my friend Kristen in front of her house. I remember wearing that shirt all the time. With purple shorts.

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I am not camping out at the IKEA, although today is the first day to start doing so. I will however be heading down there on Wednesday when they open. Hooray!

Day 11: 1989

This is me at Six Flags Great Adventure right before we made the big move to Florida. My best friend, Karen Sullivan, and her mom, who was also my 4th grade teacher, took me as a goodbye gift. We had a great time. I rode the Great American Scream Machine, which messed up my sinuses. And we drove through the Animal Park and had monkeys dance on the roof of the car.

With the exception of shaving my head in college, long story - possibly with photo later this month, this is the shortest my hair got. And it is very short. If I'd still been in private school at this time I would have been breaking "the rules".

Day 10: 1988

Look at the self confidence I'm rocking while sitting at the kiddie table with 2 party hats on. This girl's got moxie!

Day 9: 1987

Things I remember from 1987:

* I "played" softball - as evidenced here. I was terrified of the ball. I'm pretty sure I never hit the ball or caught the ball. My team was horrible, but somehow we made it into the Playoffs. Best part? The root beer at the pizza party after was awesome.

* I was also a crazy amazing Girl Scout. And I sold cookies like a champ. Our trick to big sales in 1987? We sold cookies outside the local video rental place on Friday nights.

* I weighed maybe 60lbs. soaking wet. This would also last for a few more years, the Skinny Years. Hopefully they'll be making a comeback. :)

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I've been working on Erin's Clapotis while I try to decide what to do with Wicked. I may frog it. It hurts to say out loud, or type for all the world to see, but it's just too big and if it grows I'll be left with a sweater that's far too big and that I'll never wear. That is not my goal.

Would it be a good idea to wash the yarn before re-knitting?? So my sizing will be accurate??

Day 8: 1986

Christmas again, this time in our second South Jersey house,we moved from the beach to the mainland during second grade. My hair stays short for a few years now - I had a stylist at the mall who would snip and snip and then send me home with wonderful smelling Paul Mitchell products.

Day 7: 1985 & Glow!!

I keep a wist.

It's a great way for friends and family to know what I want them to give me without me having to write out what and where they can buy it. Last year, in preparation for Christmas, I included the fam in my wist. Adding a little tag here and there with each family member's name, we ended up receiving over 16 gifts from our list. :) It works for birthdays, too.

This year in an effort to streamline things, Alison and I have been going over her list every two or three days. I don't know if you've noticed, but Nick Jr. has been airing a lot of "feature-length" (read: 1-hour) specials, like Dora Saves the Mermaid and Atlantis Squarepantis. Great for Alison who loves an extended episode of her favorite shows, but boo to me 'cause I'll inevitably forget she's watching heavily-commercialed Nickelodeon as opposed to commercial-free Noggin.

More commercials = more "I want that. Let's put it on my list."

I'm glad she's embraced the idea of the list as opposed to thinking she'll receive every gift she loves for a 30-second tv spot. But the list requires some trimming on occasion. I watch to see how much she LOVES it the second time she sees the commercial, or as we walk by it at Wal*Mart and make adjustments accordingly.

This year, almost everything she wants glows in the dark. Or lights up.

I think it rubbed off on me, because yesterday I got this in the mail:

I don't know what I'm going to use it for, maybe some socks with glowing stripes? Or an intarsia hat with glowing hearts? If you're feeling the itch to glow too, you can pick some up here.

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Easter 1985 at Grandma's (again), with Aileen and Erin. :)

Day 6: 1984

Christmas at my maternal grandmother's in North Jersey. That other kid is my brand new baby sister (well, she's 11 months here), Erin. She's the one getting married in January - so grown up. :)

My hair was curly for lots of special occasions when I was little. I remember all crowding into the bathroom on Sunday mornings before church, Mom in her fluffy purple bathrobe. She'd curl both Aileen and my hair, and if we were lucky, only one of us got their ears burned.

She claims that the ear burns were few and far-between, but I say we trust my sketchy, 20-year-old memories instead.

Day 5: 1983

Bangs!



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I hit a wall on Wicked yesterday. I've been working on the first sleeve and it was looking a lot bigger than what I wanted. I added some decreases and thought that maybe when I got to the patterned edging it would be right. No dice.

Add to that the fact that I read all over Ravelry yesterday that this crazy yarn is going to grow and I'm screwed. I swear I Ravelried this before I started and no one said anything about growing.

This is a problem 'cause I've lost almost 40lbs. since I started this sweater and while I'm all for a sweater to layer with, it's gonna look weird with huge short sleeves.

My only option, short of frogging and starting over, is to knit the long sleeve version. I am not opposed to this, but I don't have enough yarn to make it happen. I've got an emergency message in to Jessica and Missa at kpixie for some more, fingers crossed.

Day 4: 1982

O yeah, I was a crayon!! And not just any crayon, a Crayola. :)

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Wicked is still in progress. Of course it's been cold in the evenings (50s F) and overnight the last few days. I'll probably finish it during the week and the old weatherman will start announcing highs in the 90s again . . .

Day 3: 1981

Things you can learn about me in this photo from 1981:



a. I'm an innie. So are both my girls.



b. I'm not afraid of granny panties.



c. Or to go topless, well at least not when I was two.



d. You may notice there at the bottom of the picture that I'm wearing some sort of Ugg or knee sock, in turquoise, and I'm about to put on a red shirt with a plaid collar. This girl has no problem with color.

Day 2: 1980

This photo is of my wonderful Mom and I on the front steps of the "house on the hill". We lived at the top of the hill and everyday (at least that's the way it seemed) we'd go on a walk down the hill and back up. There was an older lady who lived halfway down (or up, depending on how you look at it) who would come out and bring us cookies, usually sugar wafers. :)

Day 1: 1979

There are 30 days in November and I vow to post on every one of them. It's my NaBloPoMo promise.

And to make it a little easier on myself, and funnier for you, I will post a photo of each year of my life each day. I paid special attention to pick out some gems people. Some are adorably cute, some embarassing, you're gonna love it.

Now since I'm only 28, I'll be throwing in some bonus pictures. At least one of which has a younger Wayne in it - this one is priceless and I may save it for the end of the month just to keep you in suspense.

Ta-da! 1979: