But between lunchtime romps outside with Rufus in the gorgeous weather, a sweet husband who went in search of sunflowers to cheer me up, and a delicious holiday meal with my family, things are looking up again. I can't wait to spend most of my weekend with my sweet husband and puppy.
I want to get back into shooting film. There is a new iphone app that shoots like a Holga. I have always wanted a Holga so I can have fun with their dreamy-quality photos. Now I have a digital version of one (as long as I have Jason and his iphone with me, haha)! Yes, it's terrible quality and very pixelated but it's still fun to shoot even if they're not fantastic in the end.
The other day we got a thunderstorm. A real one. Thunder and lightening. It only lasted a few minutes but it was beautiful.
As much as Jason and I love thunderstorms, we have one little dude in the family that does not.
I still want a Holga. And I still want to shoot film again on an SLR. I have my dad's old film SLR from maybe the 70's? It has a very 70's looking strap on it so I'm going to go with that. I took a few shots with it back in middle school and haven't really touched it since. I think it might be broken - many of the shots were half dark, but I'm going to buy a roll of film and see what happens. Why not, right?
It was quite a weekend! Snowpocalypse 2.0 hit us and hit us hard. We have about two feet of snow on the ground and things are still shut down today! We had a nice and cozy weekend being snowed in!
Our front door got a little bit blocked off by a poor tree that split into four pieces. And check out that snow on the roof! That snow falls off in huge sheets that make our apartment shake and the gutters fall off. Our back door won't open all the way because of all of the snow blocking it from the sheets that have come down!
Rufus enjoyed the snow too. This snow was a bit deep for him so he didn't go leaping through it like last time. He dug around quite a bit though, trying to find things buried beneath the snow!
A little bit of the black and white world.
I'm a bit of a trail-blazer. I wanted to see how high the snow was. There was so much snow that I was actually standing on a good couple of inches of compacted snow so it's actually higher than it looks. Not to mention, the snow wasn't done falling and got higher after this picture. I sent the picture of Jason and Rufus to the Washington Post. I think it should have been February 7th's cover picture!
More black and white world. I love the texture in these two pictures.
Tons of heavy, wet snow doesn't come without consequences. There are dozens of broken tree branches and trunks. It killed a lot of plant life for sure. There is a tree that fell on a car on our street. Bad news. It pulled on power lines as well. Thankfully, our power never went out!
This is the best representation of how much snow we got. This was about two hours before the snow stopped - so a little more fell.
Here's a before and after shot of our walk. We accumulated a lot of snow on ourselves. Check out my hair! I have to say, I am very thankful for my snow gear. Growing up around here, you don't need gear like this regularly, but going to school in Ithaca required proper snow boots and a heavy duty coat. And crew necessitated the purchase of water-proof pants (for rainy regattas which we had a few of). I may as well use the stuff, right?! I may look like a fool but I'm a warm and dry fool!
Rufus stays stylin' in his winter jacket too. We always swore we would never dress a dog and we'd laugh at people that put their dogs in clothes. Well, we take it back now. This Jackahuahua is a shaky little guy - he doesn't have thick fur and he gets the Chihuahua shakes when he's outside in the winter time! Look at that little face! He's cold even with a jacket on!
Drying the pooch off and getting him into his warm sweater. He was a little exhausted after the snow adventure.
The next day the sky was clear as could be. Look at all that blue! Rufus is jumping for joy!
Snow is still everywhere and completely stuck to everything, including our car. We had a heck of a time getting it out of the snow. We used our trashcans to dig the snow out around it since we don't have a shovel. It worked pretty well! We met a few neighbors who were using pots and pans to dig their cars out! And then all of us met yet another neighbor who lent us all his dirt shovel and brooms! Hooray for friendly neighbors!
We had fun a lot of fun hanging out together. We indulged and ate some fun things, watched some TV, I baked some banana muffins and made some smoothies (which we tried to document but we started laughing and progressively got more and more hysterical - Jason is trying hard to take a good picture but I'm laughing so hard I'm crying in the last picture).
It was all simple fun, but we really enjoy doing things like that at home together. And to make it a little extra special, I plugged our Christmas lights in again. It made it feel like it was December again. We're embracing the winter while we still can.
All in all, we had a really great weekend. It's so much fun to be snowed in with the ones you love! Oh and, we're supposed to get more snow tomorrow and Wednesday!
Our car is still pretty new to us and it's the biggest purchase I've ever made (other than, you know, four years of private college). And Rufus is the most rewarding purchase I've ever made. (Who says you can't buy/choose your family?) So when I got an email that coupled the two together, I got excited. Subaru a new "Dog Tested. Dog Approved." ad campaign that features dogs in Subarus. The videos aren't anything ground-breaking or fantastic, but they made me smile none-the-less. I like to think Rufus enjoys our Subaru! Speaking of our 'ru, here it is in the snow.
That was around 9:30 this morning and the snow is still coming down like crazy! We're all loving it! I'll definitely post more pictures once the storm has passed us by. Until then, we'll be enjoying being snowed in while watching movies and eating homemade chili, corn muffins, and all of the other delicious treats we stocked up on for the storm!
This morning, inspiration struck when we woke up to this:
In fact, we fell asleep to it too. The world covered in white. It's so beautiful, so elegant.
I'm one of the odd ones – instead of loving spring and summer, I love fall and winter. It would be really hard to pick one over the other but I think part of the appeal of fall is its build up to winter. The last quarter of the year is my favorite – the months of October, November, and December. January isn't my favorite, but this January has been pretty amazing because we’ve had snow. Glorious, blissful snow.
I absolutely love the winter. It's so romantic. I love the cold, I love being able to see my breath, I love rosy checks, crackling fireplaces, and cuddling under blankets. I love the quiet of winter that doesn't exist in the summertime. I love drinking hot tea, eating hot soups, and baking. My love for winter deepens in the snow. I still get excited about snow. I figure if, after spending four winters in Ithaca, NY I still love it, I'll probably love it forever. I love the sound it makes beneath boots, I love the way it dampens all other sound. I have a love for black and white photography and often wonder what the world would look like in black and white. When it snows, I get a glimpse into that world.
After our last blog post (RIP wordpress blog), on December 19th, we got the biggest snowstorm D.C. has ever had in the month of December.
I wound up getting snowed out rather than in – at a friend's house while dog-sitting. I was pretty bummed out about it, but after a call from my dear mother-in-law, I cheered up a little bit and tried to see the bright side of the situation. I realized, even though I wasn't home with Jason and Rufus, I was in good company – with a pretty doggie named Foxy, a giant Christmas tree, a stash of delicious teas, and a password for Netflix online! I documented the snow as best I could without my camera (hooray Photobooth) for my friends – this was their first huge snow at their new house and I didn't want them to miss it!
And I had Jason document the snow at our place – Rufus couldn't even see over the snow! He loved it though and jumped through it even when he didn't have to.
This past weekend, we got some more snow and it's funny – I got snowed out again! This time in the company of my little brother at my parent's house. I was in much higher spirits this time. It wasn't even a day away from home, and it was at my childhood home. Not to mention, I love my little brother like crazy and it was fun to hang out with him. And... it wasn't that much snow. I don't even think it could be considered snowed in. It was safe to drive the next day and took me less time to clear the snow off of the cars and shovel the house's walkway and sidewalk than it took me to dig my car out in the December storm.
This morning, the snow was gorgeous. It filled the trees and even blew up the trunks of some of them. I had to bring the camera along for my morning walk with Rufus.
We've been issued a warning: we may be getting another huge "snowpocalypse" - one the size of the storm in December. The best part is this time I'll be snowed in with Jason and Rufus.
Since Thanksgiving, we have had some cool things happen. First, Jason started working at a new job. He is now doing bigger and better things. I am SO proud of him! He is now using public transportation to get into DC everyday. My little commuter! And speaking of jobs, the organization I work for got written up as one of the best 50 places to work in Washingtonian magazine. This actually happened before the wedding but I'm just getting around to telling y'all now. My bad. Even cooler – my parents' company got written up as well!
We have also had our first snow (!!!)
and therefore our first family snow photo of the year.
We're supposed to get a ton of snow starting tonight – hooray! So we might take more pictures of that.
We got the Bells' Christmas tree a few weekends ago – the day after our first snow. Man was it MUDDY. So, going with tradition, we carried Rufus the entire time again. This was last year:
This time Jason took a turn.
He started falling asleep. Life is tough for this little guy.
The search begins.
And then Jason finds one! Here are Terry and Linda with their tree right before we cut 'er down!
Ta-da! It’s magically on the car. A dude from the tree farm chucked it up there – literally.
We had a lovely Thanksgiving at the Bell's house this year. It was my first Thanksgiving away from my parents and my first with my new family! We made some pumpkin soup the night before to share with the Bells and Rufus reaped the benefits. Doggie-ball loves his pumpkin.
He loves pumpkin so much he danced for it. Literally. It was so funny to watch him that we had to shoot a video of it. He could be a circus dog!
On Thanksgiving day, Jason and I went for our annual Turkey Trot. Usually this is an outing for my family but this time it was just me and Jason so we decided to bring Rufus along too! Here are my main men as the race began.
We enjoyed our trot although it was a little sad without our family walking with us! It was super foggy but the weather was nice and the rain held out until we were done. Here we are after the trot. Our first family (non-wedding) photo!
It was a really great first Thanksgiving as a married couple - we have so much to be thankful for!!!
