Hello May...

May is a month that rocks for many reasons. Mainly, it means that summer is right around the corner, and Dan and I will be celebrating another year together. I always get sappy thinking of the way our story came together and the days in May that mark a milestone for us. Actually, yesterday (May 8th) was the day we re-met...

I found Dan on Facebook the evening of April 25th, 2005 – back in the day before FB had homepages or tabs or people over the age of 30 (or something like that). I sent him a message to say hey stranger I haven't seen you in like three years, and had a response by the next morning. We caught up, remembered the "old" days, laughed about them, and acted as if it was three years prior and nothing had changed. But really, everything had changed...everything except our feelings for each other and the fact that I reeeeeeallllly wished I had kissed him back when I had the chance.

He joked that his apartment was on my way home from UC and that I could just swing by whenever I wanted, but our schedules didn't work out that way. He was going to be in a friend's wedding out of town and had things to do beforehand. I knew his birthday was May 6th, so I wrote on his FB wall and sent a text message telling him Happy Birthday, and that I hoped someone had sang to him. I heard that was the highlight of his trip. ;)

On May 8th – Mother's Day of that year – we finally had time in our schedules to hang out for the first time in three years. I had brunch with family that morning, and Dan had a graduation party to attend, but later in the afternoon I headed down to his apartment. While we took a walk around town, had dinner, and watched a movie (or something like that), we realized how much hadn't changed... how much had changed... how the universe just hits you over the head with perfect timing, and how I wasn't going to pass up my chance to kiss him that time.

The rest is history, but may be continued at a later date.

On a totally different note, we had dinner with friends Scott and Mary Ellen last night and met their new little one. We'll be having a newborn session with him soon, but we took our camera along and grabbed a few shots – hope it's okay that I'm posting them, mom and dad! I couldn't decide between color and black/white, so you get both. Enjoy!





Love the LITTLE TOES!




Tomorrow I'll have a post with peeks of the album we ordered recently. Oh man, it's fan-freaking-tastically delicious. The pictures won't do it justice, but I'll show them anyway.

Until then... Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers and moms-to-be out there.

Woopsy daisy...

If you've visited this blog since around April 1st, which I obviously haven't done, I apologize for the missing graphics and photos. No, I wasn't boycotting images or going minimalist around here. I just wasn't thinking when we switched over to our new domain. WOOPSY!

Speaking of the new domain, you may know that ryedesigns.com became available and we purchased it. You may also know that our new website went live on April 1st! I can't give Dan enough props and respect for all of his hard work implementing my design. He had to put up with a lot of back-and-forth and indecision on my part, and then some of the normal web-coding woes. At one point we had all three of our laptops out on the couch, checking to make sure the site was compatible with every browser. If we had our way, Internet Explorer would be banned from all computers and burned. Seriously. Do yourself a favor and download Firefox.

I really enjoy looking through our site and knowing that we have something to show our work and explain how we roll. Even more than that, I dig that Dan setup an entire backend (Content Management System) that makes it super easy to update and manage our site. We have more site plans in the works, too, such as an integrated blog!

Without too many details, we were actually mentioned on twitter and gained 70 visits to our site from 16 countries IN ONE DAY soon after it launched – from that ONE tweet. Boo-yah!

http://ryedesigns.com


What you may not know is that I was called back to do contract work for my previous job at the beginning of March. After I expected to have the month of March to continue working on our website and business, I was thrown back into 40-hour work weeks and doing Rye Designs stuff nights and weekends. The biggest shift, besides having two full-time jobs again and trying to deal with creative block, is the dinner arrangements around here. I got used to making/having a homemade dinner every night, and now the verbiage of choice seems to be, "So...where shall we stop for dinner tonight?"

Other happenings recently...

• I finished a website redesign for an ongoing client, which Dan has been implementing pretty quickly. I'll have screenshots when that launches.
• We've ordered quite a few photography samples for our showroom, including gallery wraps and prints. After seeing gallery wraps, regular prints just aren't the same. Ooooo boy, that texture and quality is heavenly.
  
• I've been designing our header/footer for letterheads and such, to go with our new website, and having such a hard time with it. Not because I have no ideas, but because I have too many! A blog or facebook poll might be in order if I can't narrow them down soon.
• Our friends, Scott and Mary Ellen, had their baby boy tonight! We're so stoked to meet little Joshua and have a newborn session with him.
• I'm ready for the warm weather to come back! How about you?
  

Now to get some sleep. Goodnight.

The girl who forgot how to blog...

Seriously. I haven't forgotten about my blog – on the contrary, I think about it everyday. And every day that passes greets me with more PRESSURE that I don't have a handful of photos and interesting commentary on my life. Let's just relieve that pressure now with a short list of things going on around here, and call ourselves even. Of course, twitter, facebook and flickr are ways of following my incredibly mundane happenings in between posts.

Shall we? Bullets, please!

• At the end of January I was laid off from my full time job. I was given notice of my "job eviction" the first day I went back to work after California. Welcome back, the economy sucks, Friday is your last day! I worked with some great people who organized a dinner on my last day, gave me flowers and chocolates, and a lunch the next week for those that couldn't make dinner.
• I've been devoting my time to Rye Designs, research, brainstorming, and finding all sorts of cool things online. I wake up every day, wipe off my wet cheek from Merry's wake-up-call licking, open up all the blinds and let sunshine fill the house with light. I figure out what's for dinner (you can call me Betty or Martha or somebody), work on the biz, and enjoy it all. I know that my resume needs to be finished (thanks for the constant reminders, Dan). I know that I need to apply for some part-time jobs, I know, I know. BUT THIS IS MY DREAM COMING TRUE and I don't want to turn away from it now. Our bills, however, have a different idea of what my dreams should be and I'm not amused.
  
• Valentine's Day was a nice, low-key day. Just time at home together, that's how we roll. Dan went into work that day and I had a special dinner and dessert planned, and I decided to throw together some framed California photos for his desk at work. Mucho easy, and I was happy to devote the day to him. Of course, he walks in with an ice cream cake for me. Chocolate is always appreciated. And he always knows how to surprise me.
• Remember Becca? I showed some of her headshots a couple months ago? Well, we also did a blog re-design for her and it went live recently. Check it: Sweet...with a side of Snarky. Tell all of your snarky friends.
  
• This year's all-church 6-week journey has started. It's called Reset and we're on week two. It's all about resetting your thoughts, assumptions, and myths about Jesus and truly learning who he is and what he's about. I heart these journeys and the learning/friendship that can develop from being in a small group for six weeks. I miss being in a group with Scott and Mary Ellen – hope you guys are loving your new group!
• New music I'm digging: Griffin House and Charlie Mars. GH is from Cincinnati and he came to play in Newport last month. Charlie was his opening act.
• I was feeling a little sentimental last weekend because it's been a year since we closed on our house. I still look around and feel the need to pinch myself. Picture from last year after our offer was accepted...
  

Those are the big things of February. I still don't feel like I'm caught up, but that's okay. I'd like to squeeze blogging into my daily schedule somehow – stop laughing – but I'd have a better chance of giving blood, or not covering my eyes from a puke scene on tv. I'll see what I can do, though.

I almost forgot! Since more people have been visiting our website recently and our old mess was staring them in the face, we posted this today...swoon.



After some heavy consideration, our services will stay the same but will no longer state "websites | photography | stationery." Rye Designs will now be a photography, design & development studio and I'm really excited about that. It gives us room to take on various types of projects and expand in the future.

Now that I've gone completely off my sleeping schedule the past couple days, and it's two in the morning, it's time to say goodnight.

Goodnight.