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so far away from where you are
i'm standing underneath the stars
and i wish you were here.

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i never knew how to worship until I knew how to love. ~henry ward beecher

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i cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. so i spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air. ~ nathaniel hawthorne

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i love this picture.

and not just because of the lovely cochenours showing everyone how it's done. (c;

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humor is the great thing, the saving thing. the minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place. ~mark twain

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in the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. ~aaron rose

102009

northside.

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The nicest thing you can do for someone who has lost her world, is let your world stop, if only for a moment. ~ Gordon Atkinson

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and the next day, the broncos were 5-0

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good morning moon.

just one more reason...

...one more reason to love fall; birds fly south for the winter.

and pretty pictures from the big picture. (c:

Autumn scenes - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

all the leaves are brown.

whit and i road-tripped (verb) it up to estes in the hopes that i could capture the lovely color change on the aspen trees. unfortunately, there were a few things that went wrong...
a) i only had 1 cf card with me and it was my 256mb...lame sauce, steph. lame.
2) a large majority of the trees had already let go of the yellow loveliness...lame sauce, trees. lame.

despite the setbacks, i still got to hang with whit and there are few things better on a sunday afternoon.

on the way...


fuel for the fire (don't worry...it's of the root persuasion.)


we did get to see a bull elk with his harem. he was showing off and doing his best to show the 2 other bulls in the area that ALL of the ladies were his. selfish bastard. seriously...there were 20 ladies, at least. enough to go around. but that's not how elk roll, apparently.


and whit and i established our mutual favoritism of autumn...but for wholly different reasons.

we agreed on the weather, but we both dig spring and autumn for their weather...what pushed her over the edge for the fall is the football season. she loves her some men in tight pants beating the tar out of each other (me? i prefer men on ice...with sticks). (c:

what really makes me favor fall is completely aesthetic. i love bare trees. i do love the colors (and, lets be honest, i just love trees) but there is something about the bones of the tree. the core. the graceful beauty. i just appreciate them more in their raw form.

i'm weird.
but that's okay.

i'm a bit sad because i will be missing out on a pumpkin carving party on saturday...pumpkins, cider, friends...i wish i could be there. )c:

but, i get to shoot gabe and kelly's wedding, and let's face it...it's going to be epic. (c;

happy autumn, everyone...what's your favorite season?

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i love it when the aspen get all crazy and turn orange.

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.dancing shoes.

.evil.

see. i told you they were evil.



SOURCE

Ballots, bullets and bombs in Afghanistan - The Big Picture - Boston.com

from the big picture.

too powerful not to share.

Ballots, bullets and bombs in Afghanistan - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

for whit

mapakes.

.wild.

saw this on fffound today.

made me happy. (c:

ra...ra...random

so, i've been kind of mia around here. sorry about that...will try to get back to posting more often.

my mom turned 50 last week. kinda crazy. my gram came up from scottsdale on the saturday before her birthday to surprise her. my brother and sister-in-law made a lame excuse to come over and i walked in with grandma in tow. she wrapped herself in a pillowcase (as wrapping paper would have torn) and shocked the crap out of my mom. mission accomplished.

my dad wanted to do something special on her actual birthday, so, with the help of my brother and his wife and his wonderful in-laws, we managed to pull together a "surprise" party. i say "surprise" because, while it was still a surprise to her, we didn't actually jump out and make a scene.

my gram had taken her out shopping to get her out of the house so i could clean and rearrange (i had to fit 18 people into a tiny, tiny space). mostly everyone was there by the time they got back from their excursion. she walked thru the door and there were people spread throughout the living room, dining room and kitchen. i don't know if the look of shock was from the party or the fact that there were so many people crammed into our house. (c:

in other news, i decided to do something entirely out of my comfort zone. i've been thinking about it for a while; take a class and learn something new, but i didn't know what to do. dancing was actually at the top of my list and the only thing stopping me was the fear of making a complete ass out of myself. i think we all know how graceful i am. ha.

i saw the video for boy with a coin by iron and wine where sam utilizes a troop of flamenco dancers. i've always thought it was a lovely style of dance, but hadn't really thought about it as a dance option. i half-jokingly mentioned something to whitney about looking for a class in town. pretty sure she didn't think i was serious. but maybe she did. dunno. anyway, i found a couple of teachers in denver and to be honest, i was a little surprised. i thought it'd be hard to find something.

i had my third class last week and felt like a huge goob. it's much harder than it looks. the first two weeks i did fairly well, but we had just been going over hands/arms then feet (we are learning a sevillinas). then last week, we attempted to put them together. yeah...pretty sure my brain doesn't work that way.

as we were attempting to put it all together i couldn't help but think it might be easy for drummers (if they were graceful) because they can manage to do very different things with their hands and their feet at the same time. i never could get the hang of that. any time james would let me mess around on his set, i couldn't get my foot to hit the bass drum without automatically hitting the snare and hi-hat all at once. i could hit the bass and snare separately, but as soon as i tried to do anything with my other hand it all just went to hell.

now i'm having the same issue trying to do the steps and move my arms at the same time. i look like...well, i don't know, but it's not pretty. (c;

but on a high note, i'm dancing in high-heels and i haven't fallen once. (c: and when my grandma was in town we went shopping for fabric and she's going to make me a skirt. yay!

i'm also finally trying to get to a healthier place physically. i started working out again, and it feels great! i went to a chiropractor to find out if he could help me with my consistent sinus issues/headaches. he did some tests and took some x-rays yesterday and i'm meeting with him again today to find out what (if anything) we can do to actually correct the problem so i don't have to constantly battle the symptoms. from the tests he did yesterday, he saw that my neck and upper back are way out of wack (which can contribute to my sinus issues and fatigue), so just getting that adjusted should help at least a little. that makes me happy.

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my cousin, liam. kid knows how to work the lens. (c;

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little bit o' the wedding i shot last weekend.

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in the pumpkin patch.

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the colors look so much better in full view. so, if you want to see pretty color, just click on the picture. (c:

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can you see him? he's very blendy.

he sat and posed for me for a little while. such a diva. (c;

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shroom.

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he was hiding from me.

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don't pronounce your vowels.

yes please.




≈ from BUST Magazine
photo by: Danielle St. Laurent
for the article click here

72009

Sunrise over troubled waters.
Over troubled fathers of the son of sun and sand.
Steady now, you're the loosest cannon.
Not yet a man, but we're not children; we're not kids anymore

And we ride,
We ride,
We ride down these living seas.
Down these living seas.

Winter comes, and the deepest freeze
Will turn clever theives to steal the breath from angry seas.
Hold me down where blood meets water;
Where time is black and white bright blue until you breathe.

And we ride,
We ride,
We ride down these living seas.
Down these living seas.
I'm these living seas.

† fiction family †

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don't mean jack if you ain't got a jack

well, never let it be said that hanging out with whitney is uneventful. (c;

a couple of weeks ago whitney contacted me about going hiking this weekend. she has been working like crazy and hasn't had a lot of time to get out and go hiking this season and she saw a hike that she thought i could handle and would be filled with pretty pictures. double plus (c:

on sunday i played at church, so when i was done i headed over to whit's and we headed up to evergreen. the trip up there was great. lots of music and laughing and kevin bacon dancing innapropriately...maybe you had to be there...
the sky looked pretty wicked but neither of us were opposed to getting rained on. we were mildly concerned about the lightning, but didn't let that stop us either.

it was actually a really great little trail. tons of wildflowers and a moderate incline that i could handle. i could have lived without the bikers as the trail was not exceptionally wide, but there weren't an unbearable amount and we actually ran into a couple who were courteous enough to thank us for moving aside. i thought i'd never see the day.



the original plan was to do the 5.8 mile trail that was plotted out in the trail book she had. we started out on meadow view trail and were about a mile in when she realized she left the map in her car and neither of us were bright enough to remember a watch...but hey, we remembered the bug spray this time. the trails were well marked and we figured we could keep going without the map. we were, however on a time constraint because she was scheduled for a stand-up trip that night and had to be home in time to get ready for work and make it to the airport on time.

we were on the trail a little more than 2 miles and it still hadn't turned for the loop back. since we didn't know for sure what time it was...i am famous for lollygagging and getting distracted by pretty things, so 2 miles for us takes longer than normal people, i'm sure...we made an executive decision to turn around. after a few run ins with bikers, we finally ran into a hiker who could give us the time. we were pleasantly surprised at the time we were making. the sky never opened up where we were at and the only rain that we saw on the trail was a few sprinkles at the end.

highlights of the hike:
the revolutionary evolutionary tree (potty anyone?)
courteous bikers (no, thank you)
deer leg (tho it totally grossed out whit)
the most amazing trip catch i've ever seen (well done, whitney)
wind in the trees (so loud i thought there was a river nearby)
amazing conversation (life, love, expectation, worth...so good)
2 hot boys (how you doin'?)

whit had to be home by 6 in order to make her trip and it was about 4:30 when we started heading back to denver. plenty of time. we stopped at genessee so i could take pictures of the buffalo. we weren't out of the car more than 2 minutes when the sky opened up and just dumped on us. i love, love, love the rain, so it's not a big deal to me, but i hadn't brought anything to protect my camera...so back in the car we went.

still plenty of time.

However...we were driving along, minding our own when we heard a loud CRACK. neither of us said anything, but i think both assumed that a large rock had hit the side of her car. no bueno. but what are you gonna do? not long after the crack, whit said she thought that she might have a flat tire. no sooner had she said that did i feel the car start shaking a bit.

oh. yeah. that's even more no bueno.

we were almost down the mountain (red rocks was the next exit), but when you put rain and a flat together, that could be a recipe for worse things. so whit pulled over to the shoulder (and i use that term loosely). she had to park quite close to the guard rail, but i was able to squeeze out and survey the damage. it was not good. she asked whether i thought she could keep going down the mountain, but she was nearly on the rim and the risk was far too...risky.

so there were were. on a sad little strip of i70 doing our best not to get taken out by the crazy drivers and whitney needing to be home in just a little more than an hour. she said that typically in situations like these, she'd just call her dad but her parents were out of town at a wedding.

i said it was really no problem, if she had a jack and a spare i could change the tire. my brother made sure that was a skill i learned. couldn't always rely on daddy or james to do everything. since then, i've changed more tires than one should ever have to, but i digress. so, she goes into her trunk and gets the spare, but all she has is the tire iron...no jack. uh oh.

i'm good at changing tires. just not that good.

i suggested my brother or even my mom could help, even tho both of them were quite a ways away. but at that point our options were limited. so we began texting and calling anyone we thought might could help. hell, i was texting people i wasn't even sure could help.

after getting a few responses back from people who were unable to help, i got a call from john hartley. he lives in arvada and it would only take him about 15 min to get to where we were. he dropped what he was doing and came to the rescue.

he's the bestest. he gets some homemade cookies. (c:

we got whit's car down the mountain and she went to her parents house to switch cars with them...'cuz you know, eating a donut=good; driving on a donut=bad. and we made it back to her place with a few minutes to spare.

on my way home i called chelsea because she had texted me back after we found out we were going to be rescued by john. i had just told her 'nevermind', but wanted to call her and let her know we made it okay since she texted to see if we made it and i didn't get back to her. when i called her she told me she would have been happy to help, but she didn't know what she could do. she wasn't sure if she could change a tire. sigh.

now i have to sit those girls down and learn them how to change a tire.

learn, ladies. learn. it's a skill you hope you never have to use, but it's handy when you do.

evergreen

.streamlined.

now loneliness is so refined
it's streamlined
i slip through doors, i pass the time
streamlined

i want to be weighted down,
tangled up in the thorns of love
but this year i ended up
streamlined

all extra weight i've left behind
between the rain
beneath the signs

i want to be tangled up,
weighted down, lost and found
cause these days i just walk around
streamlined



.slow runner.

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