A b&w birthday

The pictures I took when we celebrated Brad's birthday were a bit inconsistent (thus is life learning a new camera), so I converted a bunch of them to black and white. He says he's "old" so "black and white is fitting." Silly boy...

Next up: pictures from our birthday "stay-cation" last weekend!

Five On Friday

(I thought I'd try this as a way to try to keep up with posting on my blog. Basically you're supposed to write five random things for your Friday entry)

1. While I am normally skeptical of infomerical products, I took a leap this week and bought the PedEgg randomly when we happened to be in Bed, Bath & Beyond. I'm not going to lie. It is the BEST PRODUCT EVER! It will seriously cut down on the number of pedicures I have to get. I am so hard on my feet, between flip flops, pointy toe heels and barefeet. This amazing little egg really helped with the rough spots on the bottom. Try it if you have feet issues. It is worth the $9.99!

2. My Dad was here visiting this week. He arrived last Friday and left yesterday. And we had a great visit. We didn't do anything remarkably exciting, just brunching and lunching and shopping. But it was still super fun to hang out. I love it that I'm now and adult and that hanging out with my Dad is fun :)

3. During Congressional recess, things normally slow down in D.C. for people both on and off the Hill. Not this recess. I'm not sure what this recess was thinking, but it has been as busy as, if not busier, than ever. Thanks a lot recess!

4. The weather has been totally wack-a-doodle in D.C. lately. It was 40 degrees and raining on Wednesday and now it's 70 degrees and sunny. I wish it would be 70 degrees and sunny all the time.

5. If you haven't checked it out already, head over to ACS CAN's web site and check out the annual accomplishments report for 2008. Another staff member and I put a many long hours into making this thing beautiful. I'm just glad it's done!

Artomatic pics

So yesterday I talked about my photography and how I'm entering this big photo exhibit at the end of next month. I thought I'd share with all of you the pictures I think I'm going to display. Your feedback is GREATLY appreciated!

Random Ramblings

Something that has been on my mind lately: my photography.

This picture:

has pretty much become the "face" of C Photography. It's on my business cards (which I need to order more of!), it's hanging in the front window of this restaurant, it's hanging in my living room, it's the image next to my name in a big art show I'm going to be in from May 29-July 5 and, undoubtedly, it'll be hanging up in my display at said art show.

But what is C Photography, beyond this image? I'm not an fantastic lifestyle photographer, like my friend Erin or a successful and talented wedding photographer like MK. I bill myself as a travel photographer, since most of my most awesome pictures come from my travels around the world and around my neighborhood, but am really more of a "stuff" photographer. Really. I actually am not that good at taking pictures of people.

I still feel like I'm trying to find my style, which no one ever told me you had to do. I know that I like architectural details, especially windows and doors. I know that I like bright colors and high contrast black and whites. I know that I love my wide angle lens and what it lets me do with buildings and big skies. But other than that, I don't know much.

I know I'm not too good at marketing myself, which I'm hoping Artomatic will help me work on a little.

I know I'm honestly scared to death to do this show, even though there are over 900 2-D artists and a bunch of cool performing artists, many who have done this before, but many more who have not, right there with me. I'll explain the awesome scariness of Artomatic: I basically am given a wall. It's in a newly constructed, not yet occupied building. It's up to me to paint it, light it and make it mine. 900 or so other artists do the same thing. It's open to the public May 29-July 5. People can buy my pieces, if they choose to. It's basically a huge building that right now is filled with nothing, but will soon be filled with art. Luckily, I have an awesome husband to help me out with the handistuff, and the marketing, and the framing and the generally trying to be awesome and look like I know what I'm doing.

I guess I'm just thinking aloud at this point, and you're probably bored with the random ramblings that go on in my head at any given moment. But there you have it. The first blog post in three weeks. I promise the next one will not be so introverted. In fact, the next one will probably have pictures from Brad's birthday, which was last Friday. The pictures from that are still on my camera :)

A birthday story in pictures

First up: awesome happy hour with work friends at the always fabulous Zaytinya. Yes, the crazy hat made another appearance. You don't see me in hats much because they never fit on my enormous head. But this one did... hence its repeat appearance :)


After Zaytinya, we went to the Kennedy Center to see Wynton Marsalias, who was great. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that, so we'll fast forward to the actual birthday. Brad took me to the most rockin steakhouse, Bobby Van's, which is also the same place we went on our first date.


To carry on the tradition (apparently the tradition of promoting heart failure!), we both had the sirloin covered in gargonzola cheese. Unlike on our first date, I broke tradition of eating the entire thing and had a fantastic lunch the next day. It is really unlike any other steak I have ever had. Super fabulous.


Then, despite the fact that we hadn't planned on having dessert except for cake at home, they brought out a piece of birthday bread pudding. And who couldn't resist at least trying a bite or two. Or all of it :)

After dinner, we thought we'd burn off some calories by walking over to the White House, since we had heard they dyed the fountains green for St. Patrick's Day.

Well, either they lied or they used some weak dye, because you can clearly see that at least the north side fountain is clearly not green.

Once we were home, the present opening commenced. I won't post all the pictures, because they're all pretty awful, but thought I'd at least share the highlights:

new heart rate monitor for the gym (clearly a necessary item after the huge steak!)

a 50mm f/1.8 lens!! wohoo!

not the most flattering picture, but I thought you'd enjoy the story. I kept saying "I shall call it mini lens" (you know, from Austin Powers... due to its mini size compared to my other lenses? Okay, never mind!)

Then we had some cake. I had been telling Brad for weeks that I wanted to pretend I was nine again and have a Dairy Queen ice cream cake ("you know with the chocolate ice cream layer, then the fudge layer, then the chocolate cookie crumble layer, then the vanilla ice cream layer, then the whipped cream frosting!"). Well, he pulled through and while it wasn't the St. Patrick's Day themed cake he ordered ("No, birthday. Birthday ballons." - not so smart Dairy Queen guy), he pulled through and got an awesome tasting cake.

Happy (belated) St. Patrick's Day... from the Saull's!

Okay, so St. Patrick's Day was actually almost two weeks ago... but y'all can just continue the celebration!

this is Fitz, short for Fitzgerald II. Fitzgerald I is a wood shamrock that hangs on the front door

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

I know, I am wayyyy behind on blogging. It's not for a lack of things to blog about, it's about a lack of time to actually sit down and do it. Since March 12th:

• I'm a year older
• Brad took me to a fabulous hotel and spa to celebrate my birthday
• Brad hosted a happy hour for all my friends and coworkers to celebrate my birthday
• Brad took me to a fabulous dinner to the place where we had our first date to celebrate my birthday
• Brad's parents came to visit for a long weekend
• Work has been absolutely CRAZY busy
• Spring has officially arrived

I have some funny birthday pictures to share, so I promise to post again soon!

Things I Love

1. The old Brad Paisley song "Famous People"
2. Not realizing how good a picture is until it's up on my computer
3. Knowing exactly how fantastic a picture is as soon as I take it
4. Traveling, writing about traveling, photographying my travels, reading about other peoples travels
5. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper (hard to find!)
6. Reading in coffee houses
7. Visiting cities I knew I would love (like Florence) and falling in love with cities I had no idea I would become so attached to (like Chicago)
8. My husband, who makes crazy faces just to see me giggle
9. The excited/nervous anticipating that comes with seeing old friends
10. A really good hunk of Italian bread covered in butter

What do YOU love?

A fancy dinner

I've been meaning to blog about this all week, but you know how the week just gets away from you sometimes? Yeah, I know you do. Anyway, last Saturday night, for no reason what so ever, Brad made a FANTASTIC dinner for us! Cheese and crackers started things off, followed by a salad featuring feta and apples, followed by a main course of cornish hens, baked potatoes and carrots, topped off with a fantastic chocolate mousse cake. I thought I'd document this rare occassion to share with you all:

my spring tulips... and that's Henry, the Ohio State football playing snowman. He sticks around until spring officially arrives. And, yes, our windows are open. It was 75 degrees last weekend. We're expecting snow this weekend. Strange city we live in!

To quote Carrie Bradshaw

"Hello lover" ;)

Snow Day!

So far this winter in D.C., we have had 2" of snow. Today we got 5"!!! Brad and I were both able to work from home today, which was nice since the bus system seems non-too reliable in the incliment weather. My office was actually on a two hour delay this morning (we follow the federal government), so while Brad was sleeping in and I was waiting for my coworkers to roll in, I went outside and snapped some pictures!

Around 1:00pm, we decided to walk up the street for lunch, only to find the cafe we were going to go to closed, as was the one across the street. Luckily there is a chinese restaurant two blocks away that was open. It is the first time I've had chinese in probably six months... it was good but, oh, do I feel full! The walk along the empty streets was pretty though.

cars parked on the street in front of our building
my little car, snowed in

BBQ grills in the courtyard!