Return of the Flying Mermaid

Hellooooo out there!

‘Tis I, Flying Mermaid, finally returned from her great, mighty Mermaid adventure off on the other side of the ocean and eager to return to her bloggy home.

Ok, really, I’m not returning from anywhere, other than a very long blog hiatus, but I am very happy to be returning to blog land!

I last posted in July (hangs head with a bit of shame) but life has been a whirlwind since then!

There was work-land, which has been occupying my thoughts in a way that I didn’t want to share here (this is a public blog after all). But suffice it to say, my head has been bogged down by that a lot, and since I didn’t want to share my thoughts on it, I just didn’t share at all!

Then there was Sadie. We adopted a coon hound puppy in August…and our lives turned upside down and inside out. Suddenly we had no time to relax, to sit and do nothing, to read in peace, and anything that we normally did (including blogging) was out the window.

Sadie was not a good fit for us. We did everything possible for her, taking her for lots of walks, giving her play time and teaching her commands, and having less and less time to do anything for us, not associated with Sadie. Hounds require a lot of time, a lot of exercise, way more than we could provide.  And then there was Myra WonderPup. Myra, my sweet, happy, loves other dogs and people, that Myra — she disappeared entirely. She HATED Sadie. She was depressed. She was growling at Sadie all the time, and showing her teeth. We tried to make sure we were balancing play time and affection, and Myra got the short end of that stick. Every time we would try to cuddle with Myra, Sadie would jump in and Myra would get up and walk away. When we played with Myra, Sadie would jump in and take her toys and Myra would growl and walk away and not play anymore. Plus B works from home and Sadie made that very, very challenging for him.

We found a new home for Sadie, a wonderful, perfect for her in every way home, where she would have lots and lots of outside time, and kids to play with and a high-energy Jack Russell to play with, and an owner who would take her on truck rides and hunting trips. Perfect Sadie land!

I am not looking for “shame on you” or “you should have known what you were getting into” or “how could you do that?” This was a decision we felt was truly best for everyone involved, me, B, Myra, and Sadie.

And then I’ve also been growing Flying Mermaid Photography!

I’ve had my first professional shoots:

I entered the NC state fair photo exhibit with the picture below (my first ever photo contest/juried art show!)

I have a photo on display/for sale at a new yoga studio in Raleigh.

I am gearing up for my first wedding on Saturday, and for the bride, I’ve also done her bridal shower pictures

And her bachelorette party

I attended the wedding of another friend

B is starting up a videography business, partnered with Flying Mermaid Photography for some projects. We had our first joint project, a high school recruitment video for a high school football player.

And then there has been just regular life stuff, but Flying Mermaid Photography has definitely been taking up a chunk of time – time I am more than happy to be spending! Dream growing, doing what I love, what brings me passion, is so rewarding (even if it has made me busy!)

I will be back to regular blogging now, I look forward to connecting again!

love and mermaid splashes!

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Cut off my mermaid curls!

When I was in high school and college, I had short hair, but since then, I haven’t had it really short again. I have curly hair, and when it grows out, it tends to grow up and sideways and afro-like before it grows down.

But I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, and I was finally ready to deal with the growing out stage when I get sick of it being short (enter lots of cute scarves and headbands!)

So yesterday I cut off ALL My hair, all my curls, and have a very sassy, spunky pixie cut that I absolutely love. I can wear it funky with gel or wax, I can wear it straight, I get to play around with it.This is the shortest it has ever been!

This was last week in Belize on my honeymoon (those pictures and stories will be coming likely this weekend).

And this was me yesterday when I got home from cutting off the curls.

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Announcing…

Mr. and Mrs. Flying Mermaid!!

The day was perfect and magical and filled with lots of laughter and dancing on the beach. I couldn’t be happier.

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Some recent magic moments

I have been encountering a lot of magic moments, little moments of serendipity and joy and fun…and oh yeah, a moment that gave me a big AHA! moment, one that put me more firmly on a path that I didn’t fully accept that I was on but now realize that I have been on this path for a while now. Considering both B and I have been feeling burnt out and on overload with everything that has been going on, and the wedding now 23 days away, I am cherishing these little magic moments.

Today, I was at Whole Foods to pick up lunch (the easiest place for me to find lunch and where I always head if I didn’t bring lunch to work with me) and they had, are you ready, vegan chocolate mousse!!! Now this might not sound like a big deal, but when you are used to never having any of the dessert options and then you finally find something that you can eat, you start babbling like a loon to the checkout girl about how happy you are to have a dessert option.

******

Also while in the grocery store, I saw a mom shopping with her three young kids, one of whom was wearing a silver sparkly cape! I asked him if he was a superhero, he said yes, and when I asked what his power was, I think he said being a mascot (or masking?) and fighting. I told him I don’t normally get to meet superheroes while grocery shopping and it was very exciting for me!

******

B and I went out to Sunset Beach, NC, last weekend to see where we will be getting married (22 days tomorrow!) and where we will be staying the night before. Sunset Beach is gorgeous, and the water was warm enough to go swimming! I was a very happy mermaid. While we were strolling down the beach, my trusy camera over one shoulder, we passed a guy who looked familiar to me. “That looks just like Don, our wedding officiant,” I whispered to B. “I really think it is Don, let’s go see.”

We turn around, and go back to the gentleman sunning himself on the beach. “Excuse me, sir, are you Don Beach?” To our delight, it was him, and we got to meet his lovely wife as well, who will be our photographer. We found Don online and weren’t going to meet him until the ceremony, so I was very happy to have a serendipitous moment and meet him while strolling the beach. He had suggested Sunset Beach as the location, and I definitely have to agree that it will be the perfect location for us. 🙂

*****

And the AHA! moment? I was asked to shoot the Administrative Professionals Day luncheon that my work was throwing. I was there, shooting away, when the guest speaker started talking. She was talking about excellence in action — where do you feel excellent? What do you feel most alive doing? What do you need to be doing that you aren’t? What are your gifts that need to be expressed?

I felt like she was talking directly to me. The more she talked, the more something became crystal clear in my mind — photography. Photography is what I love doing. It is a gift and talent and passion that I was never expecting to find, and yet it is so much a part of me, and it is definitely when I feel most alive and engaged and present. And on my way back to the office, I had an image of myself as a full-time photographer, and it was a surprisingly easy image to hold onto.

Since then, I have been doing a bunch of photoshoots for work for an internal directory we are creating, and it just keep reminding me how much I have doing it. I’ve also started to take steps toward this goal. I replied to several Craig’s List ads looking for a photographer (haven’t heard back, but I figure just reaching out and saying yes, I am a photographer, was a great first step). I found out that one of my favorite photographer/bloggers will be offering consulting sessions that can be done electronically, and I wrote to see about pricing.

I started shooting on a whim, and the more I played it, the more I loved it, and gradually it became more and more of a deep love. To say and realize that I want to do this full-time, and to start taking steps toward that, is hugely exciting!

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A life list

When I was in Louisville, KY, I found this awesome little book shop and one of the first things I saw was the fabulous journal section (I am a sucker for journals). And one of the first journals I saw in this great collection was Listography – Your life in lists. It gives you all these different lists to fill out, and it has fun quirky illustrations opposite the lists. I was almost swooning in the bookstore. Needless to say, I quickly bought it and spent all evening playing with lists in my new journal.

One of the lists is “Things you’d like to do before you die.” While this list will continue to grow, I thought I would share what is on the list so far. In no particular order:

1. See AC/DC in concert

2. Drink tea in the Mountains of Nepal.

3. Learn to sail.

4. Spend time living on a boat.

5. Learn to surf (and actually the illustration on the opposite page is this!)

6. Private

7. Visit a Zen monastery in Japan.

8. See the Great Wall of China.

9. Knit a complete scarf.

10. Try riverboarding.

11. Go white water rafting.

12. Visit Egypt and see the Great Pyramids

13. Become vegan for at least six months.

14. Watch the sunset in Hawaii.

15. Skydive.

16. Dive the Great Barrier Reef.

17. Get tattoos

18. Have a  photography show/exhibit

19. Go to a spa for a full day of pampering

20. Publish a number of my books.

21. Go on a safari in Africa

22. Learn to swing dance.

23. Experience natural hot springs.

24. Build a Marilyn Monroe photo collection

25. Watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s

26. Learn to Irish stepdance

27. Find out more of Auntie El’s life story.

28. Be an extra in a film.

29. Visit Yosemite and go rock climbing

30. Go hiking/camping/kayaking for a week

31. Shoot a wedding for a friend

32. Open up a cafe/bookstore

33. Read the Catcher in the Rye

34. Learn to speak Italian

35. Jump off a rock cliff in Greece

36. Go to all the major amusement parks in the U.S.

37. Run through a field of wildflowers in the mountains a la Sound of Music

38. Kiss B under a waterfall

39. Watch the birth of an animal

40. Go to the Eifel Tower with B

41. Run a marathon

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Sunday Scribblings — My style

So, this week, the topic over at Sunday Scribblings is My Style.

What is my style? I don’t know if I have just one that defines me, my style can change a lot depending on my mood, if I am feeling silly or sassy or professional or somewhere in the middle.

My style can be silly:

From junior high/early high school days, and then more recently

A more professional Flying Mermaid:

A bit sassier:

Sassy and fun:

Sporty:

Rocking the superhero Blue tights and bitch boots

So there you have it, a sampling of the many styles of the Flying Mermaid.

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Saturday night

I’m home alone, sitting on my couch, blogging (well, photo-blogging, mostly), listening to Jason Mraz, David Gray, Sarah McLachlan and acoustic Alanis Morrisette, and I am utterly relaxed and content. I have been going almost non-stop lately — rock climbing, going out with friends, going out to dinner with Mik and B, working, cooking, running, hiking. All of that is really good, and really fun, but I haven’t had any alone time in over a month, really, and I have missed just listening to music, playing with photos, and enjoying a quiet Saturday night.

Ahhhhhh. I forgot how much I need this. I feel recharged.

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Dance with abandon

Some photos of me dancing at the wedding, with my mom and then my dad. The wedding was…challenging, but there were some fun moments in there as well.

My dad and I were dancing to Staying Alive, I was doing the Staying Alive finger dance here

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“Every now and then I fall apart”

This is Domo. He is Japanese, and according to his tag, his monster-like features conceal a gentle soul with a body of pure fluff. He likes to watch television, and is messy, and his daydreams often lead to disasters.

He is also the crabby monster who has taken up residence on my chest, sitting on my heart, making it so that my emotions seem raw, open, and very close to the surface lately. For a monster of fluff, him sitting on my heart makes me feel weighted down, heavy, not light and bubbly.

Months of missing B have taken a toll on me, and it seems like every time we see each other, it’s even harder when we are apart again. And even knowing this is the tail end, that he will be here soon permanently, it is not easier, in fact it seems harder, because I just want the separation to be done and over with. It wearies me.

And then there have been the months of financial worry, of always being on the edge with no safety net, of always having to juggle money around to cover what I have needed to cover, and juuuuust barely somehow having enough to cover everything (which obviously I am grateful for) but feeling like there is no breathing room. That too sits heavy on me. And then there is the fact that my life is about to change again, once B is here. It will be changing for the positive, and I can’t wait until he is here, until we aren’t apart, and I am excited to start doing all the things big and small that we have wanted to do together. But it is still a life change and an adjustment, and living with B and SheHangsBrightly will have challenging moments while we all settle into a new normal, and even knowing things will turn out fine and we will have lots of fun and laughter as well as inevitable challenges, that weighs on me too.

All of this have left me feeling like a crabby monster, one who bears a striking resemblance to Domo. Teeth bared, ready to snap and bite, even when it is not called for (not that it is ever called for, but rather unprovoked snarly-ness on my part, I suppose). But I am still a gentle soul who isn’t used to so many heavy things swirling in and around me, and a Cancer girl whose crabby instinct is to scuttle to the side, and hide behind my tough shell. I don’t deal with these things well, and I feel I have shed my tough shell somewhere along the way, as Crabs do when they are growing, so I feel even more vulnerable than normal. Which makes the crabby monster on my heart even crabbier.

This is Domo trying to attack Myra.

But puppies have a good approach to dealing with crabby monsters. Check them out, see if they could be a friend, but just a crabby friend.

And if the crabby monster won’t stop being crabby, remedy the situation by putting the monster in its place — master the monster, so to speak.

And if that still doesn’t work, bite the monster on its crabby head and remind it to knock it off.

And that is what I am going to try to do as well and not let my crabby monster get so big and unmanageable. After all, he is only scary on the outside. Inside, he’s just fluff.

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Me, in 50 things.

Stolen from SheHangsBrightly’s myspace page. Play along if you like on your blog and link back here!

1. Do you like blue cheese?

Used to like it in small doses, can’t eat it anymore

2.
Have you ever smoked heroin?

If you know me even slightly, you would know the answer is a very loud, of course not, are you stupid?

3. Do you own a gun?

No, and I don’t plan on ever owning one, at least not my own personal one.

4. What flavor do you add to your drink? Well, if the drink is coffee, I add vanilla cream, or if it is a latte, I will add vanilla, or some berry flavor. If it is water, I might add lemon

5. Do you get nervous before doctor Appointments? I have enough weird health issues that the answer is yes

6. What do you think of hot dogs? Used to eat them when I was little, now I wouldn’t eat them because I think they are nasty, but they do smell good

7. Favorite Christmas movie? Serendipity (not a real Christmas movie, but I watch it at Christmas), Miracle on 34th St (the original), Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, A Muppet Christmas Carol (Beaker totally flips off Scrooge, it’s great!)

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? COFFEE.

9. Can you do push ups? Yes and I want to get back to being able to do a lot of them.

10. Age? 30 on paper, in most of my daily life, I’m probably closer to 5, or 8

11. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? I don’t have it yet…

12. Favorite hobby? Photography, reading, running, writing, blogging

13. Favorite Actor? Tough, but I always like John Cusack

14. Do you have A.D.D.? Sometimes, especially if I have to do something I don’t want to do

15. What’s one trait you hate about yourself? That I don’t say No as often I should

16. Middle name? Ann

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment:
a) This is going to take a while to get through all 50
b) I want ice cream
c) I have a lot of work to do tomorrow

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday/today:
a) Canned beans
b) A cranberry/vodka drink
c) Dried cranberries

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
a) Water
b) Coffee
c) Soy milk

20. Current worry? When will B be able to move down here?

21. Current hate right now? long-distance relationship (the distance, not the relationship!)

22. Favorite place to be? Depends on my mood — the ocean, the woods, the ocean, my house

24. Where would you like to go? So many places, but going back to Italy is high on the lists

25. Name three people who will complete this?
um….maybe Brandi? Maybe Jess?

26. Why are you on the computer? I haven’t blogged in a while and I miss it

27. What color are your eyes? It is mood/clothing dependent, but usually starts around a grey-blue

28 . Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? No, I feel like I am going to slide out of bed

29. Can you whistle? Barely

30. Favorite color? Green or blue usually

31. Would you be a pirate? Yarrrrrrr!! For a good eye patch and a do-rag as my daily wardrobe? Of course!

32. What songs do you sing in the shower? Whatever is currently in my head

33. Favorite girl’s name? Isabella

34. Favorite boy’s name? Ohh, don’t know

35. What is in your pocket right now? Pocket lining

36. Last thing that made you laugh? Talking to B today

37. Best bed sheets as a child? Strawberry shortcake!

38. Worst injury you’ve ever had? When I fell and took out both wrists, pulled the tendon that runs along my right thumb, both knees and shoulder would probably top the list

39. Do you love where you live? Absolutely

40. How many TVs do you have in your house? 1

41. Who is your loudest friend? Ha! Torin can tend to be loud

42. How many dogs do you have? 1 (the wonderpup!)

43. Does someone have a crush on you? B might…. 🙂

44. What is your favorite book(s)? Way too many to list

45. Where were you born? MA

46. What is your favorite candy? Swedish fish

47. Favorite Sports Team? n/a

48. What song do you want played at your funeral? Maybe Learning to Fly?

49. What were you doing 12 AM last night? sleeping

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Myra, it’s too early to get up

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