Love...

Love... this garden of tulips in front of this lovely brownstone-like building in my neighborhood.

Love... the amazing fresh produce at the Farmer's Market (the largest avocados and green bell peppers, cantaloupe, apples, strawberries, cherry tomatoes).

Love... meeting friends for sushi and sake in the City to celebrate one of their birthdays. (Tonight, Seth and I took some major steps towards being sushi eaters. I had never eaten sushi until I was in college and Seth's oldest brother took us to try it. We eat it more often now, but of course we are a bit scared of trying anything major without the council of whether it's good or not. Tonight, I tried 3 different and amazing rolls... Intense rolls with many ingredients. Delicious! I'm definitely in love with sushi!)

Love... that it's Thursday and I have a trip outing for the daytime tomorrow. Hopefully it goes wonderfully and the weekend comes quickly!

Love... the amazing package I received in the mail filled with many wonderful things (and YUMMY cookies!) and a sleeping eye cover (which I'll be using here in a few moments since Seth is staying up on his computer and I'm ready for bed).

Love... that I got 2 evenings this week of picture taking after work. Hope next week's weather is as cooperative, since this weekend doesn't seem to look as if it will be.

Love... seeing downtown Manhattan tower above me as I walk the streets and disappear into the fog of the night. (I walk the streets of Wall Street in utter aww. Even though I see these buildings from the bridge every morning, I'm amazed by their height, their beauty.)

Love... the wonderful chocolate treat Alissa had sitting on the desk this afternoon. It was just enough to get me through!!

Love... the thought of one day missing the loud trash trucks picking up trash at 11:06 p.m. on a Thursday night. Someday I'll be laying in bed wishing for noise in the complete silence (of course, I'll also be living far from NYC at that point too!)

Love... my plans to catch up on sleep this weekend. And on that note, I'm off to bed to greet my dreams!

Check out more for Love Thursday at Chookooloonks!

A Birthday Wish

To a most amazing woman. I'm one of the luckiest people just for knowing her, and even more, for being able to call her Mom.

I wish I were there, to celebrate this birthday. I realized... I've always celebrated your birthday from a distance. But despite the distance, know that I am thinking of you, wishing I were with you today, and loving you for being supportive, loving, wonderful.

This mother of mine fills the shoes as my stepmom, yet being a "step" doesn't mean she's anything less than an amazing mother to me. How fortunate we are to share the relationship we do. She's my friend, my support, my role model, my go-to for advice and questions. Most importantly. She's my mom. And today is her birthday.

Happy Birthday Mom. xoxoxo

Spring Tuesday on My Street

How lucky we have been here to have 4 days in a row of wonderful warm, warm sunny weather. I can feel the difference in my day first thing after I wake up... the sun shining in, the windows open, the quiet street noise below. I can feel the bounce in my step as I make my way to the subway under the shade of the newly grown green cover above. With the weather forecast predicting cooler and rainier weather this week and a overly warm apartment, I decided getting out for a walk around the neighborhood would be a perfect after-work/before-dinner activity for me. I grabbed my camera, and headed out.

Pink petals blanketing the sidewalk. Petals were falling to the ground all around me... It's the perfect snow.

My favorite part of Spring... Lilacs. I had such a wonderful, peaceful walk that I convinced Seth (didn't take much convincing) that we must go on a walk this evening after we ate dinner. As we walked, I was getting ready to tell him about the lilacs. I was stopped, immediately. The smell of lilacs, as I glanced left, there was the source. A brilliant lilac bush (even better than the one pictured above) hiding in the twilight of our evening. Lilacs remind me of home, the bushes that I wonder by everyday on my way to get the mail. Lilacs remind of Lauren. The street across from her old apartment in her small Nebraska town lined with the most I'd ever seen in my life, in bloom for our visit last May.

This afternoon, I was tagged by KekeLynn at A Look Behind My Eyes to make a list of six unimportant things that make me happy... Here are my six from today:

1. Pesto and Pasta. Love pesto! Can't wait for leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

2. Open windows. My husband has been wanting to put the air conditioner in the window in our bedroom, but I've been pushing it off because there are many more open window days to come.

3. Library books. I am back to checking out books. Paid my fees, trying a new branch that might be easier to get to when I need to return books. Gotta go one more time this week for the last book I put on hold.

4. Walks. With cameras. With husbands.

5. Milk shakes. Especially after a warm commute home to a overly warm apartment on a Tuesday afternoon.

6. Lilacs. Picture above :)

The rules say to tag 6 people, but for some reason, I don't really like tagging people! So, tag yourselves! Go back to your blogs, post your list of 6 unimportant things that make you happy. Then come back here and share the link with me so I can get "my six" tagged! :) And thanks, KekeLynn for sharing with me!!

Members of a Cooperative

Seth and I are official members of the Park Slope Food Coop, as of last week. We've been talking about joining for a while now... and we finally took the plunge, signed up for orientation (even went out in torrential rains for it), and now, we're buying some of the freshest produce in Brooklyn.

Being a part of this food coop is a unique experience, because it's such a large cooperative. Currently, there are over 15,000 active members... Which seems crazy to think, 15,000 people shop and work in this store. Our work shift, which happens every 4 weeks for 2 hours and 45 minutes, will be on Sunday morning at 5:45 a.m. Seth's job has something to do with getting the morning shipment moved into the store, and I'm going to be doing food processing... Our first shift is a couple weekends away, so I'll have more to share once we experience that part of it.

If you are interested, this week's produce price list is here. On there, you can see where the produce comes from (and you'll notice, most of it is fairly local to the Northeast.)

Enjoy Life Now

Best Shot Monday. I chose this picture for the message. I spotted it on the bathroom wall Saturday evening. We had just left the park and were stopping to get a wonderful iced drink before heading to our homes for quick showers to meet up for dinner after. On the weekends, I have no problems enjoying life, but the weeks are more difficult for me as of lately. I'm working on it though. I have 9 weeks until Summer recess begins, which means I have 9 weeks of days to enjoy, despite the difficulty.

To start with, I'm enjoying the fact that the sun is rising, casting yellowish orange light into the apartment. The temperature is perfect and birds are singing outside the windows. The street noise isn't silent, but it's soft... Happy Monday! Enjoy!

Sunny Day in the Park

Saturday afternoon, we met in the park. Friends joined. Friends of friends joined. Friends of friends' friends joined... We had quite a large group of happy people together. Food, drinks, blankets, talking, laughing, and a variety of other activities took place as we all enjoyed the wonderfully warm 80 degree weather. We weren't the only ones at the park... It was packed. I love it that way though. A packed park, like ours here in Brooklyn, isn't like a park we find in the Midwest. It's a wonderful thing to see, to be a part of.

People watching was wonderful. We saw a group of people that had hollowed out a large loaf of bread and took turns slipping it on their arms like a cast. Then they would take the pieces of bread that had been pulled out and throw it at the person with the loaf on their arm. That person would essentially use the loaf to swat at the balls of bread like they were playing baseball! We also saw a group of people doing a Brazilian martial arts call Capoeira (I think). Here's a video of some basic moves and one with more advanced fighters. We also saw a guy getting ready to tight rope walk, but he ended up taking down his tight rope and heading off to find a better set of trees to tie it up between.

The sun was hot, and David didn't want it shining down on his skin... So he hid under a t-shirt until the shade finally set in late afternoon.

Soccer playing.

Yoga. A couple of the girls there were yoga teachers.

Kite flying. We didn't have any kites, but watched as others in the park flew their bright kites in the sky.

Cart wheels, hand stands, flips. Seth getting ready for the flip.

And the flip.

Scott took his turn, but I missed his front flip because I was capturing the reaction of his brother and his brother's girlfriend. I bet you can imagine what his flip looked like with their facial expressions.

Scott and Seth challenged each other to a handstand walking contest. Scott won.

A quick shot on the way back to our group after a wonderful bathroom break :)

Vicky relaxing on the hammock she and Scott brought.

A game of hacky sack quickly turned into a group of hand/head-standers. I think they were trying to play while standing on their hands/heads.

We even had juggling. Coz could juggle with all 4 balls.

All of our shoes were off as soon as we arrived. Bare feet + soft grass = amazing. Everyone left with dirty feet!

The sun was high above when we arrived. The park was packed. We stayed until the sun had set, until the park had began to clear... until we had filled our day with great fun... more fun than any other normal day has. And as we wondered our way out of the park after packing and bidding goodbye, we were happy. Happy to be with friends. Happy to think these outings are just beginning. Happy at what the summer, the warm weather, the city has to offer us in the months to come.

Saturday Lovin'

Inspired by Starving Artist Ink., I'm going to share a something I love right now...

I love waking up early (8 a.m.) on Saturday morning, and going to get coffee. Not many people are out in the neighborhood as we walk towards one of the many coffee shops on our street. It's peaceful and calm, and on mornings like this morning, the sun is waking up the neighborhood with it's beautiful light. I love that Ozzy's (one of our favorite coffee shops) had this sign outside this morning... In honor of it, I enjoyed an Iced Chai, my favorite summer morning drink! I need to figure out how to make it on my own...

Happy Saturday!

Friday Fill-In: The Sixth

Wishing all a wonderful, warm weekend, filled with outdoor activities!

And...here we go! Friday Fill-In.

1. Apparently there's some sort of consequence to eating milk shakes often... I'm afraid I might have to lay off a bit soon. (*Note... Soon... not yet. I still have 1 and half containers of ice cream in my freezer to eat!)

2. This girl absolutely loves a sunny day.

3. 2009 has gone fast so far.

4. And that was it. (I know! Not very creative... Seth helped me with this one and we both said the same thing...)

5. For too long I've been afraid of not being good enough behind my camera... but I'm working on letting go of that fear.

6. I am not obsessed with blogging; I am not!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to the excitement of not having to work for a few days, tomorrow my plans include helping friends move, brunch, and the afternoon enjoying 85 degree sunshine and Sunday, I want to spend the whole day in the sun for another day of 85 degree sunshine!

A Mama's Love

Happy Love Thursday!

In honor of Love Thursday (check out more here), I'm sharing a Mama's love. It's hard not to capture it when I'm with these two! My amazing sister-in-law and favorite nephew. This was taken on our adventure last week. (Which I just realized, I didn't really share many of those photos...)

I know I'm posting lots of photos from our outings last week, but I'm slowly processing through them and still want to share. I love photos... Not only do I enjoy taking them, but I Love processing them.

O, and Jac, I'll give you this photo too! :) I have a few other adorable ones of the two of you as well.

Picture of my Memory

The image in my memory, here to share with you... not perfect, it's just a memory. A memory of a perfect, relaxing afternoon. I couldn't have asked for a better one. It was one of those wonderful times when I didn't quite realize how amazing it was, yet, there wasn't a bad thought it my mind. I was so relaxed, wonderful. It was one of those moments where I was really living in the moment. I just let myself be. Now, days later, it's a memory, but enough to pull me through my less than enjoyable moments. Hoping to repeat it again this weekend. 80 degree weather will definitely help my cause!

Lovely

My husband came home with this loveliness tonight.

See the bright yellow tulip in the background? That was his flower gift for me over the last weekend. Sadly the tulips fell apart quick, with only this one lasting. Someone recently commented that we must be newlyweds... and Yes, we are guilty! I make him his favorite meals and sweet treats (made him monkey bread tonight - felt he deserved it for helping me on my new project!) I was just thinking, we are almost at 10 months. And 2 months from now, when we celebrate our year, we are going to be in Beautiful Colorado, celebrating as we did our honeymoon a year ago with Seth's family (ALL of them this year!!)

Happy Wednesday! Over half way to the weekend and to THIS wonderfulness!

Earth Day

I've been in a recycling mood. Last night, I schlepped a huge bag (imagine the size of 2 of the reusable grocery bags) of paper home from work to recycle. I could have just thrown them out, and I started to, but I pulled them all out of the trashcan because my guilt took over.

Besides doing my small amount of recycling, I've been trying to find ways to be creative through recycling and reusing. I have done a few small creative recycling and reusing of items I already have or I've found used. I have a few more on my list of things to do. Today, I'm going to share a quick snap of one of my favorite ideas that I actually thought of on my own. Go me! I've been wanting to send some letters to my family and friends. I have some cards, which my lovely grandmother made, so I used a few of those. But I still had more to send.

I wished I had stationary, but I left a lot of that kind of stuff in Kansas or have used it up... I didn't really want to go buy more paper, so I put it off. Good thing too, because I found a way to use something I already had! A while back, I had picked up a few old books from some one's stoop (LOVE free stoop finds!) They were old art books, the one I have been using the most is about landscape art. My reasoning for picking them up, originally, was to use them for art journalling. I have yet to do that, but instead have put them to use by pulling out some of the pages with light colored art pictures and using them as stationary to send letters to all my lovely friends.


I've done a few other things with the pages of this book. I've made birds (similar to the ones at the bottom of this post) that hang in across our living room window. I've also used them to decorate the fronts of moleskins. I have a few other ideas for the pages of the book too!

Here are a few more projects I want to try (or a variation of the projects):

• Rock Pictures

• Magazine Art

• A few more recycled projects

• Recyclart Inspiration

• Recycled Scraps Necklace

• Magazine Jewelry (Check out the last name of the contributor on this one...)

• Magnets

Happy Earth Day! Anyone doing anything special? Anyone have any creative recycled activities to share??

All-of-a-Sudden Day

A shot from last week's trip to Central Park with P and J. The weather was beautiful!

Unfortunately, the beginning of this week brought rainy weather. It's cold and the rain has been coming down hard at times (I've actually remembered my umbrella!). The wind is blowing, even to the point that I couldn't actually move yesterday as I tried to make it to the bus stop after school... I was at a stand still as I tried to push against it, while rain was pelting down at me. When I got home to my neighborhood and made my way up Union Street, I decided I was okay with the rain. The rain is bringing Spring. I wish I'd had my camera on my walk home yesterday, because it was absolutely beautiful.

I love Spring for this reason. It gets to the point that I am dying to see the new colors and life of Spring. I watch and watch for every little sign. I see a few signs here and there, but I'm still watching for more signs. Then, all of a sudden... They are everywhere. Color returns to the world. Every way I look, plants and trees are waking up after the long winter. Yesterday, was an "all-of-a-sudden" day. All of a sudden, I realized I was surrounded by Spring beauty!

Has the "all-of-a-sudden" day come for any of you yet? Have you gotten the chance to capture it in a picture? Maybe today, when I get home, I'll grab my picture and go capture the view from my "all-of-a-sudden" moment.

Urban Decay

The Jump

I love the P is in the air jumping at the same moment his papa is in the air. I love the surprises I get when I upload my pictures to my computer. This was definitely one of them!

Shared for Best Shot Monday.

The Last 10 Days

I have spent the last 10 days completely Enjoying life! I have gotten up in the mornings to sunshine and cups of coffee, relaxing and reading through blogs. I have been doing research on photography and processing, practicing both throughout the week. I have enjoyed multiple adventures with my nephew and sister-in-law and many on my own as well. I had time to write some letters and put a few packages in the mail.

But now, my clock is ticking towards a new week, a week that won't be so enjoyable. I'm back to work tomorrow. :( Spring Break just wasn't long enough! Yet despite this, I'm excited to announce I have a brand new wonderful project that I have been working on. I can only give you a tiny peak... but it's going to be Wonderful! My amazing husband (by amazing, I mean BEYOND amazing) spent the day helping me develop this project. He's so talented and wonderful! We have a bit more work to do... which I'm sure he'll be willing to help me slowly throughout the week (and I'll give him a little more motivation by making all his favorite dishes for dinner this week!) So... Keep an eye out, I have a new, exciting thing to share with you all in the Very near future!

Here's your one tiny look in... Check back for a more complete look soon!

Scooting Into Spring

A family on wheels, mostly scooters along with one skateboarder, could be spotted heading through Chelsea to the path along the Hudson River Saturday. The weather was beyond perfect, warm, soft breeze, sunny. I love adventures with our nephew. He's always stopping to look and ask questions (which is lovely for me, because it gives me the chance to look through my lens and snap some pictures). We didn't actually make it too far along the river, as we cut off to relax in the sun on an old peir. Even though it was an empty slab of cement over looking the water, I was surprised more people weren't there. Of course, we were happy with the lack of people, because it gave us room to scoot, to run, to sit, to talk, to even try skateboarding...

Belts are definitely handy tools, great for pulling 4 year olds on skateboards.

These two are huge fans of each other.

I loved this moment... when all 3 of them, at the same moment, stood gazing at the city they love. And I was happy to capture a family picture for them, something that doesn't often happen, I hear.

I cannot wait for more outings with the lovely spring weather. Our board and scooter are officially out for the warm weather seasons and will again get their use... Let's just hope this season comes with No crashes.

Scooting the City

Spring is here... Officially! The skateboard and scooter were pulled from winter hibernation today. More pictures and stories to come... but here is one shot, me sitting, relaxing, enjoying the wonderful warm spring weather. Can you find the Empire State Building in this shot??

Magnolia Flare

Beautiful magnolia with a glow from behind it. Found in Central Park.

Happy Friday! I'm kind of sad today. The weekend is coming, which is Usually much needed. But not this week. The weekends means I am getting closer to going back to work on Monday. I've enjoyed my break, every moment of it. Waking up to sunlight filling our apartment, walking Seth to the subway, getting coffee and relaxing at the coffee shop, enjoying time with my nephew and sister-in-law, practicing photography and photoshop. Yes, I have enjoyed every moment of it. I'm going to spend some time on the roof, soaking in some Vitamin D (wish I had a stoop... today I feel like sitting on a stoop.)

Friday Fill-in:

1. Join me in an afternoon in the park.

2. Put a little Alicia in your day!

3. Happiness is exploring the city, camera in hand, husband beside me.

4. Lost and confused.

5. I'm waiting for motivation to arrive so I can clean my apartment.

6. The sweet shop on my way home is hard to resist.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching a movie, tomorrow my plans include eating the breakfast my husband makes me and enjoying the wonderful weather outside and Sunday, I want to watch Desperate Housewives, catch up on work, and get my pictures moved onto my new external hard drive (1 TB = 300,000 pictures!)

Anyone have plans for the weekend?

Music in the Park

Upon entering Central Park yesterday, we happened upon this small group of musicians. I could have stayed all afternoon listening to them. After I snapped a few pictures, one of the guys gave me his card and asked me to share any pictures I might get. Kind of fun to have the opportunity to share some of my pictures. Hope they enjoy them.

Since he gave me his information, I can share a link with you if you are interested in hearing some of their music. Check Ted Hefko and The Thousandaires out on Myspace here. We might have to go check them out at one of their gigs (in our neighborhood on June 5th!!).

Street musicians should be on the streets of ever town and city on nice spring days. (Here's a quick how-to that can be used to get this going...) It's not something I often heard or saw in my small town in Kansas growing up. There was a guy named Tyler in my college town that would play on the sidewalk sometimes. Funny, I actually have him in my cell as "Tyler in the street." I got it so I could share his information with a friend who set up small shows at a local coffee shop. I always loved spotting him... It would make me feel like, for just a moment, I was living in NYC.

Now that I am living in NYC, I Love coming upon musicians. They are always around... I sometimes catch a few seconds of music when the subway door opens at a platform where someone is performing. When transferring or visiting Seth in Union Square, I'm almost always guaranteed a moment of music. One of my favorite performances was on a hot subway platform. A few more I've seen are here, here, and here. There's a great saxophone player in Central Park. He's often under a tunnel and plays the afternoons away. He was actually the soundtrack to my afternoon for quite a while yesterday while we hung out on the rocks relaxing in the sunlight.

Psst... notice the watermark? Makes me feel like a real photographer :)

Love Thursday

Here's to Love Thursday.

Today, I love my neighborhood and all the beautiful white blooms on the trees that line the streets. I love the Brooklyn Lyceum where I spent the morning enjoying my coffee and brainstorming ideas for my photography blog. I love Photoshop and learning how to use the settings to make the picture look they way I want. I love the wonderful weather we are going to be enjoying today in Brooklyn. I love overcoming fears!! (Can't wait to share the fear I conquered yesterday!!!!! I have photo proof too!)

What do you love today?

One of My Favorite Things To Do

I happily joined my sister-in-law and nephew at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden yesterday afternoon, despite the overcast, windy, almost raining weather. We made our way through the park. They have a beautiful path leading across the park to the Children's Garden entrance. I saw a few new parts of Prospect Park that I hadn't seen before (including a carousel that J said was amazing). The walk was quite enjoyable, P's imagination kept it interesting... after a bit of rock climbing, we were forced to run because of an avalanche. Huge rocks (I think 3 at one point) were chasing after us down the path! His imagination impresses me!

The Children's Garden has a small stream, perfect for standing in (with or without the right boots), scooping water up in, floating bamboo sticks down, jumping across over and over again. This was the area we stuck around in most of the time. What child doesn't love playing in water? Makes me nostalgic for my own childhood water days (of course, it wasn't at a botanical garden... more like the mud hole in the field back behind the barn after a summer rain... Ben would remember those days!)


There's a canal and a water pump. Normally a bucket is hooked there for kids to use to fill the pump so water can run out into the canal and down a path they choose (as the canals are adjustable). The bucket was missing, so one of the mamas brought buckets for the kids to play with. I'm not sure how the kids did it, but they played in that water, despite the cold weather, filling their buckets and running the water through the canals.

Uncle Seth and I are huge fans of our nephew. Yesterday, there was a very jealous Uncle sitting at work while a very happy Aunt played away the afternoon! At one point, I was asked by my nephew if playing with him was my favorite thing to do. Wonder how this Aunt replied?


After sufficiently chilling ourselves and the rain starting to set in, we headed for a quick walk through the Desert and Tropics in the Conservatory.

We stopped to smell Rosemary, and then headed back out in the rain. It was a beautiful soft rain, a rain I can love because I know it's helping turn everything green, bringing the garden back to life.

Rainy Day Photo

Yesterday ended in rain. A while back, someone (I cannot remember exactly who or find the post...) shared a picture of the rain on their car window. I commented about how I wished I could take rain pictures from my car window, except, I don't have a car. This photographer/blogger commented back giving me the wonderful idea of rainy pictures from the bus window. I take the bus almost everyday, except it's in a neighborhood that I won't take my camera out in, a neighborhood that I don't hang around in, only in to get to where I need to go. Yesterday, I jumped on the bus as I made my way home from the garden. I was thankful to get out of the rain, to get a seat, and even thankful for the rain, for all the green its bringing to my city. As I watched it run down the window, I remembered the idea and was inspired. It's nothing too wonderful, but here's my first bus window on a rainy day photo.