The Olympics, scooter rides, and watercolors.

  Who else has become utterly obsessed with the Olympics?  I had hardly watched television in months and now I can't seem to turn it off.  I don't think there is a sport I don't enjoy watching.  I have stayed up far too late since it started watching every last bit.  I'm evening recording it!  Michael Phelps.....amazing!  I've officially made the transition over from swimming to track & field.  Tonight is the Men's 1500m final.  That should be interesting.  

  Enough of that.  I was in St. Louis/Chicago week before last and I got some neat photos.  Once I can figure out how to post multiple photos on here without it taking me hours to re-size them I'll put them on here.  I might just post them on my Flickr account and post the link on here that way I don't have to mess with sizing. (Edit: I went ahead and uploaded the Chicago pictures to Flickr. You can see them here: Chicago Pictures)  My friend Nathan (aka Snarf) took me on a scooter ride in St. Louis. I must purchase a scooter now.  What a fun way to get around town! 

  I have been really having an itch to get back into painting/any art lately.  Instead of going back to my old favorite-oil painting-I have decided to dabble in watercolors.  I have only done ONE watercolor painting in my life and it was back in high school.  I have all the stuff I just need to sit down and have the patience to actually do it.  That's where I normally have the problem when it comes to this sort of thing.  I can't sit there long enough to make any progress and waiting for it to dry is hell.  Once I've done a few I'll take some photos and put them up here. 

   I have officially lost 45(ish)lbs.  I'm not sure how much further I'm going to go. I don't really care about the pounds-I just want to get to a size that I like.  I'm pretty darn close though.  I have a 5K this Saturday that I'm pretty excited about and another one the following Saturday.  I have been having issues lately running because it has been so stinkin' hot outside.  I have found that that is EXACTLY what has kept me from making any progress in the last 2 months or so.  On rainy days I run fine because it's cool out-but if it's hot I almost can't run a mile.  I'm really going to try and make an effort to wake up and run BEFORE work instead of in the evenings because its a good 10 or so degrees cooler in the mornings.  We'll see if that happens though.  Alright. I think I'm done babbling for now.  Comment please.  It's what encourages me to keep blogging. 

 

Before. During. But not after. Part 1.

I am having to do this blog in 2 parts because Picasa will only let you blog 4 photos at a time. I did the second one first so it would show up under the first blog so you can just start from the top.

I have been wanting to post some photos of my weight lost journey for awhile and finally have the motivation to do so. I know Grandma really wanted to see some so here we go. I'll try to put them in some sort of order.

This first photo is from Beth's (Pam's daughter) wedding back in September. It's right before I started running. I think I started running in November. There's definitely a difference between then and now.

This next one is right around the same time when Brandy and I went to a Braves game with my company.

In January I went to Savannah/Tybee Island with Jenna and here I am on the beach at sunrise. I think I had just started running at this point.

In March Brandy and I went to England to visit Jenna. I had finally started making at little progress at this point but not much.



Keep reading to the blog below.

Before. During. But not after. Part 2.

Continued....
I believe I took this picture sometime in early May. I was obviously tired.

At the end of May I went to St. Louis and this is the first picture where I almost didn't recognize myself. This is my friend Art and I on my birthday.

The next two pictures I took tonight so they are the most recent. I have a little further to go but I'm much closer than when I started. The second one I'm just being silly and showing off my muscle.

Who's been drinking my funfetti?

I just returned from Wrockstock (the second one-sequel to the one at Halloween). This has basically turned into a travel blog-nothing too exciting happens in my everyday life. I took many pictures and will post the link to my Flickr account when I upload and I even took some video this time. I think maybe next time I will see if Misti will let me borrow her video camera or something. Then perhaps I can learn to edit, etc. I didn't have any more trips planned for awhile (other than a weekend trip to Birmingham in July) but I think I may go up to Chicago for Wrock Chicago at the beginning of August. I can't resist seeing all those lovely faces again. This was possibly the best weekend of my life. I know I said that after the last Wrockstock but this one blew that one out of the water. I can only imagine how the next one will be. I am so fortunate to be involved in this movement. I'll post a blog on my thoughts later when I have more time (I'm at work).

In other news....about a month ago I ran my first 5K race! It was the Hustle For Hope 5K which benefited The Hope House- a children's respite center I used to work at. I really enjoyed it and look forward to running in many more. In addition to that I have officially lost 30lbs! I almost don't even recognize myself sometimes. Alright...I'll update later.

I have returned!

I am back from my trip to England! It was a great trip but I am so glad to be home. It is so tiring to be away and in an unfamiliar place. I won't be able to get on the photos into this blog so I set up a folder on Flickr so you can see them all. Here's the link : England Pics On the right hand side there is a folder titled "England 08'". Click on that and then click on the pictures to make them bigger. I got to visit so many places I have wanted to see for years. I visited Colchester, Cambride, Oxford, London, Bath, Stonehenge, and Salisbury. My favorite part I think was either the Lent service I attended at King's College @ Cambridge or The National Gallery. There I saw paintings by Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, and many others. At the British Museum I got to see The Rosetta Stone and Mummies. It was all such an amazing experience but I think next time I will go for a little less time or try and not fit so much in one day. Now back to real life!

Savannah on a whim

My close friend Jenna, who is getting her PhD in England right now, was in town for December and a little of January. A few weeks back after her going away dinner we were looking for something to do. We both really enjoy ghost hunting and had been to Savannah together a few years back so on a whim we decided to drive "down" there. We didn't encounter any ghosts but we got some really good photos at Bonaventure. Here are some of them. I'm going to England in about a month (Feb 29-Mar 8) so hopefully I'll have more to post about soon. Things have been pretty uneventful around here lately though so enjoy the pictures!





The next few photos are from Jenna's collection.

The Weapon We Have Is Love

I'm finally sitting down with something to blog about. The last 4ish months I have been really busy planning an event that FINALLY took place this past weekend in Potosi,MO (about 2 hours outside St. Louis). The event was called Wrockstock Spooktacular and it was a benefit for The Harry Potter Alliance (http://thehpalliance.org/) I can't figure out how to do the hyperlinks right now as it's been awhile since I've used this and it's sort of late so I can't call Misti. The HP Alliance is a group that uses the imagery from Harry Potter to draw parallels in todays world relating to social justice issues like poverty,the genocide in Darfu,AIDS, and the environment. One of my best friends Abby had the brilliant idea some months ago to put on a weekend camp with wizard wrock bands (bands that sing about Harry Potter) and raise money for the HPA. Being in Abby's core group of friends I naturally hopped right on board with the planning. This was possibly the best experience of my life. Not only did we have a blast goofing of to wrock music but I made some amazing friends and helped with a good cause. I got to know the creator of The Harry Potter Alliance -Andrew- pretty well. I picked him up from the airport in St. Louis (along with some others that I'll mention later) and we ended up being bunkmates in the cabin at camp. Along with Andrew I picked up Maria, Tonks, and Cori-none of whom I knew before the even- and we all became fast friends. It was a 2 hour drive to the camp and 2 hours back to the airport so we had plenty of time to become chummy. They all (minus Maria who lives in Philly) live in Boston so I am going up there the second weekend of December for The Yule Balls (2 more Harry Potter events). I know you guys all think I'm insane for being so into Harry Potter but I have made some amazing friends through this "scene" that I will never forget. Naturally- I have a ton of photos so I'm going to post a few here:

This is a band called The Remus Lupins. They are one of my favorite Wizard Wrock bands and I've seen them play a few times. They always put on a really good show.


This is my new friend and bunkmate Andrew-the creator/founder of The Harry Potter Alliance. He colored his hair pink for some crazy reason (it was costume night) and he was wearing my tie. At least I got it back.


This is a band called Draco and the Malfoys. They act like Slytherins on stage but are possibly the nicest guys out there.


There's a band called Harry and the Potters who basically started the whole wizard wrock scene. They didn't play but one of the members was there. They are famous for closing their shows with a song called "The Weapon" which is about love and how it is the weapon we can use to defeat the evils in this world. Its the main theme of the Harry Potter series. The last night the last band had all the wizard wrockers there (even if they hadn't played) get on stage and see it. It was the most amazing of sites.


These are two more of my cabinmates Ty and Shawn O. They have a band called Tom Riddle and Friends and they are hilarious.


This is me and my goblin sidekick-Maria. We were in charge of getting all the behind the scenes stuff set up for the event. Maria and I (and her fiance Nathan) had quite a good time goofing off around camp.


This is Andrew,Tonks, and I when Andrew was getting ready to fly back to Boston. There were 5 of us in our little traveling crew that we like to now call "A-Slack's Traveling Crew" but only Tonks and I got to see Andrew off.


Here are a few pretty shots I got around camp. The leaves had started to change (unlike in GA at the time) and I loved taking photos of them.




Last but not least here is a video of the finale of the song "The Weapon". I guess I have made up for the lack of blogs with the length of this one. I'll try and keep it up better..if not- I'll at least blog when I get back from Boston next month :)

I'm not missing.

I know I haven't blogged in forever but I haven't had any photos to post lately! I am going to St.Louis this weekend for a Harry Potter thing and will have plenty of photos to share when I return. Stay tuned!

More of me...

Sorry it has taken me so long to update. I'm not very good at blogging because most of the time there's nothing too exciting going on. A few weeks ago the family and I went to Missouri to visit everyone. It was loads of fun and I'd really like to go back more often. We went to Ha Ha Tonka (a castle ruin) and I got some really neat shots. Here are some photos I took while we were in Missouri.

Tux, Hans, and then one of me and Hans. I love these dogs!




This was Grandpa Cole's barn when he was a kid. It was so neat to go around and see where he grew up. We even got to go inside an old school house!


These next few are from Ha Ha Tonka. It's a castle up on a mountain that burned down in the 40's. It was a really neat site to see.





This is my favorite of all the ones I took that day:


Enjoy the photos. Hopefully I'll have more up soon.

Phoenix Rising in New Orleans!

I hadn't blogged about it yet because I've been so busy but this past weekend I went to New Orleans for a Harry Potter convention. Please hold back the jokes! ha. I know I'm a dork and I don't need to be reminded about that :) I took a ton of pictures but this thing only lets met blog four of them through blogger and I don't feel like uploading them all into photobucket right now. So, right now you will have to settle for a few. I flew in Friday morning and met up with some friends for bienets ( I have no clue of how to spell that) at Cafe Du Monde. It was so tasty! That night there was a Wizard Rock concert on Bourbon Street and Mtv was there covering the convention! I wonder if they got any footage of me bustin' a move. Probably not because I didn't do any dancing. Saturday just hung out with friends and that night my friends @ Spinnerscast and Spellcast put on a live podcast. That was loads of fun. I ended up having to take an EARLY flight out Sunday morning and had the craziest cab driver ever. He was pretty entertaining. I had a what I thought would be 3 hour layover in Cincinnati but ended up being stuck there for 10 hours!!! That's what I get for flying standby. Don't know that I will ever do that again. I didn't get settled back at my apartment til' 11:30 that night. Ugh. Well, here are some photos!

This is a cathedral in the French Quarter. I wish I had had time to get a closer shot.



Just a neat building.


Paige and I at Cafe Du Monde. YUM!


A shot of Bourbon St by night.


I'll try and post more pictures later.

Chirp chirp

Chirp. A friendly bird came by to say hello.

Updates and weddings

I have been begged to update about the ducks. Last weekend I wrote a long update blog about the ducks and other goings on but it didn't save so I got frustrated and didn't re-blog. It seems the ducklings might have gone off to the great farm in the sky. They started as 8. A few days passed and then it was 6. A few more days went by and there were only 4. About a week into it there were none walking around anymore. I have no idea if they died or if they just moved to the bigger pond. I went over to the big pond the other day and didn't see them so I fear for the worst. Hopefully the ducks will have more ducklings.

In other news: one of my close friends got married this past weekend! He, Jeremy, married a lovely girl named Hope whom I think is pretty amazing. The first time I met her we really clicked and I feel like I've known her this whole time. They got married at The Historic Dunaway Gardens in Newnan. It was so beautiful!! And thanks to Nathan's dad I got a full history of the place. Turns out it used to be an acting camp and celebrities frequented it in the 1930's. Walt Disney and his brother used to dine there when in town. I of course got a few pictures of the ceremony and the beautiful bride and handsome groom.

I really like this first picture because it seems the background is blurred like a Monet painting but the flower girl's face is in focus. It is very medieval looking to me.


Hope's dress was absolutely gorgeous! Possibly my dream wedding dress. She looked so beautiful! They are such a happy couple.


Here's the happy couple. Jeremy sort of blends in with Ben's dad's suit. Haha!


The communion prayer. I lucked out with this great pic. I had a hard time getting focus from a distance.


The weather could not have been more perfect. We had a grand old time at the reception hanging out with old friends (i.e. Nathan and his wife Courtney). The band was fun and played some great tunes and Ben kept burning himself with the sparkles at the procession. I am officially the last single one of the group. I don't really know how to react to that. Social gatherings will be a little odd from now on I guess.

They have arrived!!

When I got home from work yesterday there was a pleasant surprise waiting for me on the sidewalk. The ducklings have hatched!!! They are so cute. They follow mummy around everywhere. She is teaching them all sorts of things. She spends alot of time trying to get them to climb out of the water on to the bank...the aren't quite big enough for that though. Sometimes they make it with a flying leap though. They'll learn. When they are't swimming or walking around she puts out her wings and they sleep under them. It's so cute. I'll keep posting pictures as they grow bigger. These ducks are going to take over!! Oh....and I got a Flikr account so everyone can see all my photoraphy. I can't always post all my pictures on here...so keep an eye out @ www.flickr.com/photos/haleythehero .