Category: photography

Countin’ ’em

*sigh* Monday. It’s Monday again. Why God why?!?!?

I guess cuz it has to be.

Granted, I had today off. Not because of the holiday. My company doesn’t give us that one off. Nah. I took a few days vacation.

I was honored, over the weekend, to have a visit from my best friend. She lives in Las Cruces and made quite a long trip to get here. Should have gone easy, but due to inclement weather somewhere or other, she languished in the unfathomably ugly Phoenix airport, cutting short our visit time by several hours.

We hadn’t had the chance to be together in person for quite a while. October, I think, was the last gathering in New Mexico. She hadn’t been this way for years.

The occasion of her visit was to begin her duties as my Matron of Honor (what a terrible thing to call a nice married lady…”matron”, feh!).

Those duties included 1) calming my ass down, 2) helping me look at wedding magazines without crying in anxiety and 3) going with me to choose a wedding dress.

It is that last one, the wedding dress one, where she earned her combat pay.

Despite having been in several weddings, I’ve never had the, uh, agony, pleasure, of going with a friend through the whole dress buying process.

Through the recommendation of a work friend, I found a place in San Francisco (right off Union Square) that you can choose from their “menu” and they make you a custom fit dress. The friend that made the recommend doesn’t have a model perfect bod, and I saw her wedding photos. She looked *stunning*. I figured these were the people to work some magic.

Let’s review. 1) wedding dress shopping, 2) in San Francisco, 3) off Union Square, 4) getting measured.

I. Was. Terrified.

The good news is, as of this year, my friend has been my best friend for, count ’em, twenty years. Yup, met back in 1988. Oh the lives we’ve lived since then.

So I felt comfortable in the presence of The Good Man and The Best Friend to say, “I’m scared.”

And bless them both, they talked me down, fed me breakfast, told me I’d be great and brought me to the fifth story, blonde-wood floored dress shop feeling strong and confident and loved.

As an aside, let me tell you this bit of Too Much Information. At the shop, they hand you a strapless bra, some really awful gold lamé shoes, tell you to strip down and we’ll be right back with dresses for you to try on.

I wore a pair of steel belted control top hose to try to better my chances. So there I stood, shivering in a billowy curtained dressing room wearing black hose, a strapless bra and gold shoes. The urge to wheeze, “anyone want a cocktail” like a Reno waitress was too much to bear.

I stood there, horribly nervous and horribly uncomfortable and I looked over at my friend. She gave me an “it’s going to be ok look” and all I could do was bust out laughing.

The laughing stopped when they slipped the first dress over my head. Who knew I had a waist? Who knew I could actually pull off a strapless?

My friend was brutally honest with me on each dress we tried on and after an hour and a half, I think we’ve settled on a good one.

After that, the rest of the weekend was easy. We did sightseeing and had good eats. I got the rare chance to spend several days with my two most favorite people in the world. And was so gratified to see how well they got along with each other, as well.

I choked back a lot of tears this morning dropping her off at the airport. She has to get home to my two gorgeous goddaughters and her husband as well. I’ll see her again soon, but tonight my heart aches.

I miss my best friend, each day, very much.

Together she and I have learned a lot of lessons.

The most recent, from the dress shop employee.

The key to femininity is:

Spanx and a sash.

And she’s not lying, that sh*t can work wonders!

Most people in this world, if asked to make a party list, can fill a page with a list of friends. I cannot. I have very few friends, but the friends I do have mean everything to me. They are more than friends, they are family.

For that, I am grateful.

Add to that, my friend carted a bag of Hatch grown green chile out here and whipped up a batch of rellenos Sunday night that would make you cry (and I think The Good Man and I did weep, just a little, in gratitude). THAT is love.

Photo below to make you drool.

I have a crush.

I’m wildly, passionately, unabashedly in love with The Crafty Chica.

There. I said it.

I came across her book, The Crafty Chica Collection, at my library. (my local library roooocks. I am a huge fan of the library.) As a New Mexico girl, it sang to me.

I’ve been possessed by it since. I also have two more of her books checked out, and one on hold.

And when I say possessed, I mean full on OCD, freak out, dropping cash at Michaels, dreaming about it at night, spending free time all over the glue gun, buy me some glitter, rhinestones!, possessed. I’m into it.

And bless The Cute Boy™, he’s rather supportive of the craftiness. He even scored crafty-perfect Xmas gifts. God, I love that man. The Feline thinks she needs to sleep in the craft box. It’s a tug-o-war. I’m not sure that as The Human that I’m winning.

So, since I’m gonna own it, publicly admit my crush, here are some photos of my stuff inspired by the Chica. This is what I’ve put together on my time off from work. (have I mentioned that not working for two weeks is utterly the best? Sleep. Whatta concept!)

This is a small photo of, yes, me. Little me. This was just a “let’s see what I can do with this spare piece of cardboard and some glitter glue”. It’s not perfect, yet I like it:

And here is the piece I’m working on now. I’ve always been all in love with Dia de los Muertos images and art and so the Crafty Chica gave me some ideas and some how-tos and I’m off to the races. I made all the clay beads. I’ve had dreams about making this and it’s coming together really well.

It’s not a lot to show for my time off so far, but lots of things are in motion. This is MUCH more fun than work!

Photos by Karen Fayeth and crafty art by Karen Fayeth too.

Have yourself a Merry Little…

…whatever holiday you celebrate. I make no assumptions here.

The Casa de Karen and The Cute Boy™ is in tumult as we clean and scrub and prepare for guests tomorrow. I’m not much of a hostess with the mostess, so entertaining in my home always makes me a skosh edgy. Plus, among the guests tomorrow is Mother of The Cute Boy™ and in my silly female way, I’m still trying *very* hard to make a good impression on her. She’s a wonderful woman, a great cook and raised the man I love, so her opinion matters, you know? I tend to twist myself into a knot about it.

The food is all stocked in the fridge. The feline is unhappy about all the kerfuffle as we sweep and mop and vacuum. She thinks we all should be taking a nap. Have I mentioned that in my next life I want to be my cat? She’s got it real good around here.

I think things will all come together. Pretty much when you get good eats and good people together, magic happens. Joyful magic and I could use a bit of that in my life.

Meanwhile, everybody, enjoy your family, friends, homemade family (cuz the one you’re related to are intolerable), yourownselves, your pets and your holiday cheer.

And if the going gets tough, spike the egg nog.

Photo by Karen Fayeth

A few photos

I was strangely photographically uncreative and uninspired while on my trip to New Mexico. I think I was so sick I could only concentrate on blowing my nose. I’d expected to take a ton of photos, but only took a few.

The views in New Mexico are as breathtaking as always, but I had trouble capturing them on film. This is usually not an issue for me. New Mexico is really one big photo op.

Below are a few of the better ones, but not my best work, but they make me happy enough. It was such a great trip. I’m ready to go back.

This was on the way to Capitan

This is just outside of Fort Stanton

Taken at the Merchant Marine cemetery right across from Fort Stanton

This was on the way back to Alto from Fort Stanton. You just don’t get views like this anywhere else…..

Happy Mom’s Day!

I’m taking a page from the Avelino Maestas handbook and his Live From Silver City blog. Today, my blog will be photos. Like Avelino, I’ve been enjoying time behind the lens more and more. I’m a rank amateur with a good camera, better lenses and a decent eye, so I’m learning.

Today I got to horn in on Mom’s day with my partner. He has cool folks so I enjoy borrowing them both. Today they let me come along to Filoli Gardens. It’s one of those places where you almost can’t take a bad picture.

In his May 11 post Avelino talks about photowalking and the photowalking.org site which I think is pretty cool. Although I guess I didn’t know I was “in the know” because this is how I’ve always made pictures. By walking around and seeing what hits my eyes then trying to make the shot fit what I see. Not always easy, but always fun. Avelino also has a link for the Digital Photography School Forum that lists “assignments” where people post in their work. That has a certain appeal to me too. I find an odd bit of creativity in being given a topic and letting my mind try to fit the bill. I love writing that way, I’ll pull a word out of my big bucket of words I’ve cut from magazines and try to form a story or at least write a poem about the word or cleverly using the word. So I may get in on the photo assignment action…we’ll see.

For now, below are some of my faves from today.
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