A Lesson in Libb-A-Ration.

One of my 2012 resolutions was to be more honest both with myself and those around me. We've almost completed two months of 2012 and so far I've learned that honesty is a slippery slope. Some people appreciate it. Others really don't want to hear it. I suppose I'm somewhat responsible for the latter. As the middle child/peacekeeper, it has been a monumental challenge all my life to say "no." I strive to make sure others are happy, which results in harboring a lot of internal negativity. I have a lot of passive aggressive tendencies and don't often stand up for myself. So yeah, truth-telling is a very important yet scary concept for me.

I am very fortunate that I have a great group of people in my life that have learned to love Honest Libba, and are really proud of me for speaking my mind and standing up for myself. Change can be hard to accept, so I'm very VERY fortunate to my family and friends for patting my back and encouraging me to keep at it, since honesty tends to lead naturally to drama and we all know how much I despise that.

It has been a struggle, ridding my life of drama, but the past six weeks have been so very quiet and emotionally uneventful. It has been remarkable. It has allowed me to nurture those relationships in my life in which I feel the most fulfilled. I feel stronger, both mentally and physically, than I have in a long time. I know that running has something to do this, but it's also the feeling of being in charge of who I allow into my heart and my life and my home. Work, Run, Wine, Sleep, Repeat. The cadence of my life is comfortable and harmonious. All is right with my soul.

But why is it that drama has a tendency to show up unannounced? Shouldn't it be required to knock on the front door and you can decide whether or not to let it in? Then I realized something, after a late-night conversation on the couch with my hubs, that my reaction to the drama is the only thing letting it in and allowing it to control my life. Acknowledging it at all is just adding fuel to the fire.

I have to be prepared for my honesty to lead to drama, so I need to learn to react better to it. To politely say, "sorry, you're not welcome here" and close the door to it. I know life will be quieter and more peaceful this way, and that's all I really want. A peaceful home and existence.

Thank you, blogger buds, for giving me an outlet to release some honesty. Melody posted an entry recently about striving to "get real" on her blog, and I'm going to set that as a goal of mine, as well. Be honest. Be at peace. Be real.

is September really almost over already?!

Wow. I can't believe that this month is almost over. Yikes. How did that happen?! Where have I been?! Oh, I remember, I've been editing the 1600+ photos I took at Adam & Tammy's wedding in Iowa over Labor Day weekend. Yeah. So pretty much every free moment that I haven't been at my day job has been spent pouring over NEF and JPG files. I finished those up yesterday and have had a minute or two to go back and catch up on editing my own photos, and I thought I should probably share some. See, although I'm completely behind on the editing stuff, I'm still TAKING pictures for my 365 project. Granted, they've been rather boring lately, I haven't had much energy to devote to much. I HAVE found the time to learn some new editing tricks, thanks to Melody and some on-line tutorials. See, that's one thing I love so much about my hobby, is that whenever I feel as if my photos are growing stagnant, there's always a new trick I can teach myself to renew my interest.

SO, just for fun, here are a few photos and a video short of some time we've spent on our new favorite Sunday afternoon pasttime:

Reading List

There are so many books and so little time. I've been an avid reader since I was a child. I'll never forget the moment when reading "clicked" for me. My family was on a cross-country roadtrip, driving through the Colorado Rockies. I was reading a book about some crazy fox character, and could not, for the life of me, figure out how to pronounce the word "could." I was an intense and emotional child (still am sometimes) and I was in tears over that stupid word. And then it happened. I was reading. And I haven't stopped since.

I am never without a book. I go from one to the next, after paying the proper respect to the tome just finished. I keep journals filled with my favorite quotes out of the books I've read and I return to them frequently, like I'm visiting old friends.

I keep coming across books I want to read or am interested in learning more about, so I decided to just make a list of them here so I can have access to them whenever, especially since I just finished an amazing work of historical fiction last night: Junot Diaz's "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" the story of a family from the Dominican Republic and the curse that has followed them through Trujillo's reign.

If you have any that you think I should add to the list or take off the list or have read any of these that you highly recommend, please comment!

1. Carlos Ruis Zafon "The Angel's Game"
2. Ian McEwan "Atonement"
3. Barbara Kingsolver "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral"
4. Barbara Kingsolver "The Lacuna"
5. Sara Gruen "Water for Elephants"
6. Garth Stein "The Art of Racing in the Rain"
7. Chris Cleave "Little Bee"
8. the Stieg Larsson trilogy
9. Jeannette Walls "Half-Broke Horses"
10. Anne Lamott "Imperfect Birds"
11. Yann Martel "Beatrice and Virgil"
12. Kathryn Stockett "The Help"
13. Gin Phillips "The Well and the Mine"
14. Gregory Maguire "A Lion Amongst Men"
15. Richard Russo "Bridge of Sighs"
16. Richard Russo "Nobody's Fool"
17. Pat Conroy "South of Broad"

I know I'll be adding to this list OFTEN. And you can add away, too :)

Bunny Rescue!

I've always been an animal lover. Maybe because of the farm, maybe because, as a child, I spent so much time with my cousin Erica, who would bury road kill in the backyard. She loved her stuffed animals the way I loved my baby dolls. Yesterday afternoon Dirk was in the backyard, tossing a ball to the girls, and when he called me outside, I could tell that something was up. Laying on the patio table was a tiny, wet, animal that Piper had discovered in the backyard. Poor, defenseless, motherless newborn! Ugh! I cleaned it off, identified it as a newborn baby bunny, and wrapped it up in a towel and went to work making phone calls. Our vet directed us to the Oak Mountain Wildlife Rescue, who's hotline directed us to Wild Mammal Care of Alabama. After numerous phone calls, the sweet people at WMCA urged us to try to find the rabbit's nest, as reentry and reuniting the tiny animal with it's mother may be this bitty baby's only hope. We scoured the backyard twice, the second time with flashlights. After more phone calls and emails with photos back and forth, Amy asked if we'd be willing to meet her with Pascal (I know you're not supposed to name them, but I couldn't help it) so she could take him to her rabbit expert volunteer. I tell you what, this organization has got my support 100%. The only state and county certified nonprofit who takes in mammals, they work round the clock to nurture and reenter animals that most people would call the critter catcher to kill. Their whole mission is based on coexistence. I mean, this land was theirs before it was ours, can't we take the necessary steps in order to coexist with these harmless creatures?

Since we've moved to the woods, we have come across snakes (yes, they died), bunny rabbits, turtles, birds, raccoons, opossums, chipmunks, and squirrels. I feel as if, living on an acre which is mostly made up of woods, we have the ability to do our part and offer up our habitat for these sweet animals who need homes. It's the least we can do, right?

Here's sweet little Pascal! He was trying to hop around and everything!
WMCA emailed me this morning with an update on little Pascal. We definitely made the right decision in taking him to Amy last night. The rabbit expert determined that he had been without Mama for at least two days and was severely dehydrated and very thin. I bawled all the way home after dropping him off, thinking about his poor mama looking for him! I kept asking myself if we did the right thing, or if we could have scoured the backyard one more time looking for his nest!(a note on this photo....NEVER try to offer a baby animal cow's milk or water! just one of the many things we learned about sheltering wild mammals last night! BUT, the photo does give a good sense of scale and illustrates how tiny this baby was!)

That was our night, in a nutshell. Look at me. I'm in a nutshell. Help me get out of this nutshell. (that's for Leyna.)

An Actual Blog With No Photographs

Okay, blogosphere. I'm putting it out there. I'm not whining. I'm not having a pity party. I'm not being pessimistic. I'm being realistic. And honest. I get exhausted trying to sugar-coat everything for the world wide web. Don't you want to know what's REALLY going on?! Here goes: I've been down lately.

Call it post-wedding depression. Call it what you will, but throughout life, nothing has been able to send my attitude plummeting like drama with friends. I feel as if this is something I have struggled with my whole life. Friendships. Maybe it's because I'm a middle child and always want everybody to be happy. Maybe I give too much and expect too much in return. All I know is that I am a very sensitive soul. That's just how I am. It's how I always have been.

Tread softly.

I used to beat myself up over it. I would be down for days and weeks when a so-called "friend"'s true colors would show and I would realize they weren't really that good of a friend in the first place.

I know that I am fortunate to have those who appreciate and support and encourage and LOVE me for me. What I'm wondering is, do you out there ever get so discouraged by certain individuals that you just take a little break from them? I've decided to remove myself from the situation for awhile. To see if I stop calling, emailing, texting, contacting others to make plans, who would I hear from? I feel as though if I clean my closet, so to speak, and get rid of all the excess baggage cluttering my head, I'll open it up to other things. Creative things. If I spent less time worrying about whether or not someone's upset with me, or why oh why doesn't this person understand me after all this time, I'd have so much more time to get back to ME. Because honestly, I enjoy my own company. I have fun hanging out with myself. I think thoughts. I make things. I feel like the best version of myself.

I deal with people all day long. Five days a week. It's difficult to carve out social time, let alone alone-time, husband-time, family-time. I am pulled in so many different directions. For one whole year I had a break. Just me and the dogs all day every day. It was lonely at times, but still, it is a time I have grown very nostalgic for.

Now I'm rambling. I guess it's enough to know that you have a hand-full of people you can count on. Who you can call when you're on the verge. Who understand you completely and wholly and accept you, despite your flaws. I have those people and I am thankful. It's the others that bother me. The "acquaintances" who masquerade as friends sometimes.

A wonderful person I met in college, who is not afraid to wax nostalgic or show emotions on her blog, posted this excerpt from a book she's reading. It just touched me on a wonderful level.

"love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.
sometimes too i see that love is a great room with a lot of doors, where we are invited to knock and come in. though it contains all the world, the sun, moon, and stars, it is also so small as to be also in our hearts. it is in the hearts of those who choose to come in. some do not come in. some may stay out forever. some come in together and leave separately. some come in and stay, until they die, and after." - heather coulter, wendell berry

It reminded me that everyone enters your life for a reason. Whether to teach you a lesson or give you an experience to carry with you through life. I'll continue to let them in, and if they don't choose to stay, they fulfilled a purpose of some sort.

Thanks for letting me rant, folks. I feel as if I can write about this now because I've turned a corner as far as my attitude towards it. I am in a really great place right now. I can't wait to find some new friends to share it with.

What I've Been Up To

So my adventuring buddy decided that our July adventures not only needed to include spelunking, but also tubing down a river in the middle of nowhere in Alabama. Always up for a new experience, I was all for it. And I brought my husband with me.

So you drive out to the middle of nowhere to someone's acreage and you pay for your tube (and one for your cooler.) Then you wait with all the half-naked rednecks and college kids to hop a ride on the back of a Lipnicki's (my nickname for inbred individuals) pick-up truck, as seen here:
Only, my adventuring buddy does not like to get dirty, so she made me sit in the front of the truck with the Lipnicki. We TRIED to make polite conversation, but backwoods Alabama Lipnicki's apparently speak their own language which is uninteligible to normal folk.
Then you have you to push your way through the kids to get into the river. Once you're in the river, you form a flotilla, linking your feet to another person's tube. Our flotilla had six people. It was the classiest flotilla on the river that day.
I can talk about this experience now because my bruises have faded to yellow. It was amazing. Probably because there was a thunder and lightning storm the entire trip, which added a bit of excitement to the whole experience. Well worth the $10.

So for the past couple of weeks I have been a World Cup Widow. This is like Dirk's America's Next Top Model Marathon. He loves soccer. And I try to love soccer. But the horns are really annoying. We went to Luis's last Sunday to watch the Mexico game. I learned a lot of new spanish cuss words.


Earlier this week I got together with my colleagues from Executive Traveler for cocktails and appetizers. It was SO much fun. This group of people have been like family to me, and although we hadn't seen each other very often since our gig there ended, we all came together and had a blast catching up. Zeb is trying to look like the most intelligent man in the world here or some such nonsense.

So fun little things here and there, but not much, otherwise. We're going to Atlanta to see our favorite band for the Fourth, so we're obviously super excited about a minimoon with Phish, since the last time we saw them was right after we got engaged.

Hope everyone is well!

In Which Libba Gets Pinkeye

And Dirk gets a ginormous plasma television. For me, though. Dirk can justify anything under the "but it's for YOU!" clause.

sneak peek

This past week has been a whirlwind, a blur, but it's over with. The boxes are no longer invading the house, they're just squatting in the guest rooms. Still TONS to unpack, and organize, and purge our lives of, but we are happy. This house is amazing. It's new, and it's history is going to be written by US.

This is the backyard/patio area. The house sits on a wooded acre on a quiet cul de sac, and my super protective fiance is thriving here. See, Dirk usually abides by the people-are-trying-to-steal-you-keep-your-doors-locked-at-all-times-and-curtains-drawn-at-night philosophy. I grew up in a farmhouse where the keys to the cars live in the ignitions of respective cars and THERE ARE NO LOCKS ON THE DOORS! So when Dirk told me he actually FORGOT to lock his car the other night and the fact that the HUGE floor-to-ceiling windows don't NEED curtains or blinds, I knew we were home.

Part of our contract was that the seller would provide us with an appliance allowance, which meant we got to choose ALL of our own appliances. You know you're getting old when you get excited about APPLIANCES.

The dining table is currently a catchall of crap, but hopefully that will change in the next week or so. The dining area features a large bay window and is an eat-in, which is great, because let's face it, unless you're a Blackwell hosting family gatherings any time a relative comes to town, who ever uses a formal dining room?! Oh, and the archway connects the living/dining/kitchen and there's a passthrough between the living and kitchen.

I'm starting to love our living room. The fireplace WORKS, and y'all, let me just tell you about the light. It is a photographer's DREAM! AMAZING LIGHT! You all probably don't think or care about such things, but between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. there is no need to flip on a lightswitch in this house unless you want to use one of the ceiling fans that grace EVERY ROOM!

Just to show you where the boxes have been hanging out. These are shoes and sweaters (I think), but give me 24 hours and I could tell you for sure.

This room WILL be the guestroom, or my father's self-proclaimed room. I love it. I love the third floor, actually, because it is MINE. Two rooms and a bathroom, all to myself, to decorate without opposition, to retreat to when I need some "me" time, to create baubles, take pictures, and to just "be."

These were the only spaces I photographed today, Dirk does have his own space, too, we call it the "man cave." He spent the entire first day at the house decorating his bathroom. A toilet paper pyramid was created. It is magnificent. It wasn't magnificent as I was carrying boxes of books up two flights of stairs, but I can appreciate it's beauty now. The first floor has a two-car garage and a suite with a full bath. The man cave. The master bedroom and bathroom are on the main level and my bathtub is officially the best thing ever. There are jets. I can lay in it with my legs stretched all the way out and water up to my neck and soak. I am a strict believer in the positive power of soaking. It's therapeutic. And for all of you who "can't stand laying in your own filth", my question to you is: exactly how filthy are you?! Because not once in my life have I ever felt gross while enjoying a soak in a tub. I've turned taking a tub into a verb. As in, "I'm going to take a tub."

The front porch is also pretty amazing. And it will be even more amazing in about 8 weeks when the porch swing my dear friend Geoff ordered for us arrives. As he put it, it's a wedding/house warming/president's day/every birthday for the rest of your life/christmas/easter/thanksgiving/halloween present. He's pretty great.

So is this house. And when the wedding planning and the unpacking slows down, I will take some blogworthy photos, I promise, just had a chance to update this thing and jumped at it!

Weekend in Review

I will have you know that I made a conscious effort to photograph and find things to blog about this weekend! I know no one's been pressuring, but I miss the blogosphere. I promise to procrastinate at work tomorrow and catch up on all your blogs. There, I said it.

Friday night Dirk and I went to what we thought was going to be a casual tasting of potential Rehearsal Dinner and Reception cuisine. We showed up and it was a candlelit five-course affair with a customized menu. We were in heaven. It was super romantic and a great way to set the stage for our celebration. And apparently the steak was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Dirk actually said, "If you were ever going to try a steak, this would be the one to try." No takers. I greatly enjoyed my veggie skewer, quinoa stuffed poblano pepper, and snow pea puree. Oh, and the squash muffins. Delicious.
So yeah, it's officially official. The deposit has been forked over and we are getting weddinged at Blue Spring Manor May 29th. And I am getting a wedding dress on FRIDAY! WOO HOO! I am so excited!
On Saturday, Dirk and I took Piper to get her yearly shots at the vet. She's weighing in at 68.5 lbs and is healthy as a horse, and as big as one, too. The vet has to stand on tip-toes when she was on the table in order to look in her ears. To reward our sweet pup, Dirk and I took her to the pet store and got her a new toy. Since Piper was a bitty pup she has had this one bear (that Will gave me for Christmas back in 1992) that she will put between her paws and suck on. It's kind of creepy because it looks like she's in a trance or something. We found out that pups that are weened too early may have a propensity towards suckling stuffed animals. Until Fantastic Mr. Fox came along, however, the bear bore the brunt of Piper's SuckFests. Here she is with her new fox, assuming the position.
Dr. Pignataro introduced me to this new iphone app called "Words with Friends" in which you play Scrabble back and forth wiht other iphone or ipod touch users. Dirk and I are now obsessed and I have games going with two Docs at work, Dirk, Mama, and my Aunt Jane. The other night these letters popped up (IN THIS ORDER) on Dirk's game with Aunt Jane! Ha! So yeah, if any of my blogger friends have iphones or ipod touches with wireless access, add me to a game, my username is "libbalu"
The best part of the Superbowl, in my humble opinion, is the PuppyBowl. Piper, however, is not a fan!

I hope everyone had wonderful weekends! This week is going to be awesome, with Mama & Daddy coming from Iowa, Brooke, Chris, and Taylor coming from NC, and other peeps coming in to help me buy a wedding dress and then attend our engagement party! Dirk and my parents will finally meet this weekend. I'm a little nervous. I mean, the Blackwells tend to steal everyone else's thunder. Pray for the South family, please.

Too Much Television Watchin's Got Me Chasin' Dreams...Foo!

Last night was my company Christmas party at The Club. A place where you walk through the front door into the 1960's. It was so much fun to see everyone all dressed up after seeing each other every day in scrubs. The meal was delicious, as was the wine. This is Amy and me, and I love this lady. She cracks me up all day long.

Here are some of the girls I work with. Tara is due on the 22nd and she was actually rocking stilettos last night!

After dinner a group of us headed to a local bar to listen to a band, and lo and behold! Coolio showed up! How random, right? Especially since I had just rapped the entire "Gangstas Paradise" at work last week. It's one of my favorites and when I start rapping I just can't stop.

Coolio was rocking the Fruit Loops jacket last night, and he's definitely a few dreads short of his Clueless "Slide slide Slippity Slide Days." I counted eight in all.

He rapped to the classics, and even gave a shout out to Alabama's Heisman Trophy Winner! Woo hoo! Go Ingram!

Okay, so something has been going on for over a month now that I've been hesitant to blog about JUST because there are so many hurdles to jump before anything is set in stone. Dirk and I found a house that has the potential to be our dream home. And it's in our old neighborhood, which we miss every day. It needs a LOT of work, but every week we get closer and closer to the goal.

Here is her staircase.

She was built in the 1920's in the Colonial Revival style. I refer to her as a "she" because when we had the consultants from Atlanta come out to inspect her he referred to her in the feminine and it just fits. She has so much personality, she just needs some love!

This is looking from the front door to the back. The main level has two bay windows and this huge fireplace. Upstairs there is another fireplace. All said and done there are 39 windows in this house.

Here is a view from the sidewalk. The house is a block away from the first of three parks that make up the Highland Park neighborhood. Lots of sidewalks, cool people with pets, historic homes, and eclectic restaurants. We're waiting on two bids from different contractors before we close, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

Yeah, so we're pretty much crazy, right? Planning a wedding and possibly renovating a home? And this house needs a LOT of work. New siding, new windows, new studs, new kitchen, new bathrooms, refinished woodwork, etc., etc., etc. I'll keep you all posted on progress. I'm still trying not to get too excited because we don't know for sure this is going to happen. But it's hard not to get excited about it!

Weekend in Review

I have been squeezing way too much into my weekends since I started working full time. Seriously? I'm pulled in so many directions (a la Gumby), between friends, art, family, work, dogs, fiance, and on days like today I felt like I was about to rip apart. Where oh where is that happy medium between my work life and my life life?! Where are the extra hours in the day for me to make jewelry, edit photos, do anything other than relax after a grueling day at the office?! If any of you have ANY advice, please share! It was 5 o'clock on Sunday before I sat down and then when I did, I was confused for a moment. Like, "shouldn't I be doing something?!" I mean, I've been reading the same 400 page book since September?! Help!

So the Christmas Card photo attempt didn't go too well.

We were very nervous about the game on Saturday, or, at least Piper and I were.

Lookin' for gators

The one time a year leaving a stuffed dog toy outside can result in this in Alabama.

Our annual snowfall.

I spent Sunday making bracelets, bracelets, and more bracelets. There is nothing more rewarding to me than cleaning my house, grocery shopping, laundry, and creating something with my hands (it's just setting aside the time!) I have been super inspired to add some more bracelet designs to my etsy store, and will let you all know when they're available!

Ruffner Wednesday

I've found that if for nothing else, having an exercise routine has helped organize my off-time. Or, at least, it gives me something to say when anyone asks "What did you do today?" Sipsey and I have been spending Wednesday mornings on the Five Mile Trail at Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve, which is just a few minutes from my house. A lot of my creative inspiration is sought in nature, and it also gives me a chance to reflect on other areas of my life that need undivided attention.

This morning I was thinking a lot about my identity. No, I'm not going through an existential crisis, but I do think a lot about HOW I have perceived my identity up to this point.
1.) Through my relationships with others: being a daughter/friend/girlfriend/colleague/granddaughter, etc., and
2.) Through my career: being a traveling photojournalist. I've always had a hard time hearing people refer to me as a "Photographer." I feel much the same as Ellen Cherry Charles from Tom Robbins's book "Skinny Legs and All": "All artists feel like impostors, except maybe the ones who really are." Plus, there's the fear that if my hobby becomes my career, will it lose all it's fun? No, I don't like calling myself a photographer. But anyway, I digress.

Now that I have no definable career, and for most of the day I'm separated from my relationships with others, I have been finding new ways to define myself. I'm pondering inventive ways to introduce myself: "Howdy! My name is Libba. I am a drinker of wine, a lover of nature, an advocate for peace, a steward of the environment, a devourer of edamame, a watcher of trashy television shows, a reader of books, an admirer of art in all it's forms, and a taker of pictures." I think I'm onto something here, and that I may have stumbled upon my essential self, a better way of defining who I TRULY am, more so than being Dirk's Girlfriend, Aimee's Friend, Lee's Colleague, Jack's Granddaughter, the Brocks Babysitter, etc., etc., etc.

So now I'm interested to know how all my blogger buds would define themselves if they put everything else on pause (jobs, husbands, kids.) Every time I'm feeling as if I have no purpose, I am going to read this entry. It's okay not to wake up and have a purpose every day. It's alright to just be. To spend all afternoon reading a book or playing Guitar Hero until I can't see straight. To eat an entire bowl of edamame by myself whilst watching reruns of "Gossip Girl." What I enjoy and how I spend my free time IS who I am, more so than what I do to pay the bills.

pickin' and a grinnin'

I've spent the weekend with my five-year-old friend, Goodwin. I started babysitting for Goodwin's family when I moved to Birmingham five years ago (he was four months old.) I went to work at St. Luke's preschool and Goodwin was in my class two of the three years I was there. I've continued to sit for his family at LEAST once a week for the entire time, so G is pretty much a huge part of my life. And I am so thankful. Cause he is such a cool kid. His current favorite past-time is music. He has numerous toy guitars, and recently got a mandolin and a banjo. This kid performs concerts for me with songs he makes up on the spot. He rattles on about John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and how sad he is that Jerry died. Yesterday after a trip to the zoo, we headed to my house, so he could pick on the item that makes me the "cool" babysitter. My bamjo.

there is a season....

I've been on the Barack Obama bandwagon for awhile now, but as of Wednesday I'm taking it to a new level. I am fully embracing and living his mantra: "The Change We Need," except I'm adapting it to "The Change I Need." And while I'm not scared to embrace the next chapter of my life and career, I could use all the encouraging words the blogosphere has to offer! Wish me luck!