237/365

the new miss hozhoni of fort lewis college. i did her portraits yesterday in durango, after several scheduling fiascos. i like how they came out, so i'm pleased.



236/365

i have no idea what the cat was doing the other morning when i went out to start the car. (s)he kept turning over every leaf! okay, we still dont know if it's a boy or a girl. i think it's a boy. i'm calling it a boy from now on. 

i hope i didn't do any permanent damage when i stuck the boy on it's head a few months ago.

235/365

was down by the river in durango scouting out locations for an upcoming shoot. there were leaves everywhere and it was so gorgeous.

the river that runs from durango through aztec and farmington is the animas river. it's called the "river of lost souls" for some conquestadors back in the day, dying while trying to cross the river. kinda morbid. i try not to think of that when i'm wading in it. 

234/365

woke up the other morning and we had frost! the car windows were frosted over and the water that collected in the pot by the door was frozen. a few leaves and some wood from the porch was in the pot before the rain.

that much closer to winter. NOOOO! i dont want it to be cold and nasty!

233/365

how cool is this? i'd seen this one day when i already had my picture of the day and i'd hoped to recapture it. the next couple of days proved too cloudy for it to cast a shadow. finally, with some luck, i got it on camera. this is right outside the welcome center in aztec.

the statue is a kokopelli. johnathan has some interesting theories and stories about this guy...

232/365

finally got my schedule for next semester figured out. i have a list of classes that i need to take since i've finally figured out what concentration i'm gonna end up doing. so i'm getting my degree in business management with a minor in accounting. sounds impressive, if i do say so myself. but i figure that'll get me where i wanna go career-wise.

231/365

i figured it was time to update daddy's portrait. and since it was so beautiful outside, what better time? 



230/365

was on my way home from dance rehearsals last saturday morning. this was in cedar hills on the way back from durango. this was originally where we were trying to find property or a house to buy when we first starting thinking of our own place. i'm happy with where we're at but this place is still really pretty.



229/365

was getting ready for bed when i realized i didnt take my picture of the day!

228/365

it's finally starting to act like fall with the wind and the rain coming down. it was getting pretty muddy to our house. that's the ONLY thing i dont like about the rain is how muddy our road gets. forget about washing our vehicles, even when it's nice for the next couple weeks after a hard rain because it's still muddy to our house. 



227/365

the leaves are falling like crazy around our house. i remember this time last year. there was one time when it was so colorful, after i came home from work, that johnathan and i played outside in the leaves before going to dinner at our favorite mexican restuarant.

i took tons of pictures and i look back at it now and that was probably the happiest i was during that whole period of time. my hair was so long, too. i'm missing my hair big time right now. the last couple of nights, i've dreamed that i have long hair. come on hair, grow!

223/365

the height of the fall season in durango.... i love it.

i had rehearsals in durango that saturday but there was also a baby shower we were gonna go to in ignacio later on that afternoon. i was told it didn't start until 2. my rehearsals ended at 11:30, i got home at 12:30 so i had about 45 minutes before we had to leave for ignacio.

we got to ignacio a few minutes before 2 but the baby shower had already ended and people were leaving. i was told the wrong time! i was so mad because we wasted a trip to ignacio for nothing. instead, we went back up to durango and got groceries. we stopped by the river to play and this was the scene.

222/365

i was driving home from durango behind one of those dump trucks carrying gravel. they drive so slow on that stretch of highway from about sunnyside to stateline.

a rock came flying at me. luckily, it hit the front plate instead of the windshield. 



221/365

took this on the way home from dinner with johnathan and my dad tonight. this was at a fire station somewhere between aztec and farmington. 

220/365

so there's been a couple of times in the last few weeks that i've driven along rim drive on campus have seen a couple sitting there watching the sunset. i kept wanting to stop and take a picture but there was always somewhere i had to be.

i had a test in my legal class yesterday and got out of there super early. i was driving to my dance rehearsal when i saw them. i slammed on the brakes, backed up, and jumped out with my camera. they were nice enough to let me do my thing.

i love how it came out. i took quite a few and had a hard time deciding which one to ultimately use.



219/365

so i've been taxi-ing my dad around since we brought him back from gallup cuz he's vehicle-less. i had to take him to his doctor's appointment tuesday morning before i went to class. i dropped him off and went to the gym and worked out. when i picked him up he said that the doctor put him on insulin.

he's been a diabetic for many many years. but up until now they had him taking medication orally for it. i always remember him saying that he'd rather die first before having to take insulin shots. the meds they had him on controlled his diabetes but it was causing other damage to his liver. since he already has liver problems (and you can't just regrow a liver) they had to move him onto insulin instead.

he seemed a little bummed about it at first but when we were driving home he started joking about it. i told him that if it allowed him to be around longer, than that was just something he had to do. he was saying "i guess i'll just go on insulin since i'm too chicken to die yet." that's him, always joking.

218/365

so i vowed that i wasnt gonna drink soda anymore. that lasted for about a week. okay! so a few days cuz i cheated a little. but it was almost a whole week without soda. i dont know how i used to do it. i think it's one fo those things where the longer you go without it, the longer your body can resist it. i just gotta get over the week hump then i think i can resist better.

this was the ending of my soda fasting. BAD SODA!! but it tasted soooo good. 

217/365

so the people who live up on the street planted corn and stuff over the summer. they have some pumpkins that they grew also. i just wanna climb over their fence and steal them! they have these two annoying dogs that bark at everything plus when they weed their backyard, they just throw their weeds on our road! how rude, right?

anyway, these aren't their corn. we walked to safeway today to return a movie to the dollar kiosk and i saw these outside. "naadaa" is navajo for corn.

216/365

toni and the kids came over for a few hours yesterday. the baby girl is anti-social. she doesn't have much interaction with anyone so she screams all the time. at least she does with us. even if i just look at her she starts crying.

she had on the cutest shoes though. and after a couple of hours she calmed down a little. i mean, i could get close to her without her crying but if i tried to hold her, even with her mom right close, she still cried. 

215/365

we finally got to meet my new neice friday. we had to go to gallup to pick my dad up since his car broke down on his way down there and he was without transportation. so he's been down there for the past two weeks. anyway, he had doctors appointments this week he needs to go to.

we met up with my older brother and had lunch. of course, i was too busy admiring the baby and snapping pictures left and right to really notice the food. her name is mackenzie and she looks just like her brother. well... a little darker and chubbier version. and her hair is darker too.

she's just a cutie. they should be up here in a few weeks so i can take her baby portraits. can't wait. 

214/365

here's a leaf from our skylight in our master bathroom. summer is officially gone and fall is here. that much closer to winter. i'm not gonna stress about winter even though i dislike it rather intensely. i just hate being cold! and it's getting colder in the mornings. :\

i really like this picture. it kind of reminds me of paris. what would paris be like in the fall? i want to go so badly right now. we had the chance to go when we went to britain. if we had planned to stay an extra two days, we could have done a day trip to paris from london for like $200 extra. it would have been a guided tour and everything. i was sooooo bummed when i realized we could have done that. it would totally have been worth it.

oh well, next time i guess.



213/365

i got out of my 3 hour legal class the other evening to this. it was cloudy and rainy all day but it was never more apparent that fall is officially here than the fact the sun is pretty much set by the time i get out of class at 6:30pm.

i actually got a parking place by EBH which is the building my class is in. i almost never get that lucky. usually i have to park clear across campus and walk all the way to class which usually isn't so bad. i could do with the exercise... just not when it's getting chilly out.

212/365

i just noticed this sign the other day when i was on my way to campus for class. people can drive down the hill pretty fast and there's usually a cop sitting there waiting to catch people speeding. guess someone didnt think that was enough.

okay, i get the point. 



211/365

today is my best friend, bree's birthday. we're getting old woman!

210/365

okay, so we're still confused on whether kitty is a boy or girl. when i check, i think kitty is a boy. i have no idea! i guess it really doesnt matter except i dont want kitty pissing in my house with the whole territorial thing if it turns out to be a boy.

anyway, i was trying to do my homework when i heard him/her/it making tons of noise underneath the table. i looked and she (we'll call it a 'she' for the sake of convenience) was making herself comfortable in my dance bag.

guess she wanted to go to dance rehearsal with me this week. 



209/365

so the shiprock fair was this weekend. it also happened to be the birth day of my newest neice. my older brother, mike's newest addition was born on saturday. her name is mackenzie and she looks just like her brother.

this was my purchase at the fair. i had rehearsals that morning in durango so we didn't get to go to the parade. that's probably for the best since the traffic is always horrible during the parade. not only that, but people can get really rude and mean! so we went later on in the afternoon to the indian market.

since it was my neice's birth day, we figured we'd get her something from the fair. check out this little baby bracelet. how adorable and it's so tiny!

208/365

so for the first time in the history of living in this house, on this property, i sank my feet into the ditch that runs alongside our property.

i was tramping around on our property, trying to come up with something other than the crappy lucklaster pictures i've been doing when i decided to be ballsy and do something i hadn't done before.

i've been experimenting with shooting rushing water at a low appeture in low light. i haven't quite gotten a handle on it but it's coming along a little better everytime i do it. practice makes perfect and i'll just keep clicking away i guess.



207/365

so remember a few months ago i bought these virginia creepers from that "native roots" place in durango. well, here's an update for you...

they're still alive!

:D

they didn't get much bigger. they branched out but didn't get much bigger. BUT they're still alive. i'll take that as a good sign. maybe next spring they'll get some height on them. but for now, enjoy they're changing color.





206/365

"When was the last time you rose, victorious, like a phoenix from the ashes?

anyone can be burned, crushed consumed.

but not everyone chooses to rise.

grace is the air that turns our cinders to ashes and our ashes to wings.

rise. then rise again."

this was my favorite month from our bedroom calendar. i thought so much about those words. i seriously contemplated getting a tattoo of a phoenix. the artwork is beautiful on the calendar but it's the words that held me captive.

i feel like i can relate. mostly though, when i think of being burned to the ground, my mother comes to mind. there was a time, a couple of years ago that the way she treated me, i'll never be able to forgive. i've thought about it and how much it changed me. it hurt so much but it definitely made me a tougher person. no one should have to deal with the emotional trauma she dealt me. it's made me very distrustful of her. i'll never fully be able to entrust my wellbeing to her. that's how to say but so very true.

in the end, i came out stronger. i wouldn't wish an experience like what i went through on anyone. it made me see that there were only two other people in the world i could completely, irrevocably: johnathan and my dad.