175/365

so johnathan's been losing weight like crazy this week and i'm... well... NOT. then we ate at long john silvers today and i had like the biggest plate ever. 3 pieces of deep fried chicken, 4 deep fried hush puppies, a side of french fries, and some cole slaw and a large root beer.

yeah.... not so good for my health.

so when we got home, all i could think of was how much crap i ate today. this more than motivated me to pull the lawn mower out of the shed and start on the places on our property that are choked with weeds.

i'll be feeling this tomorrow.

174/365

it seems everyone is plugged into something. my adult pacifier is music. when i'm angry, there's a song to match. when i'm sad or upset, there's a song. when i'm feeling lovey, there's a song. i'll sit in my truck or car and turn the volume so far up and just sing at the top of my lungs.

i'm not much into mp3 players. yeah, i like them but mostly for my books on tape. i'd rather be surrounded by the music and not just have it sent straight to my head. but i know tons of people who prefer that.

173/365

i waited so patiently for this book to come out for months! read it in a day. started it yesterday morning, finished it last night.

wearing my sad face cuz now i have to wait until mid-february for her next one! jeeeeez. =*(

172/365

my man, as always... hard at work.

171/365

we still had some money left over from our trip. we used all the paper money but still had some coins in euros and pounds. guess we'll just hang on to them.

170/365

this is such a cool picture! i was starting to get ready to go to bed when i remembered i hadn't taken my pic yet. there was a storm coming in and the sun was setting. okay, i realize i was going to go to bed with the sun but the jet lag from the trip took me almost a week to get over!!

so the setting sun and approaching storm gave me this. i can't take full credit for it. unfortunately, i have to give some credit to my dad's piece of crap car. thanks "warpony 2".

169/365

so the title is, obviously, a play on words since i was feeling sorry for myself this day. this was my attempt at a remedy.

168/365

my plants didn't get watered while we were gone. they ended up withering in the this new mexico heat.

167/365

so i planted these marigolds about two months ago. they started sprouting like crazy and growing all huge but hadn't bloomed yet. right before we left, i noticed a bud starting to emerge. it bloomed while we were on vacation. i didn't even get to see it! i guess i shouldn't complain considering all the places and things i got to see while on vacation but i was a little disappointed.

166/365

nothing was more welcome than being home!!

...&& the house was still there along with everything inside minus some cushion stuffing from the cushions on the dining room chairs.
thanks, roxy.
really appreciate that.

165/365

our departing day. london airport is soooo confusing! it's not one large airport like phoenix or denver but like several depending on the airlines. there were just general waiting areas because they don't announce the gate of departure until close to an hour before they close the gate.

anyway, the way back we got a free upgrade into the "plus" section. this old lady, (aptly enough, named 'betty' since i was jonsing for my ugly betty fix) said she paid for her upgrade- $300!! that would have been $600 for both me and johnathan if we had paid for it! she said they wanted an extra $1,000 roundtrip for the upgrade and she was excited she got it for $300 on the way back!

i ended up getting airsick the last 45 minutes of the flight. it got so bad that i had to have the "waste bag" ready and waiting. as soon as got off and i got my feet back on the ground, i said to johnathan "if that's what the flight is like, we're not going back for a loooooong time!" it was miserable. but, i guess it's much like what i heard giving birth is like; you forget about it over time. sooooo, i wanna go back to scotland!!

164/365

one of my absolute favorite from the whole trip. our last full day in london before we headed home. the last hotel we stayed at, the park plaza westminster bridge hotel, was THE nicest hotel we stayed in. it was amazing and the location was unbelievable! practically on the river and so close to all the iconic london figures!

we went in search of dinner (we had mcdonalds but could you blame us?) and ended up walking up and down the river walk. there were all these very cool street performers and artists all over the place. we'd sit and watch some or just walk past others.

this was some guy making these huuuuge bubbles. i love this picture because it's so classic. you can't set up a spontaneous picture. of course, the focal point is the little girl but also check out the people's expressions in the background.

163/365

i think this was the day we were leaving scotland for york, england. the countryside of scotland was beeeeautiful. i wanna go back there. =(

next time, i want to go up into the highlands of scotland.

162/365

we visited mary, queen of scot's castle while in edinburgh. this wrought iron fence was gorgeous! that was probably my favorite part of the whole visit. i really like how the picture came out with the fence the focal point but you can still see part of the castle in the background.

161/365

we got into scotland and stayed in a city called edinburgh. our hotel had an ammamamazing view of edinburgh castle and the old town on the cliffs.

proof...

160/365

we had a private tour of the guinness storehouse in dublin, ireland. after the tour, we went to the top of the building which had a 360 view of dublin like seattle's needlepoint.

anyway, they gave us complimentary glasses of extra stout guinness. i have hilarious pictures of johnathan drinking his. it was really bitter. i'm proud to say, as girly girl as i am, i almost drank the whole thing.

159/365

we stopped at kilkenny castle in ireland. i set up my camera with self timer and set it on the lawn of the courtyard. it took a few attempts before we were in focus and the angle was right. this was the first attempt and for some reason i love it as much as the perfect one.

158/365

we went from wales to ireland on this irish ferry which took four hours. four looooooong hours. we slept most of the way. me on the bench and johnathan upright in a chair. i woke up after about 2 hours and looked overhead. there were these mirrors on the ceiling.

it was so boring on the ferry, what did you expect me to do?

157/365

we went to stonehenge which was about 45 minutes outside london in the middle of nowhere. we were just driving along when out of nowhere, the rocks appeared. we also went to this little town called salisbury. lastly, we went to the city of bath and saw the roman baths.

ended the day by crossing into wales spending the night in newport.

156/365

we walked out of london heathrow airport to mild weather. i was expecting to be bogged down by humidity but was rather surprised when the weather closely resembled what we left at home, albeit it a bit cooler.

we checked into our hotel and our tour started that evening. we went to dinner at a pub along the river thames. then we took a guided night river cruise and saw all of london illuminated.

155/365

standing in the airport in phoenix about 20 minutes before boarding our plane to london heathrow airport!

super duper excited. every other sentence out of my mouth was "can you believe we're actually doing this, babe?!"

154/365

so mapquest said phoenix was 6 hours from where we live. i should have printed out the directions to our hotel but johnathan said he knew his way around phoenix and he knew the fastest way to get to phoenix.

well, we got past gallup and were headed down i-40 when he said he wasn't sure where to go. i just about strangled him! we had to stop at a gas station in holbrook and ask the attendant about the fastest way to get to phoenix. we arrive in phoenix and took the exit to the airport and had to go through the entire airport before finding the exit to our hotel.

our hotel was very nice, by the way.

NOTE

i won't be uploading pictures for about two weeks. sorry for those following daily. you'll just have to get your fix after the 20th. i'll upload for every day after the 20th- i'll still be accountable, dont worry.

153/365

look at those big ole eyes! toni and the kids stayed the night last night. this is what i woke up to this morning. this little brat was eating breakfast. she looks everywhere when she eats and ends up getting her food all over her face.

152/365

i'm sorry! i'm so not big on commentary today. i've gotten a few days behind on uploading. there's just so much to do before we leave town!

this was on the way home after a loooong day of running errands. i have no idea who josh bell is. i'm thinking it's probably not the cow.

151/365

this is one of my favorite things in my house. i've had it for a long time.

150/365

so everything just snowballed this week. i had this week all planned out on how i was going to handle each day but then *poof* it just goes haywire.

this hangs over our bed in our bedroom. as you can probably tell, i forgot to take a pic until right before bedtime.

149/365

so bree and i had such a fun shoot yesterday. she had originally planned a paying shoot but they had to reschedule so she got another girl to play model for us.

we had a ballerina theme kind of shoot.

i had so many good ones and was like on a roll editing them that i got them all done this morning. this is my favorite from the bunch. my inspiration for the shoot was the gothic ballerina in the my chemical romance video "helena".

when i was editing this pic, mcr's "black parade" song was going round and round in my head. hence the title.

148/365

i was finishing up a baby blanket i started last week. dang, but my kitty loves the yarn. i've sprayed it for getting into the yarn so much that if it's even near my yarn and i move, she takes off running for her life from the spray bottle.

kitty is getting smart. i went to get some more white yarn cuz i was running out. when i came back, this is what i found. luckily for me, my camera was practically in my hand ready to go.

notice the yarn in her mouth and the look in her eyes that say "why you looking at me like that? i totally belong here."

147/365

it's been raining so much here, i love it! but there are some downsides to all the rain such as all the flash flooding. it flooded farmington the other night. the next day, as i was driving to the gym i saw all the businesses downtown having to remove the debris from their lots. so there were tractors all over the place.

here at our place, it just made the road muddy in some places. and drenched our local spider's houses. hope they had flood insurance.

146/365

so we were strolling downtown aztec when this jumped out at me. johnathan waited patiently while i snapped away from every conceivable angle.

i chose this angle because it reminded me of alice in wonderland. we watched the movie a few weeks ago. it was alright, didn't much care for it though.

when i was little, i used to watch alice in wonderland the cartoon all the time. it was one of my sisters favorite movies but i hated it. i dont know why i watched it constantly but it scared me. i think i only watched it cuz it was anne's favorite cartoon. it scared me on so many levels. not like the "boo!" kind of scary but differently. i don't know, it was so long ago and i don't know how to explain it.

so for now, enjoy!