I'll bake you a pie... and update you while I'm here

Or a loaf of bread, or a bun, or a bagel, or some cake.... or whatever else Miss Sara Lee has available in your local grocery store... even sausage, hot dogs, or cocktail weenies (apparently Sara Lee owns Hillshire Farms, Ball Park, Jimmy Dean, and multiple other brands, even in other countries...)  Anyway, Mrs. Lee here.  Yep, I got married!  So go ahead, get out the jokes if you've got'em.  I've already gotten a few laughs. :-) I actually think it's pretty cool... and shorter and easier to write than the former last name, haha!  Not nearly as unique though. :-) I mean, how often do you get to have two Z's in your name?  Good thing that one gets to stay in the middle.  (The other middle sort of stays too, which is always fun...)

I've been waiting to publish a new blog post so I could include some photos from the wedding weekend and the beach, but I just haven't found the time at home to actually sit down, get on the desktop where we keep the photos, organize them all, and get them posted.  So I figured I'd go ahead and get this one out, seeing how I've had it saved for about a week now, and the darn straw thing was the last time I had time to post, and wow was that an interesting one (sike...) ...

I think life's going to be a *bit* slower now (or at least not as hectic), which will hopefully allow more time to be on here and do some of the things I really love and that fulfill me (being married certainly does, but planning and organizing a wedding... not so much, haha...).  Staying active and exercising are one of the top ones right now - I've had so little time to dedicate to that, and now it's something I can finally jump back into full swing.  I plan to really dive into photography a lot deeper than I've been able to as well.  We've looked into some classes, so hopefully I can get all that together soon.  I also have been wanting to volunteer with animals for a long time, ever since I visited the shelter last year (well, for years actually, but that just made it a lot more real).  Also on the list are getting back into my music - my guitar and I have been apart for way too long.  I also haven't read a good book in a really long time, and I miss that so much.  (Any good book recommendations from you find folks for me to get back into it are certainly welcomed!)  J and I have also discussed multiple other hobbies, and I'm really excited about it all, so I'm really looking forward to everything... and having TIME to do it all... or at least attempt to fit it all in.

Not much else has been going on lately.  We've been settling in and trying to get motivated to streamline things a bit and stay active.  It was a tough first week back at work - not workwise, but just getting back into the groove.  I added up the actual days I was gone - I took off from work Wednesday 1/8 through the end of the week, plus all the next week (thereby thoroughly exhausting my vacation time...), then we also had Monday off for the holiday.  So when I came back on Tuesday 1/19, I'd basically been gone from work for two whole weeks.  Definitely makes for a rough start back into the normal work schedule.  I've basically evened out now, and I'm starting to feel a lot better - I tend to get just tired feeling and unmotivated when I'm out of sync like that.  Even this past weekend I felt like that.  But yesterday something got ahold of me, and I actually got a lot done at home.  So I'm hoping this is finally the motivation I've been looking for, and I hope it sticks around.  There are a lot of things I need to get done, plus a lot of things I just want to do and take part in.  And I want to feel energized and excited about it all.

Let's see, what other news is there... I'm in the process of changing my name, legally.  Now there's something fun for ya.  Social security, DMV, passport office, bank, car insurance, health insurance, work email, business cards, work directory... not to mention all the random places.  Blegh.  So far, I've accomplished social security, and that one took an hour waiting at the office, and a few hours off work.  Can't wait to do the rest... I love that my passport was renewed just over a year ago.  If it's been renewed in the past 12 months, you aren't charged for a name change.  But over a year, and it's the entire application and fees all over again... yaaay.

In other (not so important, but still funny) news, Jason got his first pair of "slippers" yesterday.  I don't know what everybody calls them... I live in my Dearfoam ones at home and have always used some as long as I can remember.  I always called them "bedroom shoes" haha.  He's always thought they were silly, but multiple times before, he's complained of having cold sock feet, and I'll offer him a slipper for a few minutes, and he just oohs and aahs at the wonderful warmth. :-) Anyway, he saw some really nice men's ones in Macy's before Christmas that were all nice and cushy and warm-looking.  I never made it back over there for them, but I looked around closer to home for some others.  I never found any worth getting, but we happened to see some while out last night.  We got them home, and after complaining that his foot wasn't going to fit, and some coercing from me, he now absolutely loves them, haha.  So we'll see if the warm, loving feeling for the slippers sticks around. :-)

Nothing much else that I can think of right now.  It's good to be back, and hopefully I can find some time to sit down and get some photos up for ya here soon.  This is the only one I have access to right now...

It's me on the beach on the honeymoon... North Carolina's beach, that is... in January. :-) No tropical clear waters and swimsuit, just windpants and a sweatshirt, haha.  J captured this one of me, which is rare because I'm hardly ever in the photos, since I'm usually behind the camera.  But on this trip, we both had to share, haha - we discovered that it's not going to be too long before we both need our own camera.  We came to the realization that he's definitely the landscape photographer - he loves the lighting, colors, speeds... which I'm still trying to learn.  But I'm the people and action photographer.  I have hundreds of bird photos from the trip (in my defense, I saw more birds this time than I EVER have down there before... plus I finally had the right kind of camera to capture them).  I also love capturing the people at our familiy events, and I'm always the one that tries to convince J to pose for a picture with me wherever we are.

Haha, what a far cry we are from when I was a kid, going everywhere with my 35mm Olympus, carrying around plenty of extra rolls of film, running off AA batteries, asking Mom and Dad to take me to Eckerd Photo to drop off and pick up my many packs of photos, spending all my money on prints that you can never anticipate the outcome of until you see them...  (Which reminds me, I've got a huge bin at home of photos I need to take the time to transfer to digital - what a task that will be!!)  Or for a different perspective, what a far cry we are from when J was a kid, running around with his Polaroid. :-) But now, we can take 1000+ high resolution (aka HUGE) photos on this crazy, teeny-tiny invention called a memory card, or even 2000+ smaller photos... and with 4 cards so far, I can go quite a ways... we even have a hard drive dedicated to photos and movies alone, which is going to be full before I know it.  We have so many awesome photos and wonderful family memories we've been able to capture (and ensure were actually captured).  It's just so hard to look back at the little 35mm (which is probably still in a box with my old photos, haha!) and imagine trying to capture the same memories and photos.  J has even commented multiple times at how much he can learn now with digital, vs. his film SLR that he learned on years ago.  I just love it.

Anyway, back on TOPIC - in this photo, I love the reflection he captured on the wet sand.  He can just look for and find things like that, which never ceases to amaze me.  Our rule is that you can't go to the beach without getting in the ocean.  It actually warmed up to the 60s at the end of our trip, so we decided to go out barefoot for a while. The water was still cold enough to make your feet numb after about 5 seconds, haha, but it was definitely fun, and definitely worth it to feel the sand under my feet.  I absolutely love it, and there's nothing like it.  More photos to come! (Including some AH-MAZING sunsets from the landscape guy...)