Author Archives: Laurie Blundell

My Love List

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This is what’s called my love list. I tend to go through phases where I feel like all I do is complain, or focus on what’s wrong, instead of what’s right. So I’m copying someone who has already done this. This is a list of things that you love, the only things is that you can’t include a single person you know on your list. No “I love the way my husband laughs”. This is about stripping away everyone who defines you and figuring out what you (not his partner; not their mother/daughter/sister/friend) love. So here it is:

I love:
The first cool mornings in fall. I love fresh cut grass. I love a lush green lawn. I love a big bowl of cereal. I love spending time with family and friends. I love playing with my dog. I love taking a walk. I love going to the park. I love the beginning of spring. I love warm (not hot) days in spring. I love colorful flowers in bloom. I love going to the arboretum. I love snowboarding. snow. I love the mountains. I love shopping by my onsie so I can take my time. I love shopping with a good friend, it’s bonding. I love shopping for expensive handbags or shoes I’ll never own. I love writing a to do list just to cross them off when I’m done. I love working on the yard. I love getting a new haircut. I love having a clean house. I love vacuuming. I love a nice hot white chocolate mocha. I love a big glass of ice tea. I love listening to a new album for the first time. I love listening to a favorite album that you haven’t heard in a while. I love getting mail that’s not junk mail or bills. I love pulling in the driveway to see a package on the front porch. I love sleeping in on a Saturday morning. I love Mosaic tables or vases. I love planting fresh flowers. I love tulips. I love spending time sitting on the porch with a good drink(non-alcoholic) and the sun shinning on you to keep you warm. I love learning new things. dressing up or just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I love a good belly laugh. I love when my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard. I love the color orange. I love sleeping in when it’s pouring rain outside. I love having no plans and a day where I can just do what I want. I love sticking my feet in warm, white sand. I love a good hamburger. I love grilling outside with friends. I love playing boardgames. I love Mint chocolate chip ice cream. I love slurpees from 7 eleven. I love driving around and looking at houses–so I can get ideas for my own. I love Looking inside model homes. I love driving down a winding road with overgrown trees covering the street. I love animals (big or small). I love people who are real and are comfortable in their own skin. I love country music. I love watching squirrels run up and around a tree. I love people watching. I love going to Target–even if it’s just to browse. I love window shopping. I love browsing vintage shops. I love home improvement. I love taking something old and making it new. I love the smile on the face of someone you helped out. I love being able to help someone. I love the abilities God gave me. I love the faults God gave me–they are faults, but their mine from God to make me a stronger person. I love simply listening. I love birds chirping on a sunny afternoon. I love Friday afternoons. I love fresh, clean clothes. I love warm sheets directly from the dryer. I love the smell of fresh linen. I love having all the windows in the house open with a nice breeze. I love the smell of coffee. I love the sound of trickling water in a creek. I love the sound of a childs laugh–it’s 100% real. I love shopping for the perfect gift for someone I love. I love good manners. I love generosity, thoughtfulness and appreciation. I love hearing about other people’s success stories and seeing an underdog win in any competition. I love organization and the sense of accomplishment after a full day’s work. I love viewing baby pictures. I love photography. I love finding laughter in everyday situations and having enough conviction to explode into a cackle or snort, without feeling embarrassed. I love a gorgeous sunset. I love walking or sitting on the beach after a day of fun in the sun. I love simple, guilty pleasures to indulge my senses in. I love the smell of autumn winds and the sounds of leaves rustling on the trees.
I love the fact that this is my life, good and bad, as complicated or complex as life can be sometimes, its my life and I make it what it is–simply put, I’m surrounded by loving people who make me who I am and I wouldn’t change it for the world, this is my life and I love it.

Memory Lane

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Last night I took a walk down memory lane…well, more like a drive down memory lane. Jonathan and I went to eat at Dixie House in Lakewood last night with Matt. Dixie House is a restaurant similar to Black Eyed Pea…I believe it was the first BEP in Dallas. Anyway, Jen and I used to eat there when we lived in the area. Just driving down Gaston and Abrams and in that area makes me miss it soo much. I love that area more than anywhere I’ve ever lived. I don’t know what it is but when I drive in that neighborhood I feel at peace and at home, strange I know. Not that I don’t like where we live now or feel at home there, I do…but not like dallas. I can’t even begin to describe what it is about living there…belive me, I’ve tried. While we were driving around, I pointed out everything to Jonathan, the places we used to eat, visit, the walgreens I went to , the 24 hour fitness I went to, and everything. It was a fun trip down memory lane. We didn’t go by the dog park where I used to take Presley but he’s been there with me before But, at the moment, the entrance ramp to that lane is currently closed because everytime I go visit, I just want to move back that much more. (big sigh) and I know Jonathan would probably hate living there.

selfish??

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I’ve never considered myself a needy person…in fact, I’m the opposite of that – too independent at times. But for the first time in my life I felt like a needy person and then felt selfish and told myself to stop. Here’s why. First off, I love our church and the fact that Jonathan is so involved. I love it that it’s a big part of his life and he does so much for Sundays and throughout the week. But, here’s the selfish part–I was sitting there during our worship time Sunday morning –Easter Sunday– and I was by myself…of course I was sitting next to some friends but they were there together as a couple and talking and I was there…by myself. Shari asked where Jonathan was and my typical response was, “I don’t know–he could be anywhere.” I go to church by myself, I sit by myself–usually in the general vicinity of jonathan but he’s usually busy doing other things during the service so it’s by myself (at least that’s how it feels), and I leave by myself. Therefore, I feel like I go to church by myself. He’s always busy doing stuff before church, so why would I go with him, to sit by myself some more? He is busy during church so we don’t really get to share the experience together. I realized that we have never been to church as a couple–EVER. We’ve never come in together and never left together, we are two separate people that happen to be married and sit in the general vicinity of each other on Sunday monrings. I don’t know if we will ever be able to experience church as a normal couple–if that exists. We won’t be able to share in the spiritual part of our relationship –at church). It makes me sad…you grow up thinking, you’ll get up on Sunday mornings get ready and go to church together, sit and enjoy the service together and then go home together…and eventually do that with kids. But that dream won’t happen now– Nope, it will be me getting up, getting kids ready (some day) and us gong to church by ourselves. That’s when I thought to myself..this is selfish and I’m having a pitty party for myself–STOP! So i did and we’ll just go back to the way it was….me going to church and being lonely while I sit and enjoy the service by myself. But I don’t want Jonathan to ever stop doing what he does…because he loves it! I would never want him to stop doing all the things he does, it’s who he is and I married him for who he is. So that’s how it goes–is it selfish of me to think like this, do I have any right to think this? I know he is doing this for God and thats what I keep telling myself…it’s just hard when you see all the other couples around you sitting together and getting that experience together when you’re by your onsie.

Memphis

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Jonathan and I got back home Sunday night about 8:30 or so from our trip to Memphis, TN. We had a great time! We left Thursday morning and drove the 7 hours to Memphis and stayed through Sunday morning. We got to spend some time at Graceland seeing everything Elvis and then headed over to Sun Studios where Elvis was made famous…along with some other known guys like Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. We went to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and also toured the Gibson factory and saw how they make guitars. We found a few geocaches while we were there and had some AWESOME BBQ at Corky’s. Over all it was a great trip and time to get away from the hussel and bussel of work and school. You can look at some of the pictures o on our flickr pages.

2 more months!

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I just took a midterm today in my adult critical care class and lets just say I could have done better. Whoever thought you could work full time, go to school full time, have a decent relationship and spend enough time with your spouse, maintain somewhat of a social life and still maintain a decent GPA is CRAZY! I mean I’m only trying to graduate Summa Cum Laude–if I get all A’s this semester I might be able to do it…if not, I’ll just have to settle with Magna Cum Laude ;( . So I either ignore my husband and have no social life (which i’m kinda ok with the no social life) and do well in school which would help me if I ever want to pursue a masters. Or just ignore school and just get by–which is totally not me. I can’t do it all!

Since I work monday through friday and typically am too tired to do anything on the weeknights, I’m left with doing stuff on the weekends, and lets face it, the weekends are too busy for that too. With the women’s group that meets at our house, other events that we have at our house (dinner, etc), and other things going on I have no time! I would be completely fine with doing absolutely nothing on the weekends except for going to church on Sunday morning. In fact I would be completely content with only doing things with Jonathan during the week and weekend, nothing more. But unfortunately Jonathan is a social butterfly and if I don’t want to hold him back from doing stuff. I just wish school were over and I could go back to just work and life!

New Toy

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I have really started learning more and doing more with photography and have pretty much taken it up as a new hobby…okay, I love it! anyway, I heard about this type of photography called TTV–through the viewfinder. It’s where you take a picture with one camera through the viewfinder of another camera…the catch is the bottom camera with the viewfinder is an old vintage camera. It’s really cool. Vintage cameras are awesome to begin with and I wanted to see what this whole TTV is like so I found an old Kodak Duaflex II on ebay and won it for like $11–WOW. So I got it in yesterday and started playing with it. Just simply looking through the viewfinder of this old camera is amazing. I don’t have everything I need to do it exactly right and the focus wasn’t right so it’s blurry, but this is what I got so far and I think it’s addicting getting pictures this way. Remember this is the FIRST picture I’ve ever done this way.

I was showing Jonathan the new camera last night and when he was holding it and looking down at the viewfinder I saw his face in the lens and had to get a picture of it because it was just really neat! This is what it looked like

Awesome huh?!
I was thinking this morning that it would be cool to find some film and take some actual pictures with the camera when it hit me…this is a circa 1955 camera and it’s now the digital age of photography so the chances of me finding Kodak 620 film to go with this camera will be next to impossible. Well, I was right, the 620 film that is required is out of production–DOH! BUT, I read that it will also take 120 film which is in production and you can easily buy. The only problem was that the film spool the 620 film is different from the 120 spool so I found a 620 spool on ebay for $4. So all I have to do now is get 120 film and re-spool it onto the 620 spool and viola–I can take pictures! Assuming the camera even works…they guy I bought it from didn’t know if it worked or not because it was his dads and he passed away years ago. I even found a photo lab that develops that film–YEAH. So once I get everything I need and start working on it, I’ll let you know what happens and how they turn out.

Tulips

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I found some orange tulips at the store today and I can never pass tulips up, especially if they are orange. Well, I came home and went to work–of course taking pictures. Here are the two best shots. I think they turned our pretty good if you don’t mind me saying so myself. Oh and I also found some tulips to plant in our flower beds at home so that’s what I did this evening…hopefully in a few weeks they should bloom.

B&W

small things

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It’s the small things in life that are what I live for…someone doing the dishes, letting the dog out or getting my favorite candy bar for me. The small things. Today was a pretty busy day at work, not a bad day, just a busy day with a lot going on and tomorrow is going to be more of the same thing. When I got home from work today Jonathan was fixing dinner and had bought me some flowers. Not only were they daisies (which I love–almost as much as tulips) but they were orange–ORANGE, I love orange. Thanks Jonathan-I love you!

Fun at Casa De Blundell

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As you all know, I’ve come to love photography–taking pictures, looking at pictures and learning new techniques. Basically everything photography. Anyway, I’m trying to learn new lighting techniques and work on the ones I do know. Anyway, I got some lights and a backdrop so I turned our guest room into a “ghetto studio” as I call it. Well, today I took some self portraits of myself and then took some of Jonathan and put them together in photoshop as a “photobooth” montage. I think it turned out pretty good and I had fun in the mean time. What do you think?

jonathanlaurie